Memoirs of an Interloper

The car ride was tense and silent. Hotch was careful to cultivate a stern professionalism that was absolutely airtight. After the last encounter he had with Jasmine, he couldn’t afford to give her even an inch to work with. She pushed every button she could find.

Reid, however, struggled greatly with the rising tension. He watched the kid in the backseat pull at his collar and swallow hard, glancing nervously between the Hotch and Jasmine in the front seat. He tried filling the quiet with random facts about different streets and buildings as they passed them, but Aaron wasn’t in the mood for conversation. He felt bad, he wanted to relent and throw the poor kid a bone, he was clearly uncomfortable, but he couldn’t risk lightening the atmosphere.

Not with Jasmine’s damn pencil skirt riding up her thighs as she crossed her legs.

He parked the SUV a street over from the location, it was a nice day regardless of their reason for being here. There was a warm, light breeze that blew as they trekked their way back to the lawyer’s office. Jasmine led the way, and Aaron watched as Reid dragged his eyes up the contours of her body. Hotch cleared his throat and shot him a stern look, causing the brunette to blush ferociously. He needed Reid sharp for this case, if working with Jasmine was going to distract him, he’d have to reassign him.

The building was pretty run down and there was a dusty smell in the air. It was obvious the office didn’t have any kind of air conditioning and the door was old and wooden with frosted glass on the window that looked original to the building. Hotch knocked and the door was answered immediately, almost as if the man was lying in wait for them.

“How can I help you?” the man said with a smile. His face was friendly enough, but his face faltered for half a second. Perhaps he wasn’t expecting three FBI agents at his door.

“My name is SSA Aaron Hotchner with the FBI. These are my associates, Dr. Spencer Reid and Dr. Lola Reese. We are investigating a series of murders in the area, we were hoping to speak with you about what you might have seen,” Hotch flashed his badge.

“I’m afraid I haven’t seen anything,” the lawyer laughed, taking a pair of red tinted glasses out of his jacket pocket. “Unfortunately, I haven’t seen anything since I was eight years old.” The glasses fell to the floor and before Aaron could help, Jasmine bent down to fetch them.

“I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t know, I don’t mean to offend,” Hotch folded up his badge and put it away.

“No offense taken, Aaron. My name is Matt. Matt Murdock,” the man held out his hand and Hotch shook it briefly. “Is there any other way I can help?”

“Yeah,” Reid called from where he’d wandered over to Matt’s desk, “your office has a perfect view of this alleyway.”

“I wouldn’t really know. I guess that’s why Foggy insisted on the other office. It probably has a park view,” Matt laughed. Hotch let out a snort of amusement himself.

“No, I mean, do you know if the building has any cameras? Was anyone in your office that might have seen something?” Reid disregarded the lawyer’s blatant attempt at humor.

“No, I’m really sorry. This is an old building and the tenants here aren’t exactly wall street brokers. I wish I could be of more help,” Matt said with a frown.

“We appreciate your time, Mr. Murdock. If you think of anything more, please reach out,” Hotch almost handed him a business card, but thought better of it. The man would have no use for it.

“Hotch, I think we should survey the other three floors and see if anyone else with windows facing the alleyway might have seen something,” Reid insisted, pulling out his notebook.

“That’s a good idea, I’m going to stay behind and conduct a cognitive interview on Mr. Murdock. He might have experienced something that he didn’t realize was helpful. It’s worth a shot,” Jasmine said with a shrug. Hotch’s face was stone cold, he thought this was a waste of time, but at least she would be out of his hair for a while, “Very well. Is that alright with you, Mr. Murdock?”

“Anything I can do to help,” he said with a smile. Hotch was only marginally relieved when he left Jasmine behind in the old, dusty office. He knew it was a temporary reprieve, but perhaps it would allow him enough time to catch his breath.

“Doctor Lola Reese?” Matt’s face dropped as soon as the door closed, “You work for the FBI now? Do they know who you really are? Do you even have a PhD?”

“Biochemistry and they know what’s relevant, Murdock. What do you know about this?” Jasmine snapped. His jaw clenched at her tone.

“It’s the Russians. Gang violence. They’re using the bodies as decoy crimes to cover up illegal trafficking nearby. They’re trying to draw police attention away from their operations,” Matt stated as a matter-of-factly.

“Well, they drew a little too much attention. Do you or do you not have this under control?” Jasmine glared at him, hoping he could feel it. He usually did.

The corner of his mouth turned up into a small smirk, “Are you trying to stop people from killing? This is so unlike you.” He reached out his hand and stroked it against her cheek. “It’s kind of” he leaned in to whisper against her ear, “hot.”

“We don’t have time for games. We need someone to pin this on. Someone with a believable motive. You tell whoever you have to tell that unless they want their entire operation discovered, we need a low level guy to attach this charge to,” Jasmine was stern, shoving his hand off of her face.

“I’ll do what I can,” Matt sighed, leaning against the desk.

“You better or else it's only a matter of time before the FBI finds out about you, too,” Jasmine threatened.

Matt grabbed her face and pulled her a mere inch from his. “If they find out about me, I’ll know who to blame and where to find her,” his tone was bone chilling.

Jasmine smiled against the force of his hands on her jawline. She knew the second part of his threat was a lie, but she indulged him anyway, “I’m counting on it. We’ll go a few rounds.” She drew one of his pointer fingers into her mouth and sucked on it, causing Matt’s breath to hitch momentarily.

“That sounds more like you,” there was an edge of disgust in his tone, which only made Jas moan around his fingers. “How long have you been sleeping with the boss, Lola?” Jasmine allowed his finger to fall from her lips as she shot him an another angry glare. “And the one that follows you around like a puppy dog? You sleep with him, too? Or just make him think you will?” Matt teased, but it wasn’t light-hearted.

“Reid does not follow me around like a puppy,” Jasmine defended, the words exiting her mouth before Murdock had even finished the taunt.

“Please. Both of their hearts were beating out of their chests when you bent down to pick up my glasses. I thought the one was going to finish in his pants,” Matt scoffed.

“Leave Reid alone,” Jasmine warned.

“No, I wasn’t talking about Reid," he snapped. Jasmine felt her heart skip a beat as Matt's face contorted further into disgust, "You’ve got these people wrapped around your finger. I’m not surprised. Is there no one you wouldn’t sleep with to get your way?” Matt crossed his arms over his chest.

She drew in a centering breath before her heartbeat could allow him any additional ammunition. “You have twenty four hours to produce a suspect for me,” Jasmine sniped, throwing her business card at him.

The day had turned to night several hours ago. A few pots of coffee later and the team was going over victimology in an empty conference room, surrounded by evidence boards that Reid had been scribbling across for the past few hours. They hadn’t managed to produce much of a profile yet, and Hotch felt the morale of the team beginning to dwindle. There wasn’t much to connect these victims other than their transient lifestyle. In a city as large as New York, that meant almost nothing.

“Perhaps we should take a break and come back in a couple hours with fresh eyes,” Hotch suggested, rubbing his eyes. He just now realized how badly they burned.

“I want pizza,” Morgan declared, halfway out the door already. Rossi was out of his chair faster than Aaron had ever seen him/

“Oh I’m in!” Emily threw her files down on the table in front of her, grabbing her blazer and tossing JJ hers. Reid let out a small squeal of excitement before trotting out the door to catch up with them, “You know we’ve been to New York 14 times and we’ve never stopped to get pizza. There's this place I heard of that I really want to try. It's supposed to be the best pizza in Manhattan."

"Dr. Reid, you possess inhumane amounts of knowledge, but when it comes to Italian cuisine, I've got you beat, kid," Rossi argued, his tone as commanding as the single finger he waved in the air as he spoke.

The room quieted as Reid's unsuccessful protests followed Rossi's unmoving authority through the conference room door. Still, Aaron knew he wasn't alone.

“You should go eat,” Hotch mumbled to Jasmine, not looking up from his papers, but sensing the blonde’s presence in the room.

“So should you,” Jasmine retorted, her fingers thumbing nonchalantly over the pages in her own hand.

“I’m ordering you to go take a break,” Aaron straightened his stance, willing her to move with his gaze. She simply furrowed her brows and brought the back of her pen to her mouth, twirling it lazily across her lips as she continued to ignore him.

“You’re impossible,” Aaron snapped, throwing his files onto the table. Jasmine only nodded slowly, marking the papers with unrecognizable symbols.

Embarrassed by his own outburst, and even more irritated by her lack of reaction, he cleared his throat once and forced authority back into his tone, “If you do not leave this room, I will have your privileges on this case revoked." Her head snapped up and Hotch held her gaze sternly, but he could see something furious brewing in her eyes. It made his skin crawl.

A silence passed over them for a tense few seconds before her face barely relented. “Yes, Agent Hotchner,” she bitterly got out through her clenched jaw. She stormed out of the room, a breeze of perfumed air hitting Hotch’s nose as she left.

He brought his head to his hands and let out a sigh. He could have handled that better, but it was difficult to think when her very presence made it harder for him to breathe. Besides, she needed a break. Maybe he did, too. Taking his own advice, he left the conference room, walking outside to get some fresh air.

The night’s song was an overture of honking horns and sirens. The faint roar of Times Square could be heard a few blocks away. The lights were slightly disorienting, but Hotch felt himself coming back to life as the scents and sounds of the city hit him. He made his way to the SUV to grab his phone charger when he saw the back door ajar. Inside, Jasmine was sitting cross legged in the back seat, her phone connected to the center console. Hotch forced himself not to roll his eyes at her presence.

Of course she was here. He couldn’t get away from her even if he tried.

“Why’d you kick me out if you were just going to follow me out here anyway?” Jasmine sneered, but there was a small smile on her face. Hotch drew in a deep breath and allowed his shoulders to relax.

“I didn’t mean to lose my temper there, I apologize.” It was stiff and probably unconvincing, but it was an apology nonetheless.

“No worries, we’re all on edge. I left my card with Mr. Murdock, told him to give it to his associate. Maybe that Foggy guy saw something relevant?” Jasmine’s tone was light. The night air seemed to cool her down as well. Aaron was grateful to be met with compliance rather than resistance.

“Good thinking. Thank you,” Aaron was content to sit in silence with her. He meant it. Her tactical instincts made her fit for the job. It was easy to forget how easy she was to work with, especially since she seemed to spend most of her time being purposefully difficult.

“Are we going to do this forever?” Jasmine asked, not looking up from her phone.

“Do what?” The question already reintroduced what little tension had melted from his shoulders.

“Pretend like you’re fine when you’re clearly not. If you need a break from me, Hotch, I get it. I want to help and I love this job, but this is your team and they need you to be the best you can be. If I am hindering that, I can step away. Your job is way too important for you to be distracted,” Jasmine held confident eye contact with him and it was Hotch who broke it to glance at the ground.

“I don’t need a break from you. I am fine,” Hotch assured her. She rolled her eyes and tossed her phone to the floorboards, laying back against the back seat to stare out the sunroof. She was clearly dissatisfied with his answer. Hotch watched her lay against the leather of the back seat and swallowed hard. It would be so easy to crawl in with her.

Too easy.

“I don’t believe you.” Yeah, why would she? He couldn’t keep his mind out of the gutter. He wouldn't believe him either.

He felt his own eyes roll at the accusation. “What do you want me to say, Jasmine?”

The blonde propped herself up on her elbows and gave him an unreadable look, “The truth.”

“Yes, okay. I have been a bit distracted by you lately, but it isn’t hindering my ability to do my job,” Hotch crossed his arms. Aaron wanted to be annoyed with her arrogant assumption, but he couldn’t deny the truth in her accusation.

“Your decision making is sound?”

“Of course it is.” The very question offended him.

There was a devilish smirk on her face as her hands reached up to undo a button on her blouse.

“No,” Hotch growled.

His brow was firm and his jaw clenched as the blonde disregarded his warning and continued to unbutton her shirt. Aaron tried to look away, but couldn't when every minute movement revealed more and more of the satin white bra beneath it. It was unembellished, but it created such gorgeous contours that Aaron felt his heart kick in his chest.

He cursed under his breath when he felt a stirring in his crotch. He had to go back to work. He turned away from her, the edges of his vision going black. There was no way he could allow this to happen again.

“Oh Aaron,” Jasmine gasped and it caused him to stop dead in his tracks.

He knew if he turned around to see her, he wouldn’t be a strong enough man to walk away. He knew that if he saw her, with her hand disappearing into her skirt, calling out his name, that he wouldn’t be able to stop himself.

There was an obvious tent in the front of his trousers now, and Hotch closed his eyes in exasperation. The best case scenario would be to walk into the police station with nobody catching him and sit with his crotch under the table as he buried himself in his work and hope it would go away. The odds of that happening were slim with the amount of foot traffic coming in and out. He could survive the embarrassment of a workplace erection, but he wasn’t sure if he could survive getting caught having sex with the same coworker he had assaulted only a few weeks prior.

Hotch weighed his options, but his heart was beating so loud, all he could hear was the blood racing in his ears and the soft sounds of Jasmine fingering herself in the back seat of the car.

He would never be able to drive that car again without seeing her pinned underneath him in the backseat. It would be disastrous for his mental state. Aaron was done with the games. With great will power and a sharp intake of breath, he turned to face her, ready to tell her to put her clothes back on or she was dismissed from the case.

The words burned on the tip of his tongue. His throat was already forming around the shape of the order.

As soon as he saw her, he was done for.

His body acted on its own accord, he ripped off his suit jacket, throwing it into the front seat. He undid his belt, wordlessly, but there was anger in his eyes. He was pissed that he once again found himself in this situation. Once the belt was off, he undid his pants and crawled in the backseat. He pulled them down just enough to free his erection from the confines of his underwear and pushed Jasmine’s skirt out of the way.

He reached between her thighs to move her panties to the side and his fingers immediately came in contact with her wet folds.

“No panties?” Hotch muttered bitterly. Of course. His jaw clenched as he stared down at her expectantly, his mind retroactively replaying the temptation of the day with this newly found knowledge.

“Didn’t want panty lines,” Jasmine gasped, “it’s a tight skirt.”

“Trust me,” Hotch growled, thrusting into her without warning, “I fucking noticed.”

He didn’t allow her time to get accustomed to his size, he didn’t have the self control. She was too wet, too warm and too tight around his aching cock. Every thrust was met with a delicious pulsation of her velvet walls.

“You’re such a whore, Jasmine. You want everyone to take you seriously, but you walk around in your slutty little skirts and your low cut shirts. You want everyone to stare at you, don’t you? You think if the world wants to sleep with you, then maybe you’ll mean something to people. God you drive me fucking crazy,” Hotch’s face was red with effort and anger.

He wasn’t sure where the words were coming from, but he couldn’t stop them. They flowed out of him like molten lava.

He reached his hand up to wrap it around her neck where he applied light pressure to the sides of it. Immediately, she let out a strangled moan and tilted her head back. Hotch took the opportunity to leave open mouthed kisses against her pulse point.

