A/N: Can't believe how popular this story is, but I do love that you're all enjoying reading it as much as I'm enjoying writing it. Thanx so much for all the wonderful reviews - I appreciate every single one :)
(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)
Chapter 14
Parker woke up to the strange feeling of strong arms around her body, and aches in muscles she hadn't used in a good long while. It took her a minute to get her bearings, to recall what had happened a few hours before. It was pretty dark now, and she soon remembered coming back from her session with Laura and getting up close and personal with Eliot.
That went a little differently to what she expected, but somehow they had missed their dinner and slept through to what seemed to be the middle of the night. Parker was just glad nobody had come looking for them, not that she would have been embarrassed at being caught either naked or having sex with her 'husband' but she hardly wanted the interruption.
She frowned some as she thought about what happened, how they had ended up asleep in each others arms again. She was fast getting used to Eliot's arms around her when she slept, which confused the little thief a great deal. Human contact usually bothered her, she feared the closeness and what it meant, how people might take advantage of her. Parker had what Sophie called 'trust issues' and yet when it came to Eliot, she never was worried. Out of all the members of the team, she had most contact with him, even before they came here as an undercover couple. She never had flinched when he touched her, she willingly threw herself into his arms a couple of times, and never really thought about it until very recently.
Talking to Laura yesterday had made her sure she liked Eliot but Parker still wasn't certain he liked her back. The psychologist had suggested finding ways to show her man how she felt, that she cared about him, and so that was what the thief had planned to do. She put on her underwear because that was what he wanted and she offered him a shoulder massage to ease the stress she was sure he was feeling. The sex was kind of a consequence, an after thought, and totally not what she planned.
It was strange how it just kind of happened. All Parker knew was that being close to Eliot gave her all kinds of warm and tingly feelings that were equal parts scary and good. He didn't seem to be wanting to run away from her at all and when he'd said her name in such a way and looked at her with this hunger in his eyes, even she knew he was feeling it too.
It had occurred to Parker a long time ago that Eliot was incredibly well built and that he would probably be awesome at sex. She certainly hadn't been wrong as the experience had proven to be all kinds of explosive and more than satisfying. The strangest part was that when their passion was finally sated, their bodies exhausted from the activity, he had wanted her close as they fell asleep, and Parker had genuinely wanted to be there.
Sex she'd had before, pretty good sex though it never that felt quite like this. The cuddling part was new, she'd never done that before, and never really thought she would want to until she had experienced it. Falling asleep and waking up with her head on Eliot's chest and his arms around her was by no means a bad thing, in fact she almost liked it as much as the activity that led to it, if that were possible!
Tilting her head to glance up at him then, Parker got a shock when she realised her pillow/protector was not as asleep as she had thought. In fact, he was staring down at her with a smile playing at his lips that she wasn't sure how to take.
In her state of usual blind panic when she was feeling uncertain about herself or others, Parker sat bolt upright in the bed, eyes darting around as if she were already planning an escape route... and yet, she didn't actually move anymore yet.
"Hi" she said flatly, as far away from comfortable as she possibly could be, despite revelling in that very feeling just moments before.
"Mornin'" she heard Eliot answer, though she didn't look back.
One leg shifted as if to get out of the bed and yet Parker was pretty sure she had nowhere to run if she did. Besides, she didn't really want to leave, she hadn't wanted to move at all from her safe little place until she realised she was being watched. It was instinct to try and get away, and fighting that wasn't easy, but she was going to have to if she ever wanted a night like this again.
"So... that happened" she said at length, almost glancing back over her shoulder but changing her mind at the last minute.
"Yeah" replied Eliot, not seen by Parker still as he pushed his hair back off his face and let his eyes adjust to the semi-dark of the room.
He hadn't been awake long, just a minute or two, lying there watching Parker breathe in and out. She looked so sweet and angelic somehow, in spite of the fact that he knew she was pretty much off her axle a lot of the time. Plus, their activities last night proved she was neither naive nor inexperienced as a pure angel might be.
It was strange how things had happened between them. Eliot wasn't blind, he knew from the start that Parker was hot but she was both apparently crazy and a member of his team, so he had steered clear of ever thinking of her as a potential partner for sex. Romance was even further from his mind, as he'd decided a long time ago he couldn't possibly be built for long term, and yet here he was, playing the part of a husband determined to stick with his wife and feeling oddly protective of her.
It scrambled Eliot's mind to think about it too much. He could say he just got lost in the lie or maybe caught up in the moment. After all, Parker had come on to him and any man had his limits in those kind of circumstances. Still, he knew it wasn't just about the amazing sex, it was equally as much the closeness that had somehow developed between himself and Parker. It was as if he could hold onto her forever and not care at all. When things made her cry, made her mad, stressed her out, he just wanted to help, to protect her in all kinds of ways...
