I ended up not being busy today. I have some sort of funky flu instead so I didn't have to wait to update this. Fun stuff. This is just a filler chapter but hopefully you enjoy it anyway. Thanks for reading.

Chapter Twenty Five

She had been up there for hours and he was starting to get worried. Merle had finally came out of his room, moody and glaring, a few hours ago. He was going to just let Carol do the same thing Merle did and get over it on her own but it was getting late. He left Merle sprawled out on the couch. There was a Cops marathon on and Merle would sit there and watch it, yelling at the injustice of it all, for hours. Daryl didn't even know why he liked to watch the show when all he did was raise hell about police brutality, but if it got him out of Daryl's hair for a minute then he wasn't about to complain.

He hesitated outside her bedroom door and then finally tapped on it. He had never lived with a woman before so he wasn't sure if it was okay to just walk into a woman's room. Before last night he never would have but what else was there to hide, really?

He waited but when there was no answer to his second knock he went ahead and walked in. She was lying on her stomach with her head turned away from him. She must have planned on a long nap because, God help him, she was wearing nothing but a pair of panties and the shirt she had been wearing earlier. Underwear that barely covered her ass at all hugged the curve of her hip that he could see. His eyes followed the long line of her toned thighs. The urge to run his tongue over all of that exposed-

"Daryl?"

He looked up. She had turned her head without him realizing it and he'd been busted staring at her. He cleared his throat and shifted on his feet, embarrassed at where his mind had been heading but powerless to keep it from heading there. "It's getting late. I didn't think you'd want to sleep much longer."

She sighed and then rolled over, stretching like a cat and folding her arms behind her head. She made no move to pull the shirt back down or hide herself. The room was much lighter than it had been last night and he drank in the sight of her. She looked down suddenly and gasped, sitting up and pulling her legs up until they were folded under her. She must not have remembered that she wasn't wearing pants. He felt bad when he saw how flushed her face was.

"Stop," he said, surprising himself by saying anything to her about it.

She blinked, her eyes wide. "Stop what?"

He held her gaze for a few moments before shrugging. "Hidin'."

She glanced towards the window where early evening light was shining in through a crack in the curtain. "I'm not."

He tilted his head at her defensive tone. "Yeah, you are." He sat down on the edge of the bed, grabbed her ankle and yanked her closer. "You forgettin' that I kind of already seen everything?" He quirked a brow at her.

She shook her head. "It was to dark for you to see everything," she scoffed and tried to pull her foot back but he held on tightly.

He smirked smugly. "You think so, huh?"

"Of course it was. The only light was the one in the bathroom and the door wasn't even opened very much so I know that you weren't doing very much ogling."

"You got a real faded birthmark right above your hipbone that's almost shaped like a heart, bout the size of a dime. You got a scar on your knee that you probably got years ago, bike wreck as a kid from the looks of it. I got one that looks like that too. You gotta lot of other scars too but nothing serious except the one way up high on your inner thigh. That one probably needed stitches."

"How could you have seen all that in the dark?" She asked, her eyes wide and her face flaming hotter.

He shrugged. "I have good eyes I guess."

She studied him with narrowed eyes and then she finally relaxed, leaning back on her arms. He could tell that she was schooling her features. He saw the worry in her eyes, even though she was trying hard to hide it. The worry bothered him. It bothered him because he understood it all too well. He felt that way a lot of the time but he didn't feel that way with her.

He scooted further onto the bed, leaning over her slightly. Her eyes grew wider and her tongue darted out, wetting her lips. Since it seemed obvious to him that she knew what he had been about to do and didn't seem to mind, he kissed her. He kept moving until she was forced to lower herself back down. He kept his hands on the bed, trapping her between his arms. She grabbed the sides of his face and pushed his head back. At least now she was smiling.

"Merle is down there. We can't do anything," she said, squirming up to get away from him since his arms were still trapping her. Something about the way she moved gave him the impression that she didn't really want to get away. Maybe it was how her pupils had grown large when he met her eyes. He'd had a rough day and so had she. What would it hurt to blow off a little steam?

~H~

Carol wasn't thrilled about Merle being downstairs. Mostly because she desperately wanted this and knew that she couldn't have it. She wasn't the type of woman that had an addictive personality but she thought she could easily get addicted to this. Addicted to him. The way he looked at her had her blood pounding hot in her veins and the feelings were so new that it gave her a rush like nothing she had ever felt before. He wanted her and she knew it. She still wasn't sure why but she wasn't going to ponder that too much. The fact was, he did and she wanted him just as badly, if not worse. She had never felt like this before and she craved it. All she could think about was his touch.

