Breakroom Confidential (1/1)
Title: Breakroom Confidential: A Christmas Ditty (1/1)
Author: SomewhereApart
Fandom: CSI: Miami
Characters: Eric/Calleigh
Rating: NC17
Summary: At the end of their last pre-Christmas shift, Calleigh gives Eric a gift. A very... special gift.
Author's Note: This one is a gift for a friend, who was kind enough to post some hottie hot photos of Adam Rodriguez a few weeks back. So this is for you, liebchen! Hope it pleases!
It was official: the last shift before Christmas was Eric’s least favorite workday of the year. The day had been long, and gruesome, and he was beat. He’d spent most of the day out in the field, on feet that were good and tired now, and there was this kink in his back that made him wince when he turned just wrong. And worst of all, he’d had to call twice now to push back his dinner reservation; Calleigh was leaving for Louisiana in the morning, and needed to write up the reports for any outstanding evidence on her plate before they left for the day. So here he sat, biding his time, waiting for her to finish. Maybe if he wished hard enough she’d just stroll right in and -
Calleigh breezed through the break room door, looking a little overtired but otherwise perky, a slim book in hand, pen tucked under her thumb. “Hey there.”
Impressed, Eric wondered if maybe if he wished hard enough, Horatio would walk in and give him a massive raise. “Hi,” he greeted, watching the break room door hopefully. No such luck.
“Waiting for someone?” she asked as she settled into the seat to his right, brushing the too-long tablecloth out of her way and scooting her chair in. Valera had gotten the bright idea to decorate the break room for the holidays, and had accidentally bought a bright red Santa tablecloth for a table that sat eight. The break room table barely sat four comfortably.
“Nah, just hoping.”
“Oh?” She quirked one brow at him in that way she did when she caught him eyeing bikini-clad babes at beach volleyball.
“I was thinking that I wished you’d finish and come meet me, and then you appeared. So I thought maybe I’d wish H would come in and give me a raise.” She smirked; he matched. “Guess my luck has run out.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” She scooted her chair a little closer to his end of the table, rolling her eyes and tugging at the tablecloth as it caught under her chair leg. “I got you a present.” She nudged the book and pen toward him - The Big Book of Crosswords.
“Practice for while you’re away?” he asked, his hand covering hers on top of the book. “So when you’re working on the Sunday crossword and ask me for an eight letter word for ‘letter drop-offs’ I won’t stare at you blankly?”
Calleigh turned her hand palm-up, laced their fingers. “Actually its more of a prop. The present is more… personal.”
“Oh yeah? Do tell.” If he hadn’t been intrigued already, the steady blush creeping into her cheeks would have piqued his interest.
“Do you remember last week when we were talking… in bed?”
“We spent four nights together last week, Cal,” he pointed out, tracing his thumb over hers and wondering how that ring tucked in his sock drawer would look on her finger.
“Tuesday,” she sighed, lowering her voice even though they were the only ones in the room and she’d shut the door behind her. “When we were talking about, y’know, things we’d like to try.”
“Ah, yes.” He definitely remembered that one. That had been a very, very good night. “Want to break out the cuffs again tonight?”
“No, that’s-“ She seemed to catch herself, reconsider, and he very nearly laughed out loud as he watched her internal monologue play out over her face. “Actually, yeah. But that’s not what I was… Remember what you said you wanted?”
“The whipped cream thing?”
“No.”
“The blindfold?”
“No.”
“The… special outfit?”
“No.” She sighed, exasperated. “The other thing, the - oh, forget it.” Her voice dropped impossibly lower. “Sex in public.”
Oh. “Oh. Yeah.” Calleigh just raised her eyebrows suggestively, then disentangled their hands and flipped open the crossword to a page that was already about a quarter filled in. She slid it over to him and smiled, a naughty glint in her eye. He looked down at the puzzle, studied the letters quickly, thinking there would be some kind of hidden message there or something. He couldn’t see anything at first glance. “Do you want to… tonight? At the restaurant.”
“I was actually thinking a little sooner than that,” she purred, though he could hear the hint of nerves edging her voice as she shoved the pen into his hand. “Look busy.”
