It’s been one hell of a day.

Emily Prentiss, Chief of the BAU, sits buried under case files and red tape. Her gray hair’s in loose disarray—she’d tugged it down hours ago, sometime between the third interagency phone call and the sixth coffee. Her blouse is unbuttoned at the collar, blazer tossed across a chair with zero ceremony. The tailored armor she usually wears? Cracked.

She should be making progress. She needs to—reports due at 0900, a meeting with the Deputy Director hanging over her head like a thundercloud. But it’s like trying to solve a puzzle with someone humming in the background.

That someone?

Her wife. Casual, barefoot, beautiful in ways that make Emily’s neurons short-circuit. Raiding her snack drawer like it’s a game, pacing the office like she owns the place, every motion deliberate. Comfortable. Magnetic.

“You’re distracting,” Emily says flatly, not bothering to look up. Her pen keeps moving, scratching against the page. “And you know it.”

Because she does know it. Knows if she meets her wife's gaze, if she gives in for even one breath, it’ll all unravel. The work, the walls, the delicate self-discipline she’s spent the evening cultivating.

“Damn distracting,” she mutters again, quieter this time, almost like it’s a prayer. Or a warning.

But even as she writes, her fingers falter. And the smallest smile threatens to betray her.