Maura didn't turn around. She didn't have to. She knew Jane would be there. She'd barely had the opportunity to press the call button for the elevator when she felt the familiar presence of the detective right behind her, standing as close to Maura as she possibly could without touching her. The temptation to lean back against her was enormous, and as the doors opened, Maura allowed herself to sway backwards just for a moment, her back brushing against Jane's chest, Jane's breath hot across the nape of her neck, before she stepped forward into the elevator car. Once inside, she turned around to press the button for their floor. Jane followed, and her eyes travelled from Maura's face, down the length of her arm, and to the panel. She looked back to Maura with a smirk, and took a step towards her.
"Penthouse?"
"Only room they had left." Maura shrugged nonchalantly as the doors began to close, and she trained her eyes on Jane, appraising her. She'd quite successfully thrown the detective into a bit of a tailspin in the bar, but Jane had since recovered, and had quickly shifted from discombobulated to very self-assured. Very intentionally, Jane turned towards Maura and lifted her hand, using one elegant finger to direct Maura's face towards hers as she drew near. Maura inhaled deeply, anticipating that she was about to need all the oxygen she could get.
Instead, before the doors of the elevator could fully close, they were opening back up. Jane's head whipped around at the intrusion. an elderly couple with a luggage cart were making their way inside the car, and Maura looked down and watched as Jane began to reach into the pocket of her jacket. It took her longer than it should have, but Maura realized in time what Jane was about to do, and she slapped at Jane's hand before she could remove her badge. Maura quickly hooked her fingers into the waistband of Jane's pants and tugged her towards herself as she took a step into the rear of the elevator, ostensibly to make room.
"You are not commandeering this elevator," Maura murmured quietly enough for only Jane to hear, while smiling politely at the couple. Between the luggage and Jane, she was now caged into the corner, and suddenly several more hotel guests were joining the crowded elevator. Jane grunted in frustration as the cart bumped against her leg, moving even closer to Maura, her hand pressed against the wall above Maura's head to maintain some space between their bodies. The large group in the elevator was boisterous as the doors finally shut.
"Bossy," Jane mumbled, and glanced over her shoulder. Her dismay was palpable when saw the button panel lit up like a Christmas tree. The doors finally closed and the car began moving.
"You have no idea," Maura whispered, punctuating her statement with another tug on Jane's waistband, and both words and gesture quickly brought Jane's eyes back to her, wild and dark. Maura grinned with pleasure, and extracted her fingers from where they were hooked behind Jane's belt, placing the palms of both hands firmly against the wall of the elevator, enjoying the feeling of being fenced in by Jane's body. The elevator soon made its first stop.
Maura could tell Jane was deeply impatient about the now-extended ride, but Maura surprisingly found herself appreciating it. Perhaps, given that it was Jane with Jane's track record in relationships, Maura should have worried about the possibility that given more time to overthink, the detective would once again run scared. But the heartfelt confessions in the bar downstairs had put Maura's mind at ease, and the way that Jane was hovering possessively, muscles tightly wound, eyes fixated on Maura's mouth, the doctor felt assured that no amount of delay could prevent the inevitable. With all of that squared away, Maura was happy for an opportunity to take Jane in before the call to action. It's not as if she'd never admired Jane's physique before—she had, and sometimes directly to her face. But always with a filter, always holding a little bit back. Now, for the first time, while trapped in this elevator, she let her eyes roam freely across the entire expanse of Jane's body. Her long, lean limbs. Her wild hair. The sternocleidomastoid muscle that popped so visibly in her neck and that begged for Maura's mouth. She took it all in with great pleasure, and the long-held anxiety at being caught doing so during their years of friendship receded quickly into a distant memory. Maura looked into Jane's eyes, and saw clearly the effect that her wanton examination was having. She felt arousal coil in her abdomen.
The elevator made another stop, and this time the elderly couple and their luggage cart departed. There was suddenly much more space in the elevator, and Maura grabbed onto Jane's jacket to prevent her from moving away. There were still other guests in the car with them, but Maura found herself suddenly entirely unconcerned with the appearance of impropriety.
"I believe it's my turn for a question," Maura said, her voice low.
"Are you sure? I think you might have used it to ask me if I was tired." Jane gave her a smug smile. She was oozing confidence now, and Maura was both deeply attracted to it, and desperate to take her down a peg. She gave the lapels of Jane's jacket a hard yank, and only Jane's hands braced against the wall prevented them from crashing against each other. Maura expelled a haughty little breath, and observed with deep satisfaction as the flash of realization that came across Jane's features, the sudden understanding that there was a side to Maura that Jane simply didn't know at all.
The elevator stopped again, now just one floor away from the penthouse, and the final group exited, leaving the two women alone. Maura was certain that the whispering she heard might have been about them, and she truly did not care. As soon as the doors closed, Jane was leaning in to kiss Maura, who lifted her hand to press a single finger against Jane's lips right before they found their destination, halting her barely an inch away.
"My turn," Maura insisted.
Jane groaned loudly, and the sound sent shockwaves of desire through Maura's body. She gave in to Jane ever so slightly, pressing her lips over her own finger, the corners of their mouths just barely came into contact before she pushed Jane away just as they arrived on their floor and the doors opened.
"Okay," Jane relented as she walked backwards out of the elevator, stopping just one step into the hallway, not taking her eyes of Maura as she fished the key card out of her pocket. "Your turn."
Jane quite purposefully didn't leave Maura much room, so she was forced to brush up against Jane's body in order to step out of the elevator, and Maura breathed in Jane's scent as she did. She moved towards the door to their suite, turning to face Jane when she reached it. She had her own key, of course, but she always liked to allow Jane the opportunity to be gentlemanly, because she always took it. Maura remained silent until Jane reached the entrance to the suite, not speaking until Jane unlocked the door and held it open for her. Maura looked up into Jane's expectant face.
