Author's Note: So, I have a beta now. I suppose I'm becoming a serious fanfiction author. ;) Thank you, Meaghan!
Over the years, Elizabeth Keen and her insecurities had found a way to co-exist somewhat peacefully. They had an unspoken agreement and each party was to keep their part of the bargain. Doubt had Liz's permission to lurk around her thoughts without invading them. Her insecurities could haunt her without devouring her. If the boundaries were crossed, Elizabeth reserved her right to punish them like the unruly beasts they were by locking them in the very depths of her mind. They had to learn.
She'd been coping well. There was very little beauty to coping. Little to none. But she had been functional. She'd had things under her fragile control.
Then, along came Reddington. It was as if he and Liz shared custody over her emotional world and that included her self-doubt and fears. Ironically, Reddington was the good cop in the unsightly ordeal; always the one to dismiss the punishments she'd enforced upon her unruly beasts, setting them free.
Reddington had called her at four o'clock in the morning to cheerfully inform her of the high-profile gala they were to attend that same evening. They were meeting an informant there, he'd said. She confirmed her attendance and was thorough in her guidance on where he could shove his sense of timing, and how deep.
Less than fifteen hours later, she was wearing couture and was trying to brace herself for their undercover mission in vain. She'd been struggling with the zipper of her gown for at least fifteen minutes. Her luck did that sometimes – it refused to bail her out of humiliation and unnecessary irritation.
His ease angered her. He was simply standing there, in the dingy motel room she was coming to resent, hands in his pockets, regarding her. He was smiling and his eyes were taking her, all of her. In spite of her mental preparations and professional experience, she couldn't help but wonder if he'd seen better; better women, more beautiful and more feminine. She was a 31-year-old woman who was reduced to a mere ingénue.
"Make yourself remotely useful and zip me up", she barked at him. It was uncalled for. He'd live.
"What man can resist a plea so polite?" He smirked and approached her, but his beautiful cologne won the race and reached her first.
"Not you, apparently," she spat pathetically. Childishly.
His hands were quick and sure. He'd done it before. He'd done it many times before. She wanted nothing more than to tell her jealousy to vacate her mind immediately but her unruly beasts didn't care much for the spoken word.
He zipped her up and she expected for his fingertips to leave the skin of her back. But Red was not one to leave a task halfway finished. She felt him tuck the label stamp of her dress; he disciplined it with his pointer finger and ordered it to stay put. He could be the bad cop every now and then.
"Never me, Lizzie," he grumbled and kissed her cheek.
Her immaculate feathers were ruffled by a simple kiss.
She liked it that way.
