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"You know, it could be worse," Reid offers, hands in his pockets. He's rocking back on his heels and Emily thinks it's so he can make a fast getaway. That means his next line is going to get him in so much trouble, he's handing it off to Morgan so he can run.
"Oh, yeah?" Emily asks, plucking at the fishnet stockings - god, who knew how much they itched? - and then freezes, wondering if she'd just pulled the back seam crooked. "Go on. Tell me how this could be worse."
"Well, for one thing, you could have to be seducing Rossi for real," Morgan points out, with an assessing glance that somehow manages not to be skeezy.
Emily's face goes hot. She ducks her head and pretends to concentrate on fixing her stockings, hoping her hair will cover her face. She thinks maybe she would rather be seducing Rossi for real, rather than wearing this ridiculous getup and staging some business-deal-gone-awry so a serial killer could come to her rescue. The White Knight, the newspapers had dubbed him before they'd arrived. It had taken long enough to figure out that each of the slain prostitutes had been rescued from a public altercation by a handsome man with features no one has ever managed to remember.
"Hey, Prentiss?" Morgan isn't teasing now and he touches her bare shoulder, but carefully, only his fingertips. "You okay?"
"Fine," she says, shaking her hair back. If her cheeks are still a little pink, well, she's got more than enough makeup on to wave that off.
"You sure you want to do this?" Morgan's eyebrows are scrunched low over his eyes. Reid's fidgeting double-time in the background.
"I'll be fine," Emily says, because she trusts Morgan's instincts and Reid's brain, and Hotch's decisions, and Rossi - Rossi she trusts to have her back. "Next time we're having you go undercover as a Chippendale. See how you like that."
"Hey," Morgan replies, one eyebrow quirking up. "Some ladies would pay big bucks for that kind of show."
"Oh, my God." Emily rolls her eyes. "Can we get on with this? The van's not big enough for all of us and your ego."
"We're all wired up." Morgan holds up an earpiece. "Reid and I will be watching from here. Rossi's inside. Hotch is watching the back. If you get a funky feeling - "
"I know," Emily says. "Open my purse. Whip out the fan."
"Or the gun," Reid offers helpfully.
"As a last resort," Morgan warns.
"Guys, this is not my first rodeo." Emily offers them a bright smile and shakes her hair back again. "Let's get this show on the road."
The Milwaukee PD driver lets her off a couple blocks away and then moves the van down the street and around the corner where Morgan and Reid can get a good view of the street where the bar entrance is.
Alone for a moment she fluffs out her bangs and makes sure to swing her hips whens she walks. The heels are too high and the skirt shortens her stride. Also, she's pretty sure her boobs are going to fall out of her tank top if she tries to run, so she makes a heat-of-the-moment decision several minutes prior to any actual heat - she's shooting the guy or he gets to run away. No one's chasing anyone if she has anything to say about it.
The bar is already kind of crowded when she steps inside and it takes her a moment to locate Rossi.
He's a glass tumbler of untouched scotch in a room full of sloshed beers and - Emily's thinking like a hooker - that's the guy she wants paying her tab tonight. She leans against the bar and shouts, "Gimme a brewski!" in the general direction of the bartenders.
Rossi looks up then, and for a moment their eyes meet and Emily doesn't want to do this anymore. She breaks eye contact and smiles widely at the nearest bartender, who's sliding a cold bottle in her direction.
"What do I owe you?" she asks, crossing her arms under her breasts and leaning forward a bit more.
The bartender leans forward, too, mirroring her. She can tell he's interested. She's not, but she's got a job to do, and that job involves playing along until they get what they're after. She's pretty sure he's about to let her know that flashing her tits is worth $3.50 in his book, but a voice cuts in above the noise.
"I'll be paying for the lady's drinks tonight." Rossi drops a ten on the bar and the bartender picks it up and backs off. "Keep the change," Rossi adds, settling himself against the bar beside Emily. "What's your name?" he asks, and she wonders if this is how he is with all his storied conquests, if she's getting a full dose of the legendary Rossi charm.
