It was only once he was home that Jack allowed himself the luxury of remembering the evening spent with Phryne Fisher. The slide from the settee only stalled them momentarily and, some unknown time later, they broke apart breathing heavily. Phryne held herself up on one elbow, half turned on her side to face Jack, her other hand playing in the collar of his shirt.

The unbuttoned collar of his shirt. How had that happened?

She playfully slid her foot against his leg, raising her knee to clutch at his side. Her dress pooled half into her lap and Jack kept his eyes averted from the smooth expanse of silk stocking that ended above a smoother expanse of pale flesh.

She was so warm in his arms and she was so willing and...

"This is a bad idea," He heard himself saying, and the slow blinking look of shock - and hurt - that greeted him had him leaning forward for a reassuring kiss. He allowed his fingers to travel up her leg, to her knee, to the top of her stocks to rest gently on her waist.

"I have many things I would love to do with you, Miss Fisher…"

"All pleasurable I hope." She said, but she wasn't looking at him.

"But I don't intend to attempt any of them with your Aunt in the house."

Phryne's laughter was all relief and she let her forehead rest on his shoulder, her face turned into his throat.

The warm puffs of her breath against his skin were a serious detriment to his resolve.

"She's a very solid sleeper." She said and Jack nodded. It was not the night he was terribly concerned about, although he had a sneaking suspicion Phryne was as verbally inclined in bed as well as out of it. He simply had no desire to slink out of her home in shame in order to avoid her aunt.

Nor was he particularly ready to face the older woman's inevitable questions about his intentions toward her niece.

It seemed easier, in his mind, to avoid the conversation altogether for a while at least, as they sorted out what, exactly, was happening.

"Tomorrow?" Jack asked into Phryne's hair and she nodded against him.

"Come for dinner; stay for a nightcap?"

It might have taken him another twenty minutes to get out of the house, with a fresh mark on his throat that he would have to take extra care to hide, but the next evening would come soon enough.

On the drive to the Fisher house, Jack allowed himself the luxury of imagining what decadent and sinful evening Phryne would have planned. It was a rare position, to allow himself to be seduced by a woman, but he'd come to enjoy the game and looked forward to the conclusion. He envisioned a darkened dining room lit only by candles. Or a picnic in front of the fire. Or, even, dinner in bed.

He had no doubts that Phryne was incredibly imaginative.

So it was with no amount of surprise that he found her home bustling with light and noise when he arrived promptly at 8.

Jane sat in the parlor at the piano, plinking out a song she was beginning to learn. Phryne stood in the middle of a whirlwind of color in the center of it all, a harried ringmistress leading them all in a show of her own making. Impeccably dressed though she was, her hair was slightly mussed and she looked just a little bit preoccupied with the myriad of half-filled boxes around her.

"Jack!" Phryne looked up from the armful of silk she held and immediately stuffed the wad into Dot's arms. She crossed the room to Jack and, rather unceremoniously he thought, stood on her toes to place a casual kiss on his lips. If any of the gathered group noticed, nobody reacted. "I lost track of time, Darling, I'm so sorry. Dot asked me for some donations for the church bizarre."

Jack could only nod as Mr Butler appeared and announced dinner. Heading the motley parade through to the dining room, Phryne handed out a few more instructions for Burt and Cec to follow after dinner. Sometimes, rarely (usually, he imagined, after he'd spent the evening before exploring her curves with his hands), he forgot that Phryne was indeed a grown-up with a life outside their investigations. She was not as carefree as she liked to pretend, although her responsibilities didn't seem to wear her down. A trick he wished to learn from her.

And that was how, instead of the darkened room full of candles and sinful food and sitting far too close to Phryne, dinner ended up a loud, boisterous meal consisting of the entire family.

If it wasn't for the sly smiles Phryne sent him as she passed him a roll, or the way her bare toes brushed his shins every so often, he would have thought she'd changed her mind entirely. Or at least suffered selective amnesia. He felt his confidence wobble just a bit.

By the time dessert was cleared away, everyone began to excuse themselves. With a kiss to Phryne and Dot's cheeks, Jane headed up to bed to finish the last of a book she'd been reading. Dot informed them that Hugh was coming for her to take in a late picture, Burt and Cec were planning to finish carrying the boxes to the cab before heading to the pub and Mr Butler would be busy in the kitchen.

When they finally found themselves once more side by side in the empty, quiet parlor, Phryne grinned in the face of Jack's blatant confusion.

"What?" She asked, obviously enjoying the way he merely stared. Nothing had gone the way he imagined, although he didn't know why he was even surprised. Things with Phryne Fisher rarely went the way one would expect.

Silence stretched, this one less companionable and finally Phryne spoke, threading her arm through Jack's and curling herself closer to him on the settee.

"Jack, how many times do you think you've been to dinner here? With all of us?" She asked, and once more he was surprised by her tactic.

"Too many to count."

"Yes," she nodded, pleased, dropping her head on his shoulder. "And how many dinners do you think Lin had here? Or Warwick? Or any of them, with Jane and Dot and the rest?"

He coughed and stiffened and she squeezed his arm gently, a gesture meant to be calming he thought. Yet it did nothing to stem the rush of jealousy at the mention of her other lovers, and he couldn't imagine why she thought it wise to mention them now, of all times. She didn't let him stew for long and he realized she was still speaking.

"Zero, Inspector. None." She tugged at his arm, willing him to look at her. "Do you know what that means? You are different, Jack. In so many ways. You're different. I thought you should know that. I thought they should know it, too."

If he expected her to be abashed at the simple declaration he was sorely mistaken. She merely grinned up at him in that infuriatingly way that said she knew something he was just starting to come around to.

She was smiling and waiting.

The realization that Phryne considered him to be separate from her string of dalliances was something Jack didn't feel comfortable inspecting too closely at the moment. However the secondary realization that this woman was waiting for Jack to make a move was stunning. Patiently waiting for him to catch up to her, to read all the clues, to understand, to come to a mutually satisfying conclusion.

Her pale hand snuck over to rest on his thigh, unashamedly high and her hot breath against his throat preceded just a flicker of her tongue against his adams apple.

"Take me to bed." She whispered against him.

Well perhaps not patiently. But waiting.

And Jack? Well...Jack was tired of waiting.

A/N - You know who else is tired of waiting, producer people? ME.