"Then, somehow, everything will be all right … because I love you, too."
Happiness combined with gratitude and relief to fill Jethro near to bursting. He took her mouth in a kiss that rocked her world and nearly swallowed her whole, attempting to wordlessly further communicate his feelings.
Ziva wrapped herself around him and kissed him back unreservedly with everything she had to offer, her heart whole at last.
As they gradually began to come up for air, a question that had hovered just under his radar floated to the surface.
"Ziver?" he murmured against her lips.
"Mmmm?" She responded distractedly as her mouth slid from his to skim a line of kisses over his cheek, along his jaw, down his neck, where she lingered to taste and nibble at his skin.
"What made you give me a second chance?" he wondered quietly, tilting his head a little to give her better access and holding her to him as though to reassure himself that she wasn't going anywhere. "I sure didn't give you any reason to."
With a last kiss to his throat that promised her return to that very spot, Ziva lifted her head and answered truthfully.
"Tony," she admitted.
His eyes flew to hers in surprise.
She smiled at his reaction.
"It is true," she said. Then she gave him a knowing look tinged with humor. "And you do realize he is never going to let us live that down, yes?"
He considered that for a heartbeat.
"Given the outcome, I can live with that," he determined, his charming half-smile pulling at his mouth.
She chuckled and hugged him.
"So can I," she whispered, releasing a happy sigh as he hugged her back tightly.
"Will you tell me?" he asked quietly, his cheek resting on her shoulder and his forehead pressed against the side of her neck.
"What happened with Tony?"
He tilted his head back to look at her and nodded.
"From the way that I – and apparently you – were acting, he guessed that I had tried to talk to you about my feelings and that it had not gone well," she shared softly. "Then, he convinced me that I should try again."
"He knew?" he asked in disbelief. "How you felt?"
"He has known since Paris," she revealed softly, her gaze slipping away from his for a moment, feeling inexplicably vulnerable.
And the shocks just kept coming.
"Paris?"
She nodded, her gaze coming back to his, her look somewhat guarded.
To say he was stunned would be an understatement, not only by DiNozzo knowing about her feelings and being instrumental in putting Ziva in his arms where she belonged, but also by just how long she'd known she loved him.
"That was a long time ago," he observed, searching her eyes.
She simply nodded slightly once more, fighting the urge to duck away from his all-seeing eyes again.
He cupped her jaw in his hand, tunneling his long fingers into her hair. He just looked at her for a moment, so moved that he couldn't speak. He pressed a gentle kiss to her mouth before tipping her forehead against his and returning to their conversation.
"But why …" He paused for a moment, his brow furrowed as he turned something over in his mind. He leaned his head back until he could see into her eyes again. "Him knowing how you felt explains one side of things, but not all of it."
DiNozzo's first instinct would have been to protect his partner, not send her back to be hurt again.
"Did you tell him …?"
"What happened before?" she finished for him softly when he didn't go on.
He nodded silently, then she did the same.
Gibbs closed his eyes for a second, regretting it all over again.
Reading him like a book, Ziva brushed her lips over his on the way to commanding faintly in his ear, "Stop."
He opened his eyes to find a small, understanding smile on her gorgeous face. She'd obviously already forgiven him for that, which was way more than he deserved.
Gibbs rested his forehead against her chin briefly, leaning on her strength. Then, his thoughts came back around to Tony's part in this.
He leaned back to search her beautiful brown eyes once more.
"Why would he bring you back here instead of giving me the ass-kicking I'd earned?" he asked, still certain he was missing something.
"Actually, that did come up," Ziva shared with a gleam in her eye and a grin flirting about her mouth.
He snorted, which made her chuckle.
"But do not worry," she comforted him, nuzzling her nose against his cheek. "I will protect you."
Jethro squeezed her with both arms, his heart shifting from light-hearted to something more at her words.
"Yeah, you keep doing that," he acknowledged on a thankful sigh.
