A/N: Happy Birthday, wolfmusic218!
Joss Carter unlocked the front door of her house, shaking her head and chuckling at her ex-husband. "You know you weren't right for that."
They both walked through the door and Paul closed it behind him.
He shrugged, still laughing softly. "Hey, he knew what the deal was. I'm questioning all the potential girlfriends."
She dropped her purse on the credenza and turned to flip the light switch on. "Yeah, but Taylor's not like you were. He doesn't—." She stopped in mid sentence and froze. Because they weren't alone. John had apparently let himself into her house again and was standing his tall, infuriating ass next to the fireplace.
Usually, she could sense when he was in her place as soon as she walked through the door—that eerie feeling of not being alone would wash over her—but Paul's presence had distracted her, allowing John to catch her completely off guard.
Paul glanced between the two of them, and she instantly regretted the shocked look on her face because Paul instinctively took a step in front of her, towards John. She quickly took the same step he had and placed her hand on his upper arm.
"It's okay." She watched her ex-husband's eyes narrow in concern and confusion.
Paul turned to look at her. "You know him?"
Carter aimed a deadly glare towards John and tried not to grit her teeth. "Yeah, he's…" someone I'm about to throttle "...a CI." With that, she hoped Paul wouldn't ask any more questions. Confidential informant meant just that: confidential. She felt him relax, just a little, but he continued to stare at John who coolly returned it.
Suddenly wanting both of them to be on their merry ways, she knew it would be a lot easier to get rid of Paul than John, so she made the move that would get it to happen. "Here, let me go get it." Hurriedly, because she knew both of them were being unnecessarily protective—Paul because there was some terrifying looking white man creeping inside her house and John because he was always that way—she practically jogged into the kitchen and grabbed the tax software from the counter. Returning to the living room, she saw that the two men were still sizing one another up. Sighing inwardly, she tried to hand the software to Paul. "Here you go." When he didn't immediately respond, she tried again. "Paul, I work with him. It's okay. Take this so I can talk to him and get both of you out of my house so I can get some sleep."
Finally, Paul took the software and Carter headed toward the front door, sensing that he was following her. Relieved, she opened the door and watched as he crossed the threshold. He stopped just outside and nodded his head back in John's general direction.
He spoke low enough for only her to hear. "You sure it's okay?"
She nodded and tried to be reassuring. "Yeah. He's a pain in the ass, but he's ok." She saw the questions in his eyes. She saw him wanting to know how the hell John got in, why he was waiting in the dark, and if she'd given a CI a key to her apartment, what in the hell for. But she hoped he saw the response in her eyes: later, not now. Maybe because they used to be married, or because she was being just that obvious, he let it go. Instead of asking any more questions, he nodded, thanked her for the software, and slowly made his way down the steps, looking back at her cautiously as she closed the door and locked it.
Anger having only temporarily been abated, it flared back up as she turned and headed back towards her unwelcome guest. She'd known his breaking and entering was going to cause a problem one day. She'd known it. Though she'd been granted a reprieve, she knew Paul was going to be all over this one, and it pissed her off.
She stood just outside of the living room, hands on her hips. She knew it was a stupid question even as it left her mouth. "What are you doing here?"
"You weren't answering my calls."
"Which meant I didn't want to talk to you." She leaned down and slipped her shoes off.
John moved for the first time since she'd laid eyes on him and took a few steps towards her. "Why's your ex here?"
She stood up straight and shrugged, drawing her eyebrows together in confusion. Did he not just see her give Paul a damn TurboTax CD? She knew it didn't make a lick of sense, not a single iota of one, but he sounded mildly jealous. No, that was ridiculous. She was imagining it. John was just perched all up in her business like he always was. "I told him he could come get my tax software since I'd already bought it. Why are you here?"
"You weren't answering my calls."
She shook her head and headed back into the kitchen. Maybe if she ignored him, he would go away. But since John was one of those people who ignored social constructs wherever he saw fit, as his following her into the kitchen demonstrated, she quickly gave up that pipe dream.
"What did he want?"
She turned to him and threw her hands up. "Why do you keep asking me this?"
"Because he's still outside."
Great. "Well, I wonder why, John." She headed over to the refrigerator, pulling the door open a little more forcefully than she needed to. "He sees some shady looking guy in a suit lurking in my house in the dark. No telling what he's thinking." She pulled out a small bottle of pineapple juice and unscrewed the top, watching as John shrugged unrepentantly. She took a swig of her drink before adding, "Why don't you leave, then maybe he'll go, too."
