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“We can put you in a safe house,” he insists, following after her, waiving off the concerned looks of Bright and his team. He had more than enough experience dealing with Jessica Whitly—even if he was more than twenty years out of practice.
Predictably—and it takes everything in him not to smirk—Jessica scoffs at the idea of protection. “Please, it’ll be as inviting as a Milwaukee Radisson.”
Gil sighs, watching as Jessica opens the compartmentalized book to check on her pistol with shaky hands—shaky hands fueled by alcohol and fear. How had he forgotten how stubborn she could be when it came to her own well-being? So willing to jump in front of a bullet, to fall on her own sword, if it meant the happiness of her children or a step towards atonement for sins she didn’t commit, but so unwilling to allow anyone to shield her, protect her.
He held up his hands, placating her. “Well if you don’t want a safe house or a Milwaukee Radisson, why don’t you stay with me until this blows over?”
“Gil...” Her eyes widen and he feels his heart beat double-time in his chest. He hadn’t necessarily meant to invite her to his home, but the thought of leaving her alone while she was a potential target…
“C’mon, Jess. I already lose sleep over worrying about Malcolm, don’t make me lose sleep worrying over you.”
"I can take care of myself.” She lifted the concealed gun up as evidence, tucking it beneath her arm and sweeping away from him, gun and tumbler of whiskey in hand.
"I never said you couldn’t,” he counters, following after her. He looks around at the bustling uniformed officers. No one is paying attention to them. He can risk this. He reaches out for her, wraps his hand around her wrist gently and turns her back towards him, eyes soft and pleading. “The thing is, I just got you back in my life and I'm not ready to see you leave it any time soon."
She sucks in a breath, unsteady on her feet between the harrowing events of the evening and Gil's hand in hers, his words echoing throughout her chest.
“Gil, I—”
He steps towards her, slides his hands from hers up her arms to settle on her shoulders, firm and grounding and steadying. She stops trembling, stops swaying.
There's no denying him (or the quiet voice in the back of her head crying out for someone to hold her up for once, someone to fret and worry about her safety for once).
She huffs, rolling her eyes, knowing she's been beaten. But there's still one more move.
“Fine, I'll let you watch over me like some overprotective guard dog, if you insist. But you're staying here. Martin didn't chase me out of this house then and I'll be damned if one of his serial killer colleagues does it now." She quirks an eyebrow at him. "Deal?"
He grins, briefly rubbing the back of his knuckles over her cheek affectionately. “'Atta girl.”
Bright calls him over and he leaves her behind with her cheeks tingling warmly where he’d briefly touched her and a promise to be back that night.
______________
As promised, Gil shows up on her doorstep with a bag slung over his shoulder and dutifully puts up with her facade of protest. Nonetheless, he gratefully takes the cup of coffee Jess offers him—sans hazelnut liqueur—and endures her ranting about masculine egos and damsels in distress and her more than excellent marksmanship record.
She catches his indulgent grin between sips of coffee and sighs, shaking her head at him. “Alright, I can see you’re indulging me.”
“Only always.”
She purses her lips at him and for a moment it feels so blissfully like this is normal, this give and take of theirs, this easy exchange, this flirtation. The temptation to slide a hand through his hair and place a placating kiss to his mouth is nearly overwhelming—it feels like the next natural step.
But she doesn’t deserve him. If she kissed him now, it would taint him. And he’s not here for her. He’s here to alleviate Malcolm’s concerns; he’s here because he’s a good man with a wide protective streak.
She shouldn’t fool herself.
Clearing her throat, she gestures behind her towards the stairs. "Your room is up--"
"Oh, no, no, I’ll just take the couch."
"Gil, I didn't drag you out of your home to babysit me from a couch, never mind a couch that certainly wasn’t designed to be sat upon for any extended period of time. This home has perfectly acceptable rooms for use."
"It's not that," he explains, standing and shrugging off his jacket to reveal the two leather holsters at his hip and under his arm. "But I can only protect you if I have eyes and ears on the house’s entryways. So, couch for me."