"This is weird" her voice cut through his thoughts like a blade, "I don't usually hang around... y'know, after" she explained, still not looking at him yet, Eliot noted.
"Long time since I did either" he admitted, trying to recall an occasion and finding his mind easily spun back years without a stop.
Even in the dark, when he looked to her back then, Eliot could see Parker was shaking. It wasn't exactly the coldest night but she was naked and the covers of the bed had dropped away from her body when she sat up so fast.
"Hey" he said, moving up closer behind her and pulling the blankets up around her arms and shoulders, "You're gonna freeze" he told her, though Parker already knew that wasn't why she was shivering.
"I'm not cold" she said, her eyes closing of their own accord just as soon as his hands made contact with her body again.
Far from shifting away from Eliot's touch as she might do with anyone else, Parker found herself leaning back into his embrace. His arms went easily around her and she tipped her head to look at him then. There was no question asked, no words said at all. What she needed to know was written in her eyes - was this okay?
It shouldn't be right, Eliot knew. He shouldn't be getting into this with her because he was struggling to come up with a way in which it could possibly end well. The only problem was, he was finding it even harder to care right now as he leaned down to kiss her lips. She responded favourably, and before long they were half way towards round two of what they'd started hours before.
Already naked and highly aware of how good this could be, neither Parker nor Eliot really wanted to stop, and yet between fevered kisses she felt she just had to get a couple of things straight.
"You know I like you, right?" she asked him, as his lips moved down her neck, "You got that?"
"Kinda guessed" he mumbled against her skin.
They fell back onto the bed, a tangle of limbs as they fought to keep contact even when the covers got in the way.
"And you like me?" she asked from her place now on top of him, gasping through her words as he touched her.
"Sure" he agreed, moving in for another kiss, but at this point she very deliberately backed off.
"No" she said with a shake of her head, getting a hold of her passion somehow and putting on the brakes so suddenly Eliot was visibly startled, "I mean like... really like me" she checked, as she gazed down at him, trying to read his expression.
It was an impossible task, as she guessed it would be since Eliot was hardly one for emotions at the best of times, her own ability to know what anyone was ever thinking severely lacking.
"Parker..." he began, unsure how to answer at first, determined not to lie just for the sake of getting laid, but all too fast realising he didn't have to, "Yeah" he said with a nod, his voice full of genuine surprise at the mini-epiphany he was experiencing as he gazed up at her.
She looked positively giddy at that, as he tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled up at her.
"I don't know when it happened exactly" he told her honestly, "but yeah, I do like you, Parker... a lot" he realised aloud.
"Cool" she giggled, perhaps quite the understatement given the revelation, but Eliot never said anything about that as she crushed her lips to his and made it very clear she was done talking now.
Eliot flipped the pair of them over, as lost in the moment as she was, and somewhat overwhelmed by the fact that he could both want and care for Parker this much.
There would be serious consequences to all of this come morning, and yet right now, neither of them could seem to care at all.
Parker didn't understand why Eliot had insisted they didn't tell the team they were together, at least not yet, but she went along with it because making him happy made her feel all kinds of giddy lately. She said not a word about the fact she was sitting in his lap for their team meeting, after all, they could only hear them and not see them in the privacy of their own room.
It was after breakfast, something both halves of the not-so-fake-now couple had really needed after their night-long activities. Techicnally, they should be headed to their morning sessions in the next half hour but from what Hardison was telling them, maybe they wouldn't be staying at the retreat long enough for that!
"Okay, so we did a little cross-referencing between your man Kendall's appointment book and Ritter's calendar" the hacker explained, "Both had the name of the same hotel marked down for 8pm last night, so off I went for a stake-out, got me the money shot" he declared with a grin the others could practically hear.
"Money shot?" frowned Parker at the same moment, clearly not getting it, until one look from Eliot made it clear what the hacker was getting at.
"Oh!" she gasped suddenly, "The guy was kissing the guy?" the thief checked she was indeed right, "'Cause I mean, that's fine, gay people are cool, but isn't Kendall married to Laurie?"
"See, I told you he was gay, but did you listen? Noooo" said Sophie over the comms.
Eliot rolled his eyes at her attitude. Sure, she was right in what she said, but it was hardly the point right now. The point was the job and the con, and bringing these guys to justice, regardless of their sexuality.
"The fact is, from the information we have here, it would seem that Kendall and Ritter have been having an affair for some time" Nate explained, as desperate as Eliot to get back to the matter at hand apparently, "Hardison found that the name used to book the hotel room last night was Danny Wrangler"
"That same name shows up on a regular basis in the hotel records" the hacker confirmed, "And when I searched for some background it turns out it might just be the real name of our Dr Daniel Ritter"
"So he's not really a psychologist?" Parker checked, "I'm lost" she admitted.
