Chapter 2
Gibbs jolted awake in the chair and looked around the room. It was still dark outside. The lamp was still on in the corner of his living room. Everything was just as he had left it. It was hot in the room. Even in his t-shirt and shorts, he felt the perspiration on his face. Then he remembered in part why he was feeling so overheated. He had been dreaming about her.
He glanced over at the slender female form lying on the couch and a low moan escaped at the thought of what that dream had entailed. You nearly kill her last night, and now you’re having sexual fantasies about her. Good job. You’re a real winner there, asshole. And a hard on to boot. You truly are a bastard, Jethro. The mental berating helped to douse his fiery arousal, although not completely.
There was no escaping the fact that she was sexy as hell, even slightly bumped and bruised and with a few stitches thanks to him. His eyes grazed over her figure, and he felt the familiar yearning of desire. Half out of it from the morphine, she was burning up and insisted on sleeping in nothing but her cami top and panties, with no blanket over her, leaving her exposed to his purview.
She lay there on her back with her head on a pillow, waves of silken locks the color of bronzed rubies flowing down towards the floor like a waterfall. Her fair skin was so soft to the touch, even against his roughly calloused hands, it was impossible to miss its delicacy as he had helped her settle onto the couch. Her lips were perfectly plump and richly pink, as if waiting for Prince Charming to come kiss them and wake her from her sleep now.
Her body was a heavenly work of perfection in his eyes. From the shapely legs that seemed to extend forever, to the sleek stomach he could see peeking out from the cami now, to the curvature of her breasts as they rose slightly with each breath she took, nothing escaped his notice. He found himself drawn to the slender length of her neck beckoning him to kiss it with the way it was exposed to him at that moment.
Oh, and those eyes. He couldn’t see them as she lay there sleeping, but he closed his own and recalled in detail the shape and color of hers. Wide-set, sparkling, they were like rich gemstones to match her name. Emerald Jade. Her eyes were a deep apple green with a hint of blue shimmering in their depths, like the rarest emeralds of the Panjshir Valley in Afghanistan. Those eyes were eyes he could get lost in, eyes he wanted to get lost in and never be found again.
Leaning back into the chair again, he took in the view of her on the couch once more before roughly rubbing at his tired eyes and taking a hard look at his watch. 4:53. Dad will be up soon enough. 5 a.m. every morning like clockwork. He pulled himself up out of the chair and reached over to the bedding he had neatly laid out across the back of the couch the night before, picking up a lightweight sheet. Don’t want Dad seeing her exposed like this. His lip curled up slightly at the edge with a wicked thought fleeting across his mind. I’ll save that for myself. He drank in once more the perfection of her body, a shiver running down his spine as he thought of the dream again and the burn of desire ached within before he carefully laid the sheet over her lightly, covering just enough of her body to keep things appropriate when his father came downstairs.
Turning off the lamp in the corner, he made his way to the small kitchen at the rear of the house, flipping on the light switch. His father had always been an early riser, but it wasn’t until his own days in the Marine Corps that Gibbs himself had gained an appreciation for the early hours of the day. Following his usual morning ritual, he started a pot of coffee, good and strong to get him going for the day. He was running on even less sleep than usual after the night’s strange events.
Gibbs was just rehashing the night in his mind and shaking his head and the ridiculousness of it all when he thought back over it as he heard Jackson shuffling down the stairs as quietly as he could at his age, trying not to wake the sleeping young woman on the couch.
“Good morning, son. Did you get any sleep last night? How’s your lovely patient?” Jackson was his usual cheerful self, always seeming to manage to make the best of any given situation, even having the Reynosa drug cartel beating a path to the Gibbs’ doorstep with death in their hearts. Jackson Gibbs was a man wavered by little, if anything, and anyone who knew Jethro Gibbs knew the apple fell not far from that tree.
“Morning, Dad. I slept here and there. I did promise the doctor I’d watch Emerald so I didn’t sleep well. Every time I fell asleep, I woke up feeling that something was wrong. She seems fine though, still sleeping off the affects of the morphine I think.” He peered off in the distance through the dining room, into the living room at the figure on the couch, motionless except for the steady breathing.