Jess frowns at him, ready to argue, but he leans over and puts his finger to her lips, stopping her from saying another word. God, she’d forgotten how tactile he could be, how easily he touches her.
She splutters at the action but it just makes him smile.
“It’s been a long day, Jess—for both of us. I just want to settle in. If you can direct me to the nearest bathroom, I'll change for the night.”
She glares and points down the hall. He leans in and presses a gentle kiss to her cheek, his goatee scraping tantalizingly over sensitive skin. She’d forgotten how freely he did that, too.
(Well, she’d worked very, very hard to forget the way Gil Arroyo made her feel.)
"That wasn't so hard, was it?"
Before she can stomp her foot or have the last word, he disappears down the hallway with a soft teeshirt and an even more worn pair of basketball shorts in hand, navigating the hallways of her home like he belongs there.
She looked appraisingly after him, eyes drifting over his backside, and considered that maybe he did belong here with her.
______________
The sight of the man in such casual clothes twists something visceral and wanting in her stomach, something she'd long stopped letting herself feel.
Because Gil looks comfortable and soft and welcoming in her home. His arms flex as he shakes out the thick blanket she laid out for him on the couch and his shirt pulls across the wide expanse of his back and shoulders in a way that makes her shift on her feet and press her thighs together to stymie the rush of want.
But she doesn’t want the night to end or to leave him down here only to retire to a lonely, cold bedroom. She bites her lip, floundering for a reason to linger. She gestures to the well-stocked bar cart. ”Can I get you a nightcap? Anything?"
He plops down onto her couch and shakes his head, rubbing a hand over his face wearily. It must have been a hell of a day for him, too. Perhaps he was just as tired as she was
He offers her a small smile. "No. Thank you, Jessica."
She takes the steps to sit next to him before she can second-guess herself and slips her hand easily into his.
"I'm the one who should be thanking you. I--I know I'm not always the easiest to please and I'm stubborn sometimes--" He snorts and she knocks her knee against his. "But it's been a long time since anyone's cared about how I'm feeling. It’s not something I’m used to, I suppose.”
The loneliness of it all, the isolation and the stress of the last twenty years, the fear for her life and the lives of her children, the anxiety of being targeted onc more and the hopelessness that this is a world she will never escape, hits her all at once and her voice breaks, eyes filling with tears.
Gil is there in a heartbeat, sitting forward and rubbing her back softly in soothing motions, voice low. "Hey, hey, none of that. That's in the past, okay? You got Malcolm and Ainsley. And you got me. I'm always in your corner."
She sniffs and bites her lip but the tears fall anyway, every emotion bubbling to the surface. Before she can reach for a handkerchief, though, Gil is there. He wipes gently at the tears on her cheeks, pushes his fingers into her hair and tilts her face up to him.
"You're too hard on yourself," he tells her, voice strong and assertive. "You've put Malcolm and Ainsley first, worked more than half your life to atone for sins that aren't yours. Enough is enough, Jess. You deserve happiness, too."
Her bottom lip wobbles and she shakes her head. She feels like she can't breathe under the weight of what he's telling her, what she can't make herself believe.
"I can't," she confesses. "I don't think I know how anymore." Her voice breaks in a hoarse whisper and its like a dam opening, fat tears rolling down her face, sobs escaping though she tries desperately to hold them down.
He clutches her to his chest, wraps his arms tightly around her, lips pressed to the crown of her head.
"That's it, let it out, shh. I gotcha. I'm right here, Jess."
She cries for the life she had taken from her, for the lives of Martin's victims that she could have saved, for the lives of her children--irrevocably damaged, for the feelings of loneliness and anger and sorrow that plague her, for the twenty years spent working tirelessly to put the past behind her and failing miserably.
She turns her face into Gil's chest, lets the steady, soothing pounding of his heart beneath her ear ground her. It’s so easy—too easy—to press her face into his chest, to breathe in the scent of him: pine and gun oil and leather.
