It's been almost six weeks since they landed in Bolivia, six weeks of pretending to be Cougar's sweet American wife, six weeks of sharing his bed and holding his hand and making space for him in her personal bubble. She's always been comfortable around him, but it's like someone reached in and dialed that up to eleven, because now she orbits him like it's second nature, his silent lurking presence at her elbow so familiar that she doesn't even look up when he looms over her.
"See," she says, pointing at the screen of one of the two laptops she's got set up on their little Formica kitchen table, fully expecting the guys who are crowded around her to be paying attention. "It's got his dirty little fingerprints all over it. This guy is like a fucking toddler, all sticky hands and trailing crumbs. This is sloppy fucking work, I tell you, I could do better than this when I was fourteen." She sounds personally offended, like sloppy hacking is worse than any other offense she can think of.
Clay motions for her to get out of the way so he can peer at her screen from far too close — he has to get bifocals at some point, she's almost tempted to start placing bets on how long he's going to hold out — so she pushes out of her chair and stretches, feeling her back pop, before she moves closer to the stove. She wants more coffee.
Cougar's standing right there before she can even articulate her desire, holding out a cup of coffee that has so much sugar you could stand a spoon up in it. "Thanks, hermoso," she murmurs, accepting the cup and taking a small sip before leaning into his space to give him a peck on the lips. "Mm, perfect. I think I'm keeping you."
He opens his mouth to reply. That's when the kiss deepens from an innocent little peck to something that's not entirely so chaste. He steps back as soon as he realizes what's happened, gaping at Jake and wondering if she even realizes what she's done.
These past six weeks have been awful and incredible. No more worrying that he'll lose Jake to some random stranger. He doesn't know what to do, but he can see Pooch and Roque gaping at him out of the corner of his eye and he feels like staring right back because he doesn't know what goes on in Jensen's head.
There's no one to convince around. So why did she just do that?
"Uh, J...?" Pooch says calmly. "That some new kind of Bolivia hello you're working on?"
It would have been perfectly chaste if Cougar hadn't opened his mouth just as she leans in to make contact. As it stands, he shifts and she moves to brace herself by lifting her hand to his waist, hanging on to his side to regain her balance. She's spent so much time pressed up against him that it feels entirely natural, which is why she doesn't notice the stares of everyone around them when she leans back and buries her nose in her coffee.
She doesn't necessarily step out of Cougar's space, though, nor does she take her hand off his waist, letting her fingers twist in the hem of his soft t-shirt and rubbing it between her fingers absently. He's wearing her favorite shirt of his, the soft one with the frayed patch at the hem, and she fiddles with the loose edges as she lets the caffeine and sugar from her coffee seep into her system.
"Huh?" It takes her a minute to respond to Pooch, busy with her coffee, and when she does, it's clear she doesn't understand what he's talking about. "Mm, no?" She turns to look at Cougar as if expecting him to back her up, and only then realizes how close she is to him and what she's just done.
Squeaking, she lets go of his shirt and claps her hand over her mouth, a rosy blush blooming in her cheeks as she stares first at him and then at the others with wide eyes.
Cougar's still trying to process what's happened. He might be quiet most times, but right now he's gone completely blank as he gapes at her, his lips still hot and burning with the touch of hers from just a moment ago, not to mention she keeps touching him. He's rebooting, his brain shocked white by the fact that she kissed him.
In all the time they've been pretending, there's been touching of course. There's been bed sharing and chaste kisses to temples, cheeks, and shoulders. They've never kissed, though.
"Great," Clay mutters from the computer. "Cougar's broken and Jensen looks like she's going to burst."
Roque and Pooch, though, look like they're digging for money. Cougar wishes he had it in him to be affronted, but his brain can only process two things right now. Jensen and kiss again and again in a loop.
Roque and Pooch are congratulating themselves and bickering about who owes whom more money, Clay is still giving her that look over his shoulder at the computer, and Cougar is just standing there, still as a statue and twice as quiet. She's used to Cougar's silences, but this is fucking unnerving. So, Jake does what she always does when she's nervous or scared, she opens her mouth and lets words fall out.
