“Happenstance” by Scripted Starlet

Chapter 8: And the Curtain Closes...?

A.N.

Firstly… CI PREMIERE IN TWO DAYS! TWO F-ING DAYS! I’M WIGGING OUT. WIG-GING OUT!

Secondly… I should’ve added this note to previous chapter because it addresses relevant concerns from Chapter 6. Sorry about that. But, just to let you know, despite the unprotected sex and such, I have no plans of knocking Alex up anytime soon. Been there, done that. ;) You can just assume she wasn’t completely risking it and is on the pill.

…

“Okay, so I just made a decision,” Alex said raggedly, prying her white knuckles off the dashboard. “The next time I hand you my keys, I had better be totally drunk or otherwise incapacitated.”

“I thought you were too tired to drive.” Bobby eased back a little and looked over his shoulder to roll the SUV to a stop.

“That’s only a valid excuse if the designated driver bothers to slow down for, you know, pedestrians. Other vehicles. The way you were skipping down traffic cones there wasn’t even a chance of my falling asleep.”

Bobby turned the key in ignition and then removed it so that he could dangle the chain in front of Alex. She snatched it in supposed reproach, trying to hide her amusement even though the corners of her mouth belied her. Bobby smiled back, unsure of what to do now that the ride was over and they were just sitting in a parked car. He was already feeling the déjà vu when he saw Alex’s eyes flash the way they had the night before. Since the moment was already recaptured in his mind, Bobby decided to just be a man about it, leaning over the passenger side to give her a cautious kiss.

Alex’s lips tingled from the chaste contact and she brought her fingers to them in wonder. She wished she knew how he was doing that. Maybe then she could figure out a way to inoculate herself.

“Do you want to come in?”

Alex didn’t know if she should. She was so exhausted. So confused. So leery of where to put her foot down or even how to go about it.

“I could make coffee.”

Instantly her eyes gleamed for entirely new reasons and Bobby seized his segueway.

“You could take a nap, I could look over the case, and later…” Bobby’s arm slipped around her as his mouth dropped gently over hers again. And again. “…we could talk.”

Alex couldn’t help herself. She folded into his embrace with a squelched little sigh. If only she could just freeze time. In a stalled universe she would be able to kiss Bobby as long as she pleased and doze off and dream without a care in the world.

“Come on.” Bobby’s back burned from where her hands were pressed against it, gathering him to her almost desperately. “Inside, Alex. Come inside and rest.”

I don’t know! her mind screamed. I don’t know how to end this…

“Come on.”

Bobby felt as though he was walking the mother of all tight ropes. To be perfectly honest he did want to sleep with Alex again. Not necessarily now. And that certainly wasn’t why he’d taken her to his apartment building.

But he did want it.

Did it make him a complete bastard for him to try and get her to consider it? To coax her into entertaining the notion of having an affair with him?

She’s too good for that, he scolded himself as he led her out the elevator.

He dug his own keys from his pocket and Alex looked up to give him a sleepy, angelic smile.

She’s too good for me.

“Decent,” she commented after he’d seen her in and taken her coat.

Bobby hung the heavy grey wool in the closet and then turned to marvel the sight of his prowling partner in his domestic sphere. It was so rare for any woman to see his home. Lola hadn’t even been invited in those first six weeks they were dating. But there Alex was. Smack dab in the middle of his world. His things. And he was surprisingly fine with it.

“You aren’t by any chance related to Melvil Dewey, are you?” Alex asked, running her index finger along the spines that lined his bookcase.

“Actually my mother was a librarian.”

“Hah. Why does that not surprise me?”

She leafed through a heavy hardback that had been sitting on his ledge of his couch and he saw her nose crinkle when she realized it was about botany.

“You’re an odd duck, Goren.”

“You have no idea.”

Alex set the book down and pivoted. She started walking towards him with a swinging, seductive stride and Bobby began to grow worried. “Oh, really?”

“Better you find out now than it hit you over the head later.”

“And what else are you hiding up your sleeve?” Alex baited, glancing at his arm as though she expected something to be burrowing inside it. “You know, you never mentioned how good you look in a suit.”

Bobby cleared his throat to break tension. “Would you like something to eat or—”

“No, I’m fine.” It seemed she was staring directly at this mouth as she murmured, “Your walls are very white.”