And then she was gone. Out of sight. Under the table. Eric would later blame Calleigh’s ruthless professionalism and occasional almost Puritanical sense of proper public behavior for his not realizing what was happening until he felt her hands on his belt. And then all he could think of to say was, “Oh, Jesus.”
She shushed him harshly from beneath the tablecloth, then tugged at the back of his knee until he slouched down slightly. By the time she’d freed him from his pants, he was already hard and ready. This was going to be fodder for his fantasies for weeks, he just knew it. “Do the crossword!” her muffled voice came from somewhere close enough to his cock for him to feel the warm wash of her breath against him.
“You seriously expect me to-“
“If someone walks in here and you’re staring at your pants, and we get caught, I am never doing this again.” And then he felt her tongue on him, laving a slow line from base to tip and his eyes nearly crossed. She was really doing this. Calleigh was really going to suck him off under the break table at work. And had she said something about doing it again?
Eric groped for the crossword book, holding the pen and startng at the page, his eyes grazing over the clue words with no real interest. All his focus was on the way she was delicately licking her way back down, her hand fluttering over what of him she wasn’t currently teasing with her tongue. He only had to look occupied, right?
He wasn’t sure, but he thought he might have heard her let out a soft moan before she took his head in her mouth and twirled her tongue around it. There was no question where the quick gasp came from, though; that was definitely him. It was followed a quick, sharp “ow!” when she pinched his hip and hissed for him to be quiet. Right, like he was going to be able to keep from gasping when she was - oh, god, yeah - sucking him in slowly, inch by inch. Just like that, just the way he liked.
Trying not to pant, trying not to gasp, trying to look totally normal, Eric let his eyes drop shut for just a moment to feel the wet heat of her mouth over him. She sucked her way back up, swirled her tongue over him again, and he swallowed hard to tamp down a moan. And then she began to bob, up and down, up and down, a steady rhythm with just enough suction and it was all he could do to not squirm.
And then the break room door swung open, and Valera gave a cheery “Merry Christmas!” as she headed for the fridge. Calleigh froze; Eric nearly panicked.
“Hey, Valera.” At least his voice sounded normal.
“What? No ‘Merry Christmas to you, too?’” She clucked disapprovingly at him before pulling out half a sandwich she’d apparently left from lunch, and taking a big bite.
“Merry Christmas to you, too,” he corrected, and - dear, sweet Jesus - Calleigh began to suck up and down over him again, slowly, teasingly. With Valera ten feet away. Her thumb stroked against the base of him, and all Eric could do was shift so his foot pressed against her thigh. He wasn’t entirely sure what that was supposed to convey, but she let one hand stroke down his leg, back up, and he figured she must have gotten it.
“You alright?” Valera interrupted his thoughts. “You look a little… pained.”
“Oh, yeah, its just this crossword book,” he told her, gesturing to the page in front of him, and thanking God and the saints that Calleigh had been smart enough to start filling it in so there would at least be the illusion he’d been working on it. “It was a gift from Calleigh. It’s - mm - tough.”
“Hmm.” Valera studied his face in a way that made him feel entirely uncomfortable, and he wondered if he was flushed, if he was giving anything away. He thought he was doing pretty damned well so far, considering the way Calleigh was picking up pace. “And here I thought she was giving you a hummer.”
Calleigh froze; Eric nearly panicked. “What?” Smooth Delko, real smooth. “Why would she get me a car?”
“Not the kind of hummer I was referring to,” she smirked, and he had to fight hard against the instinct to reach down and shove Calleigh’s head away as Valera crossed to the table. “I love those shoes, Cal,” she announced, and Calleigh immediately wrenched herself away from him, whacking her head on the bottom of the table and cursing. Valera cackled gleefully. “Man, I never thought you were the type, Duqesne. But let me just…” She reached down, adjusted the tablecloth on that side. “Okay, you’re good now. Carry on.” Calleigh squeaked some kind of protest from under the table and managed to conk her head again as she shuffled around, no doubt trying to scramble her way back to dignity. “No, no. You stay down there. Get down with your get down. I’ll keep my lips good and zipped.”
