It was getting harder for him to concentrate. More and more he felt distracted by less and less, as though someone had stolen his sanity. Someone with red hair.

It had started with peculiarly small things.

He noticed one day, as they argued, that she was wearing a distinctly different lip color. He completely missed whatever words those lips spat at him for several seconds as he imagined her that morning, applying that shade, taking the small tube of color and carefully smearing it around her lips extended in an hyperbolic pout, gracefully touching it to each edge of the bow of her lips. It was a ridiculously feminine gesture for her, the queen of all the women to ever compete in a man's world. Perhaps it was because it was so ridiculous that it intrigued him, enough for him to be thinking about that color longer than his ego would like to admit. Enough for him to be distracted by her colorful mouth moving with such ferocity as she continued their tete-a-tete. It made him wonder what better purposes he could find for the pent up energy of that mouth.

And then there was the day that her scarf fell from its place, nonchalantly looped around one of the straps of her purse as she walked towards the elevator to go home after a long day's work. He had been the only person left in the bullpen and hadn't noticed the small square of silk until the elevator doors dinged closed. He got up with the intention of collecting the garment so that he could make sure she got it back in the morning. But, when he picked it up the fabric teased the pads of his fingers. The scarf felt divine. The threads were woven so closely that against even his rough skin it felt cool and so unimaginably smooth that it was as close as possible to what air would feel like if it could be made soft and tactile. The scarf looked familiar. It wasn't until later that he realized that she had bought it in Paris. That she had bought it with him in Paris. It wasn't until later that he realized that the smooth fabric even smelled like her, like her and a new perfume she must have started using. His mind involuntarily imagined it wrapped neatly around her neck; the cool silk warming against the soft, sensitive skin.

And there was the day they had rode the elevator together in the morning. It had been bitter cold that day, but but of course you couldn't tell it from the way he had dressed, still with the same cup of coffee that was a staple no matter the weather. She, on the other hand, elegantly warmed herself with a long coat and matching gloves. Gloves that she felt a need to remove once safely inside the warm elevator. Had she always done that? Tugged at each finger of the supply leather with her teeth to loosen the form-fitting material before sliding it off? He watched each of the ten times her teeth bit the edge of the leather, loosening it with a small jerk before removing the gloves entirely. Her actions hardly seemed to phase her, as she departed the elevator faster than ought to be possible in her heels. He, on the other hand would have a difficult time forgetting the picture of her gloved hand so close to her lips or the soft bites she gave the leather before tugging it off.

They were reminders to him of a time when she could have had him shamelessly begging her for more. More to touch and to taste and to surround him in order to forget anything or everything. But he would never beg to get her back. Hell, he would never even go so far as to ask for her back. So, at night he attempted to diminish his frustration with the oddly soothing back and forth motions on the now very sanded planks of wood. Who knew that wood sanded so soft could almost mimic the soft feel of skin, under the teasing caress of his finger tips?