He did the opposite instead, shrugging out of his coat and laying it across one of her kitchen chairs. "You divorced him. Not really his business anymore." He pulled the chair out and sat down, legs spread wide so that he could take up space and try to assert his right to be there.
"As long as his son still lives here, it's his business who I let in my house."
John seemed to consider this, then let his cool facade retake his features.
Beyond frustrated with him at this point and more than ready for him to go home, she decided to relent. To acknowledge what he was clearly waiting for her to acknowledge. The harrowing events of the day. She sighed and set the plastic bottle on the countertop. "I was doing my job. You're not my keeper."
He responded calmly. "It was not your job. It was mine."
"I was supposed to just stand there and wait for you to show up?"
"Yes."
"That's not my job." When she saw the first tiny sign of frustration crack his veneer, the part of her that was just as irritated as he was cheered. She crossed her arms. "Last time I checked, I was the one with the authority. Not you."
John leaned forward in his seat, his eyes turning into an icy blaze. "They had an entire arsenal, Carter. You wait for backup. You don't go charging in."
"Upchurch didn't have time."
"Then his time would have been up. Not yours."
She bristled at his tone of voice, her ire continuing on an upward trajectory. "Don't talk to me like I don't know what I'm doing, John. I left my mama in Brooklyn."
He rose from his seat, closing the space between them. "You didn't leave me there."
"I never asked for you!" As soon as she said it, she regretted it. He nodded plainly and she knew she had hurt him, but she didn't retract it. She was already too heated.
"Ok. But I'm here, Carter. And you wouldn't be if I weren't."
She shrugged her shoulder carelessly. "When my time is up, it's up." She knew it sounded cavalier, she knew she sounded ungrateful, but she wasn't ready to concede to him.
"Upchurch was my case. You shouldn't have been there."
She looked at him like he was crazy. "I'm a cop. He needed help. Where else was I supposed to be?"
He sighed heavily and she could see the moment his temper was stoked. His mouth formed a thin line, his eyes grew more intense, the tops of his ears reddened. "You were supposed to wait for me."
"He didn't have time!"
"I don't care."
"John! You brought me into this! What is your problem?!"
"I don't want you to get hurt because of me."
She sighed. "It's dangerous work and I decided to do it. I don't know what you were expecting."
"I was expecting you to not put your life in danger and to wait for me."
Joss wanted to pull her hair out. Or, better yet, his. "Again, he'd be dead if I had waited." She shook her head and raised her hands. She'd had enough. "This is ridiculous. I don't know why you're arguing with me about this right now. After all this time I've been helping you."
"You're not understanding—."
"Understanding what?!"
"That I can't lose you!"
It was the first time he'd raised his voice the entire night. It was jarring. Unsettling. It was revealing. And she found herself spinning.
She was angry about the lies she was going to have to come up with to get Paul to relax all because John just had to be extra and break into her apartment yet again. She was angry about the fact that John was right. That she should have waited for backup because she had a son she needed to see grow up. That she was competent and capable but not as capable as he was and they both knew it. That she probably wouldn't have made it out of there alive had he not shown up.
She hated being wrong and she hated being told she was wrong even more.
And now she was in shock on top of the anger and it was a strange combination that kept her heart racing and her skin flushed.
What was she supposed to do with that? Was she even surprised really? Wasn't that what this entire, bizarre argument was about? She knew how he felt. It was obvious once she let herself pay attention. She was just surprised that he'd said it plainly. Out loud. And by the look on his face, by his still-widened eyes moving between hers, so was he.
Her hand moved to his face, to his cheek before she realized what it was doing, a little confession of her own slipping out through the gentleness of her touch. Was it meant to calm him, or steady herself? She tried to tell herself it was just for him. But either way, it wasn't working. He seemed to become even more fraught with tension, the strain of it darkening his eyes.
She felt herself being drawn in. She didn't want to be. And she didn't know why this was happening right now. Her hand on his face started to tremble and she drew it away, trying to save herself. But it was too late.
