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Considering how often she kept touching his cheek or jaw or neck, he knew the high and open collar sweater had been the right choice. She'd silently added it to the closet more than a month before and he had purposely been saving it for a night when he knew she would appreciate him acknowledging it without actually acknowledging it. He didn't mind feeling her fingers tag against the buttons just before hooking into the 'V' of the collar and tugging him down.
"I like the crowded nights," she half hummed after he chastely kissed her, the wine tinted smile he had just tasted still laying over her lips. "Wanna know why?"
"Because you're a flirt?" Gibbs accused, playful as he tucked her in tighter and pressed them nearer to the bar. The dinner crowd was in full swing and they hadn't seen Serafina once all night but he was enjoying having an arm looped around her. She wasn't wrong, there was something to be said for the vibrancy and life in the place on a Saturday night.
They were flush to the bar, closer to the dining room entrance and half in sight of the kitchen. Every time one of the familiar servers swung past them they got a happy smile and some sort of little 'hello'. It made her light up each time one of the family members recognized them, brightened her eyes and smile. One of Serafina's youngest had snuck them a basket of rolls as she'd passed by and Jack's excitement had gone near stratospheric.
"I'm a flirt?" she laughed out, shaking her hair out of her face before giving him a light thwack in the chest. "Me? You just made that poor hostess blush from her eyebrows to her toes."
"Did I?" he asked archly, purposely dumbing down the response.
"Don't act like you don't know the power of that smirk," she murmured in reply, watching that same token smile curve his lips. Jack shrugged up closer, slanting her body at an angle to his, her left hand rising to brace on his shoulder. "I like having an excuse to be close to you."
Gibbs snorted, taking a calculated swallow of the bourbon that one of their regular bartenders had set in front of him. "Pretty sure the wedding ring means you don't need an excuse."
"I like making sure the hostess knows what's what."
"She's twenty two," he groused, jaw up as she rubbed the high collar of the sweater between her fingers again.
A smirk shot across her lips just at the same time he felt his phone go off and he set the heavy bottomed glass back down. A sigh slipped from her, "You're vibrating."
"I can ignore them."
"No," she sighed, her mouth painting heat along the line of his jaw as her fingers tugged his phone off his belt, "you can't."
Her lips caught his softly, her kiss sweeter than expected as she thumped his cell against the center of his chest. He watched her as he caught the phone from her hand, a grin threatening to hijack him entirely as she half turned and grabbed up her wine glass. He flipped open the phone and answered gruffly as she downed the last few swallows all at once.
God, he loved her...
***
"Who've you got on the screen?"
"That's our current suspect," Ellie answered in the quiet office, chewing at the inside of her lip as she felt Jack draw closer. The question had been so subtle and benign that her answer had been reflexive, automatic, drawing Gibbs' silent attention over to the both of them.
Ellie turned Jack a smile and instantly blinked, half a step back as she ran a glance down and back up. The dress was deep burgundy and smoothed over every line and curve Jack had. The boots were chocolate suede and every wave of blonde was perfect.
She looked gorgeous.
"Wow, you look… oh," Ellie turned her head back and forth between them, remembering his unfamiliar but handsomely cut sweater and the tailored wool coat. "Where were you guys?"
"That, my darling, is my business," Jack smiled affectionately, her elbow giving a nudge and voice sweetened rather than reprimanding. "And that is not a suspect. That's an undercover ATF agent. You probably shouldn't blow his cover by being stupid and headstrong. Not that any of you are either of those things."
"How sure are you?"
Jack shrugged one shoulder up in answer as she innocently looped her arm through Ellie's, linking them as she spoke. There was no intent to the movement besides affection and in the late night quietness of the office Ellie preened under the easy attention. "His real name is Vincenzo. I worked with him outta San Diego. I can video chat his handler from my office."
Gibbs just nodded, obviously impatient. "Do it."
"Gibbs," she groaned, voice veering toward annoyed as she pulled closer. Ellie couldn't keep from smiling at their sparring, playful sniping and all with a little edge to it. Jack's sass had always been his sort of Kryptonite.
He just flashed her a mechanical grin, still handsome but nowhere near charming as usual. "Go. Do it. But from MTAC."
"Please?" Jack clapped back, pulling them apart.
"I'll meet you there," was the only response he offered, completely unapologetic, face blank.
"Oh, god." Oh, shit. The date clicked in her head suddenly as she watched him watch Jack, the time of year… "Is today your anniversary? Is it really?"
That drew his attention back slowly. "Shouldn't you be meeting McGee downstairs?"
Ellie frowned as she shook her head, fingers fidgeting. "I wouldn't have called you if I had known."
He just nodded toward the elevator and smiled, indulgent and gentler than she had expected. "Downstairs."
***
"Jacqueline! Angel! It's been years."
It had been the little term of endearment that had done it, those two happy syllables had crossed the feed and suddenly she had felt all of him step farther forward into her space. He was tall and imposing just to the right of her shoulder, his left hand briefly rising to brush her lower back before dropping away.
That was all it had taken, though. That one not-so-subtle movement had drawn the other man's attention, even over the video feed.
"Vince, I thought I'd get Janeane," She smiled wide, letting it flood genuine and warm as she noted how age had brushed just certain spaces on his face. The changes started around his eyes, below them, in the corners of his mouth and the faltering line of his jaw. "How are you?"