He took a step forward. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“Neither. It’s sort of a…” her breath caught, “blank slate.”

“Oh.” His lips were on her jaw. “We’ll make of it what we will, then.”

Alex stumbled, impulse coursing through her veins as Bobby’s groping hands ran up and down her backside. She let him pick her up and held his endearingly scruffy face as she kissed him. Harsh, fast, heedless kisses. Her mouth on his. Her stake on him. She didn’t want to give him up.

For just once in her life, Alex wanted to be selfish.

“Bobby, what are we doing?” she gasped.

“I don’t know.” They were in his bedroom now. “Ask me to stop.”

Alex said nothing. Her hips inched back on the bed and she fell flat as Bobby climbed atop her. “Seriously. What is wrong with us?”

“I don’t know,” he groaned again, loving the flurry of her tiny fingers undoing his tie. His buttons. “Thank God it’s not just me, though.”

“We need to go slow this time,” she warned, peeling off his dress shirt and growling at the superfluous tank beneath it.

“Doesn’t that negate the purpose of a quickie?”

“Well, I want to be able to move after. I think Deakins saw that I was walking funny.”

“Is that what tipped him off?”

Alex squealed. With a uniform tug, Bobby had managed to pull her pants all the way down to her ankles. “He, umm,” she brought her hand to her face to keep from tittering, “he still thinks I’m with my ex.”

“So that’s the cover story?” Bobby rolled her thigh outward with his fingers and then bent to sample the flesh behind her knee with his tongue and teeth. “I don’t know if I like that, Alex…”

Even though it tickled she forced herself not to laugh. “Bobby, he’s not even half the lover you are.”

His head jerked up to see Alex sprawled tantalizingly before him. Her eyelids were heavy and her pupils dilated. Her hair mussed but untangled as it framed her face and streaked across his sheets. She looked wonderful. Silly but sexy in nothing but a blue turtleneck and a pair of argyle ankle socks.

Where did you come from? he thought.

“My ex refused to have sex during the day,” Bobby confided, sliding up the bed and slipping his hands beneath the hem of her shirt. “She never wanted me to see her in the sunlight.”

“Why’s that?” Alex raised her arms to facilitate the shirt’s removal.

“She had… body issues.” He shook his head in remembrance of Lola’s rituals. Leaping from the bed and running to the bathroom. Weaning to nonfat milk and making the cat suffer, as well. “She had other issues, too…”

He finally unhooked Alex’s bra and Bobby bit his lip in reverence. There she was. Every dimple. Every beauty mark. All of the soft, sweet nuances that made her so appealing to him. Uninhibited and unique.

“Was she a cop?”

“No.” Bobby kissed the skin of her newly bared neck. It was splotched red and purple from the bites she’d reduced him to last night after she’d pushed him down and ordered him not to speak. “You’re my first.”

“Don’t I feel special,” Alex quipped, reaching for him with both arms and then grunting as she took him inside.

Just as she’d requested, it was slow. Soothing but exciting as Bobby’s nimble fingers constantly kept her occupied. His thrusts would linger when he caressed her body, and it was during those instances that Alex wanted to cry out the most. He’d done this all of last night, too. Memorized her. As though every time he was afraid it’d be the last.

And this was the last.

It was towards the end of their lovemaking, when she’d already had hers and sensed Bobby was close to his, that Alex couldn’t rein it in any longer. She shut her eyes and whimpered and when Bobby saw a lone tear slide down her cheek he knew. The moment this was over, Alex would cease to be his lover. And he could forget any left field fantasies he’d had of making her his girlfriend.

But even though it stung, it was far from a surprise.

Closing his eyes then, Bobby tried to ignore the sadness that was plaguing him and instead concentrated on the physical sensations that should’ve been whelming him. Alex’s soft bosom cushioning his chest. Her narrow hipbones butting into either one his palms. Her stifled pants so near his neck and the throaty little mewls that reeled in his ear.

And then her recesses. Hot. Moist. Like a velvet glove that slid and sealed with the advent of propulsion.

So good, he told himself. So, so good.

Within a minute his mind was blank as instinct took over. The outer world evaporated save for a few glistening droplets he felt trickle down his throat. Bobby moaned and pulsed and was so thoroughly lost in release that it took him a while to realize these were more tears.