John pressed forward, not even touching her but she was forced backward, her heart thundering, until she was wedged where the refrigerator met the adjacent countertop. Lord knows she wasn't ready for this, she wasn't ready for the sheer magnitude of this man and everything that came with him, but John didn't seem to care, and neither did all of her pent up frustration. Like a rapidly advancing storm cloud, he swallowed her frame up in his, and when she got her first taste of him, the first feel of his hard body against hers, she almost whimpered. His hands pillaged her body, his lips and tongue plundered her mouth, and the last remnants of her anger and shock converted fully into lust.
She couldn't believe she wanted this to happen, right here and right now, with John of all people. Literally her partner in crime. Her friend. But there was something about him. There had always been something about him. She trusted him. Pure, unadulterated, inexplicable trust. No matter what, she just couldn't see things going sideways for them if they did this. If they had sex just this once. Maybe it was just her raging hormones talking, but she believed it. Maybe she was a complete fool, but she absolutely believed it.
They charged full steam ahead, uncoordinated with their efforts. He fumbled with removing her suit jacket and she barely missed hitting her funny bone on the side of the refrigerator. She accidentally bit his tongue and tasted blood, but his groan indicated that he liked it. She felt wildly out of control, foreign to her own self. Liberated.
She was reaching out for his belt buckle when he pulled back abruptly, highly alert to something else besides her. One second she was overheated from his strong body enveloping hers and the next she was watching him leave through the back kitchen door without a word.
She stood there, mouth agape, wondering where the hell he was going and why, her mind trying to catch up to the current reality while she tried to catch her breath.
After a few stunned moments, it hit her that he was probably checking to see if Paul had left. Which was fine considering. But then she panicked, wondering what John was going to do if he hadn't. She unconsciously bit the inside of her lip, running through different scenarios in her mind, trying to decide if she should go out there. John was on Team Too Much sometimes, but he wouldn't do anything crazy, would he? Paul was just concerned, and he was Taylor's father.
She grabbed the bottle of juice on the counter next to her unceremoniously discarded jacket and took a long, nervous drink. Before her thoughts could get any wilder, she heard movement just outside the open back door and watched as John returned, closing it behind him.
Her eyes travelled from his face down to the bulge between his legs and back to his face again. His eyes were still stormy and his body was tensed, but since that was the way he was ninety percent of the time, he was giving her nothing.
Except for a tiny smirk after he'd seen where her eyes had gone.
Ignoring it, she looked at him expectantly. "Where'd you go?"
He shrugged his shoulder and started to make his way over to her. "Made sure we didn't have an audience." Before she knew it, he had her back against the counter, crowding her once again, making her feel small, powerless, and she hated to admit it was sexy as hell.
She swallowed. In no time, his proximity had lit her fully ablaze again, her chest rising and falling rapidly, her breath coming in short spurts. "Was he still out there?"
His eyes dropped to her mouth. "He's gone." Then he dipped his head and took her lips again, and in an instant they were back at 100.
Without breaking their kiss, John lifted her onto the counter before shrugging his suit jacket off and letting it fall to the floor. She yanked him closer to her by the front of his pants and finally succeeded in unbuckling his belt. But before she could go any further, before she could unzip his pants and get to her prize, he pulled back and held her hands in place, waiting for her to meet his eyes.
"I want you to be more careful, Carter."
She looked at him incredulously. Was he really doing this right now? Like, right now? She sighed in exasperation. "I am careful, John. As careful as you are."
He shook his head. "Promise me."
"Promise me."
The storm in his eyes appeared to gather up steam. She didn't know why she was picking this moment to turn the tables on him. To tell him in her own roundabout way that she cared about him, too. Cared about him way more than she'd ever intended to.
When he didn't say anything, just continued to stare her down, she felt the pinpricks of tears behind her eyelids. So many different emotions churned within her and she felt untethered. She wanted to slap him. She wanted to fuck him. She wanted to hold him. She wanted to hate him.
She knew now more than ever that she couldn't lose him either.
After an indeterminable amount of time, she had had enough of the stalemate. She took her hands from his and pushed him back. He went easily. Then, she slid from the counter and walked away from him, down the hall, and up the stairs. Once she made it into her bedroom and closed the door, she leaned her back against it and closed her eyes. She didn't care what he did at this point, if he left or not, but she needed to get away from him.
Exhaustion bore down on her. It had been much too eventful a day. The shootout, Paul meeting John that way. Learning just how much John cared about her. Almost sleeping with him. Wanting to sleep with him. Him refusing to care that she couldn't stand to lose him either. Her admitting to herself that she couldn't lose him.
