"No," was the first thing Raul said when meeting Cara's practiced smile.

In the motel room's doorway, he stared at how her thin black straps dug into her shoulders to hold her heavy cleavage up.

"Oh, so serious," she joked to test him.

The comfortable room served as a command center for their undercover operation. Husband and wife, like in all their best missions. On pause ever since her stupid mistake, when she accidentally...

It was time for Cara to make it right. He had moved on, on his way to getting married, avoiding her. All she wanted was a chance to prove that if he preferred to stay friends and co-workers, she would be more than happy to. She'd missed their effortless missions, laughing and struggling not to end up in bed together, keeping it "professional". They worked so well as a duo.

Raul passed her to get in, keeping the maximum distance between their bodies at all times. His codename was El Oso, which meant The Bear, completely deserved by his large frame and hairy arms.

It didn't help that she found him hot, no matter what he was wearing: biker gear, hoodie and jeans, sweatpants, tank tops that displayed his sculpted arms. Even more so when in a suit, now black with an assorted thin tie.

Cara bit her lower lip intentionally at the exact time he brought his dark eyes back to her. His short hair made him look like a soldier, only the decorative parallel lines above his left ear, showing dark skin, betrayed he wasn't one.

He grinned with perfectly aligned teeth, bright when seeing her so deflated, "Cara. Good to see you again." He didn't let her smile spread, taking USB cables out of his suitcase, placing them on the bed in meticulous order. "We should get started."

Cara needed a moment to breathe, left without weapons. Her sharpest one had been dulled by his apparent immunity to her charms. She pushed her breasts forward, upset with herself that she wasn't accepting his rejection. She had inserted herself into his mission at the last minute, to prove to him she could be civilized when around him, and now she was all hurt he was getting married anyway, tempted to try to convince him to run away with her. She closed her eyes.

"What's wrong?" he finally asked, but it took him longer than if he didn't already know.

"Listen, I don't wanna make this weird," Cara said, avoiding his stare. Every time he looked at her, she knew he was thinking about the same thing she was: how she got down on her knees in that seedy biker bar broom closet--so that the MC leader they were surveilling found them in a position that would take his mind off the suspicion they'd been snooping around. Cara's split-second decision surprised everyone, including Raul and herself. And to be fair, it worked: Tony Romo opened that closet door ready to kill them, only to become amiable and sarcastic, watching Raul pull his pants back up.

They never did another mission together, and Cara worried it wasn't fate.

"I think we work well together," she said. "It would be a shame for us... To stop. Because of one mistake I made."

"It wasn't that," he avoided her stare. "You got us out of there alive," he joked.

Cara grinned back, then pouted, not hiding her amusement.

"I just needed some distance," he explained. "You said you weren't going to settle down very soon, we were working together... And I wanted something more... Serious."

Consequences scared Cara, they kept following her: one year later, the email asking all agents to chip in for a wedding gift stabbed her in the heart in a way no Grizzly decorated email had the right to.

"Well, congratulations," she made use of all her acting talent. She had been afraid to give the two of them a try, for approximately the same reasons he outlined. She thought it was a crush that would go away.

"Yeah, the wedding's not happening," Raul said, the laptop screen lighting his face. He kept on typing as if irrelevant information.

"What?!"

"Yeah," he said, busy connecting to the wiretapping network. "I thought I'd wait longer. You know, before settling down."

"Why--"

He was no longer typing, he just stared at the screen, his profile still in the cold white light.

Cara smiled, although he couldn't see it. "So now you're...?" she made him bring his eyes back to her. He didn't answer, so she continued, "It's a shame--because I was thinking of settling down."

"You?" he smiled warmer, and Cara took it as the invitation that it was.

"Yeah, you know, try that serious thing. I'm not sure I'll be good at it," she sauntered, encouraged by his silent admiration.

She reached him as he sat on the bed, next to the laptop, spread in a star of connected devices. "There is one thing I'm very good at, though."

"I think I got the demo," he laughed, putting his arms around her, his palms caressing her back, pulling her closer.

Cara bent to kiss him, her hesitation melting when their lips touched, her tongue rushing to taste him. His grip around her tightened, forcing her to climb him, her knees sinking into the mattress.

His mouth left hers to continue down her neck, pulling the straps over her shoulders, down her elbows. The synthetic fabric's tightness kept the dress up, his too-big hand impatiently pulling the side zipper to release her breasts into his breath. Then, he lifted the hem, revealing unnecessarily lacy underwear picked out of a lineup of twelve, just in case she might get him into bed.

At least once.