Of course he wants to utterly ravish her and fuck them both senseless. That's been a constant buzz under his skin and deep in his bones for years, sometimes a pleasant hum, sometimes a roaring waterfall. But at this moment, more than that, he wants to take her to bed and make love to her till the sun comes up. And for a while after that.
They've been half-dancing, half-propping-up-tipsy-Gillian for a repeat and a half of the smooth jazz CD she'd put on. She's warm and cuddlesome in his arms and he could live off this feeling for a week. Honestly, he doesn't know whether to curse or bless the stars that Torres is passed out on his couch not ten paces away. He's going to be the perfect gentleman either way, while their employee is right there and while Gillian is the slightest bit sloshed, but Torres is also very effectively cockblocking the most vivid Gillian-fantasy-come-to-life he's ever experienced.
He wouldn't have minded sharing the good scotch, truly, but he'd hoped it would be some night when they were celebrating something big. Maybe they'd have been crashing some fancy soiree as part of an investigation, and come back to the office late at night, all dressed up and triumphant with success, and Gillian with that gleam in her eyes and handsy with affection and smelling so good …
He knows just how she'd taste right now, too, and it made his mouth water. "Like French kissin' an angel that's been sat by a campfire" - Jesus, that plus the Gillian coefficient. He had that locked in memory already. A litany of little pecks over the years, and that one awfully good but brief snog undercover. (She'd caught the flick of his eyes upward, that split second…yeah. Got to her too, however she covered it up with a wifely wipe of the lipstick off his mouth, the little minx. Because then he had the feel of that to remember, too.)
The thing is - the thing with Gillian is - sex is great, and he fucking loves it, but when he's out looking for casual sex, he's careful to only try it on with people who want it on the same level as him. Bit of fun, yeah, and the need for a good touching. Mutual stress relief. Reset the brain. He's happy for it to be a one-off; and he's kind of pleasantly surprised if it goes on longer, but the love he feels for those women (and Derek and Declan, back in uni) is about the communion of touch, the utter beauty he sees in women's bodies (and Derek and Declan, back in uni).
But they're not Gillian. They don't fit into his edges and set them uncomfortably alight, and make him think of being lucky enough, maybe, to grow old with that light warming his insides.
The non-Gillians helped protect Gillian from the worst of his neediness, though. They were totally separate from her. So there was that. But moments like this were the real danger. Because it's Gillian, the real one, in his arms, completely trusting, her face open to him, sweet and still articulate and sassy as hell even while she's well plastered.
Silly Gilly. She doesn't let many people see that one. God, he fucking loves her.
Of course his mind's eye already has them in his bed, skin against hot, smooth skin, thrashing and grabbing and spiraling up and up toward ecstasy, but what he craves in the chambers of his heart, what he wants for her more than anything, is to lay her down and make love to her. The way she deserves. For hours, if the world pauses long enough to let them. Kisses on her eyelids, fingers slowly stroking her luminous curves and angles, all that supermarket-stand tosh that seems fitting and natural when it comes to her. Letting her see everything in his eyes, letting her in, knowing that even if he fumbles the words she'll still hear the truth in his voice. Before, during and after the ecstatic thrashing, because let's face it, they would be fucking glorious together and they know it.
He knows the longer they stay out on the balcony, the more she'll sober up. It's a countdown to the moment when pulls herself together and swats him away, laughing. But on a night like this, maybe she'll stay in the moment with him just a little beyond their usual safe zone, the way she sometimes does. Let him get a glimpse of the kiss (his kiss, he thinks of it) that he sees from time to time dancing in her eyes, or lingering at the corner of her mouth and occasionally waiting right there on her parted lips. That kiss, if he could capture it, would be cataclysmic. An avalanche, a nuclear reaction, a detonation of a kiss. World remade anew; amen.
But for now, safely tipsy in his arms, she leans back and looks dreamily up at him. And then - oh, really, now? - her lashes drop and her gaze falls away from his, and a flush deepens over her cheekbones, behind the pale freckles of early spring. She flicks the briefest drowsy glance up again, and he feels his stomach drop giddily. Even while holding the line, she still finds ways to show him what she's keeping on her side.
Affection. Trust. Arousal.
It's a fine needle to thread, a kind of reverse-psychological anti-deception that relies on both of them knowing exactly what's there, but agreeing not to approach. Deliberately not-lying.
His mental snapshot index has plenty of examples of Gillian-who-needs-a-proper-fucking over the years. Some rueful and self-aware: old friends sharing an eyeroll. Some that slip out past her edges when she isn't paying attention, wistful and very, very lonely. Some hot with possessive jealousy over whomever he's slept with last, though she's careful to mask those under a layer of spitting-nails anger over some other antic of his. And oh, he loves playing with the fire then. Knowing she'll never let him near her in that state, so it's safe to tease.
But this, right here, this is a look meant only for him. The rarest look, the one he can never spark from her but simply has to wait to alight, like a wild migrating bird. This is Gillian wanting to be seen, to be chosen. And wanting him.
He wonders if Loker has any idea of the high-stakes game of radical honesty his two bosses play every day. And Torres. Right. Gillian hasn't mentioned her, either, but he knows she's listening too, for any sounds from the couch inside. Torres is out cold entirely. Given the amount of alcohol that took, he figures she'll be down until morning. He'll give her grief about it in daylight, make her put in a couple hours of work in last night's clothes, before sending her home.