She was so tired. Pushing herself away from the door, she skipped her entire nighttime routine, only having the energy to strip out of her work clothes and into fresh panties and pajamas. She was done with this entire day. Too done to even bother wrapping her hair for the night. Climbing into bed, she realized she'd left her cell phone downstairs. Maybe she'd wake up in a couple hours and go down and get it after she was certain he was gone.
About ten minutes passed before she heard it. A gentle knocking on her door. She let herself whine for a few seconds. Why the hell wouldn't he just leave? Why wouldn't he just leave her alone? She debated with herself: open the door or pretend to be asleep? She decided to give pretending to be asleep a try. But he was persistent and the soft knocking continued.
Shaking her head to herself, she sat up, delaying the inevitable for just a few more seconds. Then, she dragged herself to the door and opened it, flipping up the light switch in the process. He was standing there, hands resting on either side of the doorframe as he leaned in, eyes immediately finding hers. They were clear—the storm had passed—but she saw something else there that made her resolve melt.
She waited patiently as he worked his jaw, obviously trying to figure out how to begin. Eventually, he did.
"I've done my jobs.…I've been good at my jobs... because no one needs me. No one will miss me when I'm gone."
His jaw worked again. He was still struggling to find the words.
"I liked it that way." He shook his head almost imperceptibly, like there was still something inside him, something he was feeling, that he just could not understand. Then his eyes reverently swept across her face. "You're changing my mind, Joss."
She gulped. Vulnerable, honest John with those smoldering eyes…..His hooks were in her. Deep. It was the excuse she used when she stepped toward him and pulled his face down to hers so that she could kiss him. Kiss away everything that told him he shouldn't love anyone or be loved. Unlike before, it was gentle. Slow and deliberate, so he'd know she meant every brush of her lips across his. She felt his hands grasp her hips, draw her closer to him. She walked backward, pulling him into her bedroom, closer to her bed. Suddenly, she wasn't so drained anymore. In fact, she wasn't sure the last time she'd felt so alive.
He let her undress him first as they stood there. Let her run her hands across his shoulder blades, down his back, around his sides, up his stomach and chest. When she pulled her flannel pajama top over her head, stepped out of her panties and bottoms, his warm body immediately cloaked hers before she had a chance to feel cold.
Limbs and tongues entwined, they tumbled onto her bed. Touching. Teasing. Tasting. Torturing. Before he even entered her, she not-so-lucidly wondered if there was some CIA class on how to make love to a woman. On how to reduce her to absolutely nothing and make her encourage it. And if he aced the class. She felt things she hadn't felt in so long. Things she'd never felt before. He unleashed sounds from her she didn't think she was capable of making, and didn't ever want to make again. He filled her to overflowing, physically and emotionally, and when she came so hard that she actually cried, she knew she had been wrong. Things between them had just gone entirely sideways. They weren't going to be friends anymore. Or secret co-workers. They were going to have to give this some new label. What, she didn't know yet, but just the notion terrified her.
After they'd both been sated, he raised himself onto his elbows and hovered over her, kissing her deeply, and she wondered what he was thinking. If he felt just as shattered as she did. If he he knew the repercussions would be vast. When they pulled apart, she didn't ask him, just cuddled into his side once he settled onto his back and pulled her to him.
"Joss?"
"Mmm?"
"Do you want me to leave?"
She considered this. "Do you want to go?"
He ducked his head so that he could look into her face. She was surprised when he started to chuckle.
"You like to argue, don't you, Counselor?"
She couldn't help the grin that spread across her lips. "Law school 101."
After the moment of levity passed, she decided to give him a straight answer. "No, I don't want you to leave." Then, after a beat, "Do you want to leave?"
She felt and heard him sigh heavily, beginning to feel nervous when she was met with prolonged silence.
"You didn't promise me, Carter."
She wanted to point out that he hadn't promised her either. It was on the tip of her tongue, but she held it. "I'll be more careful, John." She felt his body relax as soon as she said it.
"You'll at least wait for backup?"
"I'll be more careful, John. That's all I can promise you. I can't not help somebody if I'm their last hope. And I know you can't either."
She could tell by the way his body stiffened that he didn't want to accept that answer. But he said nothing.
Assuming the conversation was over, she settled back into his side and he gripped her tighter. Then, in his signature soft voice, "You didn't ask me."
"Hmm?"
He hesitated. "To promise you."
She smiled sadly. "I know."
~The End