She shoved him away.
Her fist came up to hit his jaw. Hard.
People turned to stare.
“It was just mistletoe,” Markus defended, picking himself up off the ground, rubbing his face.
Emily could feel Aaron’s eyes on her, even as she knew Derek was coming up on her left side. She glanced up. Sure enough, there was the offending plant, hanging innocently from the ceiling. She glared at it.
“The rule is to warn the girl,” the African-American argued, still staying half a step behind Emily’s shoulder. Emily was more than capable of taking care of herself and he knew it. That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to be there if anything else went awry. “And I believe in the office there’s rules against just planting one on the other person.”
She understood he was giving her time to compose herself. That had been the last thing she’d expected.
“I figured it was fair, since she came on to me and all.”
“I… What?” Emily was floored.
Markus grinned, holding out his hands. “Please, you were flirting with me.”
“If short answers and polite smiles are flirting,” Emily responded sharply. It had set her off kilter, more so than she’d like to admit. Insecurities warred in her mind. She was thankful to feel Aaron’s reassuring presence approach though he didn’t say or do anything more than just stand there. It was comforting nonetheless.
“You want me,” Markus shot back, grinning like the cocky bastard he was.
Or at least he most certainly met that criteria in Emily’s mind. “Like I want polio.”
“Oh come on, honey, denial isn’t attractive.” He took a step towards her.
Derek echoed the step, coming to stand right beside Emily. “This is sexual harassment. And in public no less.”
Someone clearing their throat caught everyone’s attention. Strauss stood there, along with her counter parts for organized crime and white collar. “Is there a problem?”
Markus immediately raised his hands. “Just mistletoe.”
“Just mistletoe? Greg, that’s the third time I’ve heard your name and sexual harassment in the last three months. I think it’s about time you lay off the eggnog.”
Markus’ superior, James Chip, had been one of the first people she’d met when she started at Quantico. They often came in at the same time. He was her ‘elevator buddy’, though neither of them would admit that. It was five minutes out of their day, so it really wasn’t worth mentioning. She nodded to him politely.
He returned the nod. “Come on, Greg. Let’s get you sobered up.”
Emily watched Markus walk away before turning to Derek and Aaron, the rest of the team gathered behind her. Her smile was bright. The punch had gone a long way to healing her outrage. “I’m good.”
Aaron nodded once. He wanted to grab her and do the same, the possessive nature in him rising up to scream in his head. She was his no one else’s. It was why an itty bitty of the rational part of him wanted to just kiss her and broadcast it to the world. But Emily’s reputation would be irreparably damaged and he wasn’t quite ready to take that kind of painful responsibility. “I’ve got to get Jack.”
She looked up at him, understanding in a glance all that was going on. She nodded her agreement, trying to keep her own welling emotions under wraps. “Sure.”
Derek rested a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Remind me never to get on your bad side,” he requested with a warm smile. “You have one hell of a right hook.”
Emily had left the room as soon as her colleagues were sure she was perfectly fine. And she was. She’d been set off kilter with the kiss, but it hadn’t taken her long to get herself back under control. It was Aaron’s reaction she was worried about. She knew she wasn’t in trouble. Aaron trusted her implicitly so she knew he didn’t blame her in any way for what had happened. That didn’t mean she didn’t worry about what he may do to Markus.
The conference room in their bullpen was, thankfully, unlocked, not that it was ever sealed. She took the opportunity to take a breather, to try and rationalize herself through whatever issues Aaron was probably addressing in his head. She curled up on the couch against the window, looking out onto the snow-covered Quantico grounds.
With Jack around, there was no way the man was going to create any kind of scene. However, there was no guarantee he wasn’t going to hunt Markus’ drunk ass down and give him the beating Emily very much wanted to. It wasn’t that it was the first time she’d been kissed against her will, but it was certainly the first time she’d be theoretically able to do anything about it. Aaron was just chivalrous like that.
And he protected his own like a mother Grizzly Bear protected her cubs. Most of the time it was arousing to see him do such a thing. Sometimes the feminist in her kicked in and she found it a little irritating. Other times it was simply helpful. But he was smart about it. Part of Emily was seriously worried he’d hunt Markus down, but the bigger more rational part of her knew that the chances of that were rare. Aaron wouldn’t want to have to fuss about something like that going on his record should anyone find out. Even if he could threaten to make Markus disappear. He had that kind of power.
Emily closed her eyes. With Jack and her own growing feelings, this seemed a little bit more traumatic than she knew it probably should be. She’d already rationalized herself out of worrying about whether or not he was going to be mad at her and that was really the most important part. But she worried about him too, not necessarily because she thought he was going to do something stupid, but because stupid could be rationalized in different ways by different people.
She sighed as her phone beeped at her. She’d completely forgotten it was in her pocket. Where are you?
Sequestered. She wanted time, she wanted a little bit of space, a moment to gather herself before facing whatever Aaron was going to throw at her.
If you’re not back in 20 minutes, I’m coming to find you.
She could deal with that.
With Jack happily watching Reid perform magic trick upon magic trick, Aaron took the opportunity to profile his favourite member of their team. She had been gone the twenty minutes he’d allotted her and so he was starting to worry a little bit. Emily didn’t really have any ‘safe spaces’ within the Bureau other than the bullpen, so he made his way through the winding halls. She wasn’t at her desk, which didn’t really come as a surprise to him. That would be too obvious. He knew his door was locked and so was Gideon’s old office next door.
Which meant she was probably in the conference room. He opened the door slowly, unsurprised to find her curled up in a corner of the couch. It was only when she was being professional that Emily chose to sit properly. She preferred to cu rl up with her legs under her. Since her legs were curled to her chest, Aaron knew something was up.
He cleared his throat and knocked on the door to get her attention.
“Hey,” she greeted with a gentle smile.
“Everything okay?”
Emily shifted, pushing herself up to stand. “You tell me.”
He leaned against the table. “We’re okay.”
“I assumed that,” she replied calmly, taking a few steps closer. She watched Aaron look down at his feet, then back up to her.
“It was bound to happen sometime. You’re a beautiful women, most people here believe you to be single…” He echoed her steps until they were almost touching
“I know.” She took a deep breath. “We still can’t say anything.”
“We can’t,” he agreed with a small nod.
Emily sighed, giving up all pretenses and wrapping her arms tightly around his waist. “I hate having to deal with it.”
Aaron nodded hugging her tight, taking comfort from the contact. “We have to come up with a better idea.”
“I have an idea,” Chris said after Emily had detailed her problem on the phone later that night.
Emily knew that scheming tone. “Is it plausible?”
“Of course it is. Listen, remember when I first started seeing Charlie? How because her parents had everything against politics we had to keep it a secret?”
“Her parents kept trying to set her up,” Emily remembered. “But what does that have to do with anything?”
“What did we do to keep her parents off of her back until we could come up with a way to tell them?” Chris inquired innocently.
Emily grinned. “You made it look like she had a secret admirer.”
“Exactly. Her parents stopped setting her up after that.”
Emily snatched a nearby pen and paper. “What did you do?”
“The usual. I sent her flowers, set up a free e-mail account with a fake name to send her little letters… We just made sure that my name was never on anything. If I remember right there was even once when she was supposed to go out with her parents for breakfast and she pretended to be absolutely exhausted from a fantastic date with this ‘guy of her dreams’.”
Emily laughed. It was so her brother. “You are my hero.”
“Always have been,” Chris replied cheekily.
“And at this rate always will be. I’ll tell you how it goes.” She could hear Chris’ grin through the phone.
“You do that.”