"Emily," she answers. Reid had offered to let her make up a name and Morgan had volunteered several options, but her brain had frozen and it's not like it matters, not out here, 800 miles away from her real life. She settles her weight on one hip and lifts her beer bottle. "Thanks for the drink," she adds.
"My pleasure," he says. "I'm Dave." He salutes her with the glass of scotch but doesn't take a drink.
"So, you uh, come here often?" Emily asks. She attempts a flirty smile and feels like an idiot. She's pretty sure Dave's laughing at her but he smiles and plays along and acts like she's the most interesting thing he's ever seen until he taps her knee twice where it's pressed up against his on the bar stools. Emily knows that's the cue
"Come on, we're getting out of here," Dave says, and grabs her upper arm. It's sudden and it's a little rough and cue or no cue, she isn't exactly expecting it.
"Hold on a sec," she says, and balks half-heartedly.
He leans in and growls, loudly enough for the surrounding bar patrons to hear, "Come on you little tease. Outside." He yanks and she stumbles and she hates this, hates it. It's easier to take when the person roughing her up's the bad guy, someone she can hate, someone she can rail against in her head, and she doesn't hate Dave. His thumb strokes softly against the inside of her arm, comfort, an apology, something, even as she trips after him. The air outside is a shock - it's gotten colder since she went in and when they're clear of the door, Dave whispers, "You okay?"
"Shh," she reminds him because the last thing she needs is for him to be nice. Then, louder: "Where are we going? Where are you taking me?" She pushes weakly at his hand, not actually trying to get away. If she'd wanted to get away, she knows, at minimum, four far more effective moves.
Rossi steers her into the alley and leans in close enough to smell his shaving cream and cologne and see where the hair at his temples ranges from dark to gray.
She spits on him.
Rossi rears back, cocking his fist, and then he wavers. His eyes go soft and she's afraid it won't happen, that he won't go through with it and the whole stupid thing will be for nothing.
"Do it," she whispers. "Dave. Now."
He lets it fly and she winces, bracing for impact - he'll pull it, but it's going to hurt anyway- but the impact never comes. She opens her eyes in time to see Dave's fist fly by her face and then he hits the brick wall next to her.
It splits the knuckles, blood running over the back of his hand, and she's pretty sure she heard bones break. Her mouth is open, a swallowed scream choking in her throat, and after a moment, she takes advantage of it to scream, loudly.
And then someone is hauling Rossi away from her and Rossi is stumbling back from a solid roundhouse to the jaw.
"Are you all right, ma'am?" a voice was asking her. "Come with me, I'll keep you safe."
Emily presses back against the wall, the brick rough against her bare shoulders. She doesn't have to fake being rattled, but she has to fake feeling helpless about it.
"You - you saved me," she says in a deliberately small voice.
"I'm going to take good care of you," the man assures her, drawing her away from the wall with a hand on her shoulder. He's taller than she is in heels, so he's over six feet, and a good two hundred pounds. His hair's dusty brown and his features are soft. He's probably a boyish forty. "Come on," he croons, guiding her around Rossi's body. "Let's get you out of here."
Rossi hasn't moved, but Emily doesn't let herself look back as the White Knight leads her deeper into the alley.
"Where are we going?" she asks when the silence has stretched past the point of comfort
"I'll give you a ride home," he tells her. He seems nice enough.
"You don't have to do that," she replies. She wants to see if his demeanor changes. "I can walk. It's not far."
"Sure I do," he says easily. "I can't save you from that jerk and then let you get mugged on the way home."
"You're quite the gentleman," Emily says as they step from the other end of the alley into the light of a streetlamp.
"My car's right here," he says, pointing a remote at the small, American-made car parked at the curb and unlocking the doors. He opens the passenger-side door and waves her in. Just as he closes the door after her, he winks and says, "Grandma taught me well."
Emily's breath catches in her throat. In that split second, she knows she's sitting with the killer.