“No, you won’t!” Well that one wafted up loud and clear.
“I will. I promise. Consider it your Christmas gift from me.” She sauntered toward the door, smirking all the while, and Eric couldn’t decide whether or not he should be surprised that his hard-on hadn’t abated one bit at their being caught. “I’d hurry, though,” she advised. “Horatio has been looking for Calleigh.”
And with that, she was gone. Eric felt the warmth of Calleigh’s forehead against his thigh, heard her miserably groaned, “Oh my God,” and sent one hand down to seek her out, threading his fingers into her hair. “Of all the people…”
“Actually, I think Valera is the best case scenario in this situation. If anyone is going to encourage secret lab sex…”
“True. God. She’ll never let us live this down.”
“Definitely not. She owns us, and she knows it.”
“Uh huh.”
Silence descended for a moment, both of them mostly still except for Eric’s slow massage against her scalp and the way she was tracing a fingertip idly across his thigh. “Calleigh?”
“Mm?”
“Are you gonna… finish?” Maybe it was bad form to ask, but he was still hard as nails for her and if she wasn’t going to finish him off, he’d have to figure out some way to either think this puppy down or take care of it himself. Thankfully, he found his answer in the wet swipe of her tongue against him.
Before long, she was going to town on him again, sucking and licking, her rhythm quick and efficient, designed to catapult him quickly toward the edge. When one hand joined in to work in opposition to her mouth, the other gripping his thigh, he couldn’t fight the way his breath began to hitch. “Unh… yeah, like that,” he whispered to her, ignoring the way she pinched him again. Nobody was here, nobody would hear.
She pulled back just a little, focusing on his head, flicking her tongue against the sensitive spot where it met his shaft over and over again, fluttering, sucking there, and God, he was almost - he was so - he was going to - yes! He bit his lip and began to spill into her mouth just as the door swung open again.
“Horatio!” Calleigh froze; Eric panicked. “Merry Christmas!”
“Same to you, Eric. Have you seen Calleigh?” The lieutenant rested his hands on his hips, eyed Eric inquisitively. Eric had barely regained enough brainpower to hope Valera’s little tablecloth adjustment had been enough to keep them hidden.
“I, uh… what? Calleigh?” He felt her head hit his thigh again, and could feel the way she was shaking her head back and forth, back and forth. He had to think of something, and fast, because if they got caught, he had a feeling the break room would become the scene of a murder-suicide in no time. “Yeah, she was in her lab last time I saw her. She’s not there?”
“No, I just came from there. You’re sure you haven’t seen her?”
“No, have you tried her cell?” Calleigh’s hand gripped his thigh like a vice, and he had the sudden realization that her cell phone was probably tucked into her hip. Shit.
“I did. I did, but I’ll try her again…” As H pulled out his phone, Eric felt Calleigh press hers against the top of his thigh. Oh, God. H dialed; Eric’s crotch rang.
He grabbed the phone quickly, shaking his head and chuckling. “Man, I’m sorry, H. I totally forgot. She left her phone in here earlier; I was going to bring it back to her, but she wasn’t in her lab. If she comes for it, I’ll, uh, I’ll let her know you’re trying to get in touch with her.”
“Thank you, Eric. I appreciate it.” Horatio tucked his phone back into his pocket, plucked his sunglasses from the neck of his shirt. “Merry Christmas.”
“You too, H.” Had they actually gotten away with it? It seemed almost too good to be true. Eric could almost feel Calleigh deflating in relief against him, and then the door clicked shut behind the lieutenant and she actually did collapse against his leg. “He’s gone.”
“Oh. My. God.” She scrambled out from under the table, flopping into her chair and covering her eyes with her hands. “That was… we can’t ever do that again. Not here. What was I thinking? We could’ve been fired!”
“Yeah…” Eric reached down, tucked himself back into his pants and zipped up. “But it was really hot.”
She lifted one hand at that, peeked at him with a baleful green eye for a moment before her lips quirked up into a smirk. “Yeah?”