Jackson noticed the worried look on his son’s face and could sense the tension hovering around him like a living thing. “Is there something about her you’re not telling me, Leroy?”
There were only a few things about his father that really got under his skin; he was the only person in the world who actually called Jethro by his proper first name “Leroy” and secondly was that he read Jethro like an open book and always could.
It was impossible to lie to his dad, and Jethro knew it. “I don’t really know what it is about her.” He busied himself, reaching into the cabinet for two coffee cups, filling them to the brim with the hot, dark liquid, and carrying them into the dining room where the men could sit and talk quietly, while he gathered his thoughts. “I just have this gut feeling about her. There’s something about her, Dad. I’m drawn to her.”
The elder Gibbs took a sip of the scalding hot coffee, not seeming to notice the burn as he sat back at considered his son’s words. “She’s mighty attractive. Seems a bit young for you though.”
“She’s thirty-seven, Dad. That’s not that young. I’m only fifty-one.”
“Until September.”
“That’s still only fifteen years difference. I’ve been with women like that before.” Gibbs regretted saying that as soon as it came out of his mouth.
“You may have, son, but obviously they didn’t work out, now did they?”
That one he saw coming right at him and didn’t even bother to dodge it. He took a long draw on his coffee then was suddenly keenly aware of motion coming from the living room couch. With barely more than one swift motion, he was up out of his seat and on his knees at her side.
His voice poured out smooth like silk as he nearly purred his words to her. “Are you all right? What hurts? Can I get you anything? Do you remember anything from last night?” He didn’t mean to send a barrage of questions at her. “I didn’t mean to give you the third degree. You just had me worried all night. I’m Jethro. Special Agent Jethro Gibbs, NCIS. I accidentally ran into you with my cart at the supermarket. Do you remember that? I took you to the hospital. They said you needed to be monitored for 24 hours so I brought you to my home.” Gibbs finally shut up and decided he should give her a chance to respond to at least something he had just said or asked.
Emerald weakly sat up on the couch, looking down at her bandaged right foot Jethro had propped carefully atop a pillow. “Yeah. I remember what happened. At least most of it. I don’t remember much about the hospital or you. All I remember about you is you held my hair back while I puked on the supermarket floor.” She blushed and smiled shyly. “Sorry about that.”
His heart skipped a beat at her smile. “It’s okay. Under the circumstances, it was totally understandable.” Gibbs smiled back at her, warmly, invitingly. “Let’s just not make a habit of it.”
She laughed lightly, an almost musical sound. “Agreed.” Emerald looked around her taking in her surroundings and seemed concerned. “Where’s my purse?”
Gibbs reached around the side of the couch nearest her head and produced her purse, setting it carefully on her lap. “Right here. I did have to search for ID on you, but I didn’t remove anything.”
A smile crossed her lips again as she looked up into his eyes, seemingly searching them intently for something. Her face softened with a near angelic quality as she apparently found in his eyes exactly what she was looking for. “I trust you, Jethro.”
His heart leapt into his throat and did a quick back-flip as he searched for the proper response to that statement. “That’s a good thing since we’ll be spending the whole day together.”
Casual, nonchalance seemed the best route to go. It didn’t seem like the best time to admit he was deeply drawn to her, craved her the way a man stranded in the Sahara thirsted for water, and had no rhyme or reason to the feelings he had for her so soon after their meeting.
“Hm, only the day…” and trailed off, giving him a sideways glance with those incredible jeweled eyes. She grinned and began digging into her purse, pulling out a hairbrush and some plastic toiletry case. “The essentials to carry everywhere: hairbrush with a ponytail holder, toothbrush, toothpaste, and dental floss. I never leave home without them. Can I use your bathroom to freshen up?”
“Are you sure you feel up to standing and walking?” he asked skeptically.
“I suppose we won’t know until we try, now will we?” She set her purse with its remaining contents on the floor, gripping the brush and small case as she pulled back the sheet and moved to the edge of the couch. “Um, Jethro, where are my shorts?”
Gibbs’ face turned red as he now realized that she had no memory of insisting that she not wear them last night and how that made him look. “You were hot last night and said you couldn’t sleep with them on and made me help you take them off. I swear on my honor as a Marine. I tried to convince you to keep them on. I really did.”