He should pour a few pints of water into Gillian, too, before long, or she'll be in a sorry state come morning.
And that's just enough to shake him out of his trance. Wearily, petulantly, but there it is. Bloody reality creeping in again.
"Hey, Gill," he murmurs into her hair (the new length of it makes his fingers twitch). He swallows, takes a breath of cool night air, makes light: "C'mon, Titania. Let's get you hydrated. That scotch is a sneaky one. It'll do your head in tomorrow."
His hands move down to rest on her waist, all casual-like. Just making sure she's steady on her feet. If his fingers happen to spread out over the bracket of her hips and the slide of the sweet arc over her backside, he makes sure to give absolutely no sign of it. Neither does she.
His mind's eye takes a sharp left turn. In the moment of suspended stillness, he can almost feel it - she turns her cheek into his palm and blinks slowly. He feels the rush of her warm breath on his fingers as his thumb strokes across her lower lip, the briefest touch that sends an electric charge through him. I do, he tells her. Want you. In the worst possible way. Her eyes answer him, I'm right here. And the kiss that is his by rights flutters there on her mouth.
He feels her slow inhale, right there in real life, as his words sink in. And the softest hum of regret as she breathes out. Her palms slide up to rest side by side on his chest, her eyes clear and sharp-focussed right on his. And then they drop to his mouth. This is no quick mind-slip off to Gillian fantasy-land. This is happening. She has to feel the kettledrum of his heart right through the layers of clothing, resounding against his ribs. Has to.
Oh, fuck me. You have any idea what you're offerin', look like that on your face?
He imagines himself saying it, murmuring low against the skin of her cheek, trailing his breath under her ear so she shivers. Hands either side of her on the wall. Not touching.
You're intoxicated, darling, he drawls slowly. Not going to lay a finger on you, am I? Not even if you ask ever so nice. Not even if you say please.
And Gillian trembling, eyes closing, her mouth falling open on the smallest whimper, the fine silky hair on her skin rising with his breath, her body drawn to his till she presses soft and warm against him and he's still not touching her.
Please, she whispers, in his mind. His mouth waters, a scant millimetre from her throat.
And then he blinks and snaps back, and she smiles, good pal Gillian, and pats his chest as she steps backwards and out of his arms.
"I didn't have that much. Just enough. Plus a couple more."
He nods, sticks his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels, scowls benignly out over the nighttime city. He swallows again. Damn it all. How long had she let him hold her like that, mostly sober after all? And held him right back?
"Getting chilly out here," she says, conversationally, tugging her light sweater more securely around her. (He'd have wrapped his jacket around her before, if it hadn't seemed a little obvious, he pouts to himself.) "I better check on Ria. Do we just leave her there?"
"Well, I can't carry her. Can you?"
She laughs quietly. "You know you could. You just don't want her wasting your good scotch all down your back."
"Truth in that," he admits, "but let's see if we can't shift her. Like to think there's no place safer than this, but I'd just as soon not leave her here alone overnight."
With a final look around the balcony, Gillian finds her shoes and carries them inside with her. He tries not to look down at her delicate stockinged feet with their distracting scarlet toenails.
They stand looking down at Torres, who slumbers on in happy oblivion. Gill leans forward and lays her hand on her arm, before straightening up with a satisfied nod, "She's warm, she'll be fine," she whispers.
He nods, regarding the unconscious form of his employee, passed out on his couch from the priciest booze in his locked supply. But he pulls the blanket from the back of the couch, and drapes it over Torres. Make a mental note to get Loker to find out if anything's upset her recently, or if she was just trying to go glass for glass with Gillian.
"She's not going anywhere. I'll kip down here," he murmurs, directing a thumb at the empty couch. "Let's get you into a taxi first. And you call me when you get in, all right?"
She's amused. "Cal. Emily hasn't seen you since last weekend. I don't even have fish to feed. Go home. I'll be fine here. I think I can handle any imminent threats for the next six hours or so."
He doesn't like it, but he sees the sense of it. "Em would say she's big enough to be left on her own."
"Sure, but it's nice not to be." He doesn't miss the tiny hitch as she covers, regroups and goes on smoothly, "This way nobody wakes up alone. You know you wouldn't care if there were any menfolk around. Don't be like that."
He looks at her, tries hard not to look, fails abjectly, and sees she is back in her usual state, projecting calm control. He feels a pang for that other Gillian, the real one, just underneath. But he nods once, up-down, in confirmation.
"All right. But you still call me. Any reason, mind."
He extends his hand palm upward, in case she wants to pull him in for a quick goodnight peck. She holds his eyes with that cool blue gaze and slides her fingers through his and squeezes. There's a lovely sort of pressure and message received before she lets go. And a lingering flush over her cheekbones that is not from the scotch.
She's making her escape before she does something unwise.
He shouldn't look any deeper, but now he absolutely can't resist. Oh, yeah. She was right there with him, every moment, out on the balcony. If she hadn't drunk Torres under the metaphorical table before he got back, who knows what might have happened?
And how many moments of that will they share before one of them breaks?
"Or I could - " He hears himself start. Must be contact-drunk or utterly head over heels, or both, because he hadn't meant to, not out loud. She shoots him a very kind but very pointed look.
"Goodnight, Cal," she says quietly. Her hands are still, at her sides, but her fingers want to touch.
"Right," he says. "Night, love."