“You do such a good job making sure everyone around you is all hot and bothered. You make me want to bend you over any desk I can find just so I can make it. Fucking. Stop.” Hotch punctuated each sentence with a hard thrust, causing her chest to bounce.

Her lips parted, but nothing could escape around the pressure of his hand. He recognized the slight warning in her green eyes as they met his. He knew she was close because he was at the edge already too.

As her body spasmed against his, Hotch came with a growl. The pleasure pounded through his body like thunder. His body was oscillating rapidly between hot and cold and there was a ringing in his ears. All he could hear was the sound of his heart thumping wildly against his sternum. He paused in the disorienting silence, fighting for air in his own lungs as his fingers loosened around her neck.

He pulled out of her as the pleasure subsided, as soon as he returned to himself. He reached into the center console, disconnected her phone charger and threw her a pack of tissues. Without saying a word, he replaced his suit jacket, stuffed the charger in his pocket, flattened his hair in the side view mirrors and tried his best to look nonchalant as he sauntered back into the police station with a newly ignited sense of self hatred.

Matt Murdock had kept true to his word. He’d managed to produce a low-level Russian mobster and together with Jasmine, the two concocted a believable backstory. They met on the rooftop of an abandoned office building in Hell’s Kitchen and shared terrible coffee as they worked through the night to iron out any details in the unsubs story. Once she was satisfied that not even Reid would be able to poke holes in it, she planted enough evidence for someone to happen upon his identity and “solve” the case. The team was out at dinner, celebrating their victory with a few drinks, but Jasmine found herself in the seedy alleyway behind Murdock’s office.

“You look like hell Matt Murdock,” Jasmine muttered as Matt rounded the corner in the same outfit he wore before she knew his real name, the red devil horns just barely visible in the dim light. Now that she knew his identity, she was going to remind him of his disadvantage.

“Well, I had a long night,” he quipped, there was a slight limp in his step when he made his way over to her.

“Don’t be dramatic, Murdock. I didn’t even try to kill you this time,” Jasmine rolled her eyes.

Matt smiled, “Didn’t you though? That was the worst coffee I’ve ever had.”

"You're so fucking dramatic," she muttered under her breath, unable to keep the amusement from her voice. She saw his body untense by a barely perceptible degree.

"I was serious about what I said earlier. I'm surprised to see you on this side of the law," his voice was softer than she ever remembered hearing it before.

"That's because you don't actually know anything about me," Jasmine reminded him.

“Well, either way thank you for helping me get the feds off my back. I haven’t had time to crack this thing yet, but I’m pretty sure whoever is in charge would have enough money to get the feds in his back pocket anyway." There was bait perched at the end of his declaration, and Jasmine knew he wanted her to take it. But his probe for additional information told Jasmine more than he wanted her to know; he didn't know if or how she was connected to anything.

“The BAU doesn’t run like that, but I know what you mean. And for the record, I wasn’t helping you, I was helping myself,” Jasmine corrected him.

“Trust me, I know. There’s no way Lola Reese is your real name,” Matt folded his arms against his chest, leaning coolly against the brick wall.

“As far as the FBI knows, it is.”

“But, Agent Hotchner knows who you really are. I could tell he was lying when he introduced you. He’s a good liar, but I can always tell.”

“He knows my real name. But what else is there to know?” Jasmine challenged.

“What a prolific killer you are,” Matt deadpanned, “and the God given talent your mouth has,” he added with a smirk.

Jasmine narrowed her eyes, "Two compliments in a row, you really want me to get on my knees for you, huh?"

"I wouldn't call them compliments, " Matt allowed disgust to creep into his tone now. "You and I both know that I don’t agree with your methods, but I guess we’re two sides of the same coin.”

“What coin is that?” Jasmine whispered, practically delighted by the false equivalency he'd drawn.

“Vigilante," Matt muttered as a matter of factly. "The law doesn’t always work, sometimes it needs a nudge. I suppose that’s why you’ve infiltrated the FBI,” Matt ventured.

“Infiltrated is a strong word. I was brought on because of my expertise in catching people who don’t want to be caught.”

“And you decided to sleep with your boss because…”

“Are you jealous, Matt Murdock?” Jasmine faced him, her ponytail whipping behind her with the force of the movement.

“I’m just trying to figure you out.”

“I wish you wouldn’t. Look, I enjoy our time together hate fucking in random ally ways, but I’m not in the market for something serious.”

“Then maybe,” Matt closed the space between them, leaving only a few inches from their lips, “For old time’s sake…”

She could tell he didn't really want it. There was something akin to respect in the conclusion he'd drawn for her tonight. He wanted to get to know her because he thought she might be more like him than he realized. She was, but not for any reason he'd want to hear out loud.

“No.”

“Fair enough, you’re here on official business,” Matt raised his hands in defeat, “next time we meet in the shadows of the night, I’ll expect you to make up for this.”

“You be careful what you wish for,” Jasmine threatened light-heartedly when her phone rang in her jacket pocket, “Duty calls.”

“Legality looks good on you. Next time we’re hate fucking, I’m going to remember you like this,” Matt smirked, backing away from her into the shadows of Hell’s Kitchen. Jasmine gave a small goodbye, but it wasn’t Hotchner calling him. It was Fury.

Drinks were a much needed commodity for the team. They’d been solving cases left and right, but the sheer pace at which they were working was driving them all towards burn out. Hotch had been nursing the same beer for about an hour now, but he threw the best feigned smiles he could muster when any of his teammates looked his way.

He was happy to see them loosened up, but he was hard pressed to feel anything other than the volatile mix of emotions that Jasmine had stirred up in him. There was the self-hatred that welled in his chest at any given moment. Of course, Aaron didn’t respect himself for the choices he’d made over the past several weeks. The things he’d willingly participated in had far outweighed the one situation that served as a catalyst for it all.

He hated how weak he was when it came to her, and he found himself wondering if she was just that attractive, or if he was just that easily manipulated. After much rumination, he thought the truth might lie somewhere in the middle.

The guilt ate at him like a virus. It sat in his stomach and ate away at its lining, making him feel uneasy and nauseous most of the time. He felt as though he betrayed his love for Haley by participating in these acts with someone like Jasmine. What he felt for Haley was real, true, deep love. He would have died for her if he had the chance to take her place. Jasmine wasn’t like that. She affected his body in a way that could only be identified as lustful.

She’d been right about what she said about him and oral sex; it was a reflex, but he did it because he enjoyed it. He always had. It was his favorite way to get hard. The fact that he had gone down on her the same way he had with Haley cheapened his memory of her. But it was more than just Haley he was betraying. Aaron watched as Reid danced drunkenly with JJ in the corner of the bar.

The guilt for Haley came later, but the guilt for Reid was immediate.

Hotch knew he took something from Reid the night he touched Jasmine. He didn’t think he could forgive himself for it until he did it again and again, each subsequent time with no outside pressure. Now, the night in the Milwaukee warehouse seemed more and more like the innocent survival tactic everyone claimed it to be.

Ever since she came to his hotel room, Hotch had trouble looking Reid in the eye, but knowing that he fucked Jasmine in the same backseat that Reid rode here in made Hotch rub his temples in exasperation.

The resentment harbored itself behind his eyes. It made them dreary and heavy. He couldn’t look at Jasmine. Every angle of her perfect face made him resent her even more. It was beginning to affect his ability to remain impartial. The way her lips pouted while she was thinking, the way her brow furrowed when she was reading files, the way her eyes observed and noticed every single detail; it all caused a very real reaction inside him. Mostly, he resented the way she compartmentalized the situations and moved on from them as if they’d never happened.

If he didn’t know any better, he’d assume she was sociopathic, but she was a tortured and traumatized woman. It was probably a coping mechanism. All of it. Even the way she repeatedly propositioned him in increasingly inappropriate settings.

“I think the kid has had enough,” Morgan laughed, pulling up a seat next to Aaron. The two watched the young genius give JJ an uncoordinated spin and almost fall onto the sticky hardwood floor. Aaron offered Morgan a smile, but he knew that Derek had noticed how little he drank and how long it’d taken him to do it. Sometimes having profilers for friends was more of a curse than it was a blessing.

“You holding up alright, Hotch?” Morgan pressed, taking a swig of his own beer.

“I’m doing alright, Morgan. How are you?”

“Come on, you know that’s not what I’m asking. You’ve hardly touched your beer. You’re just sitting here by yourself at the end of the bar not talking to anybody.”

“And that’s unlike me?” Aaron smiled behind the sip he took.

“You haven’t stopped spinning your wedding ring and you’ve been looking at Reid like he’s a wounded animal,” Derek continued. Hotch let out an inaudible sigh, but said nothing.

“You feel guilty about what happened. I get it, man. Everyone feels bad. It ain’t healthy to keep that all in, Hotch. I’m right here. Talk to me, you might feel better,” Morgan pressed.

“I talked to Reid that night on the way back from Milwaukee,” Aaron began softly. “He said he was okay with what happened, but Derek, that can’t be true.” Morgan raised his eyebrows and studied Aaron’s face as if he were trying to figure out how much he knew as to not betray Spencer’s trust.

“Yeah, it is, Hotch. Everyone knows you saved each other’s lives. Any of us would have done the same in your position, including Reid.”

Aaron shook his head, “No, that’s just it, Morgan. Reid said he didn’t think he could have done what I did.”

“Okay, look Hotch, unless you’ve had your head up your ass the past few months, you noticed that our boy has a crush on Jasmine,” Morgan started, Hotch nodded in agreement. That much he did know. It was obvious, painfully so.

“I think he’s just a little intimidated by her. She’s a smokeshow, Hotch. And I think after seeing what he saw between you two, whatever confidence he might have had to go for her was shattered. I say this with all due respect, sir, but you knew what you were doing with her. Act or not, you both achieved very real results. I think Reid is just scared to have to follow that if he ever decides to make a move.”

“I don’t want to stand in the way of Reid and his happiness,” Hotch admitted guiltily, trying to mask the frown in his voice by taking another sip of his room temperature beer.

“Reid is standing in his own way, Hotch. He’s got to shoot his shot with her. This doesn’t have anything to do with you,” Morgan declared with such confidence that Hotch almost believed him, except for the fact that it wasn’t true.

Aaron was standing in the way of his happiness by not giving up his habit of having inappropriate sexual relations with the object of Reid’s desire.

“Do you think he ever will?” Hotch asked tentatively. He genuinely was curious. He viewed Reid a little too much like a kid, it was almost impossible for Hotch to see the possibility of him entering into something like that. Reid was a pure soul, and Hotch was pretty sure Jasmine was anything but.

“I really don’t know, but Jasmine won’t wait around forever,” Morgan sighed. “I don’t think they’re the same speed, if you know what I mean.” Hotch gave a small grunt of agreement. He knew exactly what Morgan meant.

“He’s a sweet kid, he deserves someone who is going to be good to him,” Aaron pondered quietly as he watched Reid perform a magic trick using Prentiss’ ATM card.

“You don’t think that’s her?” Derek cautioned.

“Do you?” Hotch challenged. The expression on Morgan’s face was answer enough. The pair didn’t need to say out loud what they both knew to be true; Jasmine was far from a perfect match for Reid.

Hotch swore he could feel every fiber of every muscle in his body as he drudged down the narrow hallway. He ached in ways he hadn’t ached in a long time. The black coffee he’d consumed at the police station was doing little to help his mental alertness, but his body was physically functioning at least. The hotel room smelled sweet as he opened the door, immediately, the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. He dropped his bag by his feet as he reached for the light and his gun.

“Put it away, Aaron.”

Before he could flip on the room light, the desk lamp clicked on and Jasmine sat with her legs crossed in the chair. Her eyebrow was raised in annoyance and her head was propped up in her hand.

“What are you doing here?” Hotch’s tone was curt. He closed the door behind him and folded his arms over his chest, glaring at the blonde with his signature furrowed brow. It was the most obvious of many questions Aaron would have liked to ask. Followed closely by How did you get in here?

“I could ask you the same thing. How did your psych eval go, Aaron?” Jasmine’s tone was even, low and unintimidated.

“I haven’t completed it yet. Once we return from this case I will jump through whatever hoops the bureau wants me to, but time was of the essence." Aaron managed to keep emotion from his voice, but his chest tightened at the look in her eyes.

“Sure,” Jasmine sat forward, spreading her legs and resting her elbows on her thighs, “I guess when you self-report the incident, you can spin the story in whatever ways you see fit. Tell me, Hotch, why did you think sex with you was enough to drive me out of my right mind?” Her eyes slowly dragged up the line of his body, “You’re giving yourself too much credit, Aaron.”

“That was not sex. I assaulted you,” Aaron felt the control falter in his tone. He hadn’t admitted that out loud yet, the words threatened to send a shiver down his spine.

“I assaulted you back,” Jasmine challenged, the whisper of a smirk gracing her lips.

“Jasmine, it isn’t the same. I forced myself on you. I touched you in ways that I haven’t touched anyone since-” his jaw clenched as he trailed off. He wasn’t sure if he was angry with her, with himself or if he was going to breakdown at the memory of his late ex-wife.

“Since Haley.” Jasmine took the liberty of finishing his sentence for him.

Hotch glanced to his side angrily, his brow stern, and his shoulders tense. When he returned his gaze to Jasmine, she’d sat back in the chair, her hand gripping the back of her neck as she worked out a kink there.

“Is that what this is about? Do you feel guilty for touching another woman? Like you betrayed her memory in some way?” Jasmine’s tone was much softer than it was at the start of the encounter. Her green eyes held Hotch’s intense stare with a calmness that almost unnerved him. Whatever power he’d found over the years in his signature look was undermined by her.

Eventually the unwavering eye contact forced Hotch to close his eyes for a few heartbeats as he let out a soft sigh. No progress would come from a battle of wills.

“I feel guilty about enjoying it,” Hotch finally muttered out, but he returned his gaze to hers, determined to keep whatever upper hand he could find in this situation. She might have coaxed out a ghastly admission, one that up until two seconds ago, Aaron was content to haven taken to the grave, but he refused to let her obliterate his authority any longer.

“Why? That was the point, Aaron,” Jasmine tilted her head questioningly.

“That was not the point. Because it wasn’t sex. It was an act. For survival. I-” he drew in a sharp breath, “I lost myself in the moment and did things to you, to your body, that I shouldn’t have. I took advantage of the situation. And worse yet, I enjoyed it.” Jasmine rolled her eyes. It made Hotch’s blood boil. How could this woman roll her eyes as he agonized over confessing his truth? How could she dismiss the metric ton of guilt that Aaron was carrying around on his shoulders with no more than a scoff?

“Did you used to eat Haley out?” Jasmine finally asked with an annoyed sounding sigh.

“Excuse me?” If looks could kill, Jasmine would at least be wounded.

