Chapter 1: Rain on the Window
Rain tapped a slow, irregular rhythm against the window, each drop dragging itself down the glass like a cold finger. Teresa Lisbon lay perfectly still in the dark hotel room, the sheets clenched in her fists, and cursed Patrick Jane.
The case had been simple. A messy, sad local affair wrapped up with minimal fuss. Tomorrow held only paperwork and a long drive back to Austin. She should have been asleep hours ago. Instead, she was tracing the rivulets on the pane, her body humming with a restless, aggravating awareness that felt entirely too much like hunger.
She had become an expert at distance. It was a survival skill, as essential as her service weapon. Before his disappearance, Patrick had been the architect of that distance, building walls between himself and the entire CBI team with a chilling, ruthless precision. She’d understood, even if it had hurt. He was making them invisible to Red John, carving out a safety zone with his own alienation. Unintentionally, he’d given her a gift: space. Wide, empty stretches where she could box up her own dangerous inclinations, tape them shut, and store them in some dark corner of her disciplined mind.
Now, he was dismantling it all.
Quietly, persistently, he was reaching out. To Cho, with a dry comment that was actually funny. To Wylie, with a puzzling but genuine question about coding. To Abbott, with a respect that wasn’t performance. And to her. Always, now, to her. Not with the old, glittering carnival show of charm, but with a quiet, unnerving authenticity that seeped through her defenses like this damned rain through cracked mortar.
Today had been a masterclass in his new strategy.
After they’d closed the case, the local sheriff—a genuinely kind man with a thick drawl and concern in his eyes—had invited the whole team to his home for supper. His wife had made a pot roast, he’d said. Teresa had declined instantly. Professionally. Firmly.
“Agent Lisbon, your hotel’s a two-hour drive,” the sheriff had replied, wiping his brow with a handkerchief. “Baker’s closed. Ain’t a burger joint or a gas station mini-mart between here and there. It’s just neighborly.”
Patrick had already accepted, offering the sheriff a smile that was small, real, and devoid of manipulation. When Teresa’s expression remained set, the sheriff had leaned in, confidential. “It’s just what we do here. Can’t send the FBI home hungry. My Martha’d never forgive me.”
She’d relented. A tactical decision, she told herself. Logistics.
What a monumental mistake.
The dinner was warm, crowded, and achingly normal. Patrick had sat across from her, at a table laden with heavy china and a bowl of green beans cooked with bacon. He’d been… calm. He listened to the sheriff’s stories about fishing. He asked the sheriff’s wife about the recipe for the cornbread. He let a silence settle without rushing to fill it with a joke or a deflection.
But what had gotten to her the most was watching his hands. Patrick had started to do some simple magic with the sheriff’s children, a quarter appearing from behind a little girl’s ear, and Teresa had found herself fascinated by the graceful skill of his fingers as they danced, the movement a pure distraction for his sleight of hand. They were strong hands, but they moved with a delicate, precise economy that was hypnotic. She caught herself staring an instant before he did and blushed softly when he winked at her in mischief.
She had tried to pay attention to what the sheriff and his wife were saying, but that had been an even worse mistake. The conversation had quickly resulted in the wife, Martha, looking between them with warm, tired eyes. “You two make a beautiful couple,” she’d said, refilling Patrick’s iced tea. “Just a real nice picture.”
Before Teresa could respond, before she could even formulate the standard professional correction, Patrick had stated, easy and clear, “We’re just friends. Not a couple.” He’d even smiled at Martha, taking the sting out of it for her.
Even though she had been just about to say the same thing, his answer had hit her hard. It was just another reminder that he did not see her as anything more than a partner, and definitely didn’t want her physically. She should have been relieved. This was the boundary she needed. Instead, a cold, heavy weight had settled in her stomach, made all the more shameful by the heat she felt in her cheeks.
Now she was lying in bed trying to sort out her thoughts, but the memory of his strong hands and long, graceful fingers kept filling her mind with salacious thoughts about what those hands could do to her. How they might feel tracing the line of her jaw, slipping under the hem of her shirt, learning the landscape of her body with that same focused attention he gave a puzzle. The fantasy was vivid, specific, and it coiled tight low in her belly.
“Damn it,” she muttered into the dark.
With a frustrated sigh, she threw back the sheets. The room was cool, the air conditioning humming against the damp heat of the storm outside. She walked to the window, the carpet plush under her bare feet.
She walked to the window, the carpet plush under her bare feet. The neon glow of a distant sign painted streaks of pink and blue across the ceiling. She watched the rain for a long moment, then yanked the curtains shut with a sharp, decisive rattle of rings on the rod.
The darkness was complete now, a private box for her shame.