"No, he is" said Sophie, "It actually turns out that he does have qualifications, but his getting a job anywhere reputable would have been next to impossible after several accusations of indecent behaviour"
"Indecent, how?" Eliot asked curiously, though wondered in the next moment whether he ought to have done so.
"We got sexual harassment, verbal abuse, one count of GBH" Hardison reeled off the list, "Our boy has quite the rap sheet. Still, Kendall seems not to care 'bout that"
"From what we can tell from emails and such" Nate continued, "they're the two behind this scam, trying to make enough money to run away together, maybe set up their own business far away from here where nobody knows them"
Parker was wearing a look of confusion and yet hope at the same time.
"So, Dr Matthius and Ms Redfern" she said carefully, "They're not bad guys?"
"Not as far as we can tell, no" said Sophie with a smile that her friend and team-mate could not see, though she wore it for the same reason.
It was clear Parker had made a connection with Laura Matthius and put a little trust in her. For her sake, it was worth finding out she was almost definitely legitimate. Sophie could almost imagine the grin on the thief's face as she learnt that news though it was only Eliot that bore witness to that smile... and the wriggly happy dance that went with it.
"Parker" he hissed as the moving of her body in his lap started to cause a problem.
"Oops, sorry" she giggled, looking anything but, and planting a silent kiss on his cheek that the others were unlikely to notice as Nate started up talking again.
"Dr Laura Matthius actually does have qualifications in her field" he explained, "They just, er, they don't technically stand up here in the States because she got them abroad"
"But we can figure this out without her getting into trouble, right?" said Parker urgently, "Because without her, I wouldn't..." she stopped short of finishing her sentence as her eyes met Eliot's and she remembered she wasn't supposed to talk about the two of them and how close they'd gotten, "Um, I wouldn't have..."
"I think what Parker means is, Dr Matthius really helped her out while we've been here" said the hitter, deciding it was safer for him to talk for her than let her make something crazy up on her own, "She seems decent"
"She probably is" agreed Sophie, "We have no fight with her, or with Laurie Redfern as it turns out" she admitted, "Sure, she had a fake couple in the place, but she probably believes they're making her look good, not breaking up marriages for her husband's nasty little scheme"
"So the plan is this guys" said Nate suddenly cutting in again, "I want you to gather up your stuff, get ready to go. We have all the evidence we're going to get, so we're gonna figure out the best way to use it"
"Does that include the bug in the office?" asked Parker, making everybody sit up and take notice, most especially Eliot who very nearly dropped her on the floor from surprise.
"What bug?" he asked her, even more confused when she leapt up from where she sat in his lap and went for the door, "Parker!" he called after her, actually getting to make chase only she waved a hand that dismissed him immediately.
"Where's she going?" asked Hardison, his voice full of worry.
"I'm guessing the office?" offered Sophie since it was where Parker seemed to think she'd left a bug.
Moments later the thief returned with a recording device in her hands, to the baffled expression of her fake husband and too many questions in her ear.
"I stuck it on the phone when I was in there" she told them all at once, handing over the device to Eliot who still looked bemused by the turn of events.
"Seriously?" he asked her "When?"
"Between the flash drive and the making out?" she shrugged like it was no big deal.
He could be mad about her keeping secrets or whatever, but there wouldn't be any point. Besides, Eliot had to admit he was impressed that she thought to do that and had the time given how things went down. Now he knew why she hadn't come straight out of that office when he called, she just wasn't done. He was smirking in that way only he could as he silently told her she'd done good.
"Well, that does explain why I was getting a signal from device I didn't know was planted" said Hardison in both their ears, "but hold on a sec, the recording will be here, I just gotta... Yeah, I got it" he declared just a moment later, "Gonna take me some time to track through this though, see if we got anything incriminating" he told them, though neither Eliot or Parker were particularly listening.
She liked the idea of him being all pleased with her, all proud and such. So much so in fact that she was already climbing back on top of him, even as the team continued their chatter through the earbuds.
"Okay, good work, Parker" said Nate, "but it means a slight change of plan. You two will be staying there just a little longer" he told them, expecting an argument and pleasantly surprised when he didn't get one.
"That's cool, Nate" said Eliot with a smirk that only Parker could understand as he pulled her further onto the bed with him, "We can find ways to fill the time"
"Oh yeah, we'll be fine" she smiled back, "Talk to you guys later" she said cheerily.
"Hey, guys, don't just... take out your earbuds" Nate said to himself apparently as they did just that, "Sometimes I just don't know how to deal with those two!"
To Be Continued...