“Because it felt like muscle memory. Like your brain relaxed enough for your body react in a way that it was used to. You didn’t plan on that. It just happened. Does that sound like something you would do under duress? No. It was sex, Hotch,” her tone was frustratingly matter-of-fact. Her finger was hoovering over Aaron's trigger, and she either didn't know or didn't care.

“No. I'm unit chief. I shouldn’t have touched you like that. It was inappropriate and indefensible,” Hotch tried to match the evenness of her tone, but there was something like the shadow of a whine in the edges of it. He didn't even bother to mention the fact that he was about twenty years older than her. It wasn't illegal, but it certainly made the situation more unsavory.

Aaron knew how he felt, he didn’t deserve whatever form exoneration this was.

“Hotch,” Jasmine started with a sigh as she rose to her feet to cross the room, “I’m sure Haley was an incredible woman. She was strong and smart in ways that were individual to her. But, we weren’t cut from the same cloth. Your measure of sexuality is calibrated to her. She was the last woman you were with.”

Hotch watched the blonde slowly approach him, and although his hands had fallen to his sides, he still clenched his fists. He had half a mind to be offended that Jasmine assumed he hadn't been laid since Haley died; even if that assumption was correct.

“I’ve been through some things in my life, Aaron. Things that would keep you up at night if they were details in a case. Things that have permanently altered my view of the world and my view of myself. As far as I’m concerned, we had sex. Yes it was unconventional, yes it was high stakes, but I’ve been raped before," the word burned on Hotch's ears, but she continued on as if it were nothing, "Hotch, that wasn’t it. I’m sorry that you’re struggling with this. I really do hope that you can find some peace,” Jasmine tentatively reached out her hand and stroked Hotch’s cheek.

He tried to turn from the touch, but her other hand caught the other side of his face and she forced him to look at her, “Please forgive yourself. You didn’t do anything malicious, you didn’t betray Haley’s memory. You saved our lives and you made me feel good.”

With each mention of Haley’s name, a hot flash of anger ripped through his body. Haley was a good woman. A kind woman. The woman standing in front of him was morally flexible at best. At worst, she committed atrocities that Aaron would put her away for. He wasn’t sure what about her past made her the way she was, but his experience told him she likely had a body count higher than even the most prolific killer they’d caught.

The woman standing in front of him was absolutely nothing like the beautiful love of his life. And yet, the place where their skin touched prickled with heat and Hotch found his eyes shifting between her eyes and her lips, “Please stop touching me.”

Jasmine obliged immediately, but her eyes continued to invade his personal space.

“I ordered a psych eval on you because I was too worried about what they would find if I had one and I needed some time away from you to collect my thoughts. If you were here, it would have been detrimental to this case. I wouldn’t have been able to focus on anything else,” Hotch explained, his eyes remained hard, but there was a sheepish quality to his voice. He should have handled the situation better at every step of the way, but the very encounter had shaken him to his core.

The fact that Jasmine didn't even have the common decency to pretend she felt the same alluded to a deep psychological ailment that Hotch didn't have the mental fortitude to unravel. Besides, the unspoken pact between Hotch and his team members to not profile each other still held water, even with adjunct agents.

And even if those adjunct agents had just profiled him without hesitation. He didn't need another point of guilt in his mind.

Jasmine didn’t speak, but her eyes had a fire in them that spoke for her. He imagined she was calling him every name under the sun in her mind, but her mouth only parted slightly like she wanted to say something but decided against it. It felt like all of the air had been sucked out of the room, or at least from the inches between them.

“Jasmine, I really think you should leave.”

“I’m not finished talking yet,” Jasmine challenged.

“Jasmine, we can talk in the morning. Goodnight.”

“No, you don’t just get to decide we’re done here. You’re not even my unit chief right now. I’m suspended, remember? Pending the results of my psych eval,” Jasmine’s eyes narrowed.

“Jasmine,” Hotch snapped at her like an uncooperative unsub, “I want to kiss you right now. I don’t need that on my conscience. Please, please get out.”

She didn't move a muscle, if it weren't for the slight part to her lips, Aaron would have assumed she didn't hear him. Her perfume wafted into his nostrils. His mouth began to water. He wasn't used to his orders being ignored by anyone other than Morgan. It drove him crazy, but not like this.

His hands grabbed her jaw and he pulled her into a harsh kiss. He nipped her bottom lip for access to her mouth as his tongue swept against her own.

She got her hands around his tie and loosened it, guiding Hotch away from the door until the back of his knees hit the desk chair Jas had been perched on when he first entered. His body fell ungracefully onto the cushion as she pushed his chest.

She sank to her knees immediately and gathered her golden blonde locks into her hands, tying it into a ponytail. Hotch’s chest rose and fell dangerously fast. He tried taking off his suit jacket, but Jasmine stopped him with a firm hand.

She unbuckled his belt and threw it across the room haphazardly, her fingers unbuttoning his slacks. He lifted his thighs long enough for Jasmine to pull them down to his ankles, his dark gray underwear damp with precum. He watched as Jasmine swallowed hard, eyeing the tent in his underwear before glancing up at him through her thick mascaraed lashes.

“Don’t touch me, Hotch. I’m going to take advantage of you,” Jasmine’s voice was low and raspy, it made Hotch’s head buzz.

He reached up behind his head and folded his hands there, he didn’t trust himself not to grab her by her hair and force her to choke on his cock. She palmed him a few times over his underwear, his throat letting out a dark groan. Without much warning, she pulled his underwear down far enough to expose him and she lowered herself between his thighs to suck softly on his balls.

He bucked his hips up before he could stop himself, his body chasing the soft feeling of her mouth on him. He felt the weight of his sack on her chin as she ran her tensed tongue along the seam. He felt so frustratingly good and at her disposal.

When her perfectly pink lips encased his shaft, an animalistic grunt ripped through his throat. She hollowed out her cheeks, sinking further onto his cock until he felt the head hit the back of her throat. He flexed his biceps as he forced his hands to remain grasped behind his own head.

His eyes rolled back into his head, his jaw slack as her mouth continued its skillful onslaught on his manhood. Her fingers reached up to caress his balls, massaging them softly as her mouth bobbed up and down his shaft.

“Oh, oh my god. You-” he swallowed thickly, “You make me feel so fucking good. Jasmine I’m gonna cum. Oh my god. Oh-” He tried to pull himself out of her mouth, but her hands anchored his hips to the chair. He grinded against her face as best he could as he spilled his orgasm down her throat. Soft moans fell from his parted lips as he rolled his hips forward with each wave of pleasure.

His chest heaved as he glanced down at the downright pornographic image between his legs. The corners of Jasmine’s eyes were smudged with tears, blackened with mascara. Her lips were connected to his cock by an obscene string of saliva. Her cheeks were flushed from effort and there were small indents in his hips from where her nails dug into his skin. He let out a groan as he rolled his neck back against his hands.

Fuck, he mouthed to himself as his head bobbed backwards. He blinked slowly, starting at the ceiling until his vision returned to normal.

She disappeared into the bathroom and reappeared with a towel, “I guess you don’t really need this, but-”

He watched silently as she leaned down and cleaned off his spent cock. It twitched painfully under the touch of the towel. His breath was slowly coming back to him. Hotch winced, grabbing her wrist. Before he could comprehend the action, he snatched the towel from her hand and covered himself, suddenly extremely sober to the situation.

“You should leave,” Hotch insisted. His face was red from his orgasm, but he was beginning to feel exposed and self conscious. He hadn’t had a woman between his legs in a long time, and with her fully clothed, he couldn’t help but feel slightly embarrassed.

Especially when the encounter lasted less than five minutes.

“Now we’re even,” Jas deadpanned, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Hotch watched her as she left, memorizing the way her hips swayed with each step as if it were the last time he would ever see it.

Hotch sat with his softened dick out for a few heartbeats after she left. His blood pressure was beginning to return to normal and the tingling from his orgasm was beginning to dissipate.

Aaron Hotchner was not a minute man. Aaron Hotchner was a good leader, with a level head and would oftentimes be described as stubborn. Aaron Hotchner lived for his job and let nothing get in the way of it.

Jasmine Kaiser was challenging everything that Aaron Hotchner was. He let out a frustrated sigh; this woman was going to be a very big problem for him.

The mandatory psych eval revealed what Hotch, and apparently Jasmine, had already known; there was a tremendous amount of guilt for the situation.

Ultimately, he was cleared for duty and after a very serious conversation with Erin Strauss, the tape ended up being filed in top secret evidence. She assured him that nobody would see that tape unless it was a direct educational opportunity, and even so, Aaron would have to give his explicit written consent.

The team did a good job pretending that it never happened, but that was easier to do when Jasmine had been absent for the past few weeks.

They all picked up where they left off, like well oiled machines and Hotch resumed his spot as their undisputed leader. Hotch had been keeping a close eye on Reid, looking for any sign that the young genius might be struggling, but he found no evidence.

The team had efficiently solved seven straight cases in the past seven days and it was evident they were exhausted and in need of a break. The weekend was here and, call it wishful thinking, but Hotch was ready to have an uneventful few days at home with his son.

But the look on JJ’s face as she walked through the glass doors with a stack of files immediately told him that wasn’t going to happen this time.

“Oh come on,” Morgan groaned, rubbing his hands down his face.

“I know, I’m really sorry guys. It’s a bad one. It seems New York City has a serial killer,” Jennifer waved the file in her hand with a sigh.

“Another one? Weren’t we just there?” Prentiss rolled her eyes, taking a sip of the coffee she’d just made.

“That was for a bomb threat, it’s not the same thing. Statistically, you’d think New York City would have a higher rate of serial killers, but it actually ranks relatively low in comparison to other cities similar in size,” Reid rambled, wiping the crumbs from his donut off his sweater.

“Alright, let’s see what you have for us, JJ,” Hotch tightened his tie, following the spry blonde into the round table room. Rossi, who was using the table for his word search gave everyone a half-hearted nod before taking the mug Emily brought in for him.

“Ya know,” he took a long sip, “I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to see any of you for the next 48 hours. No offense.”

“None taken, David. I know we’re all tired, but this case deserves our full attention. Big city cases like this rely heavily on our profiling expertise,” Hotch sat stiffly in his chair.

Reid drew his knees up to sit with his legs crossed as he looked over some of the papers in front of him. The details of the case seemed unremarkable, homeless people shot execution style in the back of the head. It seemed like a fairly straightforward case, perhaps a cleansing of some sort or an opportunistic killer.

“Wheels up in thirty,” Hotch declared, stuffing some of the files underneath his arm.

“Aaron,” JJ’s voice stopped him in his tracks as she stood idly at the projector, fiddling with the remote in her hand, “Jasmine is going to meet us at the field office in New York.”

“Good, he knowledge of the area will be an asset,” Hotch muttered, turning away from her. He responded entirely too quickly.

“Hotch, are you sure you’re ok?” JJ pressed softly.

“I was cleared in my psychological evaluation, JJ. What are you insinuating?” This conversation had the potential to derail in an unproductive way. The team didn’t have the time to discuss personal matters at the moment. Aaron would venture to say that the encounter would be the last thing JJ wanted to discuss head on.

“Nothing,” her facial expression relented just enough for Hotch to know that she was uncomfortable, “I just wanted to prepare you, is all.”

“I appreciate your concern, but Jasmine has a job to do and so do I. My only concern right now is finding this son of a bitch and putting him away. After you,” Hotch kept his tone even, motioning for JJ to lead her way out of the room. The blonde’s lips drew into a tight line, but she didn’t argue.

Aaron was fine. Honestly.

He was familiar with New York, his brother worked there and he and Haley visited from time to time. He had taken many cases here over the years.

He met with the point detective on the case, introducing and reacquainting them with his team. He felt unflappable, even when the elevator doors opened and Jasmine strode out in a low cut white blouse and an impossibly tight pencil skirt. Her hair was in a messy ponytail, pieces of her hair falling down to frame her face.

He made brief eye contact with her and gave her a nod that was polite enough to be inconspicuous, but he couldn’t help but notice how similar her hair looked now to the day he last saw her, when she was between his legs. He wondered if that was intentional, but he physically shook his head to get rid of that thought.

“The bodies seem to be appearing mainly in the area between West 42nd street and West 57th street. The latest body was discovered in an alleyway behind a lawyer’s office,” Morgan informed the team where they had gathered around an empty table.

“Morgan, you go to the site of the first body with Rossi, see what you can learn about the area. Look into victimology. Canvas the area for any cameras,” Hotch ordered.

“Prentiss, you and JJ start going through the files here. Look for anything the NYPD might have missed. There aren't a lot on these victims because many of them are transients, but use your best judgment. Check in with Garcia and see if she can get a hit on a few of the victims. I’m going to go to the lawyer’s office with Reid to see if they have any cameras we can look at or if they might have seen anything.”

“Great, I’ll come with you,” Jasmine interjected. Hotch glanced at her, trying not to be dismissive, but if he were honest with himself, he would rather have her anywhere else.

“Great.”

The jet landed sometime in the early morning. Exhaustion was beginning to set in, Reid’s shoulders felt heavy under the weight of his brown leather go-bag. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes as he let out a yawn. The subway was nearly empty except for a few people sleeping silently towards the front of the car. They looked disheveled, as if their days had not treated them kindly. Spencer glanced at his own reflection in the window and let out a soft snort of amusement when he realized he was in the same boat.

The old wooden stairs of his apartment building were unforgiving on his aching feet. He was thankful he only lived on the second floor. Sleep didn’t come easily for him. He lay strewn out on the black sheets of his queen sized bed and tried to turn off his mind. It seemed as though his brain found stimulation in everything, even the random mundane shadows strewn across his dark green wallpaper. His heavy eyes ran along the arbitrary shapes while he felt his brain attempt to identify the abstract patterns into something familiar.

Minutes melted into hours as he turned restlessly in his unmade bed. He hadn’t bothered removing his clothes, his body was too tired to perform the action. It was a frustratingly familiar feeling to have his mind run for miles after his body had given out. Beside him, a dozen or so books and notepads were tossed haphazardly in the sheets. Usually on sleepless nights like these, he would read or jot down theories about the cases that kept him up, but tonight was entirely different.

Each time he closed his eyes, his brain remembered, in flawless detail, every second of the footage he watched. Every sharp intake of breath Jasmine took, the way her skin erupted into goosebumps under his touch, the look in her eyes when she coaxed him through his orgasm, and the way her jaw hung open as she experienced her own; each haunted the corners of his mind relentlessly.

His brain had always been both a curse and a blessing, but Spencer had never wanted to disconnect from his own mind more in his life. Dazzling images recalled verbatim into the forefront of his mind without his permission.

Reid had always wondered what she might look like as she came undone at the touch of her lover, but the footage filled in all the gaps his mind couldn’t.

But then, Hotch was there too.

It felt like an invasion of privacy to remember, but his brain wouldn’t let him forget. Ever.

His consciousness was fragmenting under the weight of his exhaustion and the stress of the evening. He really tried to think about anything else, but his mind kept coming back to the way her chest bounced as Hotch thrust into her. The way her hair fell in perfect strands around her face and the way her cheeks were flushed with effort.