She returned to her bed, crawling under the covers. The cool cotton was a shock against her heated skin. She never brought her vibrator with her on a case. In her opinion it was a stupid idea to have one in your go bag. She had always been disciplined enough to keep all her self pleasuring activities to her home.
Prior to Patrick’s return it had never crossed her mind to relieve the pressure while on a case. Then, she had to admit she had never found herself in a situation quite like her current one before. Managing her own sexual needs while on a case with Patrick was becoming a regular practice. She sighed heavily in frustration, admitting that she would never solve the problem tonight and decided it would hardly do any more harm to give in to her desire for one more night. She would come up with a new plan once they were back in Austin.
Her breath hitched. She pulled her nightgown up her legs, the silk bunching around her hips, and slid her hand down to her centre. Images of Patrick Jane’s hands filled her mind as she imagined he was the one touching her. She ignored the guilt she felt at the idea of using images of a coworker to make herself come. She would manage the guilt the next day when she was rested
She clenched her eyes closed and began making slow firm circles over her clit. The touch was electric, a direct line to the ache that had been building for weeks. She bit her lip, a soft gasp escaping. In her mind, it was his thumb, calloused and knowing. His other hand was splayed on her stomach, holding her down.
She focused on the circling pressure of her own fingers, the rhythmic friction against her clit that sent sharp, bright shocks up her spine. The tension coiled, a spring wound tight in her core, but it wouldn’t release. It built to a crest and then just… plateaued, a maddening hum that left her hips twitching up into her own hand, searching for more.
“Fuck,” she breathed into the dark.
In a burst of frustrated motion, she hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her panties and kicked them off, sending them sailing somewhere toward the foot of the bed. The cool air kissed her bare skin. She tried again, this time sliding two fingers inside herself while her thumb worked her clit. The fullness was good, a deep ache that promised something, but it was like trying to unlock a door with the wrong key. She curled her fingers, pressing up, searching for that elusive spot that her previous partners had sometimes found by accident, the one she could never locate on her own.
Nothing. Just pressure, and the growing burn of muscle fatigue.
Her soft, private groans became syllables, woven into the rhythm of her breathing. “Patrick… please… god, just… make me come.” She begged the phantom in her mind, arching her back, trying to lose herself completely in the fantasy of his weight, his mouth, his impossible hands. But her own hand was just her hand—tired, familiar, and inadequate.
Eventually, her wrist protested with a sharp throb. She let her hand fall away, dropping it to the rumpled sheets with a damp sound. She dragged her other hand over her face, pressing the heels of her palms into her eyes until she saw stars.
A guttural sound of pure aggravation tore from her throat. “Goddamn it.”
Even thinking of him, even with this pathetic, hungry fantasy, her body wouldn’t cooperate. It was usually difficult, a stubborn machine that required specific conditions. For some of her former partners, it had been impossible. But she had never completely failed, alone in the dark with her own determination. Hot, shameful tears welled, stinging the corners of her eyes. The realization was a physical blow. Not only was she doomed to love and want a man who saw her as a friend, a tool, a responsibility—but now she couldn’t even fucking take care of the ache he caused. She refused to accept that her future was eternal, frustrated loneliness, a life without even the relief of her own touch.
A ragged laugh escaped her, which caught and twisted into a single, choked sob. She clenched her jaw, hard.
Pull it together, Lisbon. You’ve got toys at home. Something will work.
She took a deep, shuddering breath. One more time. She settled back into the pillows, bent her knees, and let her legs fall open. She returned her hand to her slick, swollen flesh, abandoning the aggressive pursuit for a slower, teasing rhythm. Gentle circles. Barely-there pressure. She closed her eyes and forced her muscles to unclench, focusing on the sensation, not the goal.
Soon, her breath was coming in quick pants again. “Patrick…” His name was a whisper, a prayer, a curse.
Her panting turned into grunts of effort, her hips beginning to piston uselessly against her own hand. The coil was tighter than ever, a wire about to snap, but the release point was shrouded in fog. She was right there. Right there. And yet infinitely far. With a final, defeated snarl, she was about to let her hand fall away again.
That’s when she felt it.
A new warmth. The movement of another hand, larger, covering hers. The long fingers slid between her own, taking over the rhythm, applying a perfect, instant pressure that made her entire body jolt.
Her eyes flew open.
Patrick Jane was leaning over her, one knee on the mattress beside her hip. The faint light from the window cut across the sharp planes of his face. His blue eyes, reflecting the storm’s gloom, were nearly black.
She froze. Every cell in her body screamed. Humiliation, terror, and a terrifying, lightning-bolt surge of pure want locked her in place.
He didn’t smile. His expression was serene, intense, utterly focused. He looked down to where his hand covered hers.