"Christ, Cougs, I'm so sorry," she whispers, not wanting the others to be party to this but knowing it's inevitable with the size of their kitchen. "It was just...reflex, y'know, I wasn't thinking. I'm sorry. We can...pretend it never happened, okay? Or like, put it down to cabin fever, if you want. I know we're all going stir-crazy down here." But the thing is, she isn't. Her internet connection is kind of shitty and she doesn't have any of her high-tech toys, just a few Frankensteined laptops, but she's happy here. She feels girly and free, like a whole new woman, and she's pretty sure that's all down to the fact that she and Cougar have been playing house instead of wallowing in their misery like everyone else.
Roque has started cackling, throwing his head back and clapping his hand to his chest, and when she turns to glare at him, even Pooch is guffawing.
"You guys are such assholes, I swear to god," she mutters darkly, feeling very exposed suddenly in her backless sundress and bare feet.
"Aw, JJ, dont be like that," Pooch wheedles. She'd be more inclined to not be like that if he wasn't trying unsuccessfully to stifle a wide grin and rocking in his seat from the punch Roque landed on his shoulder.
She grimaces. "Don't call me that." Only Cougar gets to call her that.
"How come you don't go around kissing the rest of us?" Roque teases, his teeth bright and white in his face as he grins at her. Clay rolls his eyes. "That's not fair, bro."
"Oh fuck you." She flips him off, feeling her shoulders start to curl in, something hot and tight curling in her belly that's shifting from embarrassment to shame. She turns to Cougar for backup and finds him still just staring at her. Her shoulders curl in even more. "Carlos, say something."
He processes about half of the words she's rattling off at him, because his brain keeps looping those two things again. Jensen, kiss in a loop and it roll around again and again, until other things start to filter in. The warmth of her lips. How it had felt with her hands fisting the fabric of his shirt. Slowly, things are starting to clear up and he works past his shock into something softer. "Bastante," he snaps at Roque and Pooch, throwing a warning look at Clay before he decides to join in on the fun.
Cougar reaches out to take her hand in his, tugging her along towards the balcony where they can close a door. It's stifling and hot outside, but there's a little more privacy if you ignore the fact that the other three aren't making much of an attempt to hide their curiosity.
Even Clay, who's trying to look above it all, is lurking a little closer to the window than before. Cougar tries not to think about how everyone is so close when this is one of the more private moments of his life and he'd prefer to keep it that way.
"You kissed me," is his rough, quiet comment. His back is to the balcony door where they can't see his face. He adjusts the brim of his hat so she can see him under it, not entirely sure he knows what he wants to say. He knows what he feels. He knows he liked it, knows it hadn't been enough, knows that his jealousy frissoned and spiralled when Pooch called her JJ and Roque teased her about kissing the rest of them. Something bristles in his chest to think of them kissing her. It's taken six weeks to break, six weeks to get to the point he's wanted since night one, and now that is has happened, he can't even find the words. At least, not in English. "Lo que tomó tanto tiempo," he exhales.
She doesn't flinch when Cougar snaps at the others, but she does close her eyes reflexively, something about his tone and the sharpness of his voice making her want to shy away.
Yes, it's embarrassing that she kissed him without thinking about it. Yes, the rest of her team are giant dickbags who won't let this go for years. Yes, the fact that they were apparently betting on them is ridiculous and stupid and so entirely like them.
She just hadn't expected Cougar to shut down like this. He must be really angry.
Feeling miserable and small in a way she doesn't often feel, she lets him grab her hand and tow her across the tiny living room to the balcony, giving serious thought to just throwing herself off it when they get there to spare herself the humiliation of what's going to come next. The balcony is barely big enough for both of them to be out here at the same time, but they manage to fit, Cougar shutting the door behind him and blocking her exit, forcing her to try and make as much space between them as possible by pressing herself against the iron railing, the metal hot in the morning sun and burning against the small of her back.
"I know, I'm sorry," she whispers, clutching at her coffee in both hands like a lifeline and looking at the small hole in the seam of the shoulder of his shirt instead of his face. She can't bring herself to see the shock and rejection she knows is there. When he carries on in Spanish, she makes a low, miserable sound and closes her eyes. She can't translate right now. "English, Cougar, please."
It's frustrating because she can't do Spanish right now and he doesn't think he can do English without a good deal of preparation and thought. He looks up and finds himself caught off guard when he sees the misery on her face, not expecting to see that. He's so used to Jensen when she's warm and happy and pleased. It's been six weeks of that, and suddenly it's all up in smoke because, why?