Ziva looked at him, cupping his cheek in her hand.
"And I always will," she vowed, her heart in her eyes. "As often as I can and in every way possible."
He buried his fingers in her hair and pulled her mouth to his as he wordlessly expressed his gratitude and promised her the same.
After, she laid her head on his shoulder, her nose tucked into his throat, breathing him in and already feeling more content and complete than she'd dreamed she ever would.
He leaned his cheek against her hair, still thinking.
"Tony wouldn't have sent you back here alone …" Gibbs mused out loud, stopping as he had a moment of clarity.
He gazed down at her until she answered the silent summons to lift her head and look at him.
"How did he know I love you?"
Her heart did a little happy dance at how easily those words flowed from his lips now, then she shrugged.
"He could not have actually known," Ziva reasoned. Then she confided softly, "But he has thought so since sometime before Paris, because he kept telling me I should talk to you about my feelings … as he believed they were returned."
Gibbs was floored. And here he'd thought he'd kept the fact that he was in love with one of his agents completely under lock and key.
Hell, he'd refused to acknowledge it to himself most of the time.
Score one for DiNozzo. A big one.
He released a breath and made an admission of his own.
"He was right. Was jealous as hell when the two of you were in Paris," he revealed. "Berlin, too."
Now it was her turn to be surprised.
"I had no idea," she responded faintly.
"Weren't supposed to," he told her wryly.
Recalling his assumption that she would want to be with Tony if Rule 12 was out of the way and driven to dispel any lingering doubts he might have about her travels with her partner, Ziva cupped the back of his head in one hand and held his gaze with her eyes.
"Jethro, you have absolutely nothing to be jealous of."
"Didn't know that then," he pointed out.
"You do now," she husked firmly, tilting her head and using her hand to bring him to her mouth again, sinking into him with a slow, deep, satisfying kiss that pulled him under, as well.
Finally, Ziva lifted her head and sifted her fingers through his attractive silver hair.
"I will admit I was not convinced I should return here tonight, but Tony was very persistent - and insistent." Her eyes took on a glint of humor. "He even threatened to tie me up and put me on the plane himself."
Gibbs snorted.
"Him and what army?" he asked derisively.
Ziva could not help but laugh as she hugged him close.
"That was my reaction," she admitted with a grin, pressing a kiss to his head. Then her voice dropped to a pleased octave. "And I adore that you had the same one."
She lowered her curved lips to his. Taking them both deeper, he opened his mouth and welcomed her in, claimed hers for his own. This kiss went on and on before they eventually parted, only to come back twice more before pulling slightly apart.
Taking a deep breath, Ziva turned back to her uncertainty about risking everything once more.
"I was never completely certain I should come back, but Tony was so sure …" she admitted, her vulnerable eyes leaving his as her mind wandered back to Israel and her discussions with her partner.
She came back to the present, returning her gaze to his.
"And the truth is that if there was even a chance you really did love me, too, I wanted to be with you too much not to try again at least one more time."
Again, he was flooded with warmth and gratitude and admiration.
"Like I said before," he husked, tucking her hair over her ear. "Strong. Brave."
She shook her head.
"I was thinking more along the lines of idiotic and scared and weak," she admitted wryly.
His brow lowered in confusion at her last word.
"Too weak to be without you," she explained softly.
"You're not weak - or idiotic," he disagreed. "And you came back anyway even though I'd put you in a place where you couldn't be sure, so we're back to strong and brave."
"Even if you are right, it takes more than strong and brave to be a –" Wife. She stopped herself abruptly. She was getting waaaay ahead of where they were. After a mental shake, she continued, "To be a lover. A partner."
She wouldn't really change who she was and she truly did think all they'd each been through made them exactly the right partner for the other, but he wasn't the only one with worries and one of hers was that she wasn't exactly like a lot of other women she knew, especially here in this country.
"Maybe," he allowed, "but you've got everything it takes – including that strong, brave part you need to keep saving me from myself."