The profile had said the White Knight was probably raised by his grandparents.
When he lets himself into the driver's side and turns on the car, Emily's pushed her fear away. "Grandma, huh?" she teases as he pulls out from the curb. "No wonder you're such a nice guy."
He smiles but doesn't answer. Emily gives it a beat and then tries again. "I'm Emily, by the way," she says. "What's your name?"
"It's Adam," he says. "From Genesis."
Great. Raised by his grandparents. Killing images of his mother. His name was Adam from Genesis.
"I, um, never told you where I lived," she points out. She needs to push a little. Get him to do something that at least resembles probable cause.
"I thought you might want to have dinner first," he says.
"Oh, wow," Emily says. "That's really nice of you - but I really should be getting home."
"You have blood on your cheek," he says, and offers a handkerchief.
She touches her cheek with her fingers and they come away rusty. She remembers Rossi's knuckles brushing against her skin and realizes the blood must be his. She accepts Adam's handkerchief and lifts it to her cheek. It smells sweet, dizzying, and Emily automatically holds her breath as she drags it across her cheek, deliberately refusing to breathe whatever fumes he'd doused the cloth with.
"Thanks," she says, handing it back quickly. She's feeling vaguely disoriented and wants it far away. "Wow, yeah. Maybe I had a little too much to drink. You know, I could really go for a cup of coffee. Is there a diner around here?" She glances in the side mirror and sees headlights behind them. She wonders if it's Hotch or JJ or just some ordinary citizen, on their way home.
"The food will make you feel better," Adam insists.
"What food?" Emily asks, but then he takes a sharp right and the car behind them keeps going straight. Adam parks in the overgrown lot of a gray city-corner church. It looks abandoned, and Emily is having a very bad feeling about this. She opens the door, but Adam is at her side in a moment. He leads her into the lower hall and there's a table draped in white, with silver plates and softly glowing candles.
Adam pulls out the chair. Emily sits down. This is creepy, but he hasn't done anything violent yet. He fits the profile - that's enough for probable cause - but if there's no evidence, if a search doesn't turn up anything and he doesn't confess, they still have nothing.
Adam sits down across from her and lifts his glass. "A toast?"
Emily doesn't bite. She hasn't forgotten the handkerchief and she's fucked if he drugs her. "I'm...not hungry," she says, as apologetically as possible.
"It's very good," he tells her stiffly. This is where she could get herself in trouble.
"It looks fantastic," she assures him. "But my stomach is still all knotted up from that - that guy pushing me around. Before you stepped in."
That gets through. "That guy was a jerk," Adam says. "He didn't deserve you."
Emily thinks of Hotch telling the Milwaukee PD, he puts women on a pedestal... and reminds herself she has a long way to fall.
"If you don't want to eat," Adam says, "we can dance."
"Um, I'm not a very good dancer," Emily confesses, because all she can think of is Tom Petty dancing with his corpse bride in an old music video.
"Maybe if you take those shoes off," he says. "They look like they hurt."
They do, and Emily's probably better off without them anyway. She toes them off, but takes her purse with her when Adam stands and offers his hand. There's no music and he dances stiffly, awkwardly, with too much space between them. Emily thinks of the dances at her Catholic high school where nuns slipped balloons between cozy couples and reminded them to 'make room for the Holy Spirit.'
"This is nice," she says when the silence grows oppressive.
Adam says nothing; Emily subsides for a bit before pulling away. "I need to powder my nose," she says. "Can you tell me where the little girl's room is?"
He grabs her wrist, painfully hard, and snatches her purse.
"Wait, no!" she protests as he opens it.
Adam holds up the gun, his face stormy, then drops it back in her purse and throws the bag across the room. "Just like all the others," he says sadly. Then he grabs her by the throat, and sweeps her feet out from under her.
Emily hits the floor hard. She can't breathe, can't talk, can't scream. Adam brings out what looks like a pipe, one end shaved to a sharp point, and if that's what he's been using to skewer women through - holy shit, that's gotta hurt.