But when she tries to pull away and apologize, tries to pull herself together, he tightens his hold on her, keeps her pressed against him. "You don't have to put yourself together right away, Jess. No one's here but you and me."
"I'm a mess," she murmurs, voice muffled into the soft fabric of his shirt.
She feels his laughter rumble through his chest. "I know."
But I'm here anyway.
For the first time in twenty years, she relaxes into the arms of another person without fear of rejection or reprimand. Her eyes flutter close and she matches her breathing with his and tries to remember if this is what happiness feels like, if this is what safe feels like.
She thinks she may have murmured his name—just once, softly and reverently—before dozing off, content and safe and warm and protected.
______________
When she wakes about an hour later, she's startled to find Gil awake, his hand absentmindedly running up and down her arm, a book in his other hand. She blinks sleepily up at him and finds him to be rather alluring with a pair of glasses perched on the end of his nose and his hair ruffled messily.
"I didn't mean to fall asleep," she murmurs, pushing herself off his chest. Without his heartbeat beneath her ear or his warmth surrounding her, she feels bereft and lonely again. She shivers, tightens the robe around her. It's a poor substitute for the feel of his arms.
He shrugs, carefully noting his place in his book, and setting it aside. "Made my job of protecting you a lot easier with you right here," he teases.
It makes her blush. She thinks it may be the first time in twenty years she's done so.
"What are you reading?" she asks, changing the subject.
"Would you find me to be terribly cliche if I said poetry?”
She blinks in surprise at that. She hadn’t pegged him for a man of poetry. Her surprise must show on her face because it makes him laugh and he offers her the well-worn paperback.
Her fingers trace over the dogeared pages, the raised print of the title. It’s clearly well-read and well-loved. Her eyes meet his, “British Poets of the 16th Century?”
He shrugs, self-conscious. “Poetry goes over well with the ladies, I hear.”
She thumbs through the pages, taking in the notes and markings in Gil’s penmanship, the highlighted phrases, the Post-It notes marking favorites. One poem makes her stop, the passages highlighted and the corner of the page dog-eared beyond repair.
“ When thou sigh'st, thou sigh'st not wind,
But sigh'st my soul away;
When thou weep'st, unkindly kind,
My life's blood doth decay.
It cannot be
That thou lov'st me, as thou say'st,
If in thine my life thou waste,
That art the best of me.”
Silence fills the living room, fingertips tracing over the words in his book. Gil clears his throat. “You read him well. Donne is one of my favorites.”
Her eyes take in the words—the pain and longing and yearning of them—and selfishly wonders if he ever highlighted those words and thought of her once upon a time. It’s too much for her to consider, to allow herself to consider.
She tosses her hair over her shoulder, hands him the book of poetry back. “Too many thous and thines for my liking,” she teases. “But you’ve got good taste—even if you are trying to woo the women of New York by reading them poetry by dead men.”
He tucks the book carefully away, smirking and leaning back into the couch cushions, considering her. “So, did it work?”
“Did what work?”
A soft, tender expression tossed his face as he pushed himself up off the couch and crowded her, enjoying the way her eyes widened in surprise. He took one of her hands in his, his other hand coming up to cup her face gently, thumb brushing over the curve of her cheek.
“Do you feel wooed?” He asked, voice low, eyes flicking down to her mouth briefly before meeting her eyes once more.
“Gil,” she breathed out, hands tentatively reaching for him, settling on his hips. “I—“
“It cannot be that thou lov’st me as thou say’st.”
“Alright, I suppose I see the appeal,” she whispers, licking her lips, hands sliding over his stomach and up his chest, arms wrapping around his neck. Without her heels on, he stood a good four inches over her and she had to tilt her head up to look at him, eyes wide and disbelieving that this was happening—that she was allowing herself to let this happen.
Her nails dragged across the nape of his neck, making him shiver and pull her closer so their bodies were pressed flush together. Every inch of him was warm and solid, chasing away any lingering fears.