“Jane?” The name squeaked out of her, a thin sound of pure shock. Her mind scrambled, trying to process the solid weight of him, the heat of his palm, the impossible reality. Had she finally tipped over some edge into full-blown hallucination?
“Move your hand,” he said, his voice a low rasp that vibrated through the dark. It wasn’t a request. It was an instruction, simple and clear. “Let me help.”
Help. The word echoed in the frantic cage of her thoughts. This wasn’t help. This was insanity. This was career-ending, friendship-obliterating madness. But her body, treacherous and desperate, was already capitulating. The pleasure of that initial contact, his skin on hers, was a drug flooding her system, short-circuiting every alarm. Caught in the riptide between shock and a deep, clawing need, her fingers went slack.
She moved her hand.
His finger—his finger—slid into the wet heat of her, replacing hers with a seamless, confident glide. Then it moved up, finding her clit with an unerring, devastating accuracy. The first firm, deliberate circle he made over the swollen bud dragged a strangled, broken moan from her lips. Her back bowed off the bed.
“Oh, god.”
He began a rhythm, firm and relentless. It was different from hers. Purposeful. Studying her. He adjusted the pressure, the speed, listening to every hitch in her breath, every twitch of her muscles. Within moments, it was perfect. It was exactly what she’d been fruitlessly chasing. The coil, wound impossibly tight, began to sing.
She arched her hips up into his hand, a helpless offering. And suddenly, just like in her shameful fantasy, his other hand came down. It splayed over her lower stomach, palm hot and heavy, pinning her to the mattress. The dual sensation—the relentless pleasure between her legs and the firm containment of his hold—unmade her.
“W-what…” she gasped, the words fighting their way past the moans he was pulling from her throat. “What are you… doing?”
He didn’t stop. His eyes, dark and intent, held hers. A wicked, knowing grin touched his lips, a ghost of the old Jane but darker, more intimate. Raw.
“Something,” he said, his voice dropping to a rough whisper that she felt in the core of her being, “I’ve wanted to do for years.”
The admission shattered her last pretense of control. Years. He’d wanted. All this time. The thought was as potent as his touch. A sob tangled with a moan. Her hands flew up, grasping at his shoulders, clutching the soft cotton of his shirt. She needed to anchor herself to something or she’d fly apart.
“Look at me,” he commanded, his rhythm never faltering. “Teresa. Look at me.”
She forced her eyes open, glazed and drowning, to meet his. He was watching her face with a fanatical concentration, like she was the only puzzle left in the world worth solving. Every flicker of pleasure, every spasm of approaching release, he saw it. He cataloged it. He owned it.
“I’m not your friend right now,” he murmured, his thumb making a tight, torturous circle. “I’m not your consultant. I saw you today. At that table. Trying so hard to be just the agent. And all I could think about was this. You. Here. Like this.”
His words were gasoline on the fire. Her hips jerked against his restraining hand. The pressure built, a tsunami in her blood, cresting higher and higher.
“Patrick… I can’t… it’s too…”
“You can.” His voice was absolute. “You will. Come for me. Now.”
It was the ‘for me’ that did it. The proprietary, desperate claim in it. The coil snapped.
A raw, guttural cry tore from her throat as the orgasm ripped through her. It wasn’t a gentle wave; it was a seizure of pleasure, violent and total, lighting up every nerve ending. Her vision whited out. She clenched around nothing, her body arching against his unyielding hand, shuddering through wave after relentless wave. He guided her through it, his touch gentling but not stopping, prolonging the spasms until she was a wrung-out, trembling mess against the sheets.
Slowly, the world seeped back in. The sound of the rain. The rasp of her own breath. The heavy, satisfied weight of his hand still between her legs.
She went limp, her grip on his shoulders loosening. She was naked, exposed, utterly spent.
For a few suspended seconds, there was only the sound of the rain and her ragged breathing. Her mind floated, detached from consequence, wrapped in the thick, warm haze of the most profound release she’d ever experienced. Then, like a needle sliding into a vein, cold reality injected itself.
The full gravity of what happened slowly settled on Teresa and as the arousal cleared she felt panic claw at her throat.
Her eyes, wide and horrified, snapped to his face. The serene mask was still there, but she could see the pulse hammering in his neck, the dilated black of his pupils. This was real. He was really here. She had just come apart under his hands.
“Oh, God.”
She scrambled away from his touch, a clumsy crab-walk across the sheets until her back hit the solid oak of the headboard. She pulled her knees to her chest, yanking the rumpled comforter up to her chin, a flimsy shield. Her heart was a frantic animal against her ribs. She could still feel the phantom pressure of his fingers, the exact path they’d taken. The wetness between her thighs was a screaming testament.
Patrick didn’t move from where he knelt. He just watched her retreat, his expression unreadable. Then he gave her a half smile as she pulled up the comforter.
