Chapter Text
The door clicked shut behind them and Ziva was already removing her clothes.
Tony, a few steps behind her, froze on the landing. He hadn’t second guessed her jacket and boots coming off the moment they arrived because she had a ‘no shoes in the house’ rule that had somehow also taken effect at his place. It wasn’t until she grabbed the hem of her top, pulling it over her head to expose a simple yet alluring black bra that he stopped short.
He swallowed hard, his pulse tripping and his focus detoured by the graceful arch her blouse made floating to his floor. This felt like a dream, right down to time going too fast and too slow simultaneously. He was still glued to the spot, fearful any sudden move might tip the scales toward wakefulness…
Then the bra straps slipped off her shoulders, stuttering down toned arms as if hesitant to part from the satin of her skin.
Tony knew the feeling.
And– yep –there she was, standing in his apartment, torso totally bare.
“What– what are– what?” Intelligible words failed him. His face wasn’t faring much better. Mouth slack. Eyes bugging out of their sockets as if he was a cartoon character. Was he blushing?
Oh, he was absolutely blushing – and then some. (He wasn’t sure what the ‘some’ was, but it was happening, too.)
As if just remembering he was there, Ziva paused her blithe striptease and flashed a smile. A knowing smile.
“Are you stroking out?”
“It’s, uh, ‘freaking out.’ Or maybe you’re going for ‘having a stroke’?” Correcting her idiom errors was automatic. It served to jump-start his brain, the gears grinding back to life. “Both of which are pretty accurate at this very second, but…”
Their eyes found each other – hers golden with mischief, his likely all pupil – and that was when he had the good sense to look away from his half-naked partner.
Naked. Partner.
Gibbs was going to murder him. How the bossman would find out, that was irrelevant. He would and Tony would die. Period.
Sure, he and Ziva had been flirting with the line. Flirting rather boldly, in fact, with the line between professional colleagues and…more than that. Which was to say, they’d kissed, a lot, in dark, secret corners and parked cars; a couple dinner-and-a-movie nights had progressed to the make-out stage and under-the-clothes groping, only to be interrupted by ringing cell phones that led to monopolizing, week-long cases. The other day, she’d given his ass a particularly gratifying squeeze in the back of the elevator–with Gibbs and McGee riding along, no less. (Talk about a kink he didn’t know he had.) But they hadn't gotten this far yet.
Come to think of it, they hadn’t seen each other fully undressed since their married assassins op four years ago.
Four years was forever in naked-time.
That might explain him acting like a prepubescent boy caught with his first Playboy and a box of tissues. Ziva was taking a big leap for them, for their budding relationship; a leap that would officially elevate them beyond just partners. And he was thrown off-balance. Him! Anthony DiNozzo, Jr., lover of the ladies, romancer of the fairer sex. What the hell was going on?
“Look at me, Tony.” Her honey-smooth voice enticed him as much as what it was offering. “I know you want to…”
He did. He really did.
“Wait.” His jacket and loafers went sailing, followed by his suit coat, tie, and after wrestling with a million buttons, his dress shirt. “There, we’re even. A chest for a chest.”
Her answering chuckles were raspy and low. “Are you ready now?”
“Ready.” From his socked feet, Tony lifted his gaze.
Beautiful.
His memory had achieved excellence in preserving her image, from the flat plane of her stomach to the twin ladders of her ribs and deep valley between her breasts. Yet an urge struck him to take her in like some people did a piece of art. Hours upon hours his eyes could have traced the sinuous run of skin leading to her pointy hip bones, or traveled the razor sharp ridges of her clavicle, searching out every slight change, every new scar since he’d last had this chance.
“Wow,” he breathed. It seemed appropriate and at the same time, inadequate. “I, uh…”
“Yessss?” The single word elongated into a hiss, doubling as a reaction to her own hands cupping her breasts, fingers kneading into the plump mounds.
