Chapter Text
Emily met her stepfather as her mother called him the summer before she turned 18. She looks at Aaron Hotchner with a raised eyebrow and a scoff because he had obviously no idea what he was getting himself into. After her parent’s divorce there had been a handful of men that Elizabeth had introduced to her daughter, all of them taking off running in less than a year, either too intimidated by a powerful woman or getting tired of Elizabeth’s travels and schedule. Emily didn’t expect anything different from this one.
Except she underestimated Aaron Hotchner. She realized quickly that this man, was different. He didn’t talk much but there was something about him that made Emily pause, something stoic and intriguing about him. He works almost as much as her mother but instead of traveling all over the world he travels within the country, works from DC when he’s not. Maybe that’s why it works between them, because they both were busy and knew that kind of life came with strings. To her surprise he stays, moves in and puts a ring on her mother’s finger and when she packs up to go to college a year later he’s there helping her load boxes into her car. It’s one of the few times she get’s to see how strong he is, carrying heavy boxes like they weigh nothing and she wonders what his large hands would feel like wrapping around her waist.
There was always tension between her and Aaron, had been from the start but he was never unkind. He was determined, stiff, keeping her at a detached distance but she came to find that maybe that was what was best, after all she shouldn’t be fantasizing about her stepdad, she knew that, even if she sometimes had to remind herself of that fact.
After she has places the last box in her car and he closes the trunk, ready to start college, to get away she turns to him, hoping that he doesn’t notice the slight blush on her cheeks.
“Thanks for helping me carry those.” She says and he shrugs halfheartedly.
“Not a problem. Drive safe.”
She avoids his gaze after a somewhat awkward goodbye and tries to blame the fact that she shivers when he hugs her is because of the slight wind, not actually him and his big hands and dark eyes. It couldn’t be him, he was her stepfather.
When she’s at Yale her mother seems adamant to try and keep some sort of contact even though they never had before. ‘It was different now, you’re an adult’ Elizabeth would say if Emily asked about it. So they get into the habit of skyping once a month and as much as Emily hates it, she does it without fighting.
“How are you Emily?” Her mother asks as Aaron sits beside her on the couch.
“I’m fine, mother.” She says with a sigh. “Everything good with you?” It’s awkward and tense, there always seemed to be when Aaron was on the call, her attraction to him not lessening but after almost a year at college she had learned to accept the fact instead of denying it.
“We’re good.” Elizabeth says and looks to her husband who nods. “Busy with planning the wedding and all that.”
“That’s great mother.” She didn’t want to think about the wedding that was occurring in just a couple of weeks, about the fact that she’d have to go be a bridesmaid just to appease Elizabeth.
“How are your studies?” Aaron asks, as if he can tell that she’s uncomfortable with the subject. She realizes that he probably is, his job making it easy for him to read people. She sees the way he sits straight, always imposing even through a screen and she bites her bottom lip to distract herself from his dark gaze.
“It’s all going good…” She starts but then Elizabeth stands up abruptly as her assistant asks about a call and she leaves with a quick goodbye. Emily rolls her eyes and clears her throat as Aaron simply looks at her, dark eyes and slightly furrowed eyebrows and she forces a laugh. “Like I said, it’s going well.”
Aaron nods as he looks at her through the screen and clenches his jaw as she sighs softly.
“Well, I guess we can do this later, your mom will probably be a while.” He mumbles quietly and Emily chuckles sarcastically.
“Yeah, what else is new.” She swallows hard as his eyes narrow a little and she feels a tingle down her spine. “I should go, going to meet a friend for dinner.” It’s not a lie, but he doesn’t need to know that it was still another hour before she had to leave.
“Goodbye, Emily.” He says curtly, always an aloofness to him that Emily found more attractive than she should.
“See you at the wedding. Bye.” She hangs up the call and shuts her laptop quickly. As she’s getting ready can’t help but wonder what his face would look like lost in pleasure. What her name would sound like as she pulled pleasure from his body.
She comes back for the summer before starting her second year of college. Elizabeth would be gone and Emily took advantage of the fact that she could be home without the pressure of her mother, their relationship, although better than it had been in years, still strained to say the least. What she hadn’t counted on however, was the fact that Aaron would stay in DC. They were married now and Emily hated that her mother had found and married a man that she herself felt so drawn to.