Because she thinks he's upset that she kissed him.
No, this is all wrong. She has it all wrong, but Cougar's limited English is going to make it difficult for him to explain it without making a mess of it all. "Why," he starts in English, picking his words very carefully, "did you take so long?"
"I just wasn't think—what?" Her automatic response gets derailed halfway through, Cougar's slow question filtering in through the panic that's buzzing in her head and leaving her wrong-footed.
"I..." She honestly doesn't know what to say right now, her mouth hanging open as her eyes flick up to meet his, wide and blue in the bright Bolivian sunshine.
He doesn't look angry. A little stunned, maybe, but she's known Cougar for long enough, spent enough time with him, that she can read his minute facial expressions pretty well, and no, he's not angry. Frustrated, maybe, but she can't tell if that's at her or at his own struggles with coherency. She's not very coherent right now, either.
He's exhaling slowly, trying to summon out whatever English that he has and he doesn't know how to say this properly. Six weeks of living together under each other's feet and being married, even falsely. He's been living with her and realizing he wants to live with no one else in the world. He wants this, but he'd never thought that she did.
The kiss is more hope than he's had in months. "You want me?" he asks, because this is easy to ask. This is easy enough to find out.
She can't quite read him. Part of that is her own nerves, she knows, but part of that is also the fact that he's got such a good goddamn poker face at the worst of times, and right now the only thing she has to work off of it a slight widening of his eyes and a thinning of his lips.
It could mean anything.
But shit. He's a good man. Her best friend. He won't hold a little crush against her, not after everything they've been through together. Either he'll be okay with it or he'll let her down easy, but he's not the type of man to get weird about shit like this.
She squares her shoulders and lifts her chin. "Yes," she says clearly, stomping down the butterflies that erupt in her stomach. She's not going to apologize again, and she's not going to try and let him off the hook, because there's no hook to let him off of, and they both know that. She hopes they both know that.
Over his shoulder, she can see Roque crossing his arms over his chest and Pooch is giving her a thumbs-up, pointing at Cougar's back and then making a big heart in the air before pointing at her. Her eyes narrow.
He's nodding his head before he even realizes what he's doing. Words might fail him, but he knows that the one thing that will remain steady is the fact that he can nod and mouth 'si', because he hasn't got anything else to offer but himself, his heart, and everything on a platter.
"You said there were two types of guys," he manages to find his English. "Not me. You never said." Jake is the one who talks and can navigate whole conversations. If she had feelings, why didn't she just say?
For a moment, she has no idea what he's talking about. That conversation they had the first day they were pretending to be married has been all but put out of her mind, and she stares at him in confusion for a moment before it all clicks and she scoffs with a mixture of incredulity and irritation.
"Two type of guys that want me," she clarifies, letting go of her coffee with one hand so she can gesticulate wildly in mid-air to accentuate her point. "Not two types of guys that I like! Do you seriously think I want a man to break me down and make me smaller and weaker than him? Cougar come on. You've known me how long? That's fucking ridiculous."
Scowling at him, feeling cross that they've both been tiptoeing around this for god knows how long, she lowers her voice a little so that the guys aren't getting a crystal-clear play by play of this conversation. Bad enough they're watching them and making no move to be sneaky about it. "I've been practically throwing myself at you for weeks, man, you never gave any indication you were interested." She huffs a laugh, her expression wobbling between annoyed and almost tearful. "For a sniper, you're so fucking blind."
And she decides to take matters into her own hands, reaching up and knocking his hat off his head before grabbing a handful of his hair and yanking him into a proper, fervent kiss.
He wants to argue 'what point of curling up to you' isn't interested. What point of him touching her every opportunity he gets and kissing her temple and holding her hand isn't his interest in her? He's frustrated enough to want to start ranting at her, but before he can do anything or argue, his hat is flying to the balcony ground and his shoulders are hitting the glass door behind him, rattling it as he tangles his fingers into her hair and gives himself over.
He melts into the kiss, his hands drifting down to her waist to wrap an arm around it to hold on tight. Now that he's got her pressed up against him, he refuses to let go. "JJ," he exhales fondly, when he nudges his nose against her jaw. "You should have said."