A smile tugged at her lips as his eyes twinkled up at her with equal parts affection and truth.
She grew serious again, needing a little more reassurance on this front just now.
"You are certain about the 'everything?'" she asked quietly.
"Never been more certain about anything," he assured her firmly with no room for doubt.
She needed to believe that, so she allowed his certainty to quiet her concerns, at least for now. And, as she pulled him in for yet another soft, tender kiss, a sense of rightness, of completion curled through her that suggested it would not be long before she truly believed it, too.
They didn't break from that kiss. It became deeper, more heated. More desperate. This time, the surge of desire wouldn't be put off. They needed this, needed to lose themselves in each other more than they needed air.
"I want you," she breathed into his ear in a voice that shimmied down his spine.
His breath caught in his chest and his body instantly hardened even further.
While he'd fantasized about this exact moment in this exact place countless times, she deserved more than him taking her on his basement floor.
The first time, anyhow.
"Want you, too. Should move this upstairs," he suggested in a gravelly tone that made her shiver. His lips pressed against that sweet spot where her shoulder met her neck and her body's reaction nudged the moisture forming between her thighs into dampening her panties.
"I do not wish to move anywhere," she husked, rubbing her cheek against his before pulling back to look at him with everything he'd ever hoped to see shining in her eyes.
And more.
"We have shared a lot of history in this basement," Ziva pointed out lovingly, caressing his face with her hand, "and all of it has brought us to where we are now. I think it is the perfect place for us to make love for the first time."
A delicious heat burned in his stomach at her words.
Slowly she smiled, pulling an answering one from him as her fingertips lightly touched his cheek. She gave him a kiss that was sweet and heartfelt and passionate. In tacit agreement, there was no desire to rush and they welcomed the sexy heat that built gradually, was stoked deliberately.
She sucked his lower lip into her mouth, already addicted to the somewhat surprising velvety softness she found there. His hands roamed with a barely-there touch that drove her mad, especially when he slipped those strong, work-roughened hands under her shirt to find more of her skin.
When the buttons on her top proved to be too much for his uncharacteristically fumbling fingers, she gently laid her hands over his.
"Let me," she whispered against his mouth, smiling a siren's smile.
Leaning back just slightly, she stroked a fingertip provocatively along the edge of her shirt until it came to the valley between her breasts that she'd left tantalizingly visible, taking great satisfaction in the fact that he was clearly mesmerized by her movements.
His throat moved as he swallowed hard and his hands gripped her hips reflexively.
Very slowly, both to draw out the anticipation and to revel in the look in his eyes, Ziva opened her shirt and let it slide down her arms to fall onto his thighs. She caught it as the collar reached her hands and then dropped it uncaringly to the floor.
"Ziver." His almost-tortured, awed whisper raised delicious goosebumps down her arms and sent a lightning bolt of both need and fulfillment through her.
She wanted him to want her like this, had, nearly since they'd met.
His eyes roamed over her as his hands came to rest on her waist, then slowly slid up over her smooth toned skin to stop just under her breasts.
Shifting her hips against him instinctively and gripping his strong shoulders, she whimpered softly in need.
Putting her own hand on one of his, she brought his hand up onto her breast.
God.
Now her wetness flooded her panties and her head fell forward in ecstasy as she felt his hand on her intimate flesh for the first time with only the thin, silky barrier of her bra between them.
He cupped her reverently, raising his other hand to her other breast. Pleasure of his own coursed through him – and caused his body to stiffen, to rise against hers.
Jethro's hands shifted to her back and, taking his time, he managed to unhook her bra, then smoothed it down and off. She sat completely naked from the waist up across his lap, allowing him to look his fill, giving herself over completely to him, to the kaleidoscope of sensations unleashed by the gentle roaming of his hands and eyes all over her.
She was so lovely, she took his breath away and robbed him of the voice with which to tell her.