The first few days go pretty smoothly as she sets back into her old room, intent to spend the summer reading and relaxing and spending her nights out dancing. Aaron was working long hours so she hadn’t seen much of him, nothing but a short nod in acknowledgement from him if they saw each other in the kitchen. He knew that she was not a morning person and she was thankful that he respected that. Her mother never did.
She’s been back in DC for almost a week when she’s getting ready to go out for drinks, her fake ID in her purse and a glass of wine beside her on the vanity as she is finishing up her makeup. There’s a knock on the door and she turns just as Aaron opens it.
“Are you going out?” He asks as she stands, his eyes moving quickly over her exposed legs, the hem of her dress ending high on her thigh and the heels looking dangerous. He averts his gaze instantly and tries not to notice that the pink lipstick she’s wearing is making her eyes look even darker than usual.
“Uhm, clearly?” She refrains from rolling her eyes but the sarcasm is clear. “I told you that you can’t just walk into my room.”
His eyebrows narrow at her response but he doesn’t reprimand her, it was still sometimes hard to know where he stood with Emily. He wasn’t her dad, far from it he barely knew her, but spending the summer in the same house as her was starting to blur the line of where they stood as she clearly had no respect for him, and he still expected some level of respect from her.
“I was going to see if you were having dinner here tonight, but I’ll take that as a no.” His eyes landed on the glass of wine on her desk. “I think I’ll take that.” He said and gestured to the glass.
“Good one.” She scoffed and crossed her arms over her chest, enhancing her cleavage as she did.
“You’re not 21, give it to me.” He walked a couple of steps closer and held his hand out. “Now, Emily.”
“Yeah right,” She snatched the glass of the table and took a sip just to spite him while she felt her thighs clench in response to his authoritative tone. “Mother doesn’t mind.” It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t completely true either. Elizabeth knew she drank but Emily had never actually had a drink in front of her mother.
“That doesn’t matter, she’s not here I am and I’m deciding what goes and what doesn’t while you’re here.” He reached his hand out for the glass, and Emily frowned at him. “This is my house, you’re going to live by my rules.”
“It’s not your house.” She chuckled dryly and his eyes flashed with something dark, something dangerous and she felt the familiar tingle down her spine. They were caught in a stare-down, a battle of wills and she had to force herself not to squirm as he walked another couple of steps closer.
“Fine.” She finally huffed and gave him the mostly empty glass before grabbing her purse from her bed. She started to walk out but turned back to him the doorway, and that’s when she saw it. His eyes, roaming over her, a split second of want in them as his jaw clenched and she knew that she didn’t imagine the way he had just looked at her. He looked at her like she wanted to look at him.
“Don’t wait up.” She smirked at him, wordlessly letting him know that he’d been caught and she saw his eyes widen slightly. She was out the door and halfway down the stairs when he called after her and then his footsteps came up behind her. But she was fast, even in her heels and she turned in the doorway.
“I said, don’t wait up.”
He stared at the closed door for long moments, his mind reeling. He was sure he didn’t miss that look on her face, was sure that instead of her shying away from his clear want, she leaned into it. He knew that he had to put a stop to it before it even began, but how could he when all he felt was aching desire every time he looked at her?
It was going to be a long summer, he thought.
Aaron didn’t want to think about Emily the way that he did, didn’t want to acknowledge things he had thought about a girl 30 years younger than himself, about a girl that was the daughter of his wife. He had ignored that he was almost taken back by her beauty the first time he had met her. Then she would open her mouth and she was stubborn, disrespectful and for reasons unbeknown to him, he found himself thinking about her at the most unacceptable times. He shouldn’t find her attractive, he shouldn’t find that his first instinct when she was flat out rude was that he wanted to grab her and shut her up in the most inappropriate ways.
Then she comes home to stay at the house and he has to deal with her without Elizabeth there to remind him that he shouldn’t stare at her 20 year old daughter. And then there were the outfits, short dresses and skirts, tops that barely covered her, bikinis so tiny he wondered why she bothered to wear them at all.
He knew that he was in trouble, but Emily Prentiss was a menace but he already felt like he’d be willing to risk it all.