She smiled, and his heart would skip several beats in his chest and he was sure one day it would jump out and dance across the space between her with a wire attached to him. Soon, it would push him to do something drastic. He'd make her smile to the wrong thing at the wrong time and pin her to the wrong wall and to the very wrong deed of kissing her. Not just a stealing kiss of the moment, or the kiss that told her that he only wanted her then and there and nowhere else. It would have been the kind of kiss he'd only ever used on one woman before. His first wife.

Kate was everything he wasn't attracted to: brown instead of red hair, a temperament to rival his own and the wonderful ability to stand up for herself and kick his ass. Then maybe that was what attracted him, especially the last bit. She was mature, intelligent, witty and bright and by god she could stretch enough to make him feel twenty all over again.

He wouldn't admit it, especially not to her, but he'd watched her more times than he know how to count. He'd gone so far one night in particular as to follow her to the gym. His dream that night had woken him in a cold sweat and aching with need. He had to figure out when it was he'd started to fall in love with her.

He'd taken a liking to her from the start. Stepping onto Air Force One to examine the dead marine, she'd been feisty and he'd fantasised about her through the whole case. Undressing her with his eyes every opportunity and when he'd trapped her in the bathroom later, he'd become instantly aroused despite the need to see if she'd killed Major Kerry. He couldn't think of that man, lucky bastard who got to share her bed, but the words after she'd broken it off with him floated around his head like a balloon.

I told him we had to stop seeing each other.

He was watching her now, from a distance as she spoke to another army officer? He must be saying something amusing as she gave a laugh and Gibbs heart skipped several beats as the sound and sight invaded his senses. The urge to taste the laugh, to devour the smile and the steal the glint of pleasure in her eyes washed over him and turned his eyes to watch the man. His body language shifted and Gibbs could see it clearly, the man wanted her, but there was no way he loved her.

Gibbs did, she was his, or at least he wished she was his. That was when it dawned on him just when he'd fallen in love with her. Trapped on a submarine, sharing the conference room and the cobs quarters for two days; for one long and sleepless night. Then the emergency blow and his back against the wall made him feel pinned in place as he'd protectively pulled her to him to stop her getting hurt. Her body shifted against him, attempting to move away, not realising at all that the knee she had between his legs led his mind into very unprofessional places.

Kate laughed again and without realising he was moving Gibbs crossed the field they were standing by. He didn't stop to let her acknowledge him, didn't bother to introduce himself to the man she'd been talking with. He just wrapped his arms tightly around her waist, one firmly on her lower back, the other tucking up under her bra strap as it gathered her shirt and he kissed her.