Title: Havana
Summary: Eliot meets up with an old friend while the team takes a short vacation.
Rating: T this chapter. M overall for language and smut. Lots of Eliot smut.
Disclaimer: I don't own Leverage or any of the characters associated with the show. I only claim ownership to the character that I created. Also, no profits are being made off of this story. It's only for your entertainment.
Author's Note: Smut soon. Promise ;-). Reviews are welcomed!
Chapter 2
Summer heat in Havana is stifling. Burning 90 degrees during the day, with 90% humidity to match. And the worst part was the complete and utter lack of reprieve when the sun went down. Despite being put up in The Parque Central, one of the finest hotels in the port city, she still couldn't find any salvation from the heat. The air conditioning said it was on, but she wasn't so sure.
That dog has the right idea, she thought of the black and tan Havanese puppy she had adopted off the street a week earlier. He preferred to sleep in the bathroom, spread out, nose-down on the cold tile floor. And at this point, she was seriously considering joining the little guy. But instead she lay stripped to the skin in a sheen of sweat, her feet tangled in the crisp white sheets. She was sprawled across the mattress, arms draped over the goose-down pillow, dark, damp hair pushed off of the back of her neck.
It was too hot to sleep, or do anything more than lose yourself in your own thoughts, really. She stared at the moonlight spilling in from the window and onto the horrid green carpet wondering what her next move would be. Her mission was over. The mark was dead. She wasn't needed back in the states for another week. Now the question was whether to stay or leave. If she stayed she would be bored out of her mind for lack of things to do. Havana's night life was legendary, but dancing well into the morning in more-than-shady cantinas would lose its charm after the first two nights. Sure, she could seduce a man easily enough, string him along for a week, and drop him faster than she had picked him up, but for some reason that was losing its appeal. Perhaps another time, when she was feeling sexier, and when her body wasn't paying the price for all of the right hooks she had blocked, strikes she had delivered, and that one killer kick that some lucky bastard had managed to land to her stomach. She winced even now at the memory and for some reason the dull ache had suddenly increased to a throbbing pain. But she smiled when she recalled the feel of the butt of her gun slamming into his left temple immediately after.
If she did stay, she could laze away her days in the sun, allowing the heat to soothe her muscles, and play in the waves with the little pup she had named Hannibal. And the fact that she was surrounded by amazing food didn't hurt either. She deserved it after the punishment she had taken. Perhaps that didn't sound so bad after all, she thought as she felt herself just begin to slip off into sleep.
She couldn't have been out longer than an hour when she woke to the sound of Hannibal's whimpering and claws on the tile of the bathroom. She could hear something cautiously jiggling the lock to her door. Instinctively her hand snaked under her pillow to grab her knife and she stole a glance at the clock. 2:17am. Loosely knotting her silk robe as she slipped out of bed, she grabbed a powder compact from the bag of makeup supplies that she had dumped on the writing desk hours earlier. She moved to the corner, back against the wall where the bathroom left off and the bedroom began, giving her a view of the door over her left shoulder.
"Hannibal," she whispered, "heel." It was one of the three commands she had managed to introduce to him in the short amount of time that they had been together, but he picked it up fast. The little dog came bolting out of the bathroom and hid behind her ankles, letting off a soft whimper. She pointed under the bed and calmly but firmly commanded "stay." The dog obeyed, and soon all she could see of him was the occasional metallic glint of his eyes in the moonlight.
Her attention turned to the door. She popped open the compact and quickly angled it around the corner giving her a view of the door as she tightened her hand around the ceramic knife. The lock clicked and the door opened slowly, the force behind it acting with obvious caution. It was too dark to make out any features aside from the figure's basic outline. It was a man, about 5'10", muscular build, in a dark t-shirt, jeans, and heavy boots, with a knit cap on his head. But he moved like someone who had done this before. Someone familiar to a fight. It took her a fraction of a second to make her assessment and she tossed the compact into the comforter on the floor without snapping it closed, so as not to alert the intruder with the click of the plastic catch. The figure shut the door behind him, cutting off all light from the hallway as he moved further into the room. He slowly moved around the corner where she was standing until he was a few feet in front of her, and as he did, she noticed something strange about his demeanor. He was calm, not tense as though he was looking for a fight. His hands were relaxed, not balled into fists. His breathing was steady, normal. And then it hit her. The way he smelled.
She knew that smell. It had been over a year, but it was unmistakable. It wasn't the product of an expensive cologne or aftershave. It was the earthy, musky smell of a man, tinged with the rich, slightly floral scent of hair conditioner. That particular smell only belonged to one person.