When he kissed her again it was slow, languid and full of promise. "Daryl," she mumbled against his lips. "Your brother could come up here any minute. We should go downstairs." She barely got the words out before her voice turned into a sigh of pleasure as his lips slid from her jaw to her neck. He was very good at distracting her.

"He's watchin' Cops. It's like stickin' a kid in front of cartoons. We got at least an hour. That might be enough time. You givin' him hell like that was a damn good start by the way. Let him know you ain't takin' his shit." His accent grew thicker.

She didn't protest when his hand slid her shirt up. There was no use in protesting because she didn't want him to stop. She could spend the rest of her life locked up here in this room doing this. She forgot to feel self conscious, despite the light pouring into the room. It was easy to forget when he seemed to find so much satisfaction in touching her. How flawed could she be if he responded like this to her? "I should get down there and cook dinner," she argued lamely, raising her arms so he could finish taking off her shirt.

"Yeah, you should get on that. I'm fuckin' starvin'," he said in a husky voice, slipping lower as his lips kissed a wet trail down the valley between her lace clad breasts. His large hands encased her rib cage and she squirmed, her breath coming quicker and she was barely able to resist lifting her hips into him. She wasn't used to wanting someone so badly that the need caused a physical ache inside of her.

He bit her lightly right above the waistband of the low slung panties and she fisted the sheets in her hands and clenched her teeth to keep from making any noise. Her mind flashed back to the things he'd used his mouth for last night. The way it felt when his lips were on her. It was more difficult to keep silent when his hand moved between her legs, his fingers moving over her skillfully through the rough material. He kissed her thigh, right on the scar he had mentioned earlier. She'd actually gotten that one the same day she had gotten the one on her knee and he was right. It had been a bike wreck from years ago.

She was surprised to feel her body tense with the pressure building low in her belly. He wasn't even touching her skin but it didn't seem to matter. His eyes shot up, locking onto hers as her breath started coming faster and faster. His eyes darkened, barely any blue showing at all. She bit her lip to keep from crying out as the electric sensation shot through her. It stunned her, much like the night before and she couldn't tear her gaze away from his while her body trembled under his touch. Not until she heard heavy boots hit the bottom step. Her eyes flicked to the door. She didn't want Merle to walk in but if Daryl stopped right now she would most likely die. It wasn't over yet.

"What the fuck do you two wanna do about food? I'm bout to starve to death down here!" Merle called from the middle of the stairs. He was still coming but... well... so was she.

And Daryl knew it too. She saw the torn look in his eyes and knew he would abandon her to keep his brother from storming in. As soon as Merle's boots hit the hallway she seemed to be spent and Daryl nearly launched himself off the bed with barely a backwards glance before he slipped out into the hallway. She was left lying there, wondering what the hell had just happened to her, not for the first time in the last twenty four hours.

She hurriedly put her clothes back on, checking her appearance in the mirror before darting out of the room. She found them in the kitchen. Merle was rummaging through the fridge and Daryl was sitting at the small kitchen table. She met Daryl's eyes, feeling her face flush and she couldn't believe that she could still feel embarrassed. The smirk on his face was smug but he schooled his features when his brother turned around.

"I was thinking about cooking spaghetti, Merle. Unless you want something else," she said, moving around him so she could get things together.

Merle grunted. "Make sure you wash your hands first. I know where they've been."

She rolled her eyes but ignored the barb. She did wash her hands but only because she was a sanitary person and not because he was a jerk. She worked silently, missing the easy air that seemed to envelope her and Daryl any time he lingered in the kitchen while she worked. That was gone though, replaced by a tension that she hated. They never knew what Merle was going to say next so it was easier just to keep quiet to avoid the storm that was Merle.

She still held onto hope that things may become easier between them. She wanted that for Daryl and she wouldn't stop trying until Merle physically picked her up and carried her out of the house and told her to hit the road. Since she didn't see that happening, she was going to do what she could to get along with him. For no other reason than to simply keep the peace. If he wasn't going to try to make Daryl's life easier then it was up to her. She sighed, stirring the sauce. She definitely had her work cut out for her.