And that Alex was weeping.

He opened his eyes and kissed her face, wetting his lips repeatedly until her mouth fused with his. She threw a leg over his hip, gripping him into place even though now that he wasn’t moving his weight was beginning to feel pressing. Alex didn’t care. If this was what she had left then she wanted to cherish the mold of his body. She wanted to rewind and do everything all over again. She wanted Bobby to assure her that her untimely affections were not so misplaced.

She wanted him to hold her until she no longer felt cheated.

Both of them stiffened when they heard the ring tone, but Alex more so since she recognized it as her own. Bobby rolled over and she hoisted herself off the bed uneasily, feeling disengaged from her legs as if she were a circus clown walking on stilts. She made it to the sitting room without tripping over her nerves and considered this alone somewhat of a success story. Pulling her phone out of her coat, Alex winced when she saw it was exactly who she’d feared.

It couldn’t have been my mother.

“Eames.”

“Alex, where the hell are you?” an irritated voice demanded through the earpiece. “Bishop says you and Goren have been gone for over an hour already.”

Why, that little snitch! Alex fumed. She’s just pissed she’s going to be transferred out now thanks to Bobby.

“We went out for some coffee,” she said evenly. “You know the drill, Captain. We’re… getting to know each other.”

Alex felt only a trifle of guilt in formulating her fib. After Bobby got to brewing and they got to talking it’d be largely true, anyhow.

“Well, did you have a set hour to make it back from your little ‘coffee’ break? I know that it’s slow here and for that I’m always grateful but for Goren to take off on his first—”

“Captain, I’m the one who insisted. And you really don’t have to worry about Goren. He’s being a perfect gentleman.”

There was a pregnant pause.

“You like him?”

“I do,” she said exasperatedly, hearing Jim in one ear and the sound of running water in the other. “Like I said—friendly.”

More silence.

“I may’ve… jumped the gun this morning.”

“Gee, ya don’t say?” Alex lilted, taking a seat on the armchair and trying not to think about the fact that she was sassing her commanding officer. Naked.

“Eames, you might think me irrational, but the truth is that I’ve seen plenty of male officers—from beat to brass—work fine with each other. But I’ve also seen plenty change face when it comes to working with women. I don’t want that to happen to you.”

“I can take care of myself.”

Although she appreciated Jimmy’s concern, Alex was never one to put up with any unwanted sexual advances. She had a knack for stopping them before they started, and she intuitively knew that Bobby would never lay one on her without her explicit permission.

Now that it’d be that hard to get, given our track record...

“You can say that again.”

Alex blanched for about a second before she remembered she was on the phone, and her boss couldn’t read her face, much less her mind.

“Okay, Alex. First day, getting to know each other… I’ll see you both back before three, then?”

She nodded tightly. “Three it is.”

The dial tone resounded and Alex dropped her cell phone like a hot potato. She made it to the bedroom just as Bobby was tarrying before the mirror, putting the finishing touches on his Windsor knot. The air around them still smelled faintly of their coupling, but it was clear from the cologne wafting her way that he’d already cleaned up.

“Who was it?” Bobby asked quietly, feeling a bit out of sorts talking to her now that he was dressed and Alex was still… gorgeous.

“It was Deakins. Wanted to know where we’d slipped off to.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“The truth. I sang him a little Starland Vocal Band.” His head swung to gape at her and she cracked. “Okay, maybe I recited. I’m not much of a singer.”

Bobby moved from the mirror, crossing the room slowly. He saw the hesitation in Alex’s eyes as he set his hand on the side of her face. It bothered him that she thought that was necessary. He had no intention of pushing her.

“You’re asking a lot of me,” he whispered reverently, hitching his thumb beneath her earlobe as his finger traced her mouth.

When Alex pulled away he knew she’d taken it all wrong.

“I’m so sorry,” she said in a small voice, reaching for the clothes that would hide her humiliation.

He put his hand on her shoulder and she shrugged it off. “Alex, listen—”

“I feel like I deceived you. I just wanted to, you know, once more—”

“Oh, come on,” he came up around her and gripped either of her arms, “you think I didn’t know that? I know, Alex. You’re my partner. I realize it’s impossible. But I wanted you again, too.”

