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A Jarod/Miss Parker fic.
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Disclaimer: The only part of The Pretender that I own is seasons 1 - 4 on DVD.
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A/N: So, this is inspired by the season 1 episode: Keys. Just a little rewrite of what I think could have happened.
Hope you guys like it, I know I'll love writing it!
As always, please read and review, I live for feedback!
Things had not gone as planned.
That's an understatement, Jarod thought to himself, trying to come up with a way to get out of the situation he'd found himself in.
His intended victim had taken a leaf out of Jarod's own book, and after having captured himself and Miss Parker, Bartlett had held them at gun-point and made Jarod retrieve one of the nets they seldom used. Jarod hadn't used them for two reasons: he hadn't been able to test them to see if they would hold the other man's weight, and he'd wanted to personally craft the net to capture the villain.
But, he'd been careless, and now he was trapped inside a decidedly sturdy net with the most ferocious of the Parkers.
"I am going to kill you," she told him, though her voice was slightly muffled. She'd wisely ditched her heels - so that she wouldn't suffer a broken ankle on top of everything else - before Bartlett had made them stand in the path of the net, but she'd been about to ream Jarod out for his idiocy when the trap had been sprung, and as a result had found herself smooshed against his impossibly hard body.
"I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that," Jarod replied with his trademark sarcastic edge, and for once she found herself wishing she were farther away from him, if only so that she could properly bring her arm around to deck him.
She pushed him away from her, ending up landing on top of him in the swaying net. Miss Parker growled, pushing back with more force and successfully - somewhat - managing to force them into sitting positions, using their knees pressing against each other to stop the net from pushing them together again.
"Well, come on, genius," she sniped. "Get us out of this."
Jarod sighed, gazing back at her. "And how do you propose I do that?" Realistically, there was a simple way for them to escape their prison ... he could feel the flare gun pressed against the inside of his pant-leg. It would only take one well-aimed shot to free them from the ropes that held them captive. Unfortunately, that would also use up his one advantage against Miss Parker.
He needed to get back to Simone, but he tried to think of another way of getting out of the net.
Miss Parker opened her mouth to nag at him again, but she could almost see his mind working, and decided to leave him to think. She was drenched, and only getting wetter. The hurricane was dying down, but it was still fairly windy, and was definitely still raining.
She studied his thoughtful face, wondering if things would have been different if she hadn't been sent away to school. She hadn't really thought of him in any sort of romantic way until he'd called Sydney to talk about a woman he'd met. She'd listened to the conversation over and over, remembering back to when they'd first met, and how she'd shared her first kiss with him. That was ages ago.
Miss Parker tried to bring herself back to the present, but she kept thinking back to when they were kids, and how they'd grown so close in such little time. Really, they'd only known each other for a handful of years before her father had sent her away. After that, she'd only spent a few weeks out of the summer at home, and would only visit her father at work occasionally. Those few times that she'd been there, she'd taken pleasure in taunting the boy she'd used to call her friend with her constantly changing looks, and growing body. She'd seen him watching her, and had easily recognized the expression on his face - it was one she'd seen on many boys: lust.
She too had taken in Jarod's increasingly attractive maturation, but she'd been much better at hiding her emotions that he.
After she'd graduated college, she had spent as little time at "The Centre" as possible. She had situated herself in her corporate position, and had been living a perfectly comfortable lifestyle until one day her father had informed her that their "pretender" had run away.
She had been amused when he'd first told her. It had surprised her that it had taken him nearly 30 years to decide to leave his prison, and it hadn't really concerned her until her father had brought her into the chase. Now it was her mission to catch him.
Well, she had sort of succeeded. At the moment, he was trapped and he wasn't going anywhere ... but neither was she.
Suddenly Jarod stood up within their encasement, causing her to be smooshed against him in an awkward position. "I've got it!" he exclaimed.
She tried to push away from him, but it was nowhere near as easy as before.
He noticed her predicament immediately, and almost blushed. "Oh," was all he was able to say, squirming a little. She was still crouched in a sitting position, and so was pressed against the middle of his body ... mainly, his pelvic area.
He reached down, helping her stand up. It wasn't easy, but eventually they managed it.
Once again they were face to face, the ropes around them pushing their bodies together.
Jarod had placed the arches of his shoes against the cross-sections of the ropes under him, finally having come up with a plan.
"Let's have it, Boy-Wonder," she urged, eager to put some distance between them. Their proximity was sending her insides for a loop, in a not-entirely-unpleasant way.