"I'd like to know when you first wanted me," she said, and turned her body to step through the threshold of the door, moving well into the sitting room, examining the amenities of the suite with an approving eye before turning around to face Jane. "It seems only fair. You know when I wanted you."
Jane offered a mysterious sort of smile as she hooked the Do Not Disturb sign on the outside of their door, then closed it and locked them into the room. The final click that signified their total privacy and made Maura's breath catch in her throat. She had been very sure of herself, but suddenly the reality of their situation came sharply into focus. In the bar and in the elevator it was visceral and sexy and a little competitive in that way that they sometimes get. But now the intentions of the evenings stretched before them, the implications of it all laid bare.
Maura had propositioned Jane, and now they were in a hotel room, and everything was about to change.
Maura watched as Jane shrugged out of her jacket, tossed it on the nearby armchair and straightened up to her fullest height, unwavering gaze fixed on Maura as she began to walk over.
"That's a bit of a complex question." Jane wet her lips, and Maura felt herself becoming hyperaware.
Maura never lacked confidence in sexual encounters, and she was rarely ever nervous. But it had never before been her best friend slowly stalking towards her, not once had the most important person in her life made their way across the room for the express purpose of fundamentally and permanently altering their relationship. Jane seemed startling sure of herself as she made her way over to Maura, and that alone was enough to set Maura's heart racing. She threw her shoulders back and adopted an affected self-assurance. She wasn't going to be outdone, not that easily.
Jane stopped in front of Maura, and she noted that for once they were very nearly eye-to-eye. The natural height difference between the two women was more than four inches, and before Jane's dual lesbian and fashion awakenings, the ugly heeled boots that she'd favoured had put her over six feet tall. Even Maura's most towering heels couldn't catch her up. Now, the mere one inch offered by Jane's current boots had her only just scraping five eleven, and the nearly five inches of lift provided by Maura's Louboutins almost entirely closed the gap between them. Maura was pleased by it.
"Complex?"
Jane nodded, her eyes surprisingly gentle given the sexually charged environment they'd worked so diligently to create. Suddenly, the tone of the evening was morphing into something much more intricate. Jane hooked her hands in her back pockets, rocking back on her heels, exercising a truly shocking amount of restraint by not touching Maura. "So there's the moment I became aware that I wanted you. That was the morning where we both got called down to the harbour for the Patriots case."
Maura made no effort to disguise her surprise. "That recently?" She'd imagined a lot of possible answers to this question, and they all took place well before Paddy's shooting.
"Hold on." Jane pulled her hands back out of her pockets, raising them as if to stop conclusions from being reached. "Let me finish." She cleared her throat. "So I was standing on that dock getting ready to look at the bloaty disgusting body, when suddenly you walked by me. The sun was bouncing off the water, off your hair, and as usual you looked offensively good for that early in the morning, and I realized in an instant I had wanted you for so long." Jane shook her head slowly. "I can't even tell you. Everyone had asked me about you when I told them I was gay. Everyone assumed that was the next domino. I had spent weeks telling everyone they were wrong, and sometimes women are just best friends, and I was very invested in that version of events. And then all you did was show up to a crime scene, and It hit me like an avalanche. I could barely function."
Maura felt like her blood had thickened, the way it was lurching through her veins and arteries with such force that she felt light-headed. She tried to steady herself, and considered her memories of the harbour encounter. "You were…quite weird that day. Very well-mannered, in fact, which is about as strangely as you could behave."
"Ouch, but okay." Jane grinned, and she finally reached out for Maura, slipping her hands around her waist and drawing her one step towards her, and Maura wasn't quite sure how she managed to put one foot in front of the other to cross the distance. She felt herself tremble as their bodies came together, and she ran the palms of her hands up Jane's arms, trying to reassure herself with the familiar contact. Jane watched her carefully, and continued. "As for when I actually began to want you, even if I wasn't aware of it, I think it was right before you set my nose. You held my chin and fixed those clinical eyes on me, and I was a goner."
Maura rolled her eyes, but she knew she was glowing at the revelation. She skimmed her fingertips along Jane's biceps, tracing the lines of her muscles. "And then I proceeded to hurt you."
Well, I did say 'right before'. Afterwards I did hate you a little," Jane admitted with a wink. She observed Maura a moment longer, eyes falling to her lips, and with a deep breath she leaned in closer. But something about her expression gave Maura pause, and rather than meet Jane for the already well overdue kiss, she felt compelled to draw back slightly. Jane anxiously drew in a breath as Maura used forefinger and thumb to take Jane by the chin, exactly as she did when she popped her nose back into place. With a furrowed brow, she examined Jane's face carefully—how tenderly she was watching Maura, the vulnerable quirk of her lips over the kiss that hadn't happened yet, the anxious pulse thrumming in her neck, her halting breath. But also, behind all that, a deeply held conviction, some kind of unwavering truth. In an instant, realization took hold of Maura. Her expression smoothed out, and her eyes widened and grew wet. She released her grip on Jane's chin, her hand shifting to tenderly cradled Jane's jaw instead. Her other hand came up to brush an errant curl out the way, before settling it on the other side of Jane's face.
"You're in love with me," Maura said softly, meeting Jane's eyes. "We're in love."
Jane's body went rigid in response to the first claim, her expression not dissimilar to that of someone who had just been exposed for a crime, but she relaxed as she processed the second half of what Maura said, and let out a breathless laugh.
"That's not usually how people do that, but…yeah." She looked at Maura carefully, lovingly, and she leaned in again. This time Maura let her, encouraged her with her hands, tilted her face up to meet her. She had just enough time for a few more whispered words before Jane's lips pressed against her own.
"We're not usual people, Jane."