“Oh yeah,” he insisted stretching languorously. “Although I could do without coming with an audience.”
Calleigh snickered at that, dropping her forehead to the table and shaking her head back and forth. “You know, for a second there, I didn’t realize he’d walked in.”
“And what? You thought I was fantasizing about H while you-“
“Well, I don’t know, Eric. You couldn’t see me. Perfect time to fantasize about anyone you’d like down there, doing that thing I do with my tongue...”
She was all naughty glee and relieved humor, and he was pretty sure he’d never been more in love with her than at that moment. “You’re the fantasy, Cal. Nobody else comes close.”
The impish smile softened, turned into his favorite of Calleigh’s smiles - the soft one, the touched one, the one she only gave to him when she was feeling all “gooey and feminine.” “You know you don’t have to say things like that, right?”
“I don’t say them because I think I have to. I say them because I love you, and they’re true.” He reached out, found her hand and lifted it to kiss her palm. “Now go find H before he comes back and wonders where you appeared from.”
Calleigh nodded, squeezed his hand and pushed to her feet. The hand that had held his shifted to his cheek, and she leaned in to press a kiss to his mouth. “I’ll try to be done in fifteen so we can make dinner, okay?”
“Mm.” He stole another kiss, a third for good measure. “If we miss it, I’ll just take you home and we can try the handcuffs again.”
Her chuckle in response was low and throaty, and she drew away with a smile. “That actually is a gift for you, by the way - the book.” She eased her phone from his hand, tucked it into her pocket and headed for the door. “Check the cover. I’ll be back soon.”
Eric waited until she was gone to flip back to the front cover where, sure enough, he found her familiar script scrawled in red ink. She’d crossed out the words “To Eric” with two neat lines, so the inscription now read:
To my Love -
Thank you for taking the time to puzzle me out. I hope I’ve been worth the effort.
All my love,
Your Calleigh (and I am yours. Always.)
Eric shut the cover again, with a bit more reverence than it probably warranted, and decided that maybe he’d take that ring out of his sock drawer tonight after all.
Author: SomewhereApart
Fandom: CSI: Miami
Characters: Eric/Calleigh
Rating: NC17
Summary: At the end of their last pre-Christmas shift, Calleigh gives Eric a gift. A very... special gift.
Author's Note: This one is a gift for a friend, who was kind enough to post some hottie hot photos of Adam Rodriguez a few weeks back. So this is for you, liebchen! Hope it pleases!
It was official: the last shift before Christmas was Eric’s least favorite workday of the year. The day had been long, and gruesome, and he was beat. He’d spent most of the day out in the field, on feet that were good and tired now, and there was this kink in his back that made him wince when he turned just wrong. And worst of all, he’d had to call twice now to push back his dinner reservation; Calleigh was leaving for Louisiana in the morning, and needed to write up the reports for any outstanding evidence on her plate before they left for the day. So here he sat, biding his time, waiting for her to finish. Maybe if he wished hard enough she’d just stroll right in and -
Calleigh breezed through the break room door, looking a little overtired but otherwise perky, a slim book in hand, pen tucked under her thumb. “Hey there.”
Impressed, Eric wondered if maybe if he wished hard enough, Horatio would walk in and give him a massive raise. “Hi,” he greeted, watching the break room door hopefully. No such luck.
“Waiting for someone?” she asked as she settled into the seat to his right, brushing the too-long tablecloth out of her way and scooting her chair in. Valera had gotten the bright idea to decorate the break room for the holidays, and had accidentally bought a bright red Santa tablecloth for a table that sat eight. The break room table barely sat four comfortably.
“Nah, just hoping.”
“Oh?” She quirked one brow at him in that way she did when she caught him eyeing bikini-clad babes at beach volleyball.
“I was thinking that I wished you’d finish and come meet me, and then you appeared. So I thought maybe I’d wish H would come in and give me a raise.” She smirked; he matched. “Guess my luck has run out.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” She scooted her chair a little closer to his end of the table, rolling her eyes and tugging at the tablecloth as it caught under her chair leg. “I got you a present.” She nudged the book and pen toward him - The Big Book of Crosswords.
