The storm caught them both by surprise, soaking them through to the skin as they ran the six blocks to where his car was parked, Ciarin giggling like a goofy kid as he dragged her along behind him. She was absolutely feeling no pain or the torrential rain that pelted them; just the false feeling of well-being that accompanied copious amounts of alcohol but, once seated next to him, the cold took hold and she began to shiver. Her teeth chattered to the point where she could barely speak...if she'd had a cognitive thought in her head to impart.

"The heat'll be on in a minute," he assured her feeling her trembling beside him. The day, one that had started out so deceptively sunny and warm, had given way to a rainy night and having been lulled into a false sense of weather security Carter had taken his heavier jacket and spare blanket out of his car and had nothing to offer her in the way of warmth. Leaning forward he switched on the heat as the powerful engine warmed up and suddenly he felt pressure against his side. Instinctively he reached out to put his arm around his passenger and to ask her directions to the motel where she was billeted but she collapsed bonelessly against him, her head slipping down to finally rest in his lap. Laughing softly he brushed a strand of dripping hair from her cheek. If he wasn't careful he might find himself actually liking this not so tough cookie and Carter wondered what it would be like to know she would take a bullet for him. Nice, he suspected as he pulled out into the light traffic and headed to his home.

Hauling her limp form from the Challenger's passenger seat, he hoisted her slight frame over one shoulder and hoped she wouldn't puke down his back. Mixing booze and Darvoset was a dicey combination and Carter would need to watch her carefully throughout the night. He couldn't risk taking her to a hospital to have her stomach pumped and have the incident become a matter of record. The Connemara had affected his dexterity as well and he struggled to get his keys in the lock wondering who would watch him. A pot of hot coffee would sober him up - if he could just get the damned door open.

Ten minutes later Carter sat on the edge of his bathtub, a cup of coffee in his hand. He knew he would be fine but Ciarin Falconer, now she was going to hate herself in the morning. The undercover cop, so prickly with pride and so armored in self-protection, was down on her knees puking up her guts, moaning between heaves, completely at the mercy of the night's excess. Lifting her head, she turned and blinked owlishly at him and opened her mouth to speak but Carter twisted her head around and pushed it forward again over the bowl as more of the copiously liquid erupted from within instead.

"Jush shoot me, Shaw," she begged when the bout was over.

"Not on your life, Falconer. This will be stored in my memory banks for a long, long time," he said sounding almost gleeful. Cairin shot him a crossed-eyed but nonetheless scathing look and he just laughed. "It's not every day I get to help a bitch on wheels pray to the porcelain god. It does my heart good to know you're human - just like the rest of us."

"Fuck you, white knight," she moaned, "and the horse you rode in on."_

Carter's' cell phone jangled impatiently. He removed it from the clip on his belt and continued to rub her back soothingly as he flipped it open. "Shaw," he said and waited for a response.

Ciarin heaved again loud enough for Ty to hear on his end of the line. "I take it you found her," he said with a snort.

"She's here with me at my place down on her knees thankin' the good Lord that I did."

"I hate you!" floated through the receiver and Ty chuckled.

Leave it to Carter to break through that icy veneer, if only by plying her with alcohol, and broker an uneasy peace between them. He hadn't sounded so relaxed since the other senior agent had come aboard - or forever for that matter. Ty knew his boss would never tender this night for office fodder but he would also never let Ciarin Falconer forget it. It would never be a topic of conversation around the water cooler but, with a well placed word or a pointed look, Carter would never let her live it down. Ty would never mention it and he hoped it drove her crazy because, with her selfless act of saving Jamie's life, to him, she'd become one of them and he would gladly follow her into hell as readily as he would follow any of the other members of his "family". "Want me to call Captain Maynard?"

"See you on Monday," was all Carter said.

Ty took that as a yes.

Ciarin sat back on her heels, her body convulsing with chills as her soaked clothes froze her to the bone. Grabbing a bath towel from the rack, Carter began toweling off some of the moisture.

"Ssss'oooo cold," she hissed through chattering teeth.

"Let's get you out of those wet clothes and into a hot shower," he suggested and started to unbutton her blouse.

She meekly acquiesced trying to help with fingers unwieldy from alcohol and stiff from the cold. "Don't you dare be nice to me," she warned him and he smiled lazily at her.

"I wouldn't dream of it," he assured her as he slipped the navy blue utilitarian turtleneck she had on under her blouse over her head.

The next morning Ciarin woke to the nauseating smell of bacon and the passable vocals of a man singing along to the radio as he rattled noisily around a kitchen. The mattress on which she lay was sizable and soft and resting on a sleek platform frame with mounds of twisted sheets and blankets piled haphazardly at the foot. It was a bed she had never seen before, in a room she had never been in before with low ceilings and plush drapes and she was buck-naked. "Falconer, you have GOT to stop drinking," she admonished herself as the events of the past 36 hours crowded one another as they tried to blast through her fog shrouded brain.

Her hand went to her throat and, pressing tender skin, she remembered Bendis had tried to kill her. Then, after making good her escape from the hospital, she had ended up in a seedy little dive in Northsomething Hollywood but not before tendering her resignation to Russell Maynard - yet again. Shaw had tracked her down there but how had she ended up here and just exactly where was here? With a sigh she rolled over onto her stomach and closed her eyes sure that when she opened them again she would be back in her little unmade bed in her little untidy Mainstay Suite practically overlooking the Five.

Carter found her laying diagonally across his bed, her nicely rounded ass rising up invitingly and his dick automatically came to attention. Bringing her aspirin and ice water, he hoped she liked cold, coagulated bacon because he knew he wouldn't make it back to the kitchen any time soon. He took a sip of the water sucking an ice cube into his mouth and set the glass on the bedside table. He then knelt on the bed hovering over her supine form.

Ciarin felt the mattress sink and, loathe to face the day and the inevitable music a night of drunken debauchery always commanded, feigned sleep until he removed the ice cube from his mouth and ran it part way down between her shoulder blades. Eyes still shut she took a sharp breath as the chill hit her and let it out slowly as a warm tongue followed in the wake of the ice cube. Goose flesh dimpled her skin as he played a while longer with the melting ice, Ciarin remaining passive on the bed, savoring the wicked sensations.

Carter Shaw hadn't spoken a word but she recognized the expensive, sophisticated, minty/spicy scent of his cologne and a hint of toothpaste as he whispered, "Good Morning," into her mass of tangled auburn hair, his voice deeply soft and sexy. Carter Shaw was definitely a night owl but, at that moment, he was a morning person. She was not so she decided to just lie there and let him do all the work as he covered her body with his, lifting her hair to kiss the nape of her neck "I guess we've gotten past our differences," she said against the soft sheet.

"Way beyond," he answered twisting to nibble her ear lobe, his weight still full upon her.

She didn't mind. The mattress was pure luxury and she sank in deeply and asked him, "Was it good for me?" and he just laughed.

"Oh, yeah," he drawled, "If your screams were any indication, it was especially good for you...and it will be again." He lifted her hips and pushed a pillow underneath her then pressed his swollen penis between the firm globes of her rear end. She lifted up, grinding into his hard on, until he moaned and then opened her legs. Kneeling between them his hand guided his member between her slick folds.

"God, it is good," she thought as his continued thrusts brought her closer and closer to orgasm. She reached a plateau where the exquisite feelings stopped and lifting herself up onto her hands and knees she met him thrust for thrust. Moments later she fell over the brink and the world's most incredible feelings washed over her and she cried out in pleasure. Carter bucked several times and moaned his release. It was music to her ears. A taciturn and seemingly stoic professional, Carter Shaw was a secure, passionate and vocal lover, something she appreciated. Some of the men she had been with in the past were so quiet that they never made a sound and she was always left to wonder if they'd been wholly satisfied.

Reluctant to remove himself from inside of her, Carter continued to lie atop her. He knew she couldn't hold his weight much longer and he wrapped his arm around her and rolled back where they lay spooning, breathing hard and slick with perspiration. Ciarin arched her back and Carter could almost hear her purr.

"Did we do that last night?" she asked huskily, eyes closed ready to drift back to sleep.

"'bout a hundred times."

"You braggart," she said reaching back to slap his ass playfully.

He grabbed her hand in his and whined plaintively, "You forced me. What was I gonna do? Tell you no? You have seniority."

Ciarin turned to face him in the bed and told him, "Damn straight, lieutenant."

Carter leaned in for a kiss but she pushed him back as fragments of the night before started coming back.

"No fair. Puke breath," she pleaded turning away.

Carter placed his fingers on her chin and lifted her face back to his. "Oh, I made you brush…a lot. And gargle. And spit for at least twenty minutes," he assured her and kissed her soundly, "See, not a frog."

"No, not a frog," she agreed and smiled at him.