“I didn’t ask you to come here tonight for this,” she tells him. “I would never—“
“I know,“ he cuts her off, ducking his head to brush his lips over her cheek, nuzzling at her jaw briefly, soaking up the sound of her strangled moan and the way her hips roll against his. He knows how long she’s held herself in check, a self-imposed punishment she never deserved.
The first touch of his lips against hers is nothing short of an electric spark, a flash of exquisite heat and connection. It takes everything in him to not give into the desperate way she clings to him, opens her mouth against his and licks at the seam of his mouth, demanding more, more, more of him.
“Jessica,” he groans, breaking the kiss to plant hungry, open-mouthed kisses along the underside of her jaw, sweeping her hair aside to get at the sensitive skin of her neck and shoulder.
She shivers at the way he says her name, the way his beard scrapes against her skin with every touch, the way that for the first time in a long time she feels alive.
Each of his kisses, each brush of his hands against her skin (god, when did his hands slip beneath her shirt? When did she press up on her tiptoes and force his mouth back to hers out of sheer wanting desperation?), every inch of this man is chasing away the loneliness and cold and filling her up with warmth.
The need she has for him is overwhelming and she claws at his shirt, fingertips dancing along the waistband of his shorts and dipping beneath it to scratch at the sensitive skin of his lower stomach.
The action makes him hiss and flex his hips against her and she grins into the kiss, pulling away, breathless.
“Come upstairs,” she tells him, eyes hooded and dark. The thought of being apart from him right now—leaving him behind on the couch while she returns to another lonely night in her too-big-for-one bed. She soothes the lines over his face with a gentle touch, liking the way that he sinks into her touch as readily as she does his.
They’ve both been lonely too long.
“Jessica,” he murmurs, curling his hands around her wrists and bringing both of her hands to his lips, pressing soft kisses to the sides and backs of her hand. The rush of frantic passion has lessened, leaving behind smoldering embers. “I came here to protect you, not—“
She silences him with a soft kiss, triumphant in the way it leaves him dazed and unfocused; the mere touch of her lips against his rattling him and interrupting his train of thought.
It feels intoxicating. It feels powerful.
“If you don’t want to come upstairs, I suppose I can bring myself to lay with you on that ridiculous couch,” she says dramatically, a grin twitching at her lips. But the playfulness is chased away a moment later as she leans against him, slips her arms around him and presses her lips to his heart through the warm cotton of his shirt. “I told you that we couldn’t do this all those years ago and I’ve regretted it every day since. Don’t tell us no again, Gil. Please. Not tonight.”
He sighs, rests his chin on the top of her head, and tightens his hold on her, nuzzling gently against her hair. He knows what is cost her to admit that she was wrong, that she made a mistake.
Tonight is not a night to open old wounds—there will be a time for that, a ripping of the bandaid to clean the wound beneath it and let it heal. Tonight, though, they need only each other.
He drops a kiss to the top of her head, settles his hands on the small of her back. “Okay,” he murmurs, tilting his head down to catch her eye. “Lead the way, sweetheart.”
Her eyes spark at the affectionate name and it’s impossible for him to not lean down and kiss her softly.
The moments as they ready themselves for bed are awkward ones. Neither have slept beside another person in a long, long time and their steps feel out of sync. But then the lights are off, a pistol resides in both of their nightstands, and there’s only a moment of hesitation before Gil reaches across the wide expanse of the bed and pulls her into his arms, fitting her body firmly against his, ushering her closer with a murmured, “C’mere.”
She sighs when his arm wraps around her waist, when his knees slot behind hers, their bodies pressed together from shoulder to ankle.
A soft kiss to her shoulder later, his nose pressed into the crook of her neck, and his palm splayed widely on her abdomen later, she finally relaxes. Her hand tangles with his and she lets herself be surrounded by the feel of him.
For the first time in years, they both sleep through the night, undisturbed by the horrors of their past, and hopeful—for once—for the future.
Finally, they are home.