“It’s a bit late for that,” he said, his voice low and rough.
Then, with a deliberate slowness that stopped her breath, he brought the fingers he had pleasured her with to his mouth. He held her gaze as he sucked them clean, his tongue stroking over his knuckles. The soft, wet sound was obscenely loud in the quiet room.
To her shame, Teresa felt the action shoot directly to her core. A fresh, unwilling throb of heat pulsed through the aftermath of her orgasm. Her body was traitorous, still singing his tune. She wanted to vomit. She wanted to scream. She wanted to pull him down on top of her.
“What—how—why?” The words tumbled out, a stammering jumble. She couldn’t settle on a question. Her professional vocabulary had deserted her. She was just a woman in a bed, covered in sweat and sin.
Patrick shifted. He swung his legs off the bed and sat on the edge, facing her. He was close, but not touching. He reached out, and she flinched, but his hand only brushed the tangled, damp auburn hair from her forehead, tucking it behind her ear. The gesture was unbearably intimate.
“What I did is pretty obvious,” he said, his thumb tracing the arch of her eyebrow. “The how…” He sighed, a small exhalation. “I knocked on the connecting door. No answer. I wasn’t sure you were asleep, so I tried the handle. It opened.”
Teresa closed her eyes. She never locked it. It was a habit from a lifetime of being ready, of expecting her team might need her. A procedural oversight with cataclysmic consequences.
“I was going to call out to you,” he continued, his voice dropping to a confessional murmur. “But then I heard your sounds. I realized what you were doing. I knew I should close the door. Pretend it never happened. But I’ve imagined what you would sound like for a very, very long time. So I hesitated. Just for a few moments.”
He leaned in. She could smell herself on his skin, mixed with his citrus cologne. It was dizzying.
“Then I heard my name.” A muscle ticked in his jaw. “You begged me to make you come. I heard the frustration in your voice. I’d already listened too long to walk away. So I decided to help.”
Help. He made it sound like handing her a cup of coffee. Not like crossing a boundary that could shatter their partnership, their careers, the fragile new equilibrium of their lives.
“And the why is pretty easy, Teresa.” He said her name like it was a sacred thing, stripping away the ‘Lisbon’ she hid behind. His hand cupped her jaw, forcing her to look at him. His eyes were clear now, no longer black with lust but bright with a terrifying certainty. “I love you. And I want you. Desperately. I have for years.”
The words hung in the air between them, simple and devastating. They didn’t feel like a confession spun from charm. They felt like bedrock.
Teresa shook her head, a tiny, frantic motion. “You don’t. You can’t. This… this is a mistake. A huge, mistake, Jane.” Her voice broke on his name.
“Patrick,” he corrected gently. “When I have my fingers inside you, when I taste you on my skin, you call me Patrick.”
A fresh wave of heat flooded her face. She was trembling. “Stop it. This is insane. We work together. I’m your partner. You just… you violated…”
“You said my name,” he interrupted, his tone hardening just a fraction. “You begged. You were thinking of me. Don’t rewrite history now because you’re scared.”
“Of course I’m scared!” she hissed, her grip on the comforter turning her knuckles white. “One of us has to be! What the hell happens tomorrow? On the drive back? In the office with Abbott breathing down our necks? What was this, Jane? A one-time service?”
He flinched, finally. The calm cracked, revealing a raw edge of his own frustration. “You think that’s what this was? A pity finger fuck?”
“I don’t know what it was! I didn’t ask for it!”
“Your body did.” He leaned closer, his gaze dropping to her lips. “It’s still asking for it. I can see it. You’re shaking. And it’s not all fear.”
He was right. The tremors running through her were a cocktail of shock, anger, and a deep, humiliating resurgence of need. The space under the comforter felt intensely alive, hypersensitive. The memory of his skill was a ghost touch, promising more.
“This can’t happen,” she whispered, but it sounded like a plea.
“It already did.” He stood up abruptly, pacing a short path away from the bed. He ran a hand through his hair. For the first time, he looked less than perfectly composed. He looked like a man who had gambled everything on a single hand. “I’ve spent five years in a hole, Lisbon. Thinking I was dead. Then I spent two more trying to crawl back to life. You were the only tether. The only thing that felt real. That dinner tonight… watching you force yourself to be just the agent… it was agony. Because I see the woman. I’ve always seen her.”
He turned back to her, his expression stark. “I’m not asking for forever. I’m not asking for promises. I’m asking you to stop lying to yourself for one night. With me.”
He moved then, not back to the bed, but to the connecting door. He put his hand on the knob. “The door will lock on my side. If you want me to go, I’ll go. This never gets mentioned again. We go back to Austin. We work. We carry on as friends, just as we are says have. It’s your call Lisbon. It always has been.”