From a distance, the look on his face resembled nothing less than a mild amusement at her expense. It was better than indifference she admitted, but rankled nonetheless. He carried no outward strain from treading the same razor's edge of this relationship that she did. He didn't deserve to, she reasoned, it was enough that she was looking over both their shoulders. A curl of unease stirred in her stomach. Open door, locked door, it wouldn't matter come the time. She knew with a cold certainty that Svetlana would never let this drop, not since Shepard had found out what the link was between the mark she left alive and the kill Gibbs had made in the backwaters of Paris, City of Lovers.

Her nostrils flared, taking in the taint in the air. What would she feel like, she forced herself to consider, if Gibbs were taken from her. She knew, under the same circumstances, she would extract the proper vengeance, even if it took an age to do so.

He shifted again in her periphery, while she searched briefly for her missing underwear.

"I don't got all day," he drawled testily. His keen eyes traced her head to toe, lingering on her waist.

"Am I keeping you from something?" she asked archly with one last disgusted look at her surroundings. It wasn't like there were that many places for a pair of panties to get themselves lost. She narrowed her eyes at him, suspicion clouding her thoughts.

"Jack. Bed," he reeled off. "You," he added laconically.

She paced slowly towards him, watching his chin rise the closer she approached. "Keeping my underwear doesn't mean I'm staying," she stated, wishing she felt as determined as she sounded. The pitfalls of sharing the night with him yawned ahead of her. There would be no sleeping, she thought, not in the restful sense anyway, then frowned. Staying was not in the plan. Her plan at least. Goosebumps crept over her upper back. The back and forth felt like a storm brewing, the worst kind, that started with a warm breath of air and grew into a towering thunderhead in no time at all.

He gave her a one shouldered shrug. "Where's your car keys, I'll get your bag." From the light in his eyes and the way he held his head to one side, she felt as if he could hear all the arguments she was having with herself about staying. Handing over her keys would feel like cutting off her legs, and she couldn't bear to be without an exit strategy. If she said yes, he won. If she said no, she lost, and she really did want to clean up.

She shortened her steps, drawing out the time it took for her to reach him. She scanned his face, trying in vain to work out what he would gain from keeping her from her own bed. Sex. Company. Sex. Winning.

"I don't want you in my car."

"I don't want you in your car. I got a perfectly good bed."

She tried again, in her most reasonable voice. Her stomach tightened, traitorous nipples hardening while her body followed its own version of the evening's trajectory from this point on. "Jethro, this isn't a good idea."

"Because you don't carry spare underwear in your overnight?"

"Because I don't carry spare spark plugs in my overnight."

He threw his head back so she could barely see the smile erupt on his face.

"I won't take your plugs," and she knew every word of it was a lie. He knew it too, she saw it from the way he curved his bottom lip into his mouth, just shy of biting it or saying something he didn't mean to share. His eyebrows twitched upwards, the right one staying angled higher than its brethren.

She stopped in front of him and put her hands on her hips. "You know where I keep them." They were in her purse at the top of the stair. She could go straight to the bathroom, he wouldn't miss it. "You know where to put them back, too. Just the bag, Jethro," she warned.

He jerked his chin in recognition, eyes twinkling in delight and swung his eyes left, up the stairs. She took one step and then another, feeling him shadow her close behind. Without slowing she reminded him loftily, "I mean it."

His arms came around her without warning, trapping her arms tight against her body and planting a swift kiss on the side of her neck, before releasing them just as fast. In a voice she recognised from a Parisian bedroom from another time, in another world, he replied, "so do I."

..][..

Her cell woke them in the morning while it was still dark. Gibbs sat up, drew back the covers without so much a glance in her direction and padded downstairs. When she followed a few minutes later he was already gone, leaving her a thick, black coffee in a travel mug and a toasted bagel on the breakfast bar in the kitchen.

She spun slowly in the empty space, still wearing only an over sized grey tee shirt with the letters NIS picked out in navy blue on the front. There was no sign that he had had anything at all. There was barely any sign that anyone even lived here. She folded her arms tight against her body, suddenly cold having been so warm in his embrace all night.

Shepard retraced her steps upstairs to the bedroom. Her cell ringing suddenly in the silence made her start. The lit screen flashed up the one word she half hoped it wouldn't. 'Gibbs'. She snatched it up, half way between annoyance and relief. Over the sound of rubber soles thumping rhythmically on tarmac, his low growl cut through, sounding barely out of breath.

"You can take mine," he paused. "Keys are in the desk drawer."

"Jethro," she said, as if speaking to a particularly aggravating child. "What's wrong with mine?"

"It's in the basement," he said, in his best 'obviously' tone

"What is?"

"You'll know it when you see it."

Shepard drew in a breath to snap at him, when she let it out in a rush. The bastard had already hung up. She pursed her lips and headed for the bathroom.

When she made it downstairs for the second time and stuck her head over the handrail into the basement, flipping on the lights, she was greeted with the sight of her disembodied steering wheel. A crowbar lay innocently beside it. Her lips flattened into a thin line as she made a call.

"I need a tow truck. Now." The cell flipped shut in her hand with loud snap.

In between pacing, swearing vengance and silent fuming, it took a while for what he was doing to sink in. It didn't alleviate her annoyance in the least, but it did mean that he was heading for the office and the job that went with it.

A/N Bonus epi :)