He remembered the color of her lips darkening from the force of the kisses she and Hotch shared. He could almost smell her perfume and feel the heat of her breath on his neck.

Reid wondered what she might look like under his touch, or better yet, what she might look like bouncing on his lap.

It wasn’t until he let out a soft whimper of her name that his eyes flew open and his brain flashed back to reality. His hand had wandered into his underwear at some point and he let out a frustrated sigh when he realized he’d been rhythmically stroking himself to his thoughts.

He tried to recenter himself by naming things in his apartment that he could sense from his perch on the bed. His dark wallpapered walls, the soft light of early morning D.C outside his windows, the smell of vintage books in the bed beside him, and the feeling of his own hands touching himself as small sparks of pleasure jolted through his body.

Damn it. 

He couldn’t stop noticing it. His hand dragged up the length of his shaft slowly, teasingly. He knew he shouldn’t be doing this.

Suddenly it felt like he would die if he didn’t climax.

His whole body felt like it was on fire.

He took in a ragged breath and closed his eyes again, this time allowing the crystal clear images of Jasmine’s naked body to come to him without hindrance, but not without guilt.

Her thighs wrapped around Hotch’s head like a vice and Reid groaned as he imagined his curls buried between them instead. His free hand grasped the sheets with a white knuckled grip as he barreled towards his orgasm.

If he had the ability, he’d be embarrassed with how quickly he’d managed to get himself to this point, but he was too far gone to care. Besides, he’d watched that footage at least 20 times, if anything, he was surprised he didn’t have to take care of himself at the police station.

His hands made quick work along his length, using his precum to slide along the shaft effortlessly. His mouth was drying out from all the gasps and he was pretty sure his hair was glued to his head from the sweat he’d produced.

His room suddenly felt too hot, too humid and too confining as he drew in ragged breaths, fighting against the exhaustion in his muscles. He was getting close, painfully so.

Her eyes burned into his mind, the way the green of her irises danced with temptation, it felt like she was right there in front of him, staring into his soul. A string of profanities fell ungracefully out his mouth in a high pitched whine as he coaxed himself to the edge, only for his heart to skip a beat when his phone rang.

The unfulfilled promise of his orgasm wracked his nerves as he grasped for his phone with clammy, uncoordinated hands. Suddenly overcome with guilt and the irrational panic that somehow someone on the team knew what he was doing, Reid answered it without checking caller ID.

“H-hello? Hello!” His voice was frantic and he tried to stop his heart from thumping in his chest. He tried to keep the frustration from creeping in, but his erection throbbed against his stomach and a light breeze could have sent him over the edge.

“Spencer, you don’t sound like you were sleeping.”

Oh god.

He didn’t expect to hear Jasmine’s smoky voice on the other end of the line, “I didn’t interrupt anything, did I?”

His stomach sank at the words. He could practically see the knowing look in her eyes over the phone, but he knew it was irrational for Jasmine to know exactly what he was doing. Why would anyone assume that Spencer Reid was masturbating? He wouldn’t have believed it himself if he weren’t the one doing it.

“No, no, you didn’t interrupt anything. How are you?” He forced his voice to be as level as he could manage, but everything about her affected him, including the sound of her voice.

Given his compromising situation, Spencer was trying to keep her talking, he was worried the more he said, the more he would give away. Jasmine was smarter than most people gave her credit for, even Reid found himself consistently underestimating her. If he were a betting man, Reid would have put money on the fact that Jasmine knew exactly what the man on the brink of an orgasm sounded like. The smart move would be to say as little as possible. He was familiar with the right to remain silent to avoid self-incrimination.

“I’m fine. Look, I just wanted to call and tell you that there’s another case and everyone’s heading in in about twenty minutes. Sorry you didn’t get much time to sleep tonight, or ya know, whatever it is that you do with your free time.” He didn’t miss the teasing tone to her voice this time, but the thinly veiled tease made his erection twitch against his hand.

“I thought-” he swallowed thickly, his breathing still more sporadic than he was comfortable with, “I thought you were doing outside contracting.”

“Orders are orders. I’ll see you in twenty Spencer Reid,” he hated the way his heart thumped as she said his name.

“Okay, I’ll see you then,” he hung up quickly and threw his phone across his bed.

Logically, there would be no way she knew, but then again, it always seemed like she could read his mind. His skin flushed with humiliation, he felt as if he were standing naked in front of her with it in his hands even though he was in the privacy of his own bedroom. At least his erection had gone down some.

Splashing some cold water on his face and trying to quickly style his disheveled hair, Reid made the last minute decision to throw on his glasses. At least they would complete his disheveled look.

The team were in various states of disarrangement, but it was obvious they’d all made an attempt to freshen up before coming in. Hotch made a point of changing into one of his backup suits he had hanging in the wardrobe in his office. He bypassed the mirror behind his door and made his way out into the bullpen.

Dawn was still an hour or so away and the lights were dim except for the few desk lamps where Reid, Morgan and Prentiss were diligently reading the new case files JJ had placed only moments earlier.

The air still smelled faintly of cleaning solution and he frowned when his polished shoes left marks on the freshly mopped floors. He sidestepped a wet floor sign and cleared his throat to address his team when the glass doors to the unit swung open.

In strode Jasmine, her blonde hair flowing in the breeze created by the purpose in her gait as her black stilettos clicked rhythmically against the floors. Her pencil skirt hugged her thighs to just above her knee and the top button of her ivory silk blouse was undone. From his viewpoint, Hotch could see a peak of cleavage.

He clenched his fist at his side when he realized he’d noticed that in the first place.

“Jasmine, you aren’t allowed back until you’ve completed the mandatory psychology evaluation,” Hotch’s tone was firm. He felt an inexplicable flicker of annoyance flood through his brain.

The rest of the team looked like they went through hell and back, but Jasmine looked like she just walked out of a salon. After what the two had just experienced together, he found it irritating that she could walk away without so much as a hint of evidence that she was affected.

“Yeah, I’m good,” Jasmine met his gaze, using her ring finger to adjust the glasses on the bridge of her nose. Jasmine almost never wore her glasses, it gave reason to believe that she didn’t get much sleep in the few hours the team had away from one another. She didn’t appear to have many flaws; in a way they were like a small peek behind the curtain.

A single tangible thing to point to a lone imperfection.

“What do you mean you’re good?” Morgan’s voice inquired incredulously.

“I mean, I did the eval and I’m good,” Jasmine produced a manila file from her briefcase and made her way over to Hotch.

“Jasmine… there’s no way you got evaluated this quickly,” Hotch had meant to maintain the authority in his voice, but accusation crept in.

He skimmed the file in his hands, to his surprise, it was printed on the official FBI correspondence paper. “Jasmine, the signature of the doctor on his form is Doctor Stephen Strange.”

“So?”

“So, I think you’ll find that’s a conflict of interest. I admire your dedication to the work you do for this team, but we can't accept this testimony as accurate,” Hotch handed her back the paper.

She took it from him without breaking eye contact. Aaron was firm in his look, but he could tell by the storminess in her green eyes that she wasn’t going to bite her tongue. He mentally braced for impact.

“Where is your evaluation?” Jasmine challenged.

“I’m not required to complete one.”

“That’s bullshit, don’t you think, Aaron?”

“Excuse me?” He was well aware of the team's eyes on him.

“We’re both ‘victims’ of sexual assault. Why is my ability to do my job under scrutiny, but yours is not?” The emerald in her eyes made Hotch’s skin crawl. He clenched his jaw once to dispel some nervous energy.

“I was the aggressor in the situation,” he admitted quietly, as if it were a secret for the two of them to share. He felt his face soften at the admission. Aaron had every intention of apologizing to Jasmine the next time he saw her, but he hadn’t expected this. Perhaps he should have.

“I think Jeb Harris was the aggressor in the situation, Aaron. I think from where I was standing, you had a gun to your head. I think that constitutes you as a victim. Did the bureau review the footage or did you call Erin Strauss personally and self report the incident?” She folded her arms against her chest and Hotch had to physically fight his gaze from glancing down to look at the cleavage that was now pushed up against her blouse.

“Jasmine, I’m sorry that you can’t accompany us on this mission, but JJ is waiting to brief us on our new case right now. We simply do not have the time to have this conversation right now. You’ll have to go through the appropriate channels if you wish to join us on future cases. Go home and get some rest. The rest of you,” Hotch tore his gaze from Jasmine and addressed the rest of the team, all waiting tensely, “get to the debriefing room. We don’t have any time to waste.”

Hotch tried to listen to JJ as she spoke, but his mind kept wandering back to Jasmine. The blonde had been so angry when she left that she was devoid of any detectable emotion.

The worst part is that she was right. Hotch had self-reported the incident to Erin Strauss, partly because he was hesitant to hand over the footage of the incident, but partly because he felt responsible.

In his eyes, he was the aggressor. When it came down to it, Aaron had violated Jasmine’s body. As unit chief, he struggled with that thought.

First and foremost, he was meant to protect and advocate for his team. He had betrayed his job description and his personal moral code. He’d touched parts of her that were deeply intimate and he was truthfully just concerned for her well-being.

At least, that’s what he was telling himself.

It wasn’t untrue that he wanted her to feel okay, but he wasn’t sure if he could face her right now. Her presence would be more distraction than benefit at the moment. He knew it wasn’t a permanent solution, but it would at least buy him some time to sort himself out.

With a curt nod, Hotch rose from the table, files in hand. He hadn’t comprehended a word JJ had said, he’d have to catch up on the plane, “Wheels up in thirty.”

Spencer blames it on the adrenaline rush of solving a case with seconds to spare, it’s the only reason why his pants were around his ankles as soon as the hotel door closed behind him. His brain was running on coffee and endorphins and not much more, otherwise he’d feel bad about the way he shoved his hand into his underwear with the images of Jasmine circling in his mind.

He ran his free hand through his hair, combing it back off his forehead as he slowly swept his thumb over his tip. His whole body lurched at the sensation as his jaw clenched in an attempt to stifle the guttural moan that threatened to escape his throat. He flicked his wrist up in rhythmic strokes, desperate to get off as pleasure began to tickle every nerve in his body.

He’d managed to stay focused on the case all day long, but in the SUV on the way back to the hotel, Reid closed his eyes to get some rest. He should have known better; his mind could be a cruel entity.

He’d only been asleep for mere minutes, before his mind conjured up detailed images of Jasmine. She was laid out on his bed, every inch of her perfect skin exposed. Her gorgeous blonde hair fell in waves around her head, her lips plump and inviting. Her eyes were piercing and dared him to come closer. Her slender fingers disappeared between her thighs and Reid’s jaw dropped when he realized she was pleasuring herself. He’d reached out to touch her, but he couldn’t. She was repeating his name in a sultry whisper, “Reid.”

Only for Spencer to realize that Jasmine wasn’t real and it was Morgan who was trying to wake him up, “Reid, we’re here man. You feeling ok?”

“I feel great.” He had lied.

Which led him to where he was currently, his sweater vest tucked up under his chin, he was in too much of a rush to remove it. His hand was working his dick deftly as he let out strangled gasps, his mouth dry and his forehead gleaming.

His head tipped back against the pillows as he closed his dark brown eyes. Sure enough, the images of Jasmine came immediately. He pictured how she would look between his thighs, her soft pink lips parted to take his length. Pleasure boiled up in his stomach and radiated outwards as he neared his orgasm. Soft whines escaped his lips as his strokes quickened, his forearm was burning with exertion, but he barely noticed it.

He was so so close.

“Reid? You feeling ok-AH!”

“Morgan!” Reid gasped, but it was too late, he’d already tipped the scales. He spilled all over his exposed stomach as Morgan’s hands flew to cover his eyes.

“Reid I’m sorry man, the door wasn’t closed, and I heard you- you sounded sick man. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Morgan was backing away slowly, but he was only reaching for the Kleenex on the desk across from the bed. He threw the box to the embarrassed brunette, his skin flushed for more than one reason.

“Morgan, get out,” Reid mumbled, cleaning himself gently and hissing at the oversensitivity. His cheeks burned scarlet from humiliation.

“Just put some pants on, no shame. I still wanna talk,” Morgan covered his eyes still, but his million dollar smile was visible and it was teasing.

Spencer fumbled with his slacks, pulling them up over his hips and buttoning them hastily. He smoothed out his sweater vest, but didn’t bother tucking it back in, Morgan had already seen the absolute worst.

“What do you want?” Reid hadn’t meant for his response to come out so scathing, but he was beyond embarrassed about what just happened and Morgan wasn’t going to be gracious about it.

“I just wanted to check in on you. See how you were doing about the whole Jasmine thing,” Morgan took a seat at the foot of the bed.

Spencer, still splayed out against his pillows, watched him with a frown, “What is there to say? They did what needed to be done to keep them both alive.”

“I know that, but come on, you know it’s not that simple, kid,” Morgan shrugged him off. His perfect eyebrows furrowed in concern and he stared at Spencer unrelentingly until the brunette finally felt uncomfortable enough with the silence to speak.

“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it,” Spencer admitted feebly, “I know it’s wrong. I feel so so guilty, but it’s like my brain won’t stop.”

“Is that what… this was about?” Morgan gestured vaguely to the bed. Spencer looked down at his hands where he began to pick at the raw skin around his nails.

“Reid-” Morgan let out a sigh. Spencer’s stomach turned at the sound. The words tasted bitter on the tip of his tongue, he couldn’t choke them out. It was disgusting for Reid to recount the situation in a sexual light. It was perverted for him to masturbate to the images of Jasmine getting molested by their unit chief.

Jasmine had sex with Hotch at gunpoint, there was nothing about what happened that should have turned Reid on; except it was Jasmine and everything she did turned Reid on.

“Look man, I get it. Yeah, ok, maybe it wasn’t the best situation, but your girl was naked and getting it on for the cameras. You’re bound to have some kind of physical reaction to that,” Morgan reasoned gently. “I mean, Hotch did. Why wouldn’t you?”

“She was uh, pleasuring Hotch. To save her life. To save both of their lives. My body reacted like it was watching a porno, Morgan. God,” he let out in exasperation as he drew his knees to his chest and covered his face, “I’m so humiliated.”

“Reid! Hey stop! It was a porno. That was a show, made for viewing pleasure, maybe not yours, but Reid c’mon man. I think you gotta cut yourself some slack on this one. And something tells me that little Spencer doesn’t always get the love and attention he deserves. He was bound to misbehave eventually,” Morgan let out a little laugh as Reid buried his head deeper behind his drawn up knees.

“This doesn’t happen to me, at least it didn’t before her. Now, I’m lucky if I can make it through a debriefing without getting an erection. I don’t know what to do, Morgan. She’s got this chokehold on my body I just- I can’t control it,” Reid could feel his cheeks deepening in color as he explained himself.