There's a slightly-muffled whoop coming from the other side of the door, but she's too busy pressing herself up against Cougar to pay attention enough to tell which one of their idiotic friends it is.
Her mug drops from her fingers to shatter on the tile of their balcony, but she doesn't even pull away to swear, too busy sliding her now-free hand into Cougar's hair to hold on all the tighter.
She wants to say that fireworks go off when he kisses her, or the skies open and a heavenly chorus comes down to serenade them for what they're doing, but honestly, it's not an earth-shattering moment. It's comfortable. Sinking into Cougar's arms feels right, like this is something that they should have been doing for years, like they fit together perfectly and this was meant to be.
His arm is warm and solid against her back, his hand spreading wide against her side as he nuzzles her jaw. "I'm sorry," she murmurs with a happy sigh, running her fingers through his hair. "I just didn't want to lose you. You're my best friend. I didn't want to fuck up what we have."
"Doing the opposite of that, I think," is Cougar's opinion, breathing in and out in tandem with hers, wanting to be with her in every sense of the word. Six weeks of lost time is something he wants so badly to catch up on and he wants to start now. He reaches behind him for the balcony door, reluctantly prying himself away from her in order to glare at the others.
"Max, tomorrow," he says, danger in his eyes when Roque looks like he might offer dirty comments. "Out," he says calmly, landing on Clay. "We'll handle this." They'll make sure that it works. He gives Jake a long look as they leave the apartment, refusing to take his eyes off her.
Picking her way through the broken shards of china and spilled coffee in bare feet is difficult enough that she keeps her eyes on the ground when Cougar tows her back inside, using it as an excuse to avoid meeting the knowing glances she's getting from her teammates.
His hat is a little damp, but at least the dark brown leather masks whatever coffee stains she may have inadvertently left on it, and she hands it over to him when he asks, still silent but looking so pleased and still a tiny bit overwhelmed that it should be obvious she's alright.
Cougar stands at the door and lets each and every one of them out, refusing to rise to any of the bait. When Clay goes first, he just gives Cougar a very serious look and mutters 'don't piss her off', which Roque snorts about, clapping Cougar on the shoulder while his gaze slides over Jensen.
"Your funeral, man," Roque says.
Pooch lingers, but he just gives Cougar a nod. "About time," is all he says. "Jesus, if I had to watch the two of you dancing and mooning for any longer, I was gonna accidentally run us off the road. Pooch's eyes can't take it." And then he's gone, too, letting Cougar close the door and take his hat.
At which point, they're alone. They're alone and Jensen has been kissing him. He smiles, then, a slow and smirking thing. "JJ," he says, setting his hat on the table, crooking his fingers towards himself. "Come here."
To avoid having to avoid eye contact any more, Jake decides to go pick up the bits of coffee mug she broke by letting it slide from her fingers like a total idiot. They're down to one cup, now, which means either they'll have to alternate who gets to have coffee, or she's going to have to learn to take it with less sugar so they can share.
She's still carefully picking up shards of porcelain when the door finally shuts behind the rest of her team, and by the time she gets to her feet, Cougar is standing and watching her with the sort of grin on his face that brings a blush to hers.
"I can't believe I did that in front of the team," she breathes, giggling a little despite herself. She does as she's told, though she does take a brief detour to dump the broken cup in the trash, but then she makes a beeline straight for Cougar. "They're never going to let it go. Never."
Cougar grins as he bends down a little so that when she's close enough, he can lift her into his arms, hands on her ass and groping for all the weeks he hasn't done enough groping as he starts to kiss a line up her neck, breathing her in and wondering how he could have slept next to her for six weeks and not done this. His willpower is good, but not that good.
"I'm glad you did it," he says. "We would have gone much longer without this, if you hadn't."
She's used to looking down at Cougar slightly, but not from this height. Still, when he lifts her in his arms, she wraps her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his waist, laughing and then muffling a little 'meep' sound when he gropes her ass and presses his lips to her neck.
"If you weren't such a goddamn martyr..." she tries to complain, but it's hard when he's kissing her skin like that. Her legs tighten around his waist and she bites her lip for a moment before continuing, "we might have done something sooner."
He draws back, an affronted and confused look on his face as he gapes at her. "Martyr?" he echoes, holding onto her as he begins to carry her towards the little bed that they've been sharing. "How have I been a martyr? You've been the one not saying anything."