“Practice for while you’re away?” he asked, his hand covering hers on top of the book. “So when you’re working on the Sunday crossword and ask me for an eight letter word for ‘letter drop-offs’ I won’t stare at you blankly?”
Calleigh turned her hand palm-up, laced their fingers. “Actually its more of a prop. The present is more… personal.”
“Oh yeah? Do tell.” If he hadn’t been intrigued already, the steady blush creeping into her cheeks would have piqued his interest.
“Do you remember last week when we were talking… in bed?”
“We spent four nights together last week, Cal,” he pointed out, tracing his thumb over hers and wondering how that ring tucked in his sock drawer would look on her finger.
“Tuesday,” she sighed, lowering her voice even though they were the only ones in the room and she’d shut the door behind her. “When we were talking about, y’know, things we’d like to try.”
“Ah, yes.” He definitely remembered that one. That had been a very, very good night. “Want to break out the cuffs again tonight?”
“No, that’s-“ She seemed to catch herself, reconsider, and he very nearly laughed out loud as he watched her internal monologue play out over her face. “Actually, yeah. But that’s not what I was… Remember what you said you wanted?”
“The whipped cream thing?”
“No.”
“The blindfold?”
“No.”
“The… special outfit?”
“No.” She sighed, exasperated. “The other thing, the - oh, forget it.” Her voice dropped impossibly lower. “Sex in public.”
Oh. “Oh. Yeah.” Calleigh just raised her eyebrows suggestively, then disentangled their hands and flipped open the crossword to a page that was already about a quarter filled in. She slid it over to him and smiled, a naughty glint in her eye. He looked down at the puzzle, studied the letters quickly, thinking there would be some kind of hidden message there or something. He couldn’t see anything at first glance. “Do you want to… tonight? At the restaurant.”
“I was actually thinking a little sooner than that,” she purred, though he could hear the hint of nerves edging her voice as she shoved the pen into his hand. “Look busy.”
And then she was gone. Out of sight. Under the table. Eric would later blame Calleigh’s ruthless professionalism and occasional almost Puritanical sense of proper public behavior for his not realizing what was happening until he felt her hands on his belt. And then all he could think of to say was, “Oh, Jesus.”
She shushed him harshly from beneath the tablecloth, then tugged at the back of his knee until he slouched down slightly. By the time she’d freed him from his pants, he was already hard and ready. This was going to be fodder for his fantasies for weeks, he just knew it. “Do the crossword!” her muffled voice came from somewhere close enough to his cock for him to feel the warm wash of her breath against him.
“You seriously expect me to-“
“If someone walks in here and you’re staring at your pants, and we get caught, I am never doing this again.” And then he felt her tongue on him, laving a slow line from base to tip and his eyes nearly crossed. She was really doing this. Calleigh was really going to suck him off under the break table at work. And had she said something about doing it again?
Eric groped for the crossword book, holding the pen and startng at the page, his eyes grazing over the clue words with no real interest. All his focus was on the way she was delicately licking her way back down, her hand fluttering over what of him she wasn’t currently teasing with her tongue. He only had to look occupied, right?
He wasn’t sure, but he thought he might have heard her let out a soft moan before she took his head in her mouth and twirled her tongue around it. There was no question where the quick gasp came from, though; that was definitely him. It was followed a quick, sharp “ow!” when she pinched his hip and hissed for him to be quiet. Right, like he was going to be able to keep from gasping when she was - oh, god, yeah - sucking him in slowly, inch by inch. Just like that, just the way he liked.
Trying not to pant, trying not to gasp, trying to look totally normal, Eric let his eyes drop shut for just a moment to feel the wet heat of her mouth over him. She sucked her way back up, swirled her tongue over him again, and he swallowed hard to tamp down a moan. And then she began to bob, up and down, up and down, a steady rhythm with just enough suction and it was all he could do to not squirm.
And then the break room door swung open, and Valera gave a cheery “Merry Christmas!” as she headed for the fridge. Calleigh froze; Eric nearly panicked.
