"Dear Santa," Tig's voice jangled just as caustically as his keys as he rattled them over the table, leaning between the way the two of them were standing opposite. "I just want my mommy and daddy back together for Christmas."

"Good night, Tig." Ally murmured over him with a lagged glance of weariness, one of her arms crossed against her torso as she fingered a slip of silver chaining in the other hand.

"Night." He waved his hand between them, casting a glance toward the other man and catching the rise of Telford's eyebrows in an otherwise silent shrugging. "And good luck."

"Out." Her voice tapped out quickly after him and he grinned a backwards wave that Chibs cocked a half smile into, letting his hips slant back as his shoulders rested into the front of the fridge.

"No need to be rude." He murmured, frowning into the way she let the chain she'd been playing with hang full from her fingers, the stretch of it long and sparkling in the way she dropped it to hang above the empty box on the table.

"But he's not the one that brought me jewelry." She shrugged into lifting the necklace higher, her tone raised into an intentional haughtiness.

Chibs felt his jaw wire up reflexively as he pushed off the front of the fridge, arms dropping off the stretch of his chest so that he could reach against the chain, letting his thumb catch onto the pendant. He snorted as he shook his head slowly back and forth, turning a glance up at her as he kept it pressed tightly between fingers.

"Probably a carat. Round cut, full facets. " He pinched the pendant tighter as he spoke, biting back the swallow of something distasteful in his throat. "Can't speak to clarity."

Ally just cocked him a glare over the table. "If it's even real."

"Sure it's real." He rolled it between his fingers as he blinked her a shrug, "The question is where it came from. Or who it came off of, rather."

The sudden disgust that washed over her face moved as quickly as her fingers loosening the chain into his hand, her head shaking back and forth as she curled her arms back against herself. He palmed the necklace down, tipping a slowly searching glance over how angrily wound up she was against the slim stretch of her own length. He appreciated the fact that somehow he'd still managed to catch another round of looking at her in a slim skirt and the brash white silk of the shirt she was wearing.

"It'd look fine on ya." He shrugged as he lifted his closed hand, turning his steps slowly around the table as she watched his approach warily, anger still tightening up every toned muscle he could catch sight of. "Go on and keep it."

"Fence it." She shook off, letting her tongue slake her lips. "I don't want it."

"Good." He nodded quickly into reaching against her, pulling on the flexed muscle of her forearm, ignoring the jacked straightness of her as he leaned closer. "I know you're mad, darlin'."

"You know…" she rushed out a hard exhalation, shaking her head as she started to shift away from him, her eyes tinting furiously bright when he broke her back forward with a sharp pull of his hand. "Let go."

"No." he rounded back just as tightly, the dark of his eyes searching over the angles of her face with a tampening of his jaw. "You all right?"

"I'm fine." Ally dropped the whisper between them, "I'm pissed."

"I can tell." Chibs nodded tightly as he stuffed the necklace carelessly to his pocket, his hand catching up against her jaw so forcefully she just let her head lift into the motion of his palm. "I don't care, Althea. Are you all right?"

"I'm - "

"You're not." He argued into driving tighter into the front of her, thumb bracing against her bottom lip as he kept her jaw lifted into his keened watching, "You're lyin' to me. Dark eyes, remember?"

"He came into my house." The breaks of her palms shoved hard into his chest, forcing them separate as she intentionally placed space between them, drawing herself from the way leather had very suddenly become the comfortable rest for fidgeting fingers.

A rough exhalation came off him as his hands lifted, jaw twitching as he shook his head into brash argument, "And had you just waited - "

"He was in my house, Filip." He sucked down a breath into the rough snapping break of her voice as she turned from him, the sheering of emotion rattling through the otherwise caged silence of the kitchen, "This morning Patterson threatens to have me fired for fraternization and by dark I have a high ranking member of the IRA at my kitchen table? This is you trying to get out of the business?"