He tried to hold eye contact, but Morgan’s dark brown eyes looked right through his exterior and it felt like if he held his gaze long enough, Morgan would read his mind. That was the last thing Reid wanted.

“She doesn't make it easy on you, that’s for damn sure. Look Reid, you might be punching over your weight with her, but you shouldn’t be ashamed of the way you feel about her. Something tells me she elicits this reaction from a lot of people,” Morgan sounded sincere.

“That doesn’t change the fact that the footage of her being sexually assaulted elicited this reaction from me,” Spencer felt his stomach drop as the words left his mouth; they were vile.

He should be figuring out how to be there for her and Hotch. That would be the decent thing to do. What was the point of having an IQ of 187 and an eidetic memory if he couldn’t use it to help them?

“Reid, yeah okay man, officially it was dubious consent at best. But let’s not discount the fact that it was Jasmine, the woman who’s got you by the balls, sucking and fucking someone with enthusiasm. Feigned or not, it was supposed to look real. And passionate. Of course your mind took it and ran with it. You didn’t have a chance, kid,” Morgan’s voice was stern, it made Reid feel a little better hearing him be so certain about this.

It was true, the ploy had been hyper-realistic. Even Hotch’s body had betrayed him, what chance did Reid’s body have if any? The reasoning still didn’t make up for the heaps of guilt gnawing at his stomach, but he appreciated Morgan’s words. Even if they made him feel only slightly less perverted.

“Don’t tell her, please,” Reid whimpered quietly, his big eyes round and pleading.

Morgan fought the laugh that threatened to bubble up in his chest. Reid’s cheeks reddened at the thought of how pathetic he must look with his skin still shiny from his post-orgasm sweat, begging Derek Morgan of all people to keep his dirty little secret.

“Between you and me, Reid, she probably already knows.” Spencer couldn’t help the frown that spread on his lips, but he knew Morgan was right.

Jasmine was observant and Spencer didn’t have enough experience to hide this kind of thing. Luckily, the blonde had been gracious enough to not mention it to him. Still, he couldn’t stop the blush that crossed his face and chest. Somehow the thought of her knowing that he pleasured himself to the thought of her felt overwhelmingly humiliating.

“Are you going to do anything about it?” Morgan pressed.

“No! I mean, I think I want to have sex with her. Really badly, actually. Sometimes it’s all I can think about when I’m not working. Sometimes it's all I can think about while I am at work. Properly though, not like…” Reid admitted weakly, his voice trailing off as he swung his legs to hang off the bed. He sat shoulder to shoulder with Morgan, and although he had a few inches on him, Reid felt so small.

“Spencer Reid,” Morgan said in a teasing tone that made Spencer’s chest get butterflies, “You better get on that, lover boy. “

“I can’t.”

“What do you mean you can’t? Your equipment seems to be working just fine,” Morgan fought off the swat that Spencer tried to land on his arm.

“No I mean, I can’t. I don’t know how,” Reid wished the bed would open up and swallow him whole. He didn’t have expectations for the night, but spilling his sexual insecurity to arguably the most sexually competent member of his team wasn’t on the proverbial docket.

“You can recite the Kama Sutra from memory,” Morgan’s smile disappeared from his face, but his tone still held the teasing quality that made Spencer want to combust.

“Yeah sure, I’ve read it. But I’ve never done any of that. I lost my virginity at twenty one at the Chemistry Conference at Caltech to my research partner. She was on top for-” he swallowed thickly as the words burned in his throat, “two whole minutes before it was over. I never made her-” Reid couldn’t bring himself to admit what Morgan must have already known to be true.

Spencer fiddled unceremoniously with the hem of his sweater vest as his brain conjured up images of Morgan’s first time. It was probably on red silk sheets in the nicest hotel in Chicago with smooth jazz in the background. It probably lasted hours and she probably came at least three times. Spencer couldn’t even look Morgan in the eye.

“Spencer,” that caught Reid’s attention, Morgan never referred to him by his name, “You have to give yourself the chance to be bad at something. I know that’s new territory for you. You’re used to mastering everything on the first shot, but this isn’t like anything else you’ve tried. There’s no formula to memorize, you can’t study theory without putting it into practice. Every encounter is different. Give yourself the grace to be a beginner, but don’t give up. Practice makes perfect.”

Reid scoffed bitterly, “That’s easy for you to say. I’ve been on vacation with you, Morgan. You’re a god in bed. I’ve heard it through the hotel walls.”

Morgan’s eyebrows raised to the ceiling, “Okay, first of all, it’s weird that you listened; a normal person would have taken a walk or something. Second of all, it wasn’t always like that.”

Reid smiled shyly and rolled his eyes, “Was I supposed to take a walk for all three of those hours? Every single night? In the middle of the night?”

It was Morgan’s turn to smile, “I’m serious, kid. The first time I almost did it, I was so scared I was gonna do something wrong that I couldn’t keep it up. The first time I actually did it, it was over in three minutes on my momma’s couch because her and my pops were out at dinner for their anniversary. I was fifteen and I kicked her out so fast because I heard my parents car pull into the driveway. She snuck out the back door. How’s that for sex god?”

The pair shared a soft laugh before Reid turned to face Morgan, “Thank you, Morgan. Maybe once this situation cools off a little bit, I’ll uh, I'll give it a shot.”

“Make sure you do,” Morgan put his hand on Reid’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze, “Sweet dreams, lover boy.”

“Yeah yeah, goodnight Morgan,” Reid threw a pillow at him as he shut the door with a shit eating grin.

It was FBI protocol that agents, even adjunct ones, reported to the ER following sexual assault. Jasmine had taken an ambulance to the nearest hospital to be evaluated despite her aggressive attempts at refusing. Hotch made the drive back to the police station alone. The numbing silence made his head dizzy as he rubbed his hands down his face, physically forcing the memory from his brain.

He barely managed to pull away from a stop sign before his throat began to tighten. The breaks squealed as he jerked the vehicle to the curb, barely getting the door open before he threw up. His stomach wouldn’t stop churning as that thought ricocheted throughout his brain. Jasmine was a victim of sexual assault, that was the reality of the situation. Hotch had raped her.

Aaron hadn’t found Jasmine in time to see her off, but he wasn’t sure if he would have wanted to. He wouldn’t have been able to face her. His hands gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white and bloodless. Only the sound of his heaving and the soft rhythmic blinking of his hazards could be heard in the empty SUV.

Hotch was thankful to be alone, even if only for the short drive back to the station. He half thought about driving away, he’s not sure where, it didn’t matter. Anywhere. But, he had a job to do and a victim to find. More importantly, he had a team to lead.

Another wave of vomit overcame him, tears pricked at his eyes and his throat burned as his body rejected nothing more than the black coffee he’d ingested.

What kind of leader was he? How was he meant to face anyone after this?

A wordless scream came out of his mouth as he banged the steering wheel in frustration. He hated everything about this night. He hated the situation he let himself get into, he hated every single decision he’d made in the moment, he hated the healing process his team would have to go through to have a chance to recover from this. He hated that above all of it, he still didn’t know where the missing victim was.

Time was ticking. He swiped the back of his hand over his mouth and reached for his coat pocket where he knew he’d stored some gum, only to realize that his suit jacket was still with Jasmine.

He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and grimaced. The lines on his forehead were deep and his eyes were sullen. The whites of his eyes were a screaming red and for the first time since Haley died, tears threatened to fall from his eyes. The stern neutrality he often prided himself on had all but dissolved, leaving evidence of frustration and worse yet fear, plastered all over his features. He clenched and unclenched his fists in an effort to keep them from trembling, but the amount of adrenaline racing through his veins made it damn near impossible. He slammed the door to the vehicle and sank into the leather seat with a ragged sigh.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sudden loud ringing of his phone in the cupholder.

“Hotch.”

“Hotch, where are you, Rossi said you left about fifteen minutes ago. Is everything alright?” JJ's voice had it’s usual cadence, calm and professional with subtle empathy laced in between the pauses of her words.

“I got a little turned around on my way back. I’m on my way,” Hotch deadpanned and hung up the call before Jennifer could inquire further.

Aaron expected his team to give him a wide berth, but the last thing he wanted was their pity. He owed them the best version of himself and he certainly didn’t have time to sit and feel sorry for himself on the side of a Milwaukee one-way street while his team toiled tirelessly a mere five miles away.

The station was bustling just as it was when Hotch and Jasmine left. He rubbed his hands down his face one last time before tightening his tie and fixing the collar of his button down. He didn’t bother to check his appearance in the mirror, he would never be satisfied with the reflection looking back at him.

“Hotch, there you are, Morgan made it back with the unsub and Garcia has a positive ID. His name is Jeb Harris. His father owned a small line of home improvement stores throughout Milwaukee before he died in a mysterious forklift accident. Jeb’s mother died of cancer when he was only five years old, he spent his whole life with his father. He was in and out of the ER his whole life,” JJ shoved a file into Hotch’s hands, and although her body language read as professional, her eyes threatened Hotch with the possibility of a discussion of something deeper.

Aaron desperately wanted to avoid further discussion. He opened the file and scanned it quickly to assess the situation and avoid her prying blue eyes. “Abuse?”

“Lots of broken bones, malnourishment, pneumonia, the poor kid was dealt a rough hand. He started going to work with his father on construction sites at only 13. Some of the injuries are from legitimate construction accidents, others are more suspicious,” JJ continued.

“Have Garcia keep digging to see if we can find any clues as to where to find the latest victim. I’m going to interview this son of a bitch myself to see if I can get anything out of him.”

“Aaron,” JJ grabbed Hotch’s arm gently, “Nobody would think less of you if you sat this one out. Reid is very capable of taking point on this.”

“Thank you for your concern, JJ, but right now my only concern is bringing this missing woman back to her family,” Hotch was firm in his response. It felt comforting to have the team’s support, but he didn’t deserve it, and he didn’t deserve to feel comfortable. He took a step away from JJ, and before turning added, “How is he? Reid?”

“He’s a little shaken up. He takes these kinds of things really hard, Hotch,” Jennifer’s eyes gave away more than her words did, but there wasn’t time to unpack that.

Shaken up was understating it, Hotch knew that. There was no good outcome to this, all Aaron could do in this moment was swallow the guilt he had welling in his throat and put on his best interrogation face.

The room was cold, the thermostat purposely set as low as it would go. Aaron wanted to make the unsub as uncomfortable as possible. The one way glass glinted dully in the fluorescent light and besides the purple and teal design on a paper cup on the table, the room was completely devoid of color.

“Well, I believe we’ve met before,” Jeb’s shit eating grin flowered wide across his face as Hotch wordlessly entered the room. He had readjusted the knot on his tie to appear put together. He was, however, still missing his suit jacket.

“I’m Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner. You’re wanted for the murders of 4 women in the Milwaukee area and you’re charged with the kidnapping of one woman, Julia Winn,” Aaron’s voice was flat but unfaltering as he read the charges. His brow remained stern as he stared at the man across the table. In the fluorescent light, he was even more repulsive. Aaron fought to keep the disgust from manifesting on his face, but a bitter hatred pooled deep in his chest.

“Aaron, you’re no fun. Why don’t you bring in that girl of yours?” There was an evil glint in Jeb’s eyes, a muddy mix of green and brown. On another person, they may have been stunning, but the years had not been kind to Jeb, nor had he been kind to them. His face was aged beyond its time, and his eyes were clouded and exhausted, no doubt a consequence of his night time prowls. Hotch wondered how long he’d been planning these kills for, if they kept him up at night. The lines on his face were sunken and dark.

“Tell me where Julia is.”

“If I tell you where she is, you have to bring that pretty little thing back in. Oh what was her name? Come on, I heard you say it. You were moaning it. Oh what was it? Oh yes,” Jeb clasped his shackled hands together on the table in front of him, “Lola.”

“That’s enough,” Hotch snapped, his brow furrowed. For this interrogation to be successful, Aaron would have to re-establish his superiority. Harris had used Hotch as a pawn in his own twisted fantasy, he saw him as someone to be manipulated, not somebody of authority. Whatever sense of camaraderie Harris had felt with Aaron in the warehouse that caused him to spare his life was now gone. Without that piece of relatability, Harris wasn’t likely to reveal any information to him, inadvertently or otherwise.

There was only one angle he could play to get this unsub to respect him and start divulging his secrets, but Aaron felt guilty for even considering it. It seemed like the only viable option, but he’d said the same in the warehouse only an hour or so earlier, and he didn’t like where that got him. He couldn’t justify compromising another teammate.

He tried again, “Tell me where she is.” “I’ll trade you. You can have her if I get Lola,” Jeb sneered, his eyes meeting Hotch’s challengingly.

Hotch’s hand was forced the second the door to the interrogation room. He forced his face not to fall when Reid’s lanky body boomed through the door.

He was coming in too hot.

“You keep her name out of your mouth,” Reid snapped, slamming a box of files onto the table. The weight of the carton made a loud crash in the otherwise tensely silent room.

“Oh,” Jeb smiled darkly, turning to face Hotch, “This must be the husband.”

There was no turning back now, Aaron only hoped Reid would forgive him.

“How did you guess?” Hotch scoffed, eyeing Reid critically as he sat down

“These are all the files we have on you and your other murders. We will use them to find Julia, and when we do, you’re going to be in prison for the rest of your life,” Reid’s voice was low and a bit hoarse. Hotch wondered with a pang of guilt if he’d been crying.

Jeb once again turned his entire torso to face Aaron, “He’s overcompensating for something.”

There was a smile tugging at the lopsided corner of his mouth as he spoke. This was a joke to him, and he was turning to Aaron to laugh with him. He couldn’t tell if Spencer’s rage was a tactic or a lack of composure, but it was working.

“Tell me about it. He can’t even please himself, let alone that beautiful woman. It isn’t exaggerating to say that working with this pathetic excuse for a man is the bane of my existence,” Hotch stared at Reid as he spoke, but he was searching the younger man’s eyes for a clue as to what he was feeling. His silent question went unanswered.

“That why you took her from him?” Jeb croaked as he put two and two together.

“That’s exactly why. It was more than just to spite the little shit, she deserved better. Such an exquisite woman Lola is, it made my stomach churn to think of his gangly, uncoordinated hands all over her body. You know how it is,” Hotch muttered across the table. Jeb’s shoulders had relaxed, but it was evident that his mind was wandering to the images of Jasmine that were stored in his brain. It took everything he had not to lunge across the table and beat the images out himself.

“I know exactly how it is. Women, they don’t know what they want. They don’t know what’s good for them. That’s why they end up with assholes who work in finance and losers like your friend here,” Jeb finished his comment with a dusty laugh.

It was Hotch’s turn to laugh darkly this time, “Oh, trust me Mr. Harris, this kid is not my friend. I keep him around for one reason and one reason only; his smoking hot wife. Nothing brings me more joy than seeing her pleasure herself with my name falling off her lips. I look him in the eyes every morning knowing exactly what his wife tastes like. But it wasn’t always like that. I had to show her that’s what she wanted. What she craved. Between you and me,” Hotch leaned over to whisper in Jeb’s ear and noted the way his shirt smelled like rotten fish, “the first time we did it was in a bureau SUV pulled over to watch the sun set over the lake.”

“Ladies love the water, Aaron,” Jeb erupted into a deep chuckle, “I’ll tell you what, you got it figured out. No wonder Skippy here hates you. You have something he wouldn’t even dream of having, power. Look at him look at you.Oh he’s so angry.”

Aaron shared a secret laugh with the man, silently thankful the for the apparent air of admiration surrounding them.

Who was manipulating who, now?

Reid’s dark brown eyes were glaring coldly into Hotch’s. His hands were wringing rhythmically and his jaw was set on edge. Hotch couldn’t tell if this was a put on, but he’d desperately hoped Reid realized Hotch didn’t mean any of it.

“I’d be angry too if I couldn’t make my woman finish and then I watched her orgasm at the hands of my boss,” Hotch sniped. His tone was teasing, there was even a smile tugging at the corners of his lips, but his words were serious.

If Reid were angry with Hotch, he wouldn’t be able to blame him. Every word Hotch sneered stabbed a knife into Reid’s ego, even if both parties agreed this was just a ruse to distract the unsub, the topic carried enough weight to bruise him. Especially when most of the points being made weren’t too far off of the truth.

Hotch’s stomach was an uneasy pit, but he forced his outward demeanor to remain unchanged as he watched Reid wipe away tears from the corner of his eyes. Without saying another word, he stormed out of the room, his shoulders in a tense line. Hotch wanted so badly to run after him, give him a tight hug and promise that he didn’t mean anything he said, but he remained in the cold metal chair, his feet twitching in his shoes involuntarily.

“You ever send her home to him dripping with your cum, hoping that he’ll find it later on?” Jeb rasped. The question made Hotch’s whole body oscillate between hot and cold. The desire to strangle this man where he sat was almost overwhelming. He hated Jeb Harris for what he did to him, what he did to Jas and what he was doing to Reid.

“They’d have to have sex in order for him to find it,” Hotch quipped. Jeb let out a sickening laugh and Hotch felt a dark pang of relief.

“God I bet she’s a hellcat in bed,” Jeb muttered thoughtfully.

Hotch fought the urge to crinkle his nose, the smell of dead fish was filling the small interrogation room slowly and it was unpleasant to put it lightly, “In bed, on the floor, against a wall.”

Harris broke out into another lofty fit of laughter, grabbing at his side as his eyes crinkled, “I still think she’d be better off with me, but Aaron, you and I are a lot alike. You and I both know what it's like to protect women from themselves. It’s about making sure that high value men, like you and I, end up with the best possible females,” Jeb explained with a matter of fact tone.

The notion that any similarity could be drawn between the two made Aaron’s jaw clench. He couldn’t fathom the mental gymnastics required for this jackass to find those comparisons.

“Even if you have to disrupt the ecosystem to achieve that.” Hotch’s reply sounded like agreement.

Jeb shook his head vehemently, “No, Aaron. We’re setting it straight.”

“Look, Jeb, may I call you Jeb? I want to help you. You’re in this situation because the world is run by people who don’t understand what you and I know to be true; men like us get what we want by any means necessary. How do you think I got to where I am? Certainly not by apologizing for who I am. If you tell us where Julia Winn is, I might be able to get you a deal, lessen your sentence, maybe lower your charges. I want to help you,” Hotch propositioned, holding his breath while he wanted for the greasy haired man’s response.

“I can’t tell you that, Aaron. If I tell you that, what do I have for myself? I’m holding out for a better deal. You know how it is,” Jeb shrugged him off.

Hotch made a display of looking behind him before leaning into Jeb’s ear once again, “Let me see what I can do.”

Hotch grabbed the files from the table before leaving the interrogation room. There had to be something within the documents they had missed. An unsub as arrogant as him was guaranteed to make a mistake. Aaron was going to put this bastard away and find Julia Winn if it was the last thing he did.

The center row of desks at the station was buzzing. He saw Reid on speaker phone while JJ was giving directions to a squadron of police officers by the door of the station. The air was energetic, hopeful even.

“Reid, what’s going on?” Hotch asked tentatively.

“I had a hunch that the unsub must have a connection to the Milwaukee Bay due to his uh, smell. Then he said something about taking women to the water. I had Garcia cross reference all WHARF’s in the area and found one that used to be owned by the same company his dad used to own. Morgan and Rossi are on their way there now. I have a good feeling about this one Hotch,” Reid explained quickly, his left hand holding his phone, the right hand scribbling jargon onto the nearest whiteboard.

Pride bloomed in his chest as he watched the young genius work. Underneath the floppy hair and sweater vest was a formidable mind with the capacity to deliver no matter the circumstances. Sometimes Aaron wished he had just a fraction of his intelligence. Maybe he could have maneuvered his way out earlier and none of this mess would have happened.

“Good work,” Hotch offered stiffly.

“Thank you, JJ is telling local authorities to set up a perimeter and look for additional victims we might not be aware of or further evidence connecting Harris to the crimes,” Reid’s tone was pleasant enough, but he avoided eye contact with Hotch at all costs. It wasn’t unlike Reid to get so engrossed in his work that he gave social interactions only part of his attention, but this felt different.

Hotch wanted to press the young doctor further, probe him to see if he was alright following the brutalization that just occurred. Before he could clear his throat and inquire on the genius’s mental state, Morgan’s voice sounded through the phone, “Reid. Tell Hotch we found her. Alive.”

The plane was silent except for the dull roar of the jet engines. Prentiss and JJ were asleep towards the back of the plane, each had their head propped against the walls with earbuds in. Rossi was reading over some files, the dim light of his reading lamp illuminating the otherwise dark cabin. Morgan’s headphones elicited a quiet thump as he drummed on his thighs. His window was the only one open as he stared out into the night sky. His eyes were glazed over, but there was coffee on the table in front of him. He was fighting off sleep.

Jasmine had elected to fly home separately, she had other assignments unrelated to FBI business that she needed to tend to. She sent her well-wishes, along with Hotch’s suit jacket, with Prentiss. Hotch wasn’t sure if her absence made him feel better or worse, she was simply delaying the inevitable.

Aaron sighed and got up from his seat across from JJ, tapping Rossi on the shoulder lightly as he moved to take a seat next to Reid. The young genius was fumbling aimlessly with a Rubix cube in his hands.

Spencer pursed his lips into a soft line as Hotch sat down, “Hi Hotch.”

“Reid, how are you feeling?” Hotch started tentatively.

“I should be asking you the same thing,” Reid quipped light-heartedly, but it felt like a deflection.

“I need you to know that everything I said in that room was to instill false confidence in the unsub. Nothing I said was a truthful depiction of how I view you,” Aaron held eye contact with the young brunette who was avoiding his gaze.

“But it was true. All of it,” Reid admitted with a hint of shame. When Aaron didn’t respond, Reid added, “I don’t think it’s a secret that I don’t exactly have a lot of uh… experience.”

“Reid, I wasn’t speculating anything. I promise,” Hotch said with a frown.

“No, I know. I know what you were doing, Hotch, that’s why I played along. But he believed you because, well, what you said was believable,” Reid pulled at the collar of his black sweater. After several beats of silence, Reid made tentative eye contact with Hotch, “I couldn’t have done what you did Hotch. I would have gotten us both killed.”

“Reid, you probably would have found a way to talk your way out of it,” Hotch said with a sigh. He meant it to come across as a joke, but there was too much truth in the statement. Spencer had a talent for thinking in a crisis. Despite Aaron’s years of experience, sometimes there was just no match for his raw brain power.

“I just know I was thankful it was you in there with her,” Reid muttered.

That felt like a punch to the gut. This kid should be bitter, resentful, jealous and maybe even angry, but definitely not thankful.

He searched the puppy-dog expression on Reid’s face incredulously. The kid was too naive to realize the gravity of what happened. Perhaps if he knew, he wouldn’t be thanking Hotch for violating Jasmine.

“Spencer,” Hotch started quietly, but he didn’t know what to say next.

“I wouldn’t have been able to make it believable for the unsub. You made Jasmine uh-” Spencer blushed vividly, his hands dropping the now completed Rubix cube into his lap. Hotch fought his body’s reaction to blush as well, but he couldn’t stop the butterflies in his stomach as images of Jasmine’s orgasm recounted in his mind.

“I’m truly sorry you had to see that, Spencer. I’m sorry all of you had to see it,” Aaron was truthful, but he did feel most sorry for Reid. He brought his hand to his jawline, rubbing it uncomfortably. He knew this conversation was going to be awkward at best, but he was fighting the urge to jump out of the jet window.

“It beats watching you get killed, Hotch. How are you feeling?” Reid pressed.

“I wanted there to be another way. I kept racking my brain for possibilities, I just couldn’t think of any in time. Jasmine just took the lead and it felt like the only viable option. I didn’t do anything but follow her lead, Reid. I didn’t save her, she saved me,” Hotch admitted, it was his turn to avoid eye contact.

“You saved each other. Hotch, what happened wasn’t easy. I don’t think you realize how important it was that you two made it believable. I could see the unsub the entire time, he had his finger on the trigger, just waiting for one of you to slip up. I understand that you’re apologetic, you feel like you did something wrong and unprofessional, but Hotch, given the circumstances, anything less than what you did would have gotten you both killed,” Reid’s words poured out of his mouth like running water, like they often do while he’s making a point.

“It was highly unprofessional, and it was very wrong. Reid, the bureau has footage of me performing oral and penetrative sex on another agent. That footage is going to be shown to my superiors and agents years from now will still have access to it in a database,” Hotch deadpanned, but his pulse began to race as he started to realize how deep the implications of his actions ran. He was so engrossed in the emotional consequences of his actions that he hadn’t given much thought to the bureaucratic ramifications.

“And nobody here blames you for it, Hotch. We all recognize it was an impossible situation. Please trust me when I say that you still have the respect of everyone on this team. We’re on your side and we want to help,” Reid’s voice was low, but sincere.

“Either way, I’m very sorry, Spencer. It was no secret that you had some romantic feelings for her. I can’t imagine it was easy for you to watch that footage,” Hotch’s tone carried a weight of empathy behind it. For half a second, Aaron wondered if he’d crossed a line in bringing up his crush on the adjunct agent.

The young genius blushed furiously at the words as he busied himself with the Rubix cube once again, “It wasn’t. Hotch, she’s the first woman I’ve ever had these kinds of thoughts about. It’s not just romantic its-”

“Sexual?” Hotch offered after a brief pause.

“Exactly. It’s funny, I just never thought of anyone else that way. I didn’t think I could, I thought maybe something was wrong with me. I know everyone thought I had a crush on JJ and she's beautiful. I know that, but I just never felt that way about her. I love her as a person, and I would do anything for her and her boys, but Jasmine... I can’t even talk about her without my heart racing,” Spencer admitted with a shy laugh.

“It would be natural if you were angry with me, Spencer,” Aaron offered again.

“I’m not. I told you, the only thing I could bring myself to think as I watched that footage was that if it were up to me, I couldn’t have done it. I’ve read so much about human sexuality, I’ve studied it for years. But, I graduated high school at twelve years old. I was a minor through most of my college career and then I joined the bureau and I was miles behind everyone my age in that area. I’m not a virgin,” Spencer whispered with a gulp.

Hotch gave him a curt nod, clearly it was important for him to iterate that, the least Hotch could do is acknowledge it without judgment.

“I’m not a virgin, but I’ve never uh- done that before. Hotch, I couldn’t make her happy,” Reid admitted, chewing on his nails as he turned his head towards the wall. Aaron understood that he was using ‘happy’ as a euphemism for ‘pleasure.’

“Spencer, there is more to making a woman happy than that. If anyone has a chance of making her genuinely happy, it's you,” Hotch’s tone took on some authority and for the first time that evening, he didn’t feel fraudulent while doing so.

“Reid, listen to me. I need you to know I was terrified the entire time. Jasmine is the only reason it was believable. She helped me perform. She was overly generous and kept me in the moment so that I could climax. That’s what the unsub wanted, I was a surrogate for him. If I didn’t finish, the fantasy would have been shattered. Jasmine got me there.”

Aaron could feel his neck burning under the collar of his shirt, but he maintained his professionalism to the best of his ability. It was obvious Reid was uncomfortable, but he needed to hear the words, so it was up to Hotch to deliver them.

“Why are you telling me this?” Reid sighed.

“If I can achieve orgasm with a gun to the back of my head, on livestream in front of all my teammates in an empty warehouse because Jasmine wanted me to, then Reid what power do you think you could hold against her in any other situation?” Hotch kept his voice even, but he was fighting an ironic laugh. Thinking about it in that way almost made Jasmine seem less like a victim.

“What are you saying?” Reid pressed.

“I wouldn’t worry about disappointing her, she gets what she wants. If you’re interested, you should tell her,” the words came out more like an order than Hotch anticipated.

“I can’t, Hotch. What if she says no?” Reid sounded so small.

“What if she says yes? If she says no, it’ll sting, but at least you’ll know where you stand with her. Don’t let what ifs haunt you your whole life, Reid."

Hotch squeezed the young man’s shoulder before returning to his seat next to Rossi, leaving him to fumble aimlessly with his already solved Rubix cube.

“Telling the kid to go for it?” Rossi asked, not looking up from his files.

“Yeah. I figured it was worth a shot,” Hotch straightened his suit jacket. He felt nauseated when she smelled the faint scent of Jasmine’s perfume on the collar.

“You’re feeling guilty, aren’t you Aaron? You might be able to fool him, maybe even yourself, but you can’t fool me. You’re trying to make up for the fact that a small piece of yourself enjoyed what happened with her tonight,” David muttered quietly.

Garcia gave them an address to an abandoned warehouse in the sketchy part of town. The building was due for demolition, but short staffing in the city of Milwaukee pushed the priority of this project further and further down the list. The building sat for months longer than it should have, falling into a worsening state of disrepair with each actionless day. With only an unkempt row of subsidized housing lining the opposite side of the street, foot traffic in the area was relatively light.

The unsavory atmosphere of this part of town kept most law-abiding citizens away, leaving the building to fall into the mangled throngs of drug users, homeless people and the occasional ill-behaved teenager. The building was plenty big enough to host all of the aforementioned parties at once, however with an active serial killer prowling the streets, anybody with a modicum of sense knew better than to encroach on a stranger. It was impossible to tell who was a potential threat, so everyone was threatening. In this subset of the population, it was second nature to look over one’s shoulder, and just as common to pretend you didn’t see anything even if you had.

This killer needed privacy to carry out such horrific acts, and he was proficient at ensuring it. It’s highly likely that a tweaked out meth addict sitting at the base of the dilapidated brick building would be unaware of the serial killer operating inside, even if they were in the right state of mind to begin with.

