I'm so glad you all like this story so much. You've all been so great with all the reviews and I can't say it enough, THANK YOU! Hope you like this chapter! I know I do ;) It gets a little less awkward and a little more hot. lol Bout time, right?
Chapter Fourteen
Daryl slipped back into the room that he had first brought Carol too. Sophia sat on the bed next to her mom, staring at a spot on the floor. She looked up when she heard the door shut. "She hasn't woke up yet." She whispered.
Daryl looked at the bed and sure enough Carol hadn't moved. None of them really had any medical training so no one could say for sure what had happened but they had been in the town for most of the day and for that whole time Carol slept. Dale said that it had to be the shock and that he was sure that her brain just needed time to sort out everything that had happened.
"Daryl, is she gonna wake up?" Sophia asked.
He nodded. "She's gonna be just fine. Ain't no sense in you sittin' in here anymore worryin'. Lori fixed some food and wants you to come down so you can eat somethin'."
"But if she wakes up..."
Daryl didn't let her finish. "When she wakes up I'm gonna be here. She see's I let you sit up here and fret over her and then she'll have my ass. I ain't in the mood for any of her sassin' so go on."
Sophia smiled sadly but stood up and walked towards the door. "Why couldn't she have ran into you about thirteen years ago?" She shook her head and slipped out the door, closing it quietly behind her.
"The hell's that suppose to mean?" He grumbled.
Rick and Lori had both told him that he needed to sleep. He hadn't been able to so he was in and out of this room all day. Now it was early evening and he was tired and hot and the bed looked really good right now. And she was there.
He stripped off his shirt and hung it on one of the bed posts and then crawled in behind her. He didn't know why everyone called it his room. She was the one sleeping in it. But he hadn't even thought about going to sleep in any of the other rooms. He told himself it was because he didn't want her to wake up alone and freak out. In truth he couldn't do it. It wasn't about her at all. It was about him.
Her back was to him and he laid on his side and stared at the back of her neck. He could make out each individual finger Ed had pressed into her skin. The bruises were bad. She really was lucky that he hadn't crushed her windpipe. She moved in her sleep. Of course she scooted herself back until she was pressed against him.
"You really need to wake up, woman." He whispered and then wrapped his arm around her middle and closed his eyes.
~H~
The first thing that Carol noticed was the feel of a soft mattress under her. What the hell was she doing in a bed? She knew instantly that it was a bed and she couldn't figure out why she would be in one. And then fear seized her when she thought that maybe the last few weeks had been a dream. That she was really at home, in her own bed with Ed.
But then she realized that Ed couldn't be the person behind her. There was an arm wrapped around her and fingers intertwined with her own and then she heard him mumble something in his sleep. She breathed a sigh of relief.
Relief? She was relieved to find herself still struggling for survival at the end of the world? That was better than waking up at home with her husband? A warm breath caressed the back of her neck and she smiled a little. Definitely better.
The second thing she noticed was that she really really needed to pee. But she had no idea where she was. Where the rest of her group was. How she had gotten here. If everyone was okay. She stiffened. Sophia! The thought of not knowing where her daughter was had her whole body tensing.
"Carol?" She heard his gruff voice whisper in the dark.
"Where are we? Is Sophia..."
"She's fine. We're in a house." She felt him raise up and then his hand was on her shoulder, pulling her so she was on her back instead of facing away from him. The room was pitch black. "Are you alright? You just fuckin' passed out on me out there." From the sound of it his face was very close to hers.
"I did?" She didn't remember much. She remembered being in the truck and she remembered falling asleep with her head in his lap. She didn't remember anything after that.
"You did. Scared the fuck outta me." He sounded almost angry.
She reached up with one hand and found his face. Her fingers traced the line of his jaw, his chin, when her fingertips grazed across his lips they parted and his hot breath poured over her palm and for a second all she could think about was how soft those lips felt and then how good they would feel if she just had the nerve to pull his face closer to hers... And then she dropped her hand away as fear settled in. What the hell was she thinking? He was the best thing in her life other than Sophia. She couldn't mess that up.
"I gotta pee." She said. There, that should kill the mood real quick.
He laughed. "I bet you do. You've been asleep for about twenty four hours now."
Her hand shot back up to press against his chest, he was half leaning over her and when her hand touched his bare skin she nearly gasped. She forgot what she was about to say. Forgot what she was about to do. Instead she moved her hand across the smoothness of his chest and then down his side to his waist and then around his lower back and then back around to his stomach and back up to his chest again where her tentative journey had begun. He'd never taken his shirt off before. The other times she had been this close to him he was always fully dressed. She found it hard to keep her hand still. She just wanted to feel more of that skin.
He had become perfectly still as she explored him but suddenly his hand grabbed her wrist and shoved it roughly above her head, pinning it there. Uh oh. Hadn't she just been cursing herself for thinking about his lips? She really opened up a can of worms with this one. But he didn't do anything else, just held her wrist there above her head, breathing heavily. Then she realized that she was breathing just as heavily as he was and her whole body was on fire. There were things coming awake inside her that she didn't even know were there to wake up.
Her other hand came up and snaked around his neck and everything in her was screaming for her to pull him closer, everything except her brain that was screaming for her to stop. That it wasn't worth it. That she could lose him if she didn't stop now. What had Ed said to her? Was it true? And then suddenly he was moving on his own, coming closer. His hand let go of her wrist and slid lightly down the length of her arm until he reached her face where he let his thumb slide along the line of her jaw.