"It's okay," he tells her solemnly, straddling her hips. "I'm going to save you."
Emily flails for something- a dropped dinner knife, the leg of the chair - anything that could be a weapon. Her hand closes around something smooth and curved. Adam has her head tilted back, and she can't see, but she squeezes her find and recognizes one of the shoes she'd kicked off. She runs her thumb up the sole until she finds the stiletto heel and rolls it over in her palm, folding her fingers over the top of the shoe.
Then, with every bit of strength and concentration she can summon, Emily swings. The narrow heel punctures the soft flesh of the inside of Adam's forearm, pulled taut by his grip on her throat. His scream sounds far away to her fading senses but then his grip on her throat loosens. She sucks in air and grabs the hand that's still holding the pipe. He pulls away and drives his elbow into her mouth. She tastes copper and pain streaks through her jaw and then across the back of her head as it hits the floor.
She feels his blood, dripping warm and sticky on her chest, as she tries to get her feet flat on the floor to push herself away. Her dazed hearing registers footsteps and shouting, but she's not safe yet. She slides up far enough to get a knee up and then she shoves it right into his balls.
He doubles over and she scrambles away, and then Morgan's there, dragging him off, pushing him face-first to the ground. Hotch is there, his gun unwavering on Adam, and Reid's right there with him. JJ's the one who comes to Emily, brushing her bangs back, asking if she's hurt.
Emily shakes her head just as Morgan says, "Damn, woman. What did you do to this guy?"
"There's a reason they call them stilettos," JJ says dryly, picking up Emily's bloody shoe. Emily gets to her feet, holding onto JJ a little more tightly than she'd like to admit.
"C'mere," JJ says, setting Emily's rumpled clothes to rights. Emily's grateful for the FBI windbreaker JJ tucks around her. JJ's still wearing her own jacket though, and Emily has to look past her to find its true owner.
Rossi is standing by JJ, detached from the action. His jaw is puffy; his right hand is wrapped in an Ace bandage. Emily doesn't miss JJ's smile as she goes to talk to Yarrow, leaving Emily and Dave a temporarily private bubble.
"Is it broken?" she asks, nodding at his hand. She pulls his jacket around her tightly, slipping her arms into the sleeves, making sure he notices.
"The consensus," he says wryly, "is that it's fractured. Hurts like a bitch, though."
"That was stupid," she says, but she can't put heat into it. She still remembers the expression in his eyes.
"Also the consensus," he admits.
Emily shakes her head. "Why aren't you at the hospital?"
"He will be," Hotch says, coming up behind her. "And so will you."
Emily wakes up in a hot sleepy tangle of limbs and cotton. Everything aches - back, shoulders, face, even her calves and thighs. She blames the stilettos.
Rossi is on his back under her, snoring lightly. His injured hand is held out loosely to his side, but the other is on Emily's waist, tucked under the hem of her shirt. One of her legs is between both of his and the way the sheets trap them tells her it's not how they started out.
One of the Milwaukee uniforms had taken them to the emergency room. Rossi's hand had been X-rayed and wrapped and Emily had recited the alphabet and assured the nurse that Barack Obama was the President of the United States. Rossi had gotten better painkillers than Emily, which she'd bitched about as Hotch drove them to the little airstrip where the Gulfstream waited. She'd changed clothes and dozed on the plane, JJ sitting sentry across from her.
Hotch had sent them home in the same taxi, citing the painkillers. Emily had given the driver Rossi's address, inviting herself over, intending to confront him about what had happened in the alley, but he'd wanted to shower and she'd just put her head down on the pillow for a few minutes....
Emily groans quietly as she tries to push herself up and away from Dave. His hand tightens at her waist, though, and she eases back down. She can think of worse things than curling up with him in bed on a quiet day off.
She's not comfortable for long, though. She's sore and her bladder's full, and her hair's stuck to the back of her neck. She desperately wants a shower.