"Neither have you!" She laughs, tangling both her hands in his hair and bending her neck to kiss him, indulging herself by making it deeper than the others they've shared, trusting him not to walk her into any walls. "This explains so much about why you always get weird when nobody's around."
"I don't talk. You do," he says, like it's the nature of things between them. He gently lays her out on the bed and stands above it, narrowing his eyes at her comments. "Weird? I'm not weird," he growls defensively, because as far as he's concerned, nothing he does is weird.
Jake has never really had much cause to be alluring, always being too busy trying to prove herself, that she's not weak or less than the others, but she's seen enough movies to have some idea what she's doing. She props herself up on one elbow, her legs bending slightly, and reaches out for him with her free hand, letting her lips curl in a way she hopes looks coquettish and not constipated. That would kill the mood.
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bolivia; rule 63; kisses!!
"See," she says, pointing at the screen of one of the two laptops she's got set up on their little Formica kitchen table, fully expecting the guys who are crowded around her to be paying attention. "It's got his dirty little fingerprints all over it. This guy is like a fucking toddler, all sticky hands and trailing crumbs. This is sloppy fucking work, I tell you, I could do better than this when I was fourteen." She sounds personally offended, like sloppy hacking is worse than any other offense she can think of.
Clay motions for her to get out of the way so he can peer at her screen from far too close — he has to get bifocals at some point, she's almost tempted to start placing bets on how long he's going to hold out — so she pushes out of her chair and stretches, feeling her back pop, before she moves closer to the stove. She wants more coffee.
Cougar's standing right there before she can even articulate her desire, holding out a cup of coffee that has so much sugar you could stand a spoon up in it. "Thanks, hermoso," she murmurs, accepting the cup and taking a small sip before leaning into his space to give him a peck on the lips. "Mm, perfect. I think I'm keeping you."
Re: bolivia; rule 63; kisses!!
These past six weeks have been awful and incredible. No more worrying that he'll lose Jake to some random stranger. He doesn't know what to do, but he can see Pooch and Roque gaping at him out of the corner of his eye and he feels like staring right back because he doesn't know what goes on in Jensen's head.
There's no one to convince around. So why did she just do that?
"Uh, J...?" Pooch says calmly. "That some new kind of Bolivia hello you're working on?"
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She doesn't necessarily step out of Cougar's space, though, nor does she take her hand off his waist, letting her fingers twist in the hem of his soft t-shirt and rubbing it between her fingers absently. He's wearing her favorite shirt of his, the soft one with the frayed patch at the hem, and she fiddles with the loose edges as she lets the caffeine and sugar from her coffee seep into her system.
"Huh?" It takes her a minute to respond to Pooch, busy with her coffee, and when she does, it's clear she doesn't understand what he's talking about. "Mm, no?" She turns to look at Cougar as if expecting him to back her up, and only then realizes how close she is to him and what she's just done.
Squeaking, she lets go of his shirt and claps her hand over her mouth, a rosy blush blooming in her cheeks as she stares first at him and then at the others with wide eyes.
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In all the time they've been pretending, there's been touching of course. There's been bed sharing and chaste kisses to temples, cheeks, and shoulders. They've never kissed, though.
"Great," Clay mutters from the computer. "Cougar's broken and Jensen looks like she's going to burst."
Roque and Pooch, though, look like they're digging for money. Cougar wishes he had it in him to be affronted, but his brain can only process two things right now. Jensen and kiss again and again in a loop.
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"Christ, Cougs, I'm so sorry," she whispers, not wanting the others to be party to this but knowing it's inevitable with the size of their kitchen. "It was just...reflex, y'know, I wasn't thinking. I'm sorry. We can...pretend it never happened, okay? Or like, put it down to cabin fever, if you want. I know we're all going stir-crazy down here." But the thing is, she isn't. Her internet connection is kind of shitty and she doesn't have any of her high-tech toys, just a few Frankensteined laptops, but she's happy here. She feels girly and free, like a whole new woman, and she's pretty sure that's all down to the fact that she and Cougar have been playing house instead of wallowing in their misery like everyone else.
Roque has started cackling, throwing his head back and clapping his hand to his chest, and when she turns to glare at him, even Pooch is guffawing.