She stared at him reproachfully for a moment then said flatly, “Then where are they, Jethro?”
Sheepishly, he reached behind her pillow to the arm of the couch and retrieved the denim shorts. “Do you need a hand getting them back on?” he offered.
“I think I can manage.” First setting the brush and case on the coffee table, she struggled to get her bandaged right foot through the leg, pulled them up to her thighs, then went to stand up and nearly fell over.
Gibbs was on his feet, his arms around her holding her steady in a flash. He braced her while she wiggled the rest of the way into her shorts, zipping them and buttoning them. “How are you feeling now?”
“Actually, really dizzy, my head is suddenly pounding, and putting weight on my foot hurts like hell. Sitting was so much easier.” Emerald gave Jethro a halfhearted smile and leaned into his broad shoulder as he continued to hold her upright. “Thank you, Jethro. You didn’t have to do this for me.”
“I did. I do. I was the one who ran you over. It was the least you deserved from me,” he admitted. Don’t get too used to this, Jethro. You hold her in your arms now. She lays her head on your shoulder now. You know how this all plays out in the end. You run them all off. She’ll hate you. They all do eventually. “I can help you to the bathroom to clean up. There’s a half bath off the kitchen or a full bath upstairs. You choose and I’ll get you to either one by whatever means necessary,” he said smiling warmly, his face only inches from hers. He could feel her hot breath against the skin of his neck. He fought for control of his body’s reactions to her nearness. “There’s washcloths and towels upstairs so you could really wash up better.”
“That sounds great, but how do you propose I get up there?”
Jethro grinned, reached down to pick up her personal items, and scooped her up into his strong arms. She was surprised by the strength of him. His short cropped silver hair and the fine lines creasing his ruggedly handsome face belied his youthful strength of body. The broad shoulders and chest of this man were accompanied by a significant remaining brute strength of a Marine. He held her closely to his chest, protectively, bringing her face near to his own and she could feel his steady breathing as he climbed the stairs with ease, not faltering once under her added weight.
He was remarkable. She felt a fluttering in her chest and a slight feeling of breathlessness as it dawned on her that she was finding herself attracted to this incredibly sexy older man. Jethro set her down gently on her feet just inside the bathroom, a classic yellow tile room obviously original to the house.
He stepped outside the door for second, while she balanced herself by holding the side of the sink countertop, and returned with a fresh towel and washcloth. “Here you go. There’s soap and everything you need there in the shower. They said you can’t shower, but you could kind of give yourself a sponge bath so-to-speak. Do you need any help?” He immediately felt like an idiot for offering, knowing she would likely be undressing to clean up, and knowing full well he didn’t have that much self-control left in him for the morning.
“I think I’ll be fine. I should probably just sit on the edge of the tub and wash up rather than trying to stand on my own. I think I’m just still woozy from the medicine they must have given me at the hospital. You’ll be nearby won’t you?” She looked at him expectantly.
“Yeah. I’ll just be in my room changing clothes myself. I’m sure the morphine they gave you will wear off soon, and you’ll be able to stand on your own two feet again without looking like you’re drunk.” He chuckled and got the laugh out of her he had hoped for. “Just call out if you need anything.”
Jethro pulled the door closed to give her privacy and stepped across the hallway to his own room. His eyelids were heavy, and the bed was calling his name. He dared not lie down even for a second or he’d give in to the need for sleep. More coffee, that’s what you need, always more coffee. A mainline intravenous drip would be nice. Pushing the door closed, he stripped down out of his rumpled t-shirt, shorts, and boxer briefs. He wanted a shower but would wait until Emerald was safely out of his care tonight. For a moment, he regarded himself in the mirror on the closet door. Age had shown itself not just on his head and face but in the graying hair of his chest and the loss of some of his former Marine musculature. His body was riddled with scars from various injuries, both military and in the line of duty as a NCIS agent. Could a woman so sexy and perfect want the imperfect body of a man like you, Jethro?
He redressed in a pair of denim carpenter’s shorts and a random baseball team t-shirt, then opted for sneakers rather than his typical work boots since he knew his day would not be spent in the basement or even out doing yard work. He had a patient to care for and for once, he felt no irritation with the task of playing nursemaid to the injured. This time, he was reveling in every moment with her.
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