“Morgan, we’re here. It could take us hours to canvas this whole building. Tell the team to stand by. We don’t want to attract unnecessary attention. If the unsub is here, any police presence will flush him out before we can find him,” Hotch muttered quietly into comms.

Jasmine closed the passenger door to the unmarked SUV behind her quietly. She and Hotch were without backup in an effort to minimize risk of detection. The unsub knew this area better than they did. They were hoping for a confrontation-less cornering, but at the very least, they were hoping to find him before he found them.

“Hotch, be careful,” Reid sounded in the ear piece. His tone was pleading despite the obvious efforts to keep it even. Hotch knew what he really meant; ‘Hotch be careful with her.’

Hotch glanced over at the blonde as she tied her hair back into a ponytail. Reid had been taken by her the moment she walked into the room, for obvious reasons that he would fervently deny if asked about. Hotch was a lot of things, stubborn, stoic, goal oriented, and ambitious to name a few, but he wasn’t blind.

And he wasn’t a liar so he couldn’t say that he didn’t see what the young genius saw when he ogled the blonde from across the round table.

Simple black clothing, no bulletproof vests. It was Jasmine’s idea and Rossi was vehemently against it. “You two have no idea if the unsub, or anyone else you might encounter, is armed! You have to take guns and vests,” the Italian’s veins were popping out of his forehead as he reprimanded the pair, but they left without them anyway.

“If the unsub sees us before we see him, he’ll know we’re law enforcement right away. If we blend in, we have a chance. He hasn’t killed anyone who frequents the area. This is our best bet. We’ll bring a small camera and live stream footage to the team. We can’t have everyone there, but we can still use your brains. You have to trust me,” she had reasoned confidently. Hotch agreed, albeit unenthusiastically.

She was right, the unsub was killing only rich business-class people, the social elite, if he knew they were agents, might be dead before they turned around. If he thought they were transients, they might stand a chance.

The pair took sure footed steps towards the warehouse, looking for a weak point in the brick and glass. Around the base of the building were several piles of crumbled bricks and broken glass, but the only obvious point of entrance was a gaping hole in the foundation large enough for even Hotch to climb through unhindered.

“Stop,” Jasmine whispered, holding her hand to his chest as he stepped towards it. Hotch shot her a quizzical look.

“If he’s in there, he’ll be watching the entrance. We have to find a different way in,” her tone was final as she skirted around the corner of the building.

The west side of the warehouse proved to be no more fruitful than the south side, and worse yet they were venturing further from their vehicle.

“Jasmine we should-”

“Look,” she cut him off, motioning above their heads to a large window with several broken panes.

“That window is eight feet off the ground, Jasmine. You have no idea what’s on the other side of that wall. I understand where you’re coming from, but I don’t think falling eight feet onto unknown surfaces is any more safe than being confronted by the unsub. Let’s stay on the ground,” Hotch firmly suggested, heading towards the obvious entry point.

But, as he turned to see if she was following him, the blonde was already halfway up the brick wall. His blood boiled as he watched her maneuver her foot into weak points of the wall, creating temporary footholds as her legs heaved her body weight towards the window sill.

“Get down! That is an order,” Hotch snapped. She was just as stubborn as Morgan. Hotch wasn’t one to pull rank, but she was a contracted member of this team, and therefore a greater liability to him. If she got hurt, or worse, Aaron would have to answer to more than just the FBI.

He watched her ignore his command, her leg swinging up to straddle the window. Hotch briefly considered following her, but a quick glance at the wall told him it wasn’t an option. He couldn’t fit his feet and hands into the same crevices, and he was too tall to fit through the mosaic of broken glass.

“I’ll kick out some bricks for you at the bottom,” Jasmine promised before contorting her body through the jagged opening and disappearing into the black.

Aaron stood alone for a number of tense minutes before he saw movement at the corner of the building. Sure enough, Jasmine was kicking at a weak point in the bricks, sending pieces of rock and mortar flying out of the wall.

“Come on, I don’t see anyone,” Jasmine beckoned him. Hotch gingerly stepped through the mess of dusty bricks and squeezed his way through the newly formed hole.

The interior of the warehouse was just as bleak as the exterior. Countless windows lined the walls, most of them were broken, and the ones that still had original glass were warped with time and covered in a thick layer of grime. The dull light from the streetlights outside barely filtered through.

“I’ve never seen a warehouse like this before,” Prentiss commented mostly to herself over comms as Jasmine gave a sweeping pan of the camera. The team waited in a conference room at the police station several miles away, watching the footage with baited breath as Hotch led the way with a flashlight.

In the center of the empty floor, there were walls everywhere, temporary ones built with drywall that were only six feet tall at the most. In the massive expanse of the warehouse, they looked insignificant with almost thirty feet of empty air between them and the ceiling. They appeared to have no real pattern, but they were too tall for most people to see over the top.

Especially women.

“Whoever built this had a lot of time on their hands,” Hotch muttered darkly, “and access to a lot of materials.”

“Garcia, cross reference the tenants in the housing across the street with construction workers, carpenters and home improvement store employees,” Rossi commanded, there was an edge to his voice that did not go unnoticed by Hotchner. His uneasiness was apparent.

Aaron couldn’t blame him, he felt hunted himself. Jasmine, however, seemed unphased. Aaron couldn’t help but wonder how much worse she’d seen before and if she were used to this feeling that left the hair on the back of his neck standing on end.

It was Jasmine who began moving towards the incoherent maze of drywall. The building was painstakingly silent except for the sound of water leaking somewhere in the darkness. Jasmine rounded the corner of the wall, her feet making no sounds as she tip-toed deftly across the broken floorboards. Hotch tried to illuminate their field of vision, but each swipe of the flashlight only revealed more uninspired drywall.

After seven turns, Hotch wasn’t sure he’d be able to recount each step they made. Hotch swallowed hard as he imagined being brought here against his will. The area was disorienting enough with a flashlight, it would be completely hopeless with a blindfold or bindings.

There was still no sign of the victim.

From the deafening silence, faint footfalls sounded somewhere near them. It was impossible to tell if they were coming from behind them or in front of them. He took in a silent breath as his heart rate spiked, forcing his body to maintain composure. He cast a cautious gaze in Jasmine’s direction and was met with a quizzical look that confirmed she heard them too.

“Hotch what is that?” Morgan growled from his comms. Hotch ignored the question, frantically shining his light at the dim surroundings, hoping to find the answer to that question before it found him. He turned with barely contained panic, pointing the flashlight behind Jasmine, who was following him closely with the camera.

“Who the fuck are you?” The man’s voice was like gravel, it was obvious he’d smoked a pack a day for several years.

From the light of the flashlight, the man appeared to be in his late thirties, but the rings under his eyes were deep and his hair looked as though it hadn’t been properly washed in his life. He wore a tattered flannel shirt with dark stains. Hotch couldn’t tell if it was blood or something else.

“We uh-” Hotch cleared his throat, forcing his pulse to calm despite the blood pounding in his ears.

“Put the fucking light away! I asked you a fucking question,” the man growled, taking a threatening step closer to the pair as Hotch turned off the light and tossed it to the side. He wasn’t sure if this man was their unsub, or if he was carrying any weapons, but this was not the time for questions.

“Hotch, we’re sending in back up,” Morgan’s voice boomed once again over the comms.

“No!” Jasmine exclaimed, and after half a beat she added, “Please don’t hurt us.”

“What do you mean no?” This time it was Reid who snapped. Spencer’s response was panicked and resentful, but if the team flooded the scene now, they would never find the victim if she weren’t in this building.

They still didn’t know who or what they were dealing with. It was too soon to act. Jasmine knew that just as well as any of them.

“My name is Lola,” Jasmine whispered, “We don’t know who you are…” the blonde’s voice was tentative, but Hotch was almost certain it was a hoax. He hadn’t assessed a better strategy yet so he decided to ride her coattails.

“Lola…” the disgusting man looked the blonde up and down and his eyes sparkled darkly. Hotch’s stomach flipped as the man noticed her for the first time.

She stuck out like a sore thumb in a place like this with her perfect skin and shiny hair. Hotch should have thought of that. Suddenly this plan seemed ill-conceived and there was an uneasiness in Aaron’s stomach. He wasn’t sure how, but things were going to go badly.

The man’s shadowed eyes drank her in, and as he was distracted, Hotch began scanning the dimly lit area for an escape route. He was regretting endorsing this idea of Jasmine’s even though he knew it was their only real chance.

“Are you cops?” The man snarled, producing a gun from his waistband and aiming it towards Jasmine’s head, eyeing the camera in her hands.

“NO!” Hotch gasped, reflexively reaching for his waist where his gun and holster were both absent.

“You sure look like one,” the unsub dropped his gun from Jasmine’s direction and pointed it at Hotchner, “Why are you here then, suit?” The unsub spat angrily, cocking his gun menacingly while Hotch focused on keeping his breaths even.

“Take the jacket off,” the unsub demanded. Left without a choice, Hotch let out a ragged sigh before slowly removing his suit jacket.

“Turn around.”

He turned slowly with his hands up, closing his eyes as he turned away from the unsub, the handcuffs on his belt shining in the dusty warm street light.

“You are cops!” He raised his gun again, grabbing Hotch by the arm and yanking him to his body, pressing the barrel of the pistol to his temple. Aaron stumbled over his feet in an attempt to remain upright.

“No, we’re not! Please don’t shoot him! I don’t know what I’d do without him,” Jasmine gasped, throwing the camera to the ground. Hotch watched as it landed right side up and with a wide enough frame to capture all three of them in the shot. Even with a gun to his head, Aaron couldn’t help but admire her foresight. Whether or not this situation elevated, Jasmine was going to get that bastard on camera.

God she was good.

“This your husband?” The unsub’s bitter voice was dripping with disdain. Aaron’s stomach turned at the smell of cigarettes on his breath and something even more volatile wafting from his unwashed clothing.

“No,” she whispered quietly, “No, that man is not my husband. My husband- he could never touch me like he does.”

The unsub’s eyebrows raised half an inch, “Oh, your lover then? Huh? Does he make you feel good? Huh? Your husband ain’t a real man, he can’t make you cum? Is that why you’re here? With him?”

“Yes. Yes, please, we weren’t trying to cause trouble, just… make a bit of our own,” Jasmine offered a tentative smile to the unsub. Hotch’s jaw clenched as he watched her blatant display of feigned flirtation. She was laying it on heavy. Surely this man wouldn’t be that stupid.

“You got a camera and some handcuffs for this?” The unsub motioned broadly to the barren warehouse before leaning in to rasp in Hotch’s ear, “You’re a real man huh? Gonna lock this whore up and make her take your cock? Eh? Gonna tape it so you can watch it over and over again? Gonna show her what a real man can do to her?”

“Hotch man, that’s enough, we’re sending in backup,” Morgan’s voice rang through comms again.

Truthfully, Hotch had forgotten about the rest of the team. His stomach turned as he pictured them huddling around the conference table. Pretniss would be chewing her nails down to the bed and Rossi would be rubbing his head. He didn’t want his team to worry, not yet. This situation was far from out of control. Besides, there was the question of the victim’s location. They had a chance to extract that information as long as the unsub believed them.

“I can’t lose her.” Hotch said firmly, a declaration at first, but he hoped the team would understand what he truly meant. It was still too early to pull the plug on this there was nothing stopping the man from shooting Jasmine and him the moment he suspected someone else might be in the warehouse.

“She really means that much to you?” There was a brief hint of softness in the unsub’s voice. Jasmine did her best to bat her eyelashes,and Hotch watched as her chest heaved theatrically.

“She means everything to me,” Hotch muttered as the cold barrel of the gun just barely came off his forehead. His brown eyes bore into Jasmine’s as he spoke.

If he could appeal to the unsub’s human side, perhaps he would identify with the phony, lust-filled story the two were attempting to sell him. At the very least, it would buy them both some time to figure out their next moves.

“Prove it.”

“What?” Hotch choked out, the unsub’s gun pressed back into his skin roughly.

“Fuck her. Right here, right now.”

“No. I can’t,” Hotch’s heart thumped wildly in his chest.

“Why not? You’re a real man ain’t you? It’s real simple mister, you fuck her right now or I kill you both.” The greasy man shoved Hotch towards Jasmine’s lithe body. He could still feel the impression of the gun on the back of his neck. Hotch wholeheartedly believed the threat.

There was a heartbeat of silence as he stared at the blonde, unable to form a single thought beyond noticing how calm she looked. Hotch’s mind was racing, his eyes frantically searching Jasmine’s for something, anything to tell him what to do next.

“Please baby, I want you so bad. Take me right here,” Jasmine moaned out into the tense quiet.

“That’s what I’m talking about. You heard her, baby. You gonna look at a woman like that and deny her? You don’t want to make the same mistakes as her pathetic husband, do you? Go on,” the unsub pushed Hotch into Jasmine with force this time, confirming what Hotch had suspected all along; it would be impossible to overpower the large man, even with the both of them. “Lock her up and fuck her.”

Aaron forced his hands to be steady as he reached to brush Jasmine’s cheek. She gave a small nod before leaning into his touch, closing her eyes and letting out a breathy gasp. Perhaps he hadn’t made the right call in denying his team’s backup. Maybe if they could collect his prints post mortem they could learn his identity if the prints were in ViCAP, and take their chances with finding the victim. Even with the myriad of flaws to the plan, it still seemed infinitely better than the shit show he just got them both into.

“Hey, baby, don’t worry about him, ok? It’s just you and me,” Jasmine whispered, her green eyes boring poignantly into Aaron’s. She was right. If they had any hope in getting out of this, they’d have to make this as real as possible. Still, her tranquility was both impressive and concerning.

“We’re on the way, Hotch. We’ll stealth raid as he’s distracted, you two just be as convincing as you can be,” Rossi’s authoritative voice gave a small glimmer of hope, while simultaneously making Aaron sick to his stomach.

“Oh and Lola? Make sure you get this on film,” the unsub laughed darkly, “I want a copy of the tape when this is over. You know… as a thank you for being so understanding.”

Jasmine nodded fervently and set up the camera. Hotch watched her hands as she adjusted the settings and the angle. They weren’t even shaking.

Aaron watched as the blonde swallowed hard, but when her green eyes met his gaze, they had no expression other than pure lust. Hotch was taken aback by how wholly she was committing to this. “Take me, Aaron,” she whispered darkly.

Hotch took a sharp breath in, hesitating only for a moment before cradling her jawline with his hands and crashing his lips onto hers. He thought he felt her sigh into the kiss as her hands crawled up his body to rest on his chest. He immediately deepened the kiss, parting his lips to sweep his tongue into her mouth.

For a moment, as his eyes were closed and he felt the softness of her mint flavored lips, Hotch almost forgot where he was and what he was doing. Almost.

When they pulled away from the kiss, her lips were puffy with the force of it. Her cheeks were rosy and her mouth hung open as she panted slightly. Hotch swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly dry at the image in front of him. Aaron watched her watch him, wracking the depths of his mind to form an idea for their escape. He hadn’t been this mentally ineffective since the case that took Hailey’s life, and that frustration was beginning to manifest on his face.