"You guys are such assholes, I swear to god," she mutters darkly, feeling very exposed suddenly in her backless sundress and bare feet.
"Aw, JJ, dont be like that," Pooch wheedles. She'd be more inclined to not be like that if he wasn't trying unsuccessfully to stifle a wide grin and rocking in his seat from the punch Roque landed on his shoulder.
She grimaces. "Don't call me that." Only Cougar gets to call her that.
"How come you don't go around kissing the rest of us?" Roque teases, his teeth bright and white in his face as he grins at her. Clay rolls his eyes. "That's not fair, bro."
"Oh fuck you." She flips him off, feeling her shoulders start to curl in, something hot and tight curling in her belly that's shifting from embarrassment to shame. She turns to Cougar for backup and finds him still just staring at her. Her shoulders curl in even more. "Carlos, say something."
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Cougar reaches out to take her hand in his, tugging her along towards the balcony where they can close a door. It's stifling and hot outside, but there's a little more privacy if you ignore the fact that the other three aren't making much of an attempt to hide their curiosity.
Even Clay, who's trying to look above it all, is lurking a little closer to the window than before. Cougar tries not to think about how everyone is so close when this is one of the more private moments of his life and he'd prefer to keep it that way.
"You kissed me," is his rough, quiet comment. His back is to the balcony door where they can't see his face. He adjusts the brim of his hat so she can see him under it, not entirely sure he knows what he wants to say. He knows what he feels. He knows he liked it, knows it hadn't been enough, knows that his jealousy frissoned and spiralled when Pooch called her JJ and Roque teased her about kissing the rest of them. Something bristles in his chest to think of them kissing her. It's taken six weeks to break, six weeks to get to the point he's wanted since night one, and now that is has happened, he can't even find the words. At least, not in English. "Lo que tomó tanto tiempo," he exhales.
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Yes, it's embarrassing that she kissed him without thinking about it. Yes, the rest of her team are giant dickbags who won't let this go for years. Yes, the fact that they were apparently betting on them is ridiculous and stupid and so entirely like them.
She just hadn't expected Cougar to shut down like this. He must be really angry.
Feeling miserable and small in a way she doesn't often feel, she lets him grab her hand and tow her across the tiny living room to the balcony, giving serious thought to just throwing herself off it when they get there to spare herself the humiliation of what's going to come next. The balcony is barely big enough for both of them to be out here at the same time, but they manage to fit, Cougar shutting the door behind him and blocking her exit, forcing her to try and make as much space between them as possible by pressing herself against the iron railing, the metal hot in the morning sun and burning against the small of her back.
"I know, I'm sorry," she whispers, clutching at her coffee in both hands like a lifeline and looking at the small hole in the seam of the shoulder of his shirt instead of his face. She can't bring herself to see the shock and rejection she knows is there. When he carries on in Spanish, she makes a low, miserable sound and closes her eyes. She can't translate right now. "English, Cougar, please."
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Because she thinks he's upset that she kissed him.
No, this is all wrong. She has it all wrong, but Cougar's limited English is going to make it difficult for him to explain it without making a mess of it all. "Why," he starts in English, picking his words very carefully, "did you take so long?"
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"I..." She honestly doesn't know what to say right now, her mouth hanging open as her eyes flick up to meet his, wide and blue in the bright Bolivian sunshine.
He doesn't look angry. A little stunned, maybe, but she's known Cougar for long enough, spent enough time with him, that she can read his minute facial expressions pretty well, and no, he's not angry. Frustrated, maybe, but she can't tell if that's at her or at his own struggles with coherency. She's not very coherent right now, either.
"I'm...sorry?"
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The kiss is more hope than he's had in months. "You want me?" he asks, because this is easy to ask. This is easy enough to find out.
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It could mean anything.
But shit. He's a good man. Her best friend. He won't hold a little crush against her, not after everything they've been through together. Either he'll be okay with it or he'll let her down easy, but he's not the type of man to get weird about shit like this.
She squares her shoulders and lifts her chin. "Yes," she says clearly, stomping down the butterflies that erupt in her stomach. She's not going to apologize again, and she's not going to try and let him off the hook, because there's no hook to let him off of, and they both know that. She hopes they both know that.