A skipped inhale lodged in his throat and nearly choked him, but nothing could sway his attention. If this glorious experience was real, and especially if it was indeed the most wonderful of dreams, he wanted it permanently etched into his mind's eye. A piece of heaven to get him through the old folks home someday: that random Tuesday evening when Ziva David felt herself up in his living room.
“I can do that for you,” he pleaded, voice hoarse. “Gladly.”
Eagerness made him itchy. Now that one barrier of intimacy had been crossed, he was targeting the next.
Holding his gaze, Ziva toyed with the aroused peaks of her nipples. “Why aren’t you?”
Those were the magic words, as if she was the hypnotist and he, the happy victim of her trance, who was drawn into the charged air their bodies in close proximity seemed to generate, no matter the context.
“‘Cause I am a stupid, stupid man,” he admitted freely, deciding then and there that brushing accidentally-on-purpose by each other at work or sweaty sparring sessions in the gym would never again be enough compared to this. He’d always want more, more and more of her.
He could see Ziva preferred their current closeness, too. A rush of color overwhelmed her cheeks and breastbone; the pulse point in her neck fluttered like a hummingbird in flight. Tipping her chin, she dragged her darkened gaze up from his mouth, her own lips parted, yet giving the impression of – if not a full smile – sweet anticipation.
“I do not seduce stupid men, Tony.” She swayed ever closer, their bare chests grazing and away, grazing and away, synchronizing with their hungered breaths.
Grabbing her waist, he tugged her flush with his hips, ending the tease. The motion seemed to jolt him into place as well. Uncertainty for where this would land them on the other side flit at the back of his brain, but her heated curves were doing a fine job grounding him in the here and now.
“Then it’s a good thing I was planning on wising up.” The whispered promise coincided with him following through on another: his knuckles skimmed up from under her left breast, circling the rough nipple, before he covered her completely.
Ziva gasped against his jaw. A name. His name.
Trembles cascaded over them, raising gooseflesh on their arms, as though they’d been caught in a flash rainstorm.
He sighed her name in return, his heart jack-hammering beneath the hand she placed on his chest, curling her nails through his short hairs and into the skin below. Bracing herself, he realized. Who was he to disappoint?
Tony deepened the pressure and her tan breast swelled generously between the slits of his fingers. The weight of her, the softness and perfect fit in his palm. It was everything he imagined – and then some. (He was starting to really like the ‘some.’)
His partner mewed in agreement of his actions and slid her free hand over his, guiding him, urging a firmer touch.
Smirking, he dipped his mouth to her ear. “You’re fucking amazing, you know that? Fucking amazing, Ziva.”
“I know,” she replied, all sexy and panting from his hands alone.
Wait until I get my tongue on you where I want it most…
Hardening at the prospect of her pleasured screams – and what exactly he’d do to earn them – a puff of laughter slipped by said tongue licking and laving along the side of her throat. “Someone’s cocky tonight.”
“Mm, yes you are.” Her thigh passed over his groin once…twice, more than proving her point.
Tony groaned into her neck. He could have taken her, hard and fast, right there. It had been a few years since he’d had sex anywhere besides a bed, but the rug, the couch, the nearest wall were all viable options with Ziva half-naked and making noises she only ever made in his best fantasies – not to mention her leg was still brushing against his alert cock, back and forth. Back and–
Control he didn’t know he possessed curbed the impulse. Like hell he was gonna squander this fateful collision of lust and timing and opportunity and…planets aligning, probably, in a hurried screw against his front door.
Not daring to break contact, Tony slid his hands from one spot on her skin to another: waist to her low back, breast to her neck to her nape and into her hair, gathering the silken strands around his fingers like reins. The slightest tug caused her head to fall back, her face to rise; she released a growl and a demand he didn’t catch, but he loved how her lips pouted at his obvious distraction. And God, he wanted to give her everything, and make her beg, and kiss her breathless, and…
“Bed.” He snagged her bottom lip between his teeth, sucking it into his mouth for a quick drag of her intoxicating impatience, then spun her by the hips and ordered, “Now.”