He tugs her close again when she moves, but she draws away and slips out of the bed. He wakes up, so she leans in and kisses his forehead and whispers, "Just showering. Go back to sleep."
She goes into the bathroom and sheds yesterday's clothes, turning the water on hot. It feels good to scrub off the plane and the hospital and everything else. There are spectacular bruises blossoming at her neck and the inside of her lip is incredibly tender. When she's done, she pats herself dry gingerly and wraps herself in the soft, oversized robe hanging on the hook. It's Dave's but he says she looks better in it so she's guessing he won't mind much.
He's awake when she comes back to the bedroom. She hopes the hair dryer didn't wake him, then remembers he'd been sort of awake before she'd left. He's sitting up in bed, the covers up to his waist and she wonders if he went to bed naked. They've never spent a night together that didn't involve sex.
"So," she said, dragging Dave's armchair up next to the bed and settling herself. "Agent Rossi doesn't hit girls, does he?"
His lips twist sardonically. "Nonna'd have my hide," he says mildly. He glances down at his bandaged hand. and Emily watches his face. His expression is hard to read; the beard doesn't help. But she thinks he's pissed off and she knows he's lying. So she props her feet up on the bed and says,
"I call bullshit."
"You don't believe my grandmother told me not to hit girls?" Rossi lifts an eyebrow at her.
"I don't believe you made it twenty years in the FBI without being able to fake beating a hooker," Emily counters. "Is it because we're sleeping together?"
He winces a little, but she calls things like she sees them and she's not going to change.
Eventually he meets her eyes and says, "Wouldn't matter. I wouldn't do a thing differently. Let's just say I don't like hitting girls named Emily of whom I happen to think very highly."
He's not lying now and Emily is suddenly sure that neither of them want to look too closely at the truth. He's rattled. Milwaukee, for whatever reason, had been way far out of his comfort zone and she doesn't want to go digging where he doesn't want her. So she smiles and says, "You liked the outfit that much?"
"The fishnets were a nice touch," he admits hopefully, his fingers circling her knee.
Emily loosens the tie of the robe and lets it fall open. Dave's eyes move upward and his hand slides slowly to her ankle.
"Lie back," she tells him. She stands up, leaving the robe puddled on the chair, and settles onto the bed. She tugs the covers down, off his lap. He is naked - and hard, ready for her, and Emily feels her pulse speed up. She hasn't gone down on him yet, no real reason except that Rossi's been too much of a gentleman to ask.
She starts by trailing her fingers up his thigh, ruffling the dark hair. She can feel the breath he draws as she flattens her hand, sweeping her palm across his hip to wrap around his cock. She doesn't give him time to wonder, just leans down and slips her mouth around the head.
He rumbles her name, which turns her on madly when she doesn't have his dick in her mouth. This time it goes straight between her legs, causing everything to tighten in anticipation. She sighs softly around him, closing her eyes and sliding her mouth down until her lips brush her thumb and index finger. Her hair falls around her face as she draws back up and Dave runs the fingers of his good hand through it, pushing it back- so he can see her, she realizes. So he can watch.
She shifts a little and teases the tip with tongue as she glances up. Dave's looking at her like she's the only thing in the world and somehow that's what makes her blush self-consciously.
She takes him in again, sucking lightly this time, and strokes down with her other hand to touch his balls. "God, Emily," he grits out , and Emily feels a little light-headed. She draws off again and licks him, smoothing one hand up his length while cradling his balls with the other. It's kind of an awkward position: she ends up straddling his leg and trying not to elbow him too badly. "You are beautiful," he tells her, trying to tuck her hair back. "So fucking beautiful." He bends his knee a little, pushing his thigh between her legs and giving her something to grind against. She's wet and she's sure he can feel it, but she's too busy filling her mouth with his taste, learning his skin with her tongue, to pay much mind. Her legs ache a little but she just shifts.
