"What, darling?" His voice is throttled low and humming, murmuring a slide of warmth over her as quiet as the shush of his fingers. "You're mumblin'."

He surprises her still – and that's so incredibly comforting.

Because she'd once thought that nothing Cal could do, simply nothing, would ever surprise her again. He's reckless, thoughtless, sometimes absolutely brainless. He doesn't think ahead unless its a strategical means to his ends. He doesn't consider the ramifications or the debts other people may have to pay for his actions. Anymore, his childishly impulsive way of doing things (antics, just... stupid antics) just doesn't at all surprise her.

"You're moaning." he whispers with a proud (but, surprisingly, not smug) warmth. "You like that."

It's not a question of like nor dislike.

God, not now. There's no way in hell she can hide how much she's enjoying this.

This gentleness is a surprise to her, though. This absolute patient control of his hands and body and the delicious heat of his accented whispering as he leans hovering over her shoulder.

Because it's a statement made with a smile in the hushing of his voice just before he rubs his nose against her temple and kisses her hairline. "More? Yeah?"

She simply sighs in answer, accepts the intimate tenderness that doesn't generally live within the walls of work.

Yes, she intentionally keeps him at a distance while they're working.

They'd never get any work done if she didn't.

"C'mon, Gill." He rises straight again along the back of her chair, hands curled with a delicious near possessive quality around her throat as his thumbs ridge up and down the tension that cords the back of her neck. "Tell me. Talk to me."

Ironic, isn't it? How often she has to try to pry information out his mouth and here he is, a near pitiful beg in his tone as he implores her to speak.

There's a certain feeling of control and power in that alteration of station.

The shift is subtle but obvious and it's, at once, all she needs to trust him.

Because he's offering her vulnerability without remorse or annoyance.

He just wants the reassurance.

She just wanted him to ask for it.

"If you stop," she murmurs, eyes dipped closed and chin lowering forward as he presses the pads of his thumbs up the back of her neck, "I will kill you."

"Yeah?" His grin is more than smug this time and she can hear the evidence – doesn't need to see it. It's Lightman to the Maximum, haughty and cheeky and entirely himself. "You do like it."

God, yes, she likes it. She adores his hands and the intense habit he has of closing them up along her throat, her neck, her shoulders. It's an uncontrolled and unconscious tick of his, something he doesn't necessarily recognize he's even doing. He can't not touch and his fingers have a habit of making her throat, her cheeks, her face and shoulders their home. It's endearing in a way, though slightly possessive. Endearing in that it seems a need that he has, something compulsive. A movement that would otherwise imply control always seems, on him, like a request for permission.

"More hands and less talk," she replies dryly, letting her chin go against her chest as his fingertips start minute circles on the sides of her neck. He's rubbing heat into the edge of her hairline, furthering the touches higher on her scalp and pressing away the tension that had bunched up in her muscles.

A chuckle breaks off him but quietly, his fingers spreading out to rise up the back of her head and then stroke back down through her hair. "More talk and you'll get more than hands, love."

She hadn't necessarily expected a massage when he'd dropped into her office, his energy bouncing him around the room and directly in opposition to her exhaustion. It hadn't taken him long to realize that the paperwork slushed and scattered all over her desk had dragged every ounce of lightness out of her and that she was slumping incrementally lower in the ergonomic (but still often uncomfortable) chair. There had been a sort of apologetic regret in his eyes when he'd noted how swamped she was by the accounts paperwork, the taxes, payroll, all the business-like things that had gotten lost and forgotten when he'd dragged her into their most recent case.

She hadn't expected him to be so sweet, even as she'd side watched his approach and felt his fingers curl her shoulder so weightily warm. Though, she realizes that she probably should have.

He'd been especially cheeky and loving and bright all morning. There'd been a distinct lack of moodiness since they'd finished up that last case.

"Maybe I'm the shy quiet type," Gill offers tiredly, letting his hands find her shoulders again with a simultaneous downward stroke of both hands. She lets another sigh of comfort expand from her lungs after speaking, breathes it into the room as his thumbs find her shoulder blades again.

"Maybe you been moanin' for the last five minutes so go on and give the other leg a pull."

She snorts into the obvious innuendo but ignores it as his hands tighten on her shoulders. His voice warms up again as he squeezes her, his voice buttery soft as his thumbs dig at her muscles.

"Head down. On the desk."

She leans forward into the assurance of his touch, the insistence of his voice as he starts rubbing against her shoulders and back in earnest. He's silent in his movements and his hands are graciously warm, bending comfort and gentle pressure into the silken fabric of her shirt. She can feel muscles tighten reflexively, stubbornly. Then all at once they start to go loose, stretching into the sure press and rub of his fingers, the heels of his palms.

"Jesus, Cal."

"M'obviously doin' somethin' wrong if I haven't leveled up into 'God' status yet." He grunts annoyance, mostly at himself. He's usually excellent at finding the right button to push, the right sensitive spot to scratch at, the right angle for the equation. She doesn't doubt that the slow erosion of her usual 'not-at-work' stubbornness has created a mission in him. "Tell me?"

"Cal - "

"Tell me more." His finger makes a lazy path down the length of her spine, the touch an obvious tease and a reverence at once.

His hands are doting on her, adoring her.

That's the difference, maybe. That it's not sexual so much as intimate and loving (well, and a little sexual).

He surprises her sometimes still. In that he truly loves her, cares for her, wants to take care of her, wants her happy. It's not a surprise of character – she's always known that despite his cocky fronting, his inability to sometimes control himself, he's a legitimately good man. It's a surprise that after all their years... it's something that still gets stronger by day rather than fading.

"Lower." She arches her shoulders, brings her arms up under her head so that she can stretch out the aches from her lower back, his hand following the movement so that he's rubbing pressure into the dip of her spine. "Harder."

"Gillian." It's a sort of warning in his voice, strained but authoritative, warm but direct.

It's similar to the tone he gets when he's too close to coming for her and he can't seem to slow his body, his brain, or their world down.

It's a sound in his voice that she has memorized and owned and loved.

She smiles her cheek into the fabric of her sleeve, head turned so that she can still smell his cologne so close. "You did tell me to do more talking."

"You're a delightful little wench, y'know that?" The rumbled humor in his voice is edged, wanting and wanton at once and, God, it's so... delicious. "Payback's a bitch, darling."

She smiles, rubs her cheek on her sleeve as his hands seem to worship the curvature of her spine, "I hope so."