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She is about thirty seconds away from murdering very special agent Anthony DiNozzo.
Perhaps fifteen. If he makes one more comment, one more joke laced with venom and jealousy and frustration, she may well do it right here in the bull pen.
Or kiss him hard. She hasn’t decided yet.
She could blame work. Could blame Gibbs for working them so late every night this week, draining the last of her patience with every caffeine-laced beverage she had refilled with. But she would be lying to herself. The CIA connection to their latest case added fuel to the fire that seemed to live permanently in Tony’s eyes these days, and she had hoped to wrap it up swiftly and move on.
But the universe seems to be conspiring against her recently, as though it were too unhappy with her choices to give her even a modicum of sanity.
She sighs, frustrated with herself for having even engaged with him. Yet it’s a part of their relationship she craves as much as she hates. Anger and lust are two sides of the same coin, and maybe she does like to toy with the darkness she brings to his eyes when they fight because it is so reminiscent of his blown pupils when he fucks her. She plays with him in a way that can only be categorised as unhealthy, but believes that if she’s depriving herself of his lust, then at least she can have his anger.
Maybe part of her wants to see how far they can go.
If he turned around tomorrow with a solution that would mean they could try and make this work, she would jump on it without thought because she is wholeheartedly in love with him and no longer able to ignore that fact. But she knows the truth is, there are no answers for them. The choice is the lives they have built for themselves or each other, and neither is willing to risk the family they’ve made for something that would probably end in tears, given their exceptionally terrible communication skills.
There is too much to lose.
It does not stop the itch for the gains, the urge to devour him whole.
It’s been seven days of him driving her absolutely crazy. Picking out flaws in CIA tactics and making snarky references that were too on the mark for her to squash her responses to anything near appropriate. Even Gibbs had called her out (and given Tony a headslap that made even McGee wince).
Maybe it hurts most because he is right.
Every sardonic comment about Ray's performance, his history, his methods of wooing her… they hit right where it hurt, exposing the façade she's been quietly maintaining. That this entire thing is a farce, a desperate play, a grasp to try and not spend the rest of her life alone wanting a man she will never get.
There is something flitting in her head about self-sabotage - something about picking a nomadic agent-type who was never around being exactly what she said she didn’t want, but she ignores it, cannot bear to unpick that thread and what it means. Not now.
It’s suddenly late, and Gibbs is letting them leave, dismissing them with a shake of his hand and a few brief words. He disappears up to the director, McGee mumbling his goodnights before leaving to search for Abby. She shuts her computer down, not bothering to waste time saving the little work she has managed to get done between planning Tony’s murder and fantasising about his hands on her body.
Feeling his eyes on her, she refuses to let him get a word in, rising from her desk and grabbing her things without a backward glance so she can beat him to the elevator. The doors start closing, and she breathes a sigh of relief that is cut short by the masculine hand that catches the metal plate before it hits home.
Fuck.
He steps in, and she doesn’t allow herself to look at him as the doors close again. Being with him in an enclosed space right now is either going to end in bloodshed or sex, and she is not sure which would have more fallout.
She is still pondering the possibility of both when he hits the emergency switch.
The box shudders to a halt, and she feels her heart rate pick up to a dangerous pace.
It is sick, the way she lives for this. Lives for the rage and lust and want that comes any time she tussles with him. He sets something alight in her that she cannot explain, and she knows she shoulders some of the responsibility for them getting to this point of mutual masochism, but she blames whatever it is he does to the nerves sparking under her skin the most.
He is silent for a long time, long enough that she glances up to find him disarmingly close, arms crossed, and she’s momentarily distracted by the exposed skin of his forearms from his rolled-up sleeves. “If you have something to say-”
“I don’t,” he interrupts, eyes boring into her. “But you do.” When she does not speak, he adds, “You’re mad at me.”
That snaps the band between lust and rage inside her, and she is stepping into his space, threat alive in her eyes. “Of course I am mad at you. You have been a complete ass all week.”
There is an annoyed humour in his eye that frustrates and intrigues her. She knows he likes this game as much as she does, but it bothers her when she is kept off kilter for so long. The part of her that knows it is wrong to keep stepping into the fire tries to hold her back, but she has never listened to it before, not when it comes to him.
“You have been just as bad,” he counters, and that sends twinges of anger prickling the back of her neck.
She shoves a finger into his chest, right where the bone is, to make sure it hurts. He refuses to step back. “No, I have been defending myself.” She stabs it into him again, the grunt he lets out pleasing her. “You are the one who has been poking at things that do not concern you.” Another rough poke. “You are the one who has been criticising and ridiculing my choices. Because you are bitter, jealous.”
The space simmers. She is a pot about to boil over and his silence only turns up the heat. “Admit that you are jealous,” she hisses, frustration tensing her jaw.
The emotion seems to ricochet onto him because her back is against the wall, his palm slamming into the metal beside her head. “Of course I’m fucking jealous,” he spits out, and whether he is annoyed that she makes him feel it or annoyed that she questioned it, she is not sure.
Can’t breathe.
She meets his eyes, desire and restraint warring in the pale threads of his irises. She could kick him, but she really wants to kiss him.
There’s recognition there, a mutual understanding she’s had with him many times before. It has become an undefined agreement between them that what they may want and what they can have are irrevocably different.
She sees the ledge he is on, the pinnacle of him about to tumble into saying or doing something that cannot be undone. As much as she wants to push him, as much as the anger inside her tells her he deserves this just as much as he does, she knows she should not because neither of them would survive the fall.