He rolled his eyes at her comment and removed his hands from her arms, grabbing the ropes above him. Before she could open her mouth to ask him what he planned on doing, he pushed against the ropes underneath them and pulled the ropes above them, causing the net to sway.
Not expecting him to do that, she lost her balance and fell against him again. There hadn't been much space between them in the first place, but it was an entirely different sensation to be on him than it was to be next to him.
Her face was pressed into his neck, her arms had fallen through the gaps in the ropes behind him, and though her feet had managed to grip the ropes under her, while trying to right herself she had walked onto Jarod's shoes. Images of Jarod dancing with a little girl that looked just like her flashed through her mind before she could stop them. She groped wildly for the ropes with her arms in an attempt to pull away from him, but all she managed to do was grab his shoulders from behind him, winding up wrapping herself around him.
"Comfortable?" he asked her with perked eyebrows, trying not to let show that his heart was beating nearly three times faster than normal.
"What are you trying to do?" she wondered icily, raising her head so that she could look at him. The muscles in her neck tensed, but if she released them she would end up plastered against his face ... and that was just not an option.
"I'm going to swing the net," he explained simply. "Eventually, either it or the branch holding will reach its breaking point and snap, or we'll manage to get close enough to a tree to latch on and pull ourselves up, disconnecting the latch holding the net in place. I could use your help," he added.
She nodded after a moment and slid her hands up further, gripping the ropes behind his shoulders and pressing down on his feet with an extra smirk. She didn't think she was actually causing him pain, but it was the thought that counted.
It was a good plan, with one minor flaw: every time they swung back and forth, their entire bodies moved against each other. Not just moved ... ground. When Jarod would pull up on his ropes, Miss Parker would try to relax against him and let their combined weight and momentum do the work, and when it was her turn she would pull up on her ropes, swinging them back the other way. Every single time they pulled on the ropes, their bodies pushed up into each other, creating a motion that she was all-too familiar with.
Her pulse was erratic as they swayed back and forth, and her breath would hitch every time his pelvis pushed into hers.
And to make matters worse, she could feel that it was having the same effect on him.
He looked away from her, apparently embarrassed at his body betraying him in such a way - and in the most inappropriate of circumstances. Miss Parker was almost grateful for this, because if he'd looked at her while they were moving against each other, she might have lost it right then and there.
They were really swinging now, and Miss Parker was starting to regret their course of action. If the net did snap, it would hurt like hell when they hit the ground. If they did manage to grab onto a tree - rather, if Jarod managed to grab onto a tree, as there was no way she was going to be able to hold both of them up, let alone climb up a tree in their position - slamming into said tree was also going to hurt like hell.
Jarod might have been thinking the same thing, as he chose at that moment to look at her with worry on his face.
She swallowed the rain-water and saliva that had built up in her mouth, blinking her eyes a few times. Their heads seemed to draw closer, and Miss Parker dared herself to wonder if he was going to kiss her when they heard the telltale snap of the old, worn ropes. And then they were falling.
They had been roughly 8 feet in the air when the ropes had snapped, and as they fell Jarod rapidly flipped them in the air, landing on his back when they hit the ground.
Miss Parker was momentarily winded from the impact, but knew Jarod had purposefully taken the brunt of it. Laying on top of him, she pushed away at the ropes on top of her, managing to separate a few of them where they had snapped. She untangled them from the net as Jarod groaned in protest.
"You okay?" she asked him, surprised at her own concern. She told herself it was only because she didn't want to have to drag him back to the car.
He nodded, and took a few steadying breaths. It probably didn't help that she was still on top of him, but instead of jumping up she draped her knees over his hips, propping herself up on one hand while the other tucked her hair behind her ears.
"Good idea," she told him, meeting his eyes.
He nodded, feeling the tightening sensation below his waist once more, and found himself wishing she would climb off of him before she noticed.
Of course, he wasn't so lucky, and her eyes flickered down to where their bodies connected before glancing up to look at him once more. "My, my, Jarod, aren't we just -"
She was unable to finish her sentence as he leaned up, silencing her with his lips against hers.
She was shocked at his actions, but impressed with his boldness. She found herself sinking against him, pressing him back into the ground.
End of chapter one. This will only be two or three chapters long, and I'm planning to do more of a "flashback" in the next chapter to get some more background on her visits to the Centre while she was "growing up", and Jarod's reaction to her.
Hope you guys liked it, I know I loved writing it.
Will try to update soon!
Reviews are appreciated, positive or negative.
Until next time ...!