She got the message anyway and melted even further.
Ziva pulled his mouth back to hers for a series of deep, clinging kisses, wrapping her arms around his neck. As her chest rubbed against his, she realized one of them still had too many clothes on. Earlier, she'd pushed his jacket from his shoulders so she could cuddle closer to his body as they talked. Now, she wordlessly enlisted his help to tug his polo and t-shirt over his head.
And it was her turn to forget to breathe.
He was so incredibly handsome and sexy.
"I love the way you look," she whispered.
Her hands roamed over his chest wondrously, carding through the attractive salt and pepper hair that lightly covered him, thoroughly exploring him for the first time.
"I have dreamed of touching you, of seeing what lies beneath your clothes," she told him in a voice that made his dick twitch. "The reality is so much more incredible."
He nuzzled her throat and nipped at her skin.
"Same here," he shared in a warm, intimate tone.
With loving, sensual smiles that spoke volumes, their mouths came together again, pressing, sucking, licking, opening. The heat kept building at a delicious, but almost leisurely pace until their pulse points were forcibly beating against their veins and their breath was coming faster.
And still, there was no hurry.
She pressed a line of deliberate kisses along his right shoulder, across his throat, switched unhurriedly to his left. He tasted slightly salty, mixed with something uniquely him that was instantly addicting.
Ziva then shifted her bottom further down his legs, moving her mouth slowly over his chest as she went. There was so much more she couldn't wait to explore, but she didn't want to miss a single inch or sensation.
He thought her excruciating lack of speed just might kill him as she took her time unbuckling his belt and carefully unzipping his pants over the bulge that was straining to break free.
Jethro kicked off his shoes and shifted to assist her in removing his pants; she took his plain white, so-him briefs and his socks down with them. Sitting up on her knees between his open legs, she was captivated by the sight of him finally naked before her.
Her eyes swept over him adoringly for a long moment – long enough that he started to shift uncomfortably – before she laid her hands on the tops of his feet and slowly smoothed her fingers up his legs, lightly scraping her nails along his skin here and there as she made her way back up to where his staff was standing at attention and begging for her touch.
She did not disappoint him.
The feel of her hands and mouth on his ultra-sensitive shaft made the decision for him right then and there that if heaven had nothing to do with her lips and hands on his desperate-for-her cock, the powers that be could just punch his ticket to hell right now.
He tangled his hands in her hair, relishing the silky softness and holding it back so he had an unobstructed view of her pleasuring him. After endless breathless moments, needing more of her, too, he tugged gently at her head until she kissed her way back up his body, then stood and slowly, enticingly removed her own pants and underwear, basking in the way his eyes were glued to her, in the fact that she could actually see his pulse beat against his throat.
Then, he reached for her and she was straddling his lap once more.
Cupping his head in her hands, she gazed at him, at last completely open to him in all ways. He memorized the sight of the beautiful smile she gave him, then slowly brought their lips together once more in a heated kiss full of passion.
Gibbs trailed his hands over her again, lingering at her lovely breasts, her nipples that pebbled so satisfyingly at his touch, the curve of her waist, her impossibly flat belly. His hand then dropped to where their laps met and her gasp of pleasure into his mouth nearly severed the reins of his control. He ran his fingers lightly through the tight curls between her legs then played teasingly there, delighting in the sounds she made as her need for him soared at his intimate touch.
Moving languidly as though she were floating, Ziva rose up and guided his mouth to her aching breasts.
Ohmygod.
Her eyes rolled back and then closed as her head dropped back, her body awash in sensation after delicious sensation. She'd have melted into a gooey puddle on his lap if he hadn't moved one hand up to the center of her back, steadying her, supporting her.
She held him to her as he explored first one silky soft mound, then the other, not even realizing she breathlessly begged him over and over to never stop.
While he'd been ready to consign himself to hell without her, she was certain that she'd died and gone to heaven with him.
