Xenogears, Jesiah/Raquel, it looks just like the cover of a romance novel (take 1)
Racquel always knew it would be something; with Jesiah Blanche there was always /something/. The man didn't operate by any rules or formulae that she could fathom. But she had to admit, she hadn't considered a power outage. The holopad and steno were dark in her hands, the whole block dimmed to emergency illumination only. The whole sector, maybe.
Not very conducive to research.
"Pretty crazy timing," he said, something more than familiar laughter in his voice. God but he was close; she smelled his aftershave and the starch of his collar. The floor-lighting cast intriguing shadows across his face, catching in his pale hair and the whites of his eyes. "Thought Etrenank was too advanced for this kind of brown-out."
He was entirely in her personal space. In the sudden dark, she remembered that she ought to mind. "Officer Blanche, state your intentions."
Jesiah's mouth twitched, but he managed not to grin. Not that he moved away; if anything, he tilted his head closer. "Purely honorable. Officer Benetnasch. Ma'am. Sir." He reached to /salute/-- cocky bastard-- but then he took her hand up and put it to his heart. His pulse was going like mad.
Racquel caught her breath. She'd seen him shoot; she knew how good his aim was, how steady his nerves. How straight his... shot. She was finding it hard to concentrate. Somehow her traitorous hand was fiddling with the zipper-pull of his uniform jacket. Lucky her training in Jugend kept her voice steady, for all that it couldn't stop the heat from creeping to her face. "Surely you can imagine what this /looks/ like."
Now he was grinning. "Well, I might venture a guess," and here he ran a hand through her hair, touching gun-calloused fingertips to the nape of her neck. Of course she didn't shiver, of course she didn't lean involuntarily against him. She was a woman of self-control, and no extenuating circumstances would distract her. "But I'm pretty sure you're not the type to read those trashy romance things."
He never failed to surprise; her laughter was honest. If her fingers had his jacket mostly undone, she blamed his voice, robbing her of all her logical faculties. And if he backed into the loveseat and pulled her down into his lap, well, she thought there must be something to blame; she'd just come up with it later. "Do /you/?"
There was banked fire in his blue eyes, like the sort of thing they talked about in the soul-labs, ether rating that was supposed to be so high you could /see/ it. "If you turn me down, Racquel, I might have to start."