The ends of her voice were frayed up frustrated and she'd placed her palms onto the counter, head turned so that he could see the angled strength that still managed to hold in her profile. He unconsciously sank his hips back, settling onto the table with flat boots to the floor. Regardless of her words, the stricken lean of her against the counter, so vulnerably open to anything even as she raged, it slaked his own anger. The lean line of her from tip to toe always managed to break him up shambled, whether it was while she was swinging indignation on a slap or whispering worry as she moaned on him. Her extremes, bright fury or slackened sadness, broke him down somehow.

Any emotional explosion always caved him in.

And always, always, had him wanting her closer.

"This is me tryin' to keep everyone I still have breathin'." He explained into curling his hands on the edge of the table, denying a reaching for her. "You know I'm not a fuckin' saint, Althea. I'm trying."

"Filip - "

"I'm tired, darlin'. I'm done. It's been…" He angled his shoulders dipping into the hushed explanation, voice even and calmed into the way she finally turned her body to lay her hips back into the counter. "I'm trying. You gotta just - "

"I'm terrified of this." She broke over him tightly, the tinting of her eyes turning bright to a new penny metal.

Chibs frowned into shaking his head slowly, "He's not gonna - "

"Not of him, Filip. For fuck's sake, he's nothing." Her face had gone distinctly pale, head shaking slowly back and forth as she banked a glance of avoidance away from him, "Of you. Of this."

"Of me?" A stark half smile rose on his lips before dropping away into an obvious sweep of distaste, head shaking just as slowly as hers, "You still think I'd hurt you? Y'still - "

"Jesus, you're an idiot, Scotty." His head lifted darkly into the sharp accusation, hand jerking into the way she reached for his face as she stepped forward and blinking surprise into the way she caught against it and jerked at his jaw with the other palm, "Not of you. Of loving you."

"Not where I thought this conversation was goin'." He slanted his head slowly to the side, eyes thinning in scrutiny as he studied the lightness of her skin.

"Don't do that." The sudden prying tightness on his jaw tweaked on him enough that he pressed farther into it to force her to stay or let go, her hand pulling his face closer in a quick response, "Not this time. Don't change the subject."

He couldn't help the breath he loosened out from parted lips, a self conscious shifting to his shoulders as his eyes thinned, "I mean I thought you were tellin' me to leave."

"I considered it." The suddenly slaked way she was murmuring had drawn more into breathless than he'd expected, the smile tipping wider under the softening of her fingers as she wiped against his beard. "Momentarily."

"I'm still here." The filtered surprise in his tone met with the way he lifted a genuinely innocent smile at her, dimples diving into scars and making his face brighten up.

The cockiness that suddenly rose into the confident shifting of his shoulders and hips had her nearly rolling her eyes, letting his arm at her waist slant her angling tighter into him as he shifted back against the table again. His movement drew her with him, the bending of her spine tipping her into the way he flushed her hips tight into his. Ally forced oxygen into her lungs despite how tightly he was suddenly curling around her, letting his capable arms vice her ribs as his head downed along her collarbone. And at first she straightened against it, flustered by his silence. The inevitable lack of emotional response to –

"If y'knew what I've done to - "

"I don't need you innocent." She tipped her finger along his ear, smirking into the way he shirked his head into the feathering touch with a grunt of ticklish tipping, "I just want you."

"Y'don't know what you're askin' for, Ally." His head lifted into the tug she gave against his earlobe, her spine still arched into his pulling so that he could angle his jaw up to meet the way she was watching him.

"Yeah, I do." She hushed the words quiet as his fingers dug into silk, hands still spanning up her back and gripping it tighter against her. "It's mine and I want it."

"Is it?" he flicked her a flared grin, the color of his eyes brightening even as his lids lowered in a haze of lusted knowing, licking against his lips as he pulled the fabric taut.

"Your kitchen? Is it?" she teased her mouth brushing close to his and drew back quickly as he lifted for a kiss, playfully arching farther back and letting her weight loosen into his flexