"Swing shift?"

She blinked surprise into the abrupt but refreshingly direct text message as she plied her hair down and out over her shoulders, answering an affirmative with a quick thumbing over the screen of her phone, pausing only long enough to check again to be sure it was the Scot. She refused the urge to scroll back through the scattered other texts he'd sent her – mostly club-business and meet up related. Except for a couple that she had absolutely no doubt he'd been drunkenly giddy while writing. Especially the one that referred to her as some sort of 'minx'.

"In kitchen. Don't shoot. Would be an unfortunate incident."

Ally frowned and shook her head, not answering as she tossed her phone into her bag and swung it up onto her shoulder, already heading for the door. She stopped at dispatch long enough to sign off on a few reports and have a chat with the dispatcher coming on duty. The other woman made her smile with a quick jab at one of the mouthier male officers and Ally just waved it off as she headed for the exit.

Delightful. That had been it. Delightful minx.

And what the hell was he doing in her kitchen?

The humored teasing and feigned anger she meant to sling in his direction faded into the shadowed doorway when she realized he was standing back against the counter as though he hadn't been able to find a place to comfortably sit, his body arched back but livewire tightened and taut. There was a firming to his jaw that read vitriolic and the only thing that managed to break it was the swing of the juice glass he'd filled with the whiskey he'd appropriated from her cabinet.

"I apologize." He offered as a sort of toast before hissing down a swallow from the glass, his voice obviously gritted with an emotion she didn't know him well enough to pin down.

But her guess was that it was verging somewhere between desperation and fury.

"For breaking into my place or drinking my whiskey?" she questioned with a purposefully softened tone, lacing it up with a smile that was meant to soothe.

"Ya showed me where you hide the key, Ally." A reflection of a smile almost tweaked his lips but it was lost as he set the glass aside, hips angling back harder against the counter as his hands rode the edge of it. "The whiskey couldn't be helped."

Ally shrugged as she dumped her bag to the kitchen island, stepping slowly around it so that she could tip the whiskey bottle. "So at least you didn't start drinking until you got here?"

"That is true." He agreed softly, head nearing hers as he angled his chin toward his shoulder, breathing in the smell of her hair.

"Keys." She lifted her hand between them, turning into the way his frame was curling around her as her knuckles brushed leather.

"No." his face had hardened back into seriousness as he curled his fingers onto hers with a tentative touch. "I mean it. If I need to go… I'm fine to ride."

"Then they get hung up." She tipped her head toward the front of the house as she loosened their fingers apart, avoiding the unhidden anger that had managed to flush his normally paler skin. "Lock the door while you're at it, Scotty."

"Ah." his fingers caught at her shirt and tugged her tightly into him before she could move away from him. "What makes you think I'm stayin'? Maybe I just needed to talk."

"You're staying." She murmured the words so softly that he perked his head at an angle to hear them, eyes fluttering shut when she brushed her lips past his to tenderly travel one scar, "You don't want to talk."

"No." he turned his glance to hers, his eyes looking suddenly fiercely dark. "I don't."

"You want something else." Her shoulder perked up into the veracity of the assumption.

"Aye." He nodded his mouth closer and she could damn near taste the whiskey on his breath. "I do."

She shrugged him off with an intentionally gentled palm into the center of worn in and softened leather, "Then go lock the door."

He was gutted and gone as he watched her, following the movements she made as she cleared the clip from her weapon and dropped it into the drawer beside the bed. Her finger was unconsciously guiding along the safety as she set the Glock into the drawer carefully and quietly, barely a sound from the movement as the other hand tugged the badge clip from her belt. He followed the arch of her body as she tucked that away as well, both hands sliding the drawer shut before she pulled her cell phone from her back pocket and turned it off. It was left to the table and he was caught studying her as she turned, a knowingly cocked smile on her lips.

"What?"

"I don't want to talk about it." He murmured in a tone that rendered an unspoken apology.

"Well," she shrugged as both her hands raked her hair back off her face and tugged it still and away from the lean lines of her jaw, "good. Because I didn't ask."

"I like that." He nodded, the heel of his boot digging unconsciously into the plush carpet of her bedroom.

"You all right over there, Scotty?" her tone had traded into teasing and he sighed as she just smirked playfully at him. "You've been in here before, ya know?"

"I know." The quick jerk of his accent made the response tighter and sharper than he'd meant it and he finally laxed into a smile for her, "I remember."

"For this thing to work you kinda have to take a few steps closer to the bed." Her taunting was driving the smirk deeper into his cheeks and he rolled breath of laughter to the side before shaking his head at her. "Unless you're second thinking this."

"No." he angled his jaw down slowly but kept his eyes to hers. "I'm not."

"Okay." She nodded slowly and turned, easing to sit on the edge of the mattress. "So… maybe you need to talk about it."

"I don't." his whisper just barely preceded the brush of his boots against the carpet and she watched the intentional slowness of his movements, holding oxygen tight into her lungs when his hand led into her hair.

Ally let her eyes close into the way he wiped her hair back, the rippled sound of his cut as he shifted into a crouch was louder than she expected but she unconsciously smiled into it. His fingers trailed her throat and she caught against them tightly, turning his hand over so that she could press her lips into his wrist lightly, light enough to make him inhale sharply as he watched her. His balance swayed a little and she felt him catch himself by leaning into her knees, head tilted enough to watch the warmth of her movements as his other arm laid across her lap.

There was a knowing gentleness to the way she touched him that unnerved him.

There wasn't any guile in it. She wasn't trying to impress him or playing coquette like younger and more eager girls. She was sure in her movements.

She seemed sure of him.

And that was bloody terrifying.

"Do y'trust me?" he asked as she caught his fingers up into her hand, her thumb rolling against the inside of one of his rings.

He watched the flinch of honesty thin her eyes as she matched his questioning glance, a barely perceptible shake to her head, "Not completely."

"Trust this?" he asked before he tugged her fingers against his lips and kissed against her knuckles.

"I think so."

The only response he gave her was a flared grin and a swift nod before lifting his head into hers, forcing a hard kiss into her lips that had both her hands clasping up onto his jaw. The sudden ragged force of his movement didn't scare her so much as plow heat through her chest as he used his hands against the mattress to lift himself up over her, a palm curling into her hair and clasping against the back of her neck. She let him force her back into an awkward but dizzying arch as he swiped his tongue against her teeth, the taste of whiskey and cigarettes a reminder of the frustration he'd been venting in her kitchen.

"Filip." Her fingers were already raking down the cut, prying it open so that her fingers trapped and tagged still on his shoulder holster, "Keep your boots off my bed."

He groaned a smile into her hair as she easily unhooked the double holster, her fingers working fast and knowing the movements in the way that not many another woman would. He complied slowly, toeing off the boots as she leaned back on her hands, watching him kick them aside playfully as she teased socked toes against the outside of his ankle. Chibs sighed as she stared at him expectantly, her shoulders swaying comfortably back as she leaned her elbows into the mattress and made a shrugging movement.

"Comfortable, are ya?" he questioned cockily as he slung the cut off and laid it onto the mattress at her side.

"Quite." The amused nod she made had him smiling reflexively and a groan followed as she angled her upper body to the side, stroking her fingers down the length of leather before spreading the back patch flat.

He went a little rigid as she palmed against it but the gentling of her hand as she smoothed it out and flat flared a heat in his stomach that made his lungs snap still.

"Still comfy?" he asked quietly, letting the holster slide back off his shoulders so that he could gently land it to the carpeted floor, watching as she nodded in self assured humor.

"Then I apologize again, love." He leaned down over her, catching her lips up lightly with his as he curled his hands down her ribs, sloping her hips, and gripping into the denim at her thighs.

The look of sudden confusion on her face tumbled into surprised laughter as he jerked her hard and down closer to the edge of the mattress, dragging her legs up around his hips as he leaned his weight over hers. His elbows settled into the comforter after wiping quick fingers back up the length of her, his mouth finding hers again as he matched the laughter that tripped her lips. The heat of her tongue against his matched the flush on his skin that

"Comfortable?" she whispered softly into the way he was laying his kisses along her cheek.

"Almost." His hand had trapped hers and tugged it between them and he traced against her wrist as she broke from his control and knowingly caught against his belt buckle.

There was a softness in the mingled colors of her eyes and it jarred him for a moment, made him watch the confident upturn of her jaw as she undid his belt and worked against the button of his jeans. Filip angled his head, letting his eyes run the length of her splayed hair and then back over her eyes and nose and the damp press of her lips. The run of her tongue against her bottom lip just before her teeth nipped down on it had his chest ratcheting tightly.

"Filip?" her fingers stalled against his stomach, rubbing up under his shirt to press warm skin.

"Althea?" he questioned softly with a dazed smile.

"Your phone." Her other hand brushed along his pocket and he caught against her hand, pressing it still as he felt the vibration and groaned a solid wreck of frustration down into her collarbone.

"Ye've gotta be fucking kidding me." He rubbed his forehead into her shirt and exhaled hard as he pulled the phone out, checking who was calling. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah." She let her legs slide from his hips, pressing up onto her elbows once again as he turned away enough to answer with a gruff and obviously racked tone, his breathing more rattled than she'd realized.

Ally crossed one leg idly over the other, studying the cocked angle of his hips and the way his jeans were slagging low against them. She sighed before leaning onto her side, studying the cut that was laying beside her, her finger slowly tracing the outline of the reaper. She didn't have much faith or fear in omens or talismans. But he did.

"You're a popular man, Scotty." She blithely offered into the apologetic and sheepish look he turned back to her after agreeing to something and quickly hanging up.

"There's too much goin' down." His voice had caged quiet in a more lethal manner, his ire and anger dusted up once again as he pocketed his phone, hand sliding against his belt buckle. "Too many lines crossin' each other at rush hour."

"You didn't want to talk about it." She sighed out softly as she pressed herself up from the mattress, stretching her back as she wiped a hand through her hair.

"I can't, Ally." he corrected, voice cutting ragged. "There's a difference."

She rolled a noise of supposed agreement through her pressed lips and reach for his leather, taking it up in both hands and when she turned he'd gotten much closer than she'd expected. She lifted the leather in her hands and couldn't help but soften as he turned into the way she was holding it, letting her slide it up his arms against his shoulders as he exhaled hard, his frame suddenly seeming weary.

"Hey." She leaned into his back, pressing into the large patch as he tugged the leather tighter against his chest, angling her head onto his shoulder so that her lips were jutting against the back of his ear.

"Aye?"

"Be safe." She whispered the words once again and he couldn't save himself from smiling into it this time, head turning into the way she was leaned up against the side of his head. "No more dead on my doorstep."

There was a sadness shading his skin pale as he turned and caught a kiss against her, breaking his forehead into hers as it ended. "Can we reschedule?"

The lift in her shoulders was light as she dipped her eyes closed, knowing he wasn't going to be close all that much longer. "Sure."

"I need my boots, Ally." He was smirking into the way she had him tugged tight.

"But they're happy there." She nodded toward where they were dumped beside her bed.

He smiled into charmed agreement, "They are, love. But I gotta go."

She exhaled as she loosened her fingers from leather. "Lock up behind you."

"Don't drink all my whiskey." He taunted as he tugged one of his boots on, watching the length of her as she laid back on the bed with a harsh exhale, her shirt riding high and flashing him a pass of skin that made him growl.

"I make no promises."