Emily loses track of time, but she can feel him tensing beneath her and is starting to wonder how this is going to end. She draws off slowly and picks up her head to ask, but as soon as she sits back, he takes her hand and says, "Em, c'mere." She swings her leg over his opposite hip and leans up. To her surprise, he meets her halfway and kisses her right on the mouth.
He keeps condoms in the nightstand. She's been there enough to remember that, and after a minute she pulls away and rolls off the bed to get one. Dave sits up, dragging pillows behind him.
"Lie down," she tells him, moving to sit on his legs.
"If you're about to do what I think you're about to do," he says, "I want a good view."
She laughs - she can't help it. "You're crazy," she says, and rolls the condom over his cock. She takes her time with it. He likes it slow, too slow sometimes, but he also likes to make the simplest task erotic, and she's learning to play along. She goes up on her knees, still holding him, and guides him inside her. She tries not to close her eyes as she sinks down, but it's such a good position for her and she does take a moment to collect herself before she starts to move.
It's good for him, too - she can tell as soon as she starts to ride him. He reaches out with both hands, setting them lightly on her thighs to draw her deeper, but the injured hand frustrates him. He leaves it on her knee and strokes up her side with his left hand, cradling her breast and stroking his thumb over her nipple before pressing it down her stomach and circling her clit.
Emily leans forward, pressing more of her weight against his fingers. She curls her hands around his shoulders, slips them up to cradle his head. She can press her entire body against him then, fitting her mouth to his and pulling him into her rhythm.
Dave's left hand is busy between them and he's able to wrap his right arm around her in a gentle embrace. Emily rolls her hips in a figure eight and his cock shifts right up against everything just perfectly - so she does it again. Dave groans low in his throat and copies the pattern between her legs.
Her entire body clenches, stars sparkling in her peripheral vision. She can't seem to get enough of him, no matter how hard she grinds down or how fast she moves her hips. But then she's gasping and clinging to him and she's lightheaded and not really sure how she made it through to the other side.
She does know that he's pushing up into her and he's coming now, in soft, hoarse moans, his hand leaving pink marks on her thigh. She presses her forehead to Dave's shoulder and closes her eyes, and tries to remember this and not him frozen over her in the alley. She cups the back of his neck in one hand and wishes she could make him understand. Slowly, incrementally, they begin to recover.
"Better?" she asks, stroking her thumb up her temple, smoothing out the lines at the corners of his eyes.
He bows his head, his good hand rubbing absently at her leg, and she feels the tension creep into his back and neck. "This is the job," he says finally, and looks up. "This is going to keep happening. It might not be me hitting you but - " He breaks off and the ugly words hang in humid silence of the room.
"I can take it," she says, thinking of Cyrus and his fists. "You have to trust that I can take it."
"They won't be pulling their punches," Dave says. He lifts his hand. "Or hitting a wall."
Emily wraps her hand around his forearm. "Do we need to stop this?" she asks. She knows the answer, knows it's going to be no.
Dave cups his hand around her neck and draws her in to a kiss. "God, I hope not," he murmurs against her mouth. "This is way the hell too much fun."
Emily laughs and kisses him back. She hates to break the mood when it's this good, but they're not finished and she hates this part of relationships, or whatever the hell this is. "Dave," she presses. "Are you going to be okay with this?"
"I'm not going to be more okay if we stop," Dave counters. He chucks her under the chin and his face goes sober. "We're a team," he says. "You followed me to Indiana. It's never going to be easy for me. I - " He stops and shakes his head. "I've never had to do something like that. I wasn't ready for it. Next time, I will be."
"Will you?" Emily asks, tilting her head.
"Next time I'll know better than to say yes," he amends.
Emily doesn't know what to say to that. While she's thinking, her stomach growls.
"Hungry?" Dave asks, lifting his eyebrow.
"Thank god," she says. "I thought we were going to have to have a deep conversation."
"Come on," he says. "I'll make pancakes."
"And eggs?" she asks, reaching for his bathrobe. "And bacon."
"Anything you want," he promises.
Fin