Maybe if he and Jasmine made a display with their foreplay, it would be enough of a distraction for the team to sneak in undetected.

“Take off her clothes already, what are you waiting for?” the unsub snarled impatiently, one hand on the pistol pointed at the back of Hotch’s neck and the other palming his crotch through his jeans.

Hotch searched her eyes for any sign of emotion, but he only found the performative lust she wore so heavily. With deep self hatred, Hotch brought his hands to the edge of her shirt and ripped it over her head in one daft movement. He forced himself to lower his gaze to her chest, now bare except for the black lace pushup bra that created contours on her chest that Aaron was sure he’d be unable to resist in any other situation.

But not now, not here and not with her. Now, it just made him feel sick.

Hotch watched in shock as Jasmine reached up and unclasped her bra, letting it fall haphazardly onto the ground next to her. Hotch’s breath hitched, and before he could stop himself, his hands reached up on their own accord to cup her breasts. He ran his calloused trigger finger over one of her soft nipples, taking in the tiny gasps she made as they hardened beneath his touch.

Aaron’s blood turned to ice as he realized the physiological effects occurring on his body at this moment. His mind was fractured with his conscious brain telling him to pull it together and find another way and his subconscious slowly bringing him further into the clutch of their lustful illusion.

Jasmine must have sensed the half second of hesitation because she pulled their bodies together and slipped her hands into the waistband of his black slacks. His jaw clenched as his eyebrows furrowed in the center of his forehead. Part of him wanted to command her to stop, but another part of him knew it would jeopardize their survival.

And yet another part of him, a small part that he was desperately attempting to suppress, wanted to urge her onward.

Hotch’s cheeks burned with shame as she brushed against the semi in his pants, but Jasmine gave no hint of disgust. Instead, she untucked his button down shirt and made quick work of unbuttoning his slacks. He fought to keep his face stern despite the critical blow she’d just delivered to his resolve.

“No!” the unsub’s voice cut through the quiet gasps and panting like a knife, “No. He stays clothed. You,” he pointed aggressively to Jasmine, “get naked.”

Hotch pushed Jasmine against one of the walls, her head bouncing off the drywall with a soft thud as he kissed her neck, his fingers working to unbutton her black jeans. He pushed them down her thighs and let out a silent breath of gratitude when he was able to remove them in one fluid motion. His eyes dragged up the length of her increasingly exposed body without his permission.

Every inch of her exposed skin caused the pleasure center of his brain to light up like a Christmas tree. He forced his face to remain neutral even at the sight of her standing in only a tiny black thong. He couldn’t stop the quiet groan that ripped from his throat at the sight. He brought his lips to her neck, sucking a dark mark into her collarbone. She released encouraging gasps that trailed off into barely audible moans. The smell of her perfume permeated through his nose, a sickeningly sultry scent he couldn’t identify but was suddenly encased in.

Frantically, he peppered kisses all across her exposed breasts, left hot opened mouthed kisses down her abs and brought his hands to her inner thighs.

There was a jagged scar just above her right hip bone. It was so tiny, Hotch wouldn’t have noticed it if his lips hadn’t brushed over the raised skin. He allowed his fingers to trace the outline of it, his mind flooding with possibilities of how she might have gotten it. She saw to it that he knew as little about her past as possible, but it was impossible to hide the evidence of a past as violent as hers. It was hard to tell in the dull light, but he wasn’t sure it had healed properly.

He paused when his mouth reached the waistband of her underwear, allowing his quick breaths to breeze over her skin. This wasn’t right.

He felt her steady fingers tangle into the hair on the back of his head, a silent bid of encouragement. He parted his lips hesitantly, his dark brown eyes fluttering up to watch her face, looking for a reason to stop.

He didn’t find one.

Aaron took the thin waistband of the thong between his teeth and slowly dragged them down her thighs, his nose brushing against her folds on the way down, causing goosebumps to appear on her body.

Without so much as a crumb of thought, he brought his mouth to her dripping cunt and licked a flat stripe from her quivering hole to her clit, her thighs shaking as he sucked on the most sensitive parts of her.

Aaron wanted to call it inspiration, but his higher thinking had faltered the second he got her naked, at this point he was running exclusively on a potent cocktail of instinct, adrenaline and want. He lapped greedily at her sex, using his hands to anchor her hips against the wall as he fought against his grip to grind her clit against his face. Her mouth fell open as she let out several breathy curses. Her hand reached down to tangle his hair, giving it a hard tug and he looked up at her, meeting her half-lidded gaze with his own devilish eyes.

He had to get control of the situation, there was no telling where she would lead this little scene if she had her way. He rose to his feet, reaching onto his belt for the pair of handcuffs he’d forgotten about.

“You’re going to learn to keep your hands to yourself,” his voice came out more like a growl as he grabbed her wrists and pivoted her against the wall, pressing her cheek into the dusty drywall. He swore he heard the unsub let out a grotesque moan as the metal tightened around her, but he couldn’t hear it over the blood rushing in his ears.

“Jas, are you okay?” He whispered against her ear.

She glanced at him over her bare shoulder, her green eyes scanning the details of his face before landing on his mouth, “Yeah.”

He whipped her around as gently as he could before pinning her against the wall. She was completely exposed, but Aaron was the one who felt vulnerable under her gaze. He had trouble meeting her eyes so he took a looming step towards her once again, connecting his lips to the base of her neck and bringing his fingers between her legs. Aaron brought two fingers to her clit, rubbing soft, consistent circles there. Her hips moved off the wall ever so slightly, chasing the pressure and gyrating with the movement.

“More,” she gasped.

Aaron was sure he didn’t hear her right.

“What?”

“I need you,” she whispered, her eyes fluttering down to watch as his hands disappeared between her folds. The pads of his fingers came in contact with her cunt, sending a white hot flash of heat through his body.

“You’re wet.” It wasn’t a question, but an observation.

His stern face searched hers for some kind of explanation. She didn’t respond, just stared at him with her glassy green eyes as a pink flush crept up the length of her body. She was wet.

Was she actually enjoying this?

Aaron had dismissed the physical reaction from his own body as a mere consequence of the situation and his gender. He could have never anticipated this reaction from a woman, not when there were so many more barriers to their pleasure than his own. The feeling of her slick heat coating his fingers created too much noise in his brain to overcome it.

A small plume of dust erupted from the floor with the force of him dropping to his knees in front of her. He couldn’t stop himself even if he wanted to, burying his face between her legs. He moaned against her cunt, sucking her clit with the vigor of a man who might never get to eat again. The stiff collar of his dress shirt dug into his skin as he craned his neck for a better angle, dipping his tongue through the tight ring of muscle.

“Oh, fuck. Oh Aaron,” Jasmine whimpered as he lifted her thigh over his shoulder to give himself better access. Her body began to tremble, and for the first time, Aaron witnessed her lose her composure with a shameful flicker of pride. He barely heard the soft thump of her head hitting the drywall as she melted back into the structure.

But, hearing his name fall off her tongue sobered him almost instantly. He pulled back from his place between her legs and forced himself to look in her eyes.

His stomach turned and sweat beaded on his forehead. This was his coworker and he was eating her out like an animal in front of some gun wielding stranger.

The fact that he even forgot that, even for an instant made his hands start to tremble at their grip on her hips. How had he managed to forget about the unsub? The camera? The gun?

The victim.

Instead, he found himself staring at a new victim.

His chin was wet with saliva and her juices. Her taste danced on his tongue and no matter how many times he swallowed hard, it lingered. How could he have indulged so heavily in this fantasy that he forgot it was all a ruse?

Jasmine must have sensed the minute change in his demeanor, “Come here.” The words came out in a ragged breath.

Hotch rose to his feet, he couldn’t feel his body. He numbly pulled her face to his and noticed the artery on her neck pulsating wildly as she struggled against the handcuffs to touch him back. Despite her compromising position, her green eyes flickered down Hotch’s body knowingly. He realized with bone chilling horror that he had an erection that was straining almost painfully against his underwear.

“Fuck me. Please, please fuck me,” Jasmine begged breathlessly.

His brain was foggy, there was too much input. He could practically feel the blood racing through his body to where it pooled between his legs. There was a heartbeat in his cock as it throbbed in his slacks. He could taste Jasmine on his tongue, feel the dull pain in the back of his neck where she had pulled at the hair there and smell the intoxicating notes of her perfume. He saw the way her chest heaved, the sheen of sweat shining temptingly in the low light of the warehouse. He could hear the faint shuffling of the unsub masturbating behind him. He could feel the dryness in his mouth as he stared at Jasmine, who was staring up at him expectantly, her hands pinned helplessly behind her back.

The words she was saying made his brain feel ill, but his cock twitched with interest. How could his body betray him like this? He couldn’t seriously follow through with this, could he?

What option did he have? He either had to rape his coworker or have them both killed.

Still, he kept racking his brain for other options. There must be something he missed.

The wheels stopped turning the second her hips pushed off the wall and ground harshly into his bulge.

With a sharp gasp of surprise, his knees buckled beneath him and he had to brace himself on the wall behind her to keep from collapsing onto the floor.

Oh god, it’d been so long since anyone had touched him there.

He couldn’t stop the small moans that escaped his throat without his permission as rutted against him slowly, but deliberately. There was a wet patch on the front of his underwear, evidence of the excitement his body derived from this twisted situation.

“Oh my god,” he groaned, his head falling back as his eyes rolled into his head.

This couldn’t be happening.

His stomach coiled with dull waves of pleasure at the sensation of her warm core moving rhythmically against his straining manhood. His body felt like it was being electrocuted with every touch. Her pace quickened suddenly and with a gasp, Hotch looked down at her face. Her eyes stared into his, challengingly, almost greedily.

If Hotch had any capability for cerebral thought, he’d have realized it was all a put on, but he couldn’t think straight. His hand trembled as he brought it to the waistline of his pants. He couldn’t meet her eyes as he dipped into his underwear, palming his own cock as precum leaked out of the tip.

Jasmine let out a small whine that commanded his attention so thoroughly that Hotch almost forgot to feel ashamed. Looking into her lustful green eyes, Hotch was almost convinced she truly wanted this.

He took himself in his hand assertively, relishing in the small sparks of pleasure that radiated from his cock as he dragged his own palm down the shaft. He allowed one hand to rest on the wall next to her head, using the other to line himself up with her entrance. Hotch’s stomach was in knots as he stared at her, the small piece of his brain knew this was a bad idea was so viciously overwhelmed by the desire flooding into his mind. He shouldn’t be doing this.

There would be absolutely no coming back from this.

She leaned forward, her tongue licking a small stripe on the shell of his ear, “Fuck me, Hotch.” Words meant only for him, he was sure of it.

It was all he needed to bottom out in her with one languid thrust. She gasped deliciously as Hotch gave a wordless grunt. The feeling of her velvet walls encasing his throbbing cock was overwhelming; it actually took the breath from his lungs. It took all his strength to not finish at the feeling alone.

Aaron tried to give her time to accommodate his size, but the feeling was tortuous. His hips physically ached as he tried to keep them from fucking into her recklessly. Instead, he gave a tentative thrust, searching her eyes for any hint of discomfort, although Hotch wasn’t sure he would be able to stop himself even if he found it.

Luckily, there was no such objection in her gaze, so he began to thrust in and out of her, setting a grueling pace. He felt his ability for conscious thought falter completely as the instinctual part of his subconscious ravaged the pleasure between his legs.

God it’d been so long since he had this feeling.

Her chest bounced tantalizingly as he thrust her, driving her against the makeshift wall. He could hear the metal handcuffs scraping against the unfinished drywall. 

Those are probably hurting her wrists. 

He didn’t have the mental bandwidth for guilt, not with her breasts moving in rhythm with his thrusts. It only made him drive further into her. Harder. Deeper.

The noises she made as his balls slapped heavily against her skin with each stroke went straight to his cock. Coils of pleasure warmed the pit of his stomach and with a frantic gasp he realized what was about to happen. He tried to warn her, but the air was turbulent and breathy as it escaped his throat.

“Oh god, Jas ’m gonna- oh oh oh,” his words devolved into wordless moans as his mouth fell slack. His head fell unceremoniously against the wall, his mouth lazily kissing her neck as he climaxed deep inside of her. He let out deep breaths through his nose as he rode out wave after wave of pleasure.

Sweat flattened Hotch’s hair against his forehead as he lifted his neck to meet Jasmine’s gaze. His vision was hazy. He blinked aggressively against the dust in the air as he attempted to recenter himself. His body was still fuzzy from the orgasm, but his brain was very suddenly firing on all cylinders.

It was only now that he realized they weren’t alone with the unsub anymore. Unfamiliar faces flooded into view as the edges of his vision reappeared, replacing the black fogginess that once clouded his periphery.

“Are you ok?” Hotch’s own voice sounded miles away as it echoed inside his head. He instinctively reached for the suit jacket he discarded on the ground, handing it to Jasmine to cover her alarmingly nude body. His movements felt as if he were moving through water.

“Aaron!” Rossi’s voice was sharp and frantic, Hotch turned to face the man, his head swirling as he did so. He had half a mind to wonder how long Rossi had been calling his name, “Dave?” He was trying to tuck himself back into his pants, but his fingers felt like they belonged to someone else.

“Let’s go, let’s get you out of here,” Morgan’s voice appeared at his side and Hotch shook his head violently to clear the fog that was settled so heavily in his brain. 

I need a minute. Just give me a minute to think, damn it!

Within a few heartbeats, the noises in the room came closer and closer until he was back in the present. He drew in a ragged breath, noting the change in the way the dusty air smelled before.

Something unexplainable snapped in his brain. He simply had to compose himself if he was ever going to move past this. There was no time to dwell on what just happened. There was a victim somewhere and he had to find her or else this was all for nothing.

“Morgan, Rossi, you two run point on the rest of the warehouse. I want every single corner searched for the missing person. The unsub was comfortable here, that means its familiar territory. If she’s not here, she’s nearby. I’m going back to the station with the detectives to interview this bastard,” He fell back into his authority with a loud boom, walking in stride with the men to the edge of the warehouse, even though his thighs felt like gelatin. The aftershock of his orgasm still wired through his nerves, he forced his hands not to shake.

“Hotch, take a breather man,” Morgan said tentatively, jogging to catch up with the unit chief. Aaron straightened his tie as he cast a dismissive glance in Morgan’s direction.

“There’s no time, Derek. Rossi, make sure Prentiss sees that Jasmine gets any medical attention she might require at this time,” Hotch’s tone was firm and his signature glare suggested he wasn’t going to accept any challenges to the plan.

“Alright. Garcia is running the unsub’s face through facial recognition software. We should know anything we can about this asshole soon thanks to Jasmine’s cinematic camera work. Reid is going over the footage right now,” Morgan muttered. Hotch stopped short of his patrol car and swallowed hard. 

Reid.