Her hand meets his cheek, torn between caressing the stubble that has grown there and gripping him hard, and he leans into it with a pained exhale. “Tony,” she starts, capturing his attention again. His eyes close and she sweeps her thumb over his lip. “We have talked about this…”
And they had. On rare occasions, when walls were so far down they were trenches being filled with each other’s truths. The end of a hot summer when rules re-shifted and loyalties spread thinner than the sheets that covered their sweaty bodies. A Parisian night when he made love to her so gently she thought she might have broken and reformed a thousand times under his hands. A litany of lies and forbidden connections - deceit born from a complete inability to stay away from what they could not be.
It had not helped.
The words that had echoed in a dark autopsy room twirled through her mind in a knowing whisper.
It was inevitable.
“I know,” he responds, and she forgets what she has told him.
The need in his eyes is surely reflected in hers. She promised herself she would not fall back into this, but he is a bad habit she cannot shake, no matter how many people they put between themselves. She’s always had a mildly self-destructive streak, and Tony has always brought it out in her so easily - a man who makes bending the rules feel redemptive rather than wrong.
She’s supposed to be with someone else; he’s supposed to be distracting himself with other people.
She’s supposed to feel some kind of loyalty and respect, but she finds it hard to summon when Tony’s breath ghosts over her cheek. And maybe that makes her a bad person, because as much as she cares for Ray and as much as she does not truly want to hurt him, he does not understand her. Not like Tony does.
Perhaps it is her fault for not letting him in, but then she had never meant to let Tony through her walls and yet he lives with her in every single beat of her heart.
The twisted mess at her core tells her it is only right that she was destined to fall for a man she could not have without sacrificing her life in return. But the reward of his kiss, his hands on her skin, was worth the price of that hollow guilt, right? She’s close to fracturing anyway; she might as well steal a moment of rapture before she cracks apart.
“Why do we keep doing this?” she says instead, desire and self-hatred warring in her chest.
He leans forward, resting his forehead on hers. “Because we’re fighting a battle we can’t win.”
The taste of him skirts her lips and she has less than a second to breathe in before he presses his lips to hers, pushing her hard into the metal wall with a hand protecting the back of her head. She groans at the sensation, dragging her hands up to pull him closer and angling her head to let him take control of the kiss because she loves the way he does this.
How he dominates her mouth, sucking little breathy moans from the depths of her. How his fingers rake up the back of her neck and grip her hair to angle her just right to take and give in such devastating measures. He knows what she needs and that thought should bother the feminist inside her, but then he grazes her bottom lip with his teeth, the sting of it settling somewhere low in her belly, and the concern flies away with her conscience.
It’s punishing, the way he kisses her - more bruising than tender, and she meets him there, surging up onto tiptoes so she can nip at his tongue. He grunts into her mouth, that familiar animalistic sound she loves to pull from him, and she almost laughs at how little time it takes for everything to unravel. How many last times they have tried to convince themselves they will have.
Somehow this feels more frantic, more aware, as though he senses how desperate she is, how close he is to losing her for good.
She kisses him back with equal fervour, matching his need until it makes her dizzy. It has always been like this - years in, and they have never managed to find moderation. She is not sure if it’s the danger, the secrecy, or the knowledge that they are gambling everything on something they know will blow up, but something about his touch erases the parts of her that care for consequence.
His hips press into hers, her back against the elevator wall. She should stop this, should remember what they are doing and where the fuck they are but she cannot bring herself to push him away, needs to touch him like she needs air to breathe.
It’s only when she finds herself wrapping a leg around his thigh that she becomes aware of her surroundings, realises what they are doing. Making out, dry humping like teenagers against an elevator wall. But, fuck, he’s all man, she can feel it - the width of his hand splayed over her back, the size of him dwarfing her as she clings to his shoulders.
She needs more.
She needs to stop.
Ziva forces herself to pull back, but his lips drop to her neck and she groans, throwing her head back to give him space to suck and mark. His hands stroking whatever skin he could find distracts her further, and she chokes back a sob of need when he tongues the sensitive area behind her ear.
“Tony, we…” Her eyes roll as he tightens his grip on her hair to kiss her again and she smacks his shoulder to get his attention, dragging her lips off his. “We have to stop.”
He drops her, panting hard as he takes a step back and she’s suddenly colder than she has ever been in her life. Because he hears her words and knows she means them in more ways than she is saying. She hates the pain she sees in his eyes, hates that hers is bared to him, too.
Wrapping her arms around herself does little to block the chill, but it makes her feel safer.
He notices, tries to meet her eyes. “Ziv-”
“Don’t,” she cuts him off. There is nothing either of them can say to make this okay. They both know they are doomed.
Tony studies her for a long moment before sighing and flipping the switch. A jolt and a rattle as the lights flicker on, and the box descends once again. He rubs the edge of his jaw, frustration ticking along the muscles beneath his fingers. She tries not to stare, tries not to say the words that lick at her tongue and threaten to make things worse.
“Maybe I should let this go,” he says as they travel, that pondering self-deprecating tone telling her he has hit self-destruction mode. “But tell me the truth.” He turns to face her, his usually vibrant eyes dark with an emotion she cannot pin down. “How you felt when I just kissed you? He ever make you feel that way?”
His focus is entirely on her, pinning her down like a specimen in a lab. She hates him in that moment. Hates that he is right and hates that what she wants is impossible. She could answer him - could give him some smug, over-exaggerated description of a made-up kiss far better than his, could threaten him with bodily harm. She could even let him know that he has hurt her.
But as they hit the ground, rattling doors opening onto the deserted foyer, she steps out and does the only thing she knows how to do with him. She volleys back. “Does she?”
Ziva catches the doors before they close, keeping his eyes to let him know she expects an answer.
And in his silence, she gets it.
She gives him a sad smile and simple nod, turning towards her car without looking back.
He does not stop her.