It had started as her own sort of... internal investigation.

It wasn't case related (with the exception of the fact that most evidence was accrued while on duty, while on a case).

Were she Abby, it'd be more of a sort of a... scientific experiment.

And, really, it was a combination of both she supposed.

Because Abby had been the one to actually notice it first (rather, to actually voice it).

"It's good that you stand up to him. He likes that."

"What?"

"When he gets close to you. You don't back down."

She'd unconsciously known that, really. She'd physically known it - her skin had intrinsically realized the proximity of him was both a threat and a guarding and a snare of possession at once. Because he had no issue with leaning long up the back of her, or angling himself demanding and directly into her personal space. He'd never had any qualms about reaching for her wrist or using the flat of his palm to shy her back into some sort of safety.

He had no sense of personal space when it came to her, no respect for the damn oxygen she was breathing into her body. He'd pinned her to her own desk, knocked her unceremoniously to the ground, shoved her out of danger, pulled her into safety, slapped at her fingers, drawn her closer, pressed her away. He'd been gentle against her, softly reaching, but sometimes rough and tough and some days those hands... those damn beautiful hands...

Some days it infuriated her.

(He didn't do this to DiNozzo – not so questionably and intimately close. And with Abby it was sweet – it was always sweet. He was affectionate with Ducky, in a friendly masculine way. But this closeness, it seemed reserved for her.)

Other days it was... all the fresh soap and saw-dusted (all male) smell of him up in her nostrils and invading her lungs.

Sometimes it made her unconsciously lean just close enough back that they'd hold a tentative touching for moments, uncountable, unintentionally intentional.

Sometimes it was the only way she had of touching him, so she pressed back into his forward momentum, before he could withdraw from the realization of how close they were.

She knew that (sometimes) he let himself swallow the smell of her hair.

And at other times he just held still into how warm the press of his one part to her one part was.

So... she'd made a study of the uncharted moments, made a case study of his closeness.

She'd started testing his resolve in how close to her he could bring himself to really, really, be.

So, sure, yeah, she'd grabbed onto his sleeve and tucked her fingers closed, letting herself hang on. So, yes, first test was innocuous, innocent, not anywhere near an intimation of possible intimacy. At the moment when she would have usually pulled away she stubbornly dug her fingers tighter into the thickly warm and lush fabric of her favorite coat of his, clinging into the chocolate brown of the fabric. Then she swung half away from him, reflexively avoiding seeing his first reaction as she continued to hold tight, slinging something back toward where Tony was still in the truck.

When she looked back he was just quirking an unreadable smile at her, possibly both humor and confusion haunting it over his lips before she took the chance of wiping her fingers down the back of his arm.

"Photos?" She was already stepping away from him, easing back from the test of the touch.

He nodded agreement, glance thinning as he continued to watch her step away.

First results were... sorta inconclusive.

Which meant she'd need to obtain more results.

For comparison purposes. That's what she told herself.

It had been enterprisingly gently fixing his collar that made him swallow like his throat was lined with sharded up glass, slowly and carefully and with a near groaning of (the sweet sort of) pain.

His eyes had cast over her briefly as she smoothed his lapel down. And she'd intentionally ignored the shockingly blue searching of his glance, acting as though editing his clothing was both acceptable and normal.

In fact, she'd refused to meet his reaction at all – which had led to his fist clenching fast and tight as she'd continued stepping on around him with a polite "Excuse me.".

She pressed her fingers along his stomach, half shifting past him but stalling along his desk as she reached for the remote to the plasma. She'd been nodding agreement into something Tony was saying, most of her attention on the image she was pulling up on the screen even as a slim percentage of her brain was focusing on the strong swallowing breath he took, his lungs expanding under the flat press of her hand as she left it where it was.

She ignored the fact that he was intently staring at her (pretended to ignore it, really).

She rubbed her thumb deep into his chest as she answered Tony, a supposedly bored tone in her voice.

Then he caught along her elbow and turned the both of them toward the screen.

And she smirked into how soothingly he rubbed up the back of her arm before both their hands dropped.

It was DiNozzo's squinting tip of the head that had made him realize maybe... maybe he wasn't imagining it. Maybe he wasn't going absolutely flipping stark fucking nuts. Because when she'd intentionally stepped around the autopsy table, into his space, and (it seemed like purposefully) brushed herself grazing against his crotch... he'd thought, for a moment, that he was going round the bend.

She'd had plenty of space in the other direction.

Even if Tony had been to her left.

(Which, he assumed was why Tony had noticed at all – more a self conscious questioning of whether she was avoiding him, not wondering why she was rubbing all over the boss.)

"You going with her or not?" He waved his fingers toward the door and the younger man's attention snapped back into the moment.

DiNozzo's head went back and forth quickly, still shaking off confusion as he took the opposite route around the table. "Sure, Boss."

He pressed his palm flat to the table and turned bent into the fact that, sure, yeah, her ass slowly sliding against his cock was something that was noticeable and did cause a twitch of a reaction. And he hadn't been the only one to notice that she'd obviously made the movement for a purpose. He'd be damned if he knew what that purpose was though, besides possibly giving him the sharp beginning of a half a hard on.

Gutsy little minx...

This had to be... she had to be making a (really inappropriate) point of some sort.

He just wasn't sure, as he knuckled into the metal table and talked his lower brain down, exactly what point she was so hell-bent on making.