"Same, same. You look beautiful, as always. Who's the brick wall behind you?"
She laughed brightly, caught up suddenly by the apt description before letting her body sway back. She dropped back as a tease, playful leaning into how possessively close he had gotten against her. Jack's hand pressed her stomach just around the same time she felt his hip shunt her back forward and she let the laugh evolve into a glossed smile. "The husband."
"No," Conti demanded, voice going dramatic with surprise. She watched his face slacken slightly as realization crested and shocked him quiet. Dark eyes blinked and the man on the screen cocked his head just slightly, barely moving. "You're serious?!"
"Very," she laughed again, her hand rising so that her knuckles just brushed the fabric of the beautiful sweater Gibbs was still wearing. "He has some questions for you about Navy Captain Edmund Larramie."
The ATF agent blinked, shrugged, shoved himself back a little from his screen as though he was still digesting the new information she had given him. "I've got answers if he's got clearance."
"Higher than mine," Jack reassured him, her hand still pressed back. She turned, rolling her wrist so that she could grab a handful of sweater and tug playfully. "Gibbs, Agent Conti. Play nice."
Her kiss struck her husband's cheek soundly, quickly, and with intentional warmth. She felt a smile nearly twitch under her lips before it dropped, his mouth flatly stoic as she pulled away. She made sure the full stretch of her palm stroked down his chest as she pressed off from him.
Her hand waved back but she kept heading for one of the two exits at the sound of Conti's laughter, her smile inescapable.
"Breakin' my heart, Jacqueline!"
***
She watched him work from deep in the darker seats of MTAC, farther back in the shadows and sipping the lukewarm sludge that Ellie had dredged up for her. She should have gone to her office to make something that resembled coffee a little more and that realization was drilled home when he snapped at one of the technicians to his left. He was surly and annoyed, frustrated that the op was taking so long. She wasn't the only one getting tired and cranky...
Jack faintly cleared her throat from back in the seats, catching the half annoyed glance he turned back. He knew he'd been caught out and he sighed in answer, shaking his glance back up to the screen.
"How much longer you wanna wait, Conti?"
"You want your man or not, Gibbs? Not that I can blame you for wanting to get home. That's a hell of a wife you've got yourself."
She knew Vince couldn't see her, audio only. Gibbs turned her a wry glance from the center of the room, one brow up and a very slight smirk starting to tug at him. He lifted a hand and his smile went wider, fingers in front of his lips to shush her. He turned into stepping closer, settling his body low into one of the seats in the front row.
His entire length seemed to deflate slightly as he finally let himself rest, head tipping back on the chair. His right arm stretched along the back of the seat beside him, his legs bent but spread out and looking deliciously long from her perspective. The hand reached up to rub beneath the collar of his sweater and Jack felt herself give in, all of her being inexplicably drawn forward, shoulders first.
"You make this last much longer and she may lock me out," he teased the other man, knowing she could hear him. "That what you're aimin' for, Vince?"
The trick had been in taking off her heels half an hour earlier - he hadn't heard her coming.
"I would never."
He jumped slightly at the same time the other man answered, his left hand catching sharply against her left wrist as she touched him. His shoulders were locked tense and she lifted her right hand, catching under his jaw and just keeping her palm cupped there while he started to relax. He loosened his hold on her, both his arms stretching back out so that his elbows met the seat arms at his sides. She smiled when his head pressed back against her stomach, his eyes shut and the whole of him sinking ever so slightly in the chair.
"Gibbs?" Vince prodded verbally after his teasing.
The tech to their left had noticed his silence as well, half turned in her chair to look at them. Jack just gave her a good-natured wink as he groaned out a sigh, her palm sliding up to catch at his hair.
"Yeah?"
"He's here," the other agent said, voice low but controlled over the feed. "Let's wrap this up."
***
The most wondrous view of her was watching her step into their house, sleepy and lagging slightly, near listing to one side. Her feet were bare as she shouldered their front door open, high heels dangling from her fingertips and the other hand tangling back blonde hair as she blew out exhaustion. She made the softest sleepy moan as she tossed her shoes under the bench to their right, hand still holding her hair back from her face and her dress still giving him mild palpitations.
They were both beyond tired, both ready to drop, both frustrated… She still managed to make it look sexy, though.
"I tell you how beautiful you look tonight?" He shut the door gently and leaned back against it as she turned on him, both hands in blonde and drawing her hair up off her neck.
The smile she gave him… felt like he'd unearthed something magnificent. Something… singular.
"Charm me now? Huh, Sailor?" she laughed, obviously tired but still teasing as she closed in on him. "Don't quote me the price when I haven't got the time."
Only his wife... of all the women he knew, only his wife could pull off that line with her makeup smudged and her feet bare and her eyes so heavy with sleep.
Goddamn it, she owned him. "You've got all night, Sloane."
"It's four in the morning," Jack murmured as she stepped into him, curling up into his chest with a sound like a purr as both hands came down to catch in his sweater. "Time's up."
"Vince was right about one thing," he murmured, curling her up as his back relaxed their combined weight into the front door. He rubbed his face into her hair as she snugged closer with a chuckle.
"Yeah, what's that?"
"Hell of a wife I've got myself," he lifted a hand to brush her hair from her face, kissing her quietly, softly. "Happy Anniversary."
Her grin went very suddenly wide and bright in the dark of their hall. "You still owe me dinner."