“Hey, Valera.” At least his voice sounded normal.
“What? No ‘Merry Christmas to you, too?’” She clucked disapprovingly at him before pulling out half a sandwich she’d apparently left from lunch, and taking a big bite.
“Merry Christmas to you, too,” he corrected, and - dear, sweet Jesus - Calleigh began to suck up and down over him again, slowly, teasingly. With Valera ten feet away. Her thumb stroked against the base of him, and all Eric could do was shift so his foot pressed against her thigh. He wasn’t entirely sure what that was supposed to convey, but she let one hand stroke down his leg, back up, and he figured she must have gotten it.
“You alright?” Valera interrupted his thoughts. “You look a little… pained.”
“Oh, yeah, its just this crossword book,” he told her, gesturing to the page in front of him, and thanking God and the saints that Calleigh had been smart enough to start filling it in so there would at least be the illusion he’d been working on it. “It was a gift from Calleigh. It’s - mm - tough.”
“Hmm.” Valera studied his face in a way that made him feel entirely uncomfortable, and he wondered if he was flushed, if he was giving anything away. He thought he was doing pretty damned well so far, considering the way Calleigh was picking up pace. “And here I thought she was giving you a hummer.”
Calleigh froze; Eric nearly panicked. “What?” Smooth Delko, real smooth. “Why would she get me a car?”
“Not the kind of hummer I was referring to,” she smirked, and he had to fight hard against the instinct to reach down and shove Calleigh’s head away as Valera crossed to the table. “I love those shoes, Cal,” she announced, and Calleigh immediately wrenched herself away from him, whacking her head on the bottom of the table and cursing. Valera cackled gleefully. “Man, I never thought you were the type, Duqesne. But let me just…” She reached down, adjusted the tablecloth on that side. “Okay, you’re good now. Carry on.” Calleigh squeaked some kind of protest from under the table and managed to conk her head again as she shuffled around, no doubt trying to scramble her way back to dignity. “No, no. You stay down there. Get down with your get down. I’ll keep my lips good and zipped.”
“No, you won’t!” Well that one wafted up loud and clear.
“I will. I promise. Consider it your Christmas gift from me.” She sauntered toward the door, smirking all the while, and Eric couldn’t decide whether or not he should be surprised that his hard-on hadn’t abated one bit at their being caught. “I’d hurry, though,” she advised. “Horatio has been looking for Calleigh.”
And with that, she was gone. Eric felt the warmth of Calleigh’s forehead against his thigh, heard her miserably groaned, “Oh my God,” and sent one hand down to seek her out, threading his fingers into her hair. “Of all the people…”
“Actually, I think Valera is the best case scenario in this situation. If anyone is going to encourage secret lab sex…”
“True. God. She’ll never let us live this down.”
“Definitely not. She owns us, and she knows it.”
“Uh huh.”
Silence descended for a moment, both of them mostly still except for Eric’s slow massage against her scalp and the way she was tracing a fingertip idly across his thigh. “Calleigh?”
“Mm?”
“Are you gonna… finish?” Maybe it was bad form to ask, but he was still hard as nails for her and if she wasn’t going to finish him off, he’d have to figure out some way to either think this puppy down or take care of it himself. Thankfully, he found his answer in the wet swipe of her tongue against him.
Before long, she was going to town on him again, sucking and licking, her rhythm quick and efficient, designed to catapult him quickly toward the edge. When one hand joined in to work in opposition to her mouth, the other gripping his thigh, he couldn’t fight the way his breath began to hitch. “Unh… yeah, like that,” he whispered to her, ignoring the way she pinched him again. Nobody was here, nobody would hear.
She pulled back just a little, focusing on his head, flicking her tongue against the sensitive spot where it met his shaft over and over again, fluttering, sucking there, and God, he was almost - he was so - he was going to - yes! He bit his lip and began to spill into her mouth just as the door swung open again.
“Horatio!” Calleigh froze; Eric panicked. “Merry Christmas!”