Over his shoulder, she can see Roque crossing his arms over his chest and Pooch is giving her a thumbs-up, pointing at Cougar's back and then making a big heart in the air before pointing at her. Her eyes narrow.
"You want me too?" It's only half a question.
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"You said there were two types of guys," he manages to find his English. "Not me. You never said." Jake is the one who talks and can navigate whole conversations. If she had feelings, why didn't she just say?
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"Two type of guys that want me," she clarifies, letting go of her coffee with one hand so she can gesticulate wildly in mid-air to accentuate her point. "Not two types of guys that I like! Do you seriously think I want a man to break me down and make me smaller and weaker than him? Cougar come on. You've known me how long? That's fucking ridiculous."
Scowling at him, feeling cross that they've both been tiptoeing around this for god knows how long, she lowers her voice a little so that the guys aren't getting a crystal-clear play by play of this conversation. Bad enough they're watching them and making no move to be sneaky about it. "I've been practically throwing myself at you for weeks, man, you never gave any indication you were interested." She huffs a laugh, her expression wobbling between annoyed and almost tearful. "For a sniper, you're so fucking blind."
And she decides to take matters into her own hands, reaching up and knocking his hat off his head before grabbing a handful of his hair and yanking him into a proper, fervent kiss.
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He melts into the kiss, his hands drifting down to her waist to wrap an arm around it to hold on tight. Now that he's got her pressed up against him, he refuses to let go. "JJ," he exhales fondly, when he nudges his nose against her jaw. "You should have said."
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Her mug drops from her fingers to shatter on the tile of their balcony, but she doesn't even pull away to swear, too busy sliding her now-free hand into Cougar's hair to hold on all the tighter.
She wants to say that fireworks go off when he kisses her, or the skies open and a heavenly chorus comes down to serenade them for what they're doing, but honestly, it's not an earth-shattering moment. It's comfortable. Sinking into Cougar's arms feels right, like this is something that they should have been doing for years, like they fit together perfectly and this was meant to be.
His arm is warm and solid against her back, his hand spreading wide against her side as he nuzzles her jaw. "I'm sorry," she murmurs with a happy sigh, running her fingers through his hair. "I just didn't want to lose you. You're my best friend. I didn't want to fuck up what we have."
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"Max, tomorrow," he says, danger in his eyes when Roque looks like he might offer dirty comments. "Out," he says calmly, landing on Clay. "We'll handle this." They'll make sure that it works. He gives Jake a long look as they leave the apartment, refusing to take his eyes off her.
"Hat, please," is his calm request.
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His hat is a little damp, but at least the dark brown leather masks whatever coffee stains she may have inadvertently left on it, and she hands it over to him when he asks, still silent but looking so pleased and still a tiny bit overwhelmed that it should be obvious she's alright.
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"Your funeral, man," Roque says.
Pooch lingers, but he just gives Cougar a nod. "About time," is all he says. "Jesus, if I had to watch the two of you dancing and mooning for any longer, I was gonna accidentally run us off the road. Pooch's eyes can't take it." And then he's gone, too, letting Cougar close the door and take his hat.
At which point, they're alone. They're alone and Jensen has been kissing him. He smiles, then, a slow and smirking thing. "JJ," he says, setting his hat on the table, crooking his fingers towards himself. "Come here."
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She's still carefully picking up shards of porcelain when the door finally shuts behind the rest of her team, and by the time she gets to her feet, Cougar is standing and watching her with the sort of grin on his face that brings a blush to hers.
"I can't believe I did that in front of the team," she breathes, giggling a little despite herself. She does as she's told, though she does take a brief detour to dump the broken cup in the trash, but then she makes a beeline straight for Cougar. "They're never going to let it go. Never."
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"I'm glad you did it," he says. "We would have gone much longer without this, if you hadn't."
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"If you weren't such a goddamn martyr..." she tries to complain, but it's hard when he's kissing her skin like that. Her legs tighten around his waist and she bites her lip for a moment before continuing, "we might have done something sooner."
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Jake has never really had much cause to be alluring, always being too busy trying to prove herself, that she's not weak or less than the others, but she's seen enough movies to have some idea what she's doing. She props herself up on one elbow, her legs bending slightly, and reaches out for him with her free hand, letting her lips curl in a way she hopes looks coquettish and not constipated. That would kill the mood.
"Then stop being weird right now and come here."
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