And all the while, his fingers continued to tease and explore between her thighs, driving her closer and closer to the edge.
When she could wait no more, Ziva took him in her hand and lined him up at her drenched entrance. After sliding down with agonizing slowness, she began to move on him, with him, savoring the feeling of him inside her…so connected…so complete.
Everything about their lovemaking this first time was incredibly slow and beautiful, all they needed it to be and more.
It healed them. Coupled them. Added promise and worship to the words of love they shared in gasps they couldn't hold in.
It answered questions they hadn't yet asked, allayed concerns not yet spoken out loud.
After countless intoxicating moments that raced faster and faster, together in this as they would now be in all things, their climax crashed like a wave over them simultaneously, binding them even more tightly together.
Utterly sated, her heart full, Ziva laid her head on Jethro's shoulder as they held each other closely simply because they didn't want to let go.
She continued to straddle his lap with her slightly trembling thighs, wishing to hold his softening shaft inside her as long as possible.
When she could breathe, Ziva released a happy sigh.
"In case you are interested, I now have more than one new favorite thing," she confessed in a breathless mumble over her still-pounding heart.
"Yeah?"
She nodded with an answering hum of pleasure and nuzzled her face into his neck before murmuring wickedly into his ear.
The images that slammed into his brain as she spoke in a warm, intimate drawl with her lips brushing his skin, their naked bodies pressed so tightly together not even a whisper of air could have slipped through, knocked the breath out of him.
Then her teeth scraped over his neck and he'd have come again right then if it had been physically possible.
"Just to name a few," she finished, practically purring, steeped in emotional and physical fulfillment.
"Ditto," was all he could manage in that moment, sliding his hands up and down her back and turning his head to press his lips to her cheek.
He felt her smile against him and he couldn't help but grin happily, too, filled with the life-changing certainty that all was right with his world. And there they stayed, both unwilling – and unable – to move, relishing the feeling of being comfortable with each other, absorbing one another, and allowing the night's revelations to settle.
Glancing out the window without lifting her head, Ziva noticed the first weak rays of daylight that were slowly becoming visible through the windows.
"The sun is coming up," she observed almost sleepily, tilting her head back to find his gaze with hers. "It is a new day."
He nodded.
"Good day for holding on," Gibbs offered, smiling down at her tenderly with forever promised in his eyes.
"It is a very good day for that," Ziva agreed with blissful contentment positively radiating from her.
Then, grasping that courage he so admired and relied upon, she spoke her most closely kept longing out loud in the form of a soft question.
"And perhaps for never letting go - ?"
The love and certainty in his brilliant blue eyes sent her heart soaring even before his warm declaration brought their promise full circle.
"Got that right - never letting go."
~ The End ~
A/N: At the risk of breaking Rule 6, I feel like I should apologize for the delay in posting this. I swear I had no idea it was going to get persnickety on me, refusing to feel "just right" until now. Special thanks and a HUG to my very dear friend molly2012 for the input and reassurance when I was over-thinking and over-fiddling. xoxoxo
And RL was not helping matters.
This one is now complete, though perhaps we'll revisit this universe at some point. Who knows? =)
I still have not watched NCIS beyond the premiere; perhaps I finally will now that I have this up. We'll see ...
We'll be heading back to "Waves of Grace" next and stopping by "Zibbs Family Fun" after that, I think.
Speaking of the Revelations universe, I spent yesterday afternoon attending a football game in which the Navy team played a university near where I live, and I kept thinking of Chapter 9 in Revelations where Ziva and Jackson watched Navy play Penn State when she and Gibbs visited Stillwater. Remember that? That was fun to write and it was heartwarming to feel connected to Ziva in that way yesterday, especially since ... well. You know. Last night I just had to go back and reread that part, and that was fun, too. ^_^
As always, thanks so much for joining me on my journeys with Ziva and Gibbs, even when these "sidebar" pieces hijack my muse. Your reading and your reviews really mean a lot.