“Same to you, Eric. Have you seen Calleigh?” The lieutenant rested his hands on his hips, eyed Eric inquisitively. Eric had barely regained enough brainpower to hope Valera’s little tablecloth adjustment had been enough to keep them hidden.
“I, uh… what? Calleigh?” He felt her head hit his thigh again, and could feel the way she was shaking her head back and forth, back and forth. He had to think of something, and fast, because if they got caught, he had a feeling the break room would become the scene of a murder-suicide in no time. “Yeah, she was in her lab last time I saw her. She’s not there?”
“No, I just came from there. You’re sure you haven’t seen her?”
“No, have you tried her cell?” Calleigh’s hand gripped his thigh like a vice, and he had the sudden realization that her cell phone was probably tucked into her hip. Shit.
“I did. I did, but I’ll try her again…” As H pulled out his phone, Eric felt Calleigh press hers against the top of his thigh. Oh, God. H dialed; Eric’s crotch rang.
He grabbed the phone quickly, shaking his head and chuckling. “Man, I’m sorry, H. I totally forgot. She left her phone in here earlier; I was going to bring it back to her, but she wasn’t in her lab. If she comes for it, I’ll, uh, I’ll let her know you’re trying to get in touch with her.”
“Thank you, Eric. I appreciate it.” Horatio tucked his phone back into his pocket, plucked his sunglasses from the neck of his shirt. “Merry Christmas.”
“You too, H.” Had they actually gotten away with it? It seemed almost too good to be true. Eric could almost feel Calleigh deflating in relief against him, and then the door clicked shut behind the lieutenant and she actually did collapse against his leg. “He’s gone.”
“Oh. My. God.” She scrambled out from under the table, flopping into her chair and covering her eyes with her hands. “That was… we can’t ever do that again. Not here. What was I thinking? We could’ve been fired!”
“Yeah…” Eric reached down, tucked himself back into his pants and zipped up. “But it was really hot.”
She lifted one hand at that, peeked at him with a baleful green eye for a moment before her lips quirked up into a smirk. “Yeah?”
“Oh yeah,” he insisted stretching languorously. “Although I could do without coming with an audience.”
Calleigh snickered at that, dropping her forehead to the table and shaking her head back and forth. “You know, for a second there, I didn’t realize he’d walked in.”
“And what? You thought I was fantasizing about H while you-“
“Well, I don’t know, Eric. You couldn’t see me. Perfect time to fantasize about anyone you’d like down there, doing that thing I do with my tongue...”
She was all naughty glee and relieved humor, and he was pretty sure he’d never been more in love with her than at that moment. “You’re the fantasy, Cal. Nobody else comes close.”
The impish smile softened, turned into his favorite of Calleigh’s smiles - the soft one, the touched one, the one she only gave to him when she was feeling all “gooey and feminine.” “You know you don’t have to say things like that, right?”
“I don’t say them because I think I have to. I say them because I love you, and they’re true.” He reached out, found her hand and lifted it to kiss her palm. “Now go find H before he comes back and wonders where you appeared from.”
Calleigh nodded, squeezed his hand and pushed to her feet. The hand that had held his shifted to his cheek, and she leaned in to press a kiss to his mouth. “I’ll try to be done in fifteen so we can make dinner, okay?”
“Mm.” He stole another kiss, a third for good measure. “If we miss it, I’ll just take you home and we can try the handcuffs again.”
Her chuckle in response was low and throaty, and she drew away with a smile. “That actually is a gift for you, by the way - the book.” She eased her phone from his hand, tucked it into her pocket and headed for the door. “Check the cover. I’ll be back soon.”
Eric waited until she was gone to flip back to the front cover where, sure enough, he found her familiar script scrawled in red ink. She’d crossed out the words “To Eric” with two neat lines, so the inscription now read:
To my Love -
Thank you for taking the time to puzzle me out. I hope I’ve been worth the effort.
All my love,
Your Calleigh (and I am yours. Always.)
Eric shut the cover again, with a bit more reverence than it probably warranted, and decided that maybe he’d take that ring out of his sock drawer tonight after all.