She threaded her fingers through his hair and pulled his face closer to hers and then he closed the distance, barely brushing his lips against hers and that was all it took. She crushed her lips against the softness of his, and then he was pulling on her bottom lip gently with his teeth. He growled low in his throat and then his tongue met hers, soft but insistent. It seemed to go on like that forever. And she could have let it. His hand slid down from her neck, across her collar bone, lingering on the soft swell of her breast and then down lower across the flat planes of her stomach and then, so slowly she wanted to scream, he slipped that painfully slow hand between her legs. She was still completely dressed and she cursed those clothes all the way to the pits of hell.
She moved against his hand which caused him to make another low sound in his throat and she heard herself moan softly. She couldn't believe she was doing this. She felt like a teenager that was experimenting for the first time. She didn't want it to stop. She wanted things to go much much further so she hated doing what she had to do.
She put her hand on his chest and pushed him back a little. He stopped instantly, which she thought was really sweet. "We have to stop." She whispered.
He let out a breath but moved his hand away, resting it on her thigh instead. "I figured you'd come to your senses sooner or later." He bent his head low and kissed a trail down her neck.
"Shut up, Daryl." She laughed lightly but moved her head over, exposing more of her neck to him.
A soft knock at the door had her sitting up and him moving away. The door opened and soft light came in. Andrea stepped into the room, holding a candle. For once Amy wasn't with her.
Daryl pulled the pillow out from under his head and placed it over the front of his pants as he made an annoyed sound. Carol kept her eyes on Andrea and tried not to giggle like a high school girl.
"You're awake! You scared the hell out of all of us." Andrea whispered.
She sat the candle down on the table and put her hands on her hips. She looked back and forth between the two of them for a few seconds. "I feel fine now." Carol said hastily.
Andrea frowned. "You look really flushed, are you sure your feeling okay?" She placed her cool hand on Carol's forehead.
Carol just nodded. "I feel fine." She repeated.
"Daryl, Rick wants you on watch. So far we haven't seen anything so he thinks one on watch is enough."
"Son of a bitch." He grumbled.
Andrea smiled. "Sorry. Don't kill the messenger." She looked back at Carol and then held out her hand. "Come on, lets get some food in you before you pass out again. Daryl, you coming?"
He just glared at her for a second and then he flicked his eyes towards Carol who was now standing next to her. "Someday." He growled.
Andrea just shrugged and pulled Carol towards the door, leaving the candle on the nightstand. Carol shot him a grin before she pulled the door closed.
~H~
Daryl shoved the pillow back under his head and laid there for a few more minutes. His mind was racing, thoughts chasing one another around in his head. He was surprised at himself. He was pretty much a sexual retard but he seemed to be able to coax a rise out of her. He thought about how he had gotten into this situation to begin with. Merle would kill him. He already knew that. But Merle was gone and Daryl didn't really care what Merle would have to say either way. Merle didn't know shit about actually caring about another person. Especially a woman. Daryl knew of plenty of Merle's conquests. But that's all they ever were. Carol wasn't anything like that.
He didn't understand what she saw in him. He was nothing. He knew it and so did everybody else. Just a white trash redneck that sure as shit hadn't ever done anything good enough to deserve a real woman. Not like her. Not somebody that good.
He sat up and let out a sigh. He was getting in over his head and he knew it. He didn't have anything to offer her and if he dove in any deeper it was just going to be that much harder on him when she finally realized that he wasn't anybody that she needed around. And now he was just feeling sorry for his stupid self. Another thing Merle would kick his ass for. But even as he told himself this he knew it didn't matter. Daryl Dixon was fucking hooked on a woman. If someone would have told him that this would have happened a week ago he would have told them they were crazy.
He snatched up his shirt and headed for the door, candle in hand. He'd just let it all play out. See what happened. If she figured out that he wasn't nothing but a dumb shit then so be it. But he was gonna try to be the type of man she deserved from here on out. Try being the key word. He was still just Daryl but so far that seemed to be fine with her.
He made his way down the stairs silently. As far as he could tell being on watch just meant someone sat on their ass on the porch and waited for something to come along. He hated that. He needed something to do. He could name plenty of things he'd rather be doing. He remember that insane heat under his palm. The way she moved against his hand and that sound that she let slip from her throat.
He blew out a breath and stepped out onto the porch. He needed to get all that out of his head. He needed to be alert, not daydreaming about...
"Bout time." Carol looked up from where she was sitting on the top step and smiled.
He couldn't help but grin. "The hell you doin' out here?"
She held up a bowl and then shrugged. "Eating dinner and keeping you from falling asleep out here all by yourself."
He sat down and leaned his back against the wooden banister and watched her for a minute. He had one knee pulled up and his other leg on the step. "You ain't gotta sit here, ya know. It's pretty dull from what I hear." He glanced down the street and saw a bunch of nothing. He sighed.
She sat the bowl down and moved closer. She settle herself between his legs and leaned her back into his chest. His arms instantly slid around her waist without him even thinking about it. "What's your favorite color, Dixon?" She asked.
"What?" He laughed as he rested his chin on top of her head.
"Just answer the question."
That's how they spent the rest of the night. She asked him more questions than he thought anybody ever had in his life. And he even answered them honestly. Even when the questions got harder. Questions about his family. Where he grew up. What him and Merle did for fun. Others were pretty easy like when his birthday was. And how many women he'd had. The answer to that one shocked her pretty good.
By the time the sun started coming up he was pretty sure she had a good idea of just exactly who he was. And he liked the fact that she seemed to like him anyway.