Alex stood there with an armful of her soon-to-be laundry, her forehead pinched as Bobby’s fingers pierced her flesh. How was she ever going to be able to suppress the effect he had on her? How were they ever going to manage a platonic relationship when their personal (albeit short) history included everything but?

“It’s so unfair,” she muttered.

Tell me something I don’t know, Bobby thought glumly.

“I… I just really like you.”

“Yeah,” he smiled, stroking her smooth skin from forearm to elbow. “I got that.”

Alex raised her hand to give him a mock blow but Bobby caught it seconds before impact, seizing her fist in the curl of his palm. He lowered her hand gently as he looped his free arm around her middle, tugging her naked body against his clothed one. Her expression held questions he couldn’t answer then. All he could do was ask Alex what she felt and continue to touch base.

“Are you sorry I came back last night?”

She frowned. “No.”

He braved a breath. “Are you sorry that we—”

“Bobby, no.” She dropped her undergarments and gave him a hug. “I’d have to be an idiot to be that sorry.”

He realized she was fluffing his ego and knew that it shouldn’t make him feel better, but he held her a little tighter nonetheless.

“This may be the only time I get to say this,” he said in a low voice, needing to get it out before it ate him alive, “but last night… having you fall in my arms like that… it was the closest thing I’ve ever felt to a blessing.”

She laid her forehead on his chest and groaned. “Stop it.”

“It’s true.”

“You’re not making this any easier.”

Bobby lifted her chin and let her see his regret. “Things like this are never easy.”

“Well, there’s never been a thing quite like this before, has there? This is the sort of fucked up shit that could only happen to someone like me. I’m just sorry you got stuck in the crossroads.”

“It was a blessing,” he insisted, and Alex made sure to roll her eyes before rising on her tiptoes and kissing him passionately, putting every last ounce of oomph she had left into his insufferable mouth.

“I, uh…” Bobby’s words faltered after she broke the kiss as abruptly as she’d started it. “I thought we weren’t going to do that anymore.”

“That one didn’t count,” Alex told him, putting one leg through the hole of her panties while keeping an eye out for that notorious bra of hers. “It was for the road.”

Bobby shifted sheepishly and looked on as she snapped the button on her waistband. “Should I be watching this?” he wondered aloud.

“Consider it a free peep show.”

“If this is a peep show, then shouldn’t you be—”

“Count your blessings, Goren,” she cut him off.

He grinned. And this was how they began to set boundaries.

“So Deakins…?”

“Uggh!” Alex brought the bra to her breasts protectively. “Couldn’t you wait until I’m at least sixty percent dressed to bring that up again?”

“How was it?” he asked fifteen seconds later, after the hooks were clasped and she was contorting herself into the turtleneck.

“Awful,” came the muffled voice.

Bobby cocked his head, unsure of what she meant without being able to see her face. “You didn’t… let on that—”

“No.” Her head emerged, no worse for the wear. “He didn’t suspect much. It was more like the ‘don’t dip your hand inside the cookie jar’ speech.”

“Oh.” He handed Alex her socks. “And are you a dipper?”

She noticed Bobby appraising her mischievously and sat down on the bed to put on her shoes. “On occasion,” she winked.

Bobby’s heart leapt with hope. Hope he knew Alex hadn’t intended. But that didn’t matter to him. He was a master at reading between the lines.

“Come on,” Alex said, considering herself ravished and famished as she led the way out. “You owe me a hot meal after all that hot sex.”

He laughed heartily. “I think I can handle that.”

The detectives ate, drank, and got to working. Sinking into the roles of their new everyday lives. Ironically enough, it would be months before either of them realized—much to their dismay—that that night in the grocery store…

That night that had continued in the hospital, the coffee shop, and Alex’s apartment…

That night that Bobby came back when he shouldn’t have, and that Alex sealed the deal by letting him in…

That night.

It was love at first sight.

…

For Emily.

…

A.N.

I know some of you reviewers—as Deakins would say—jumped the gun in saying you’d want a sequel, but when I originally envisioned this story I figured I’d end it on a semi-enigmatic note and leave it at that. But, for whatever reason, a lot of you seemed to have taken to this little exercise in frivolity. Let me know if you think this ending is suitable or if you’d still like another go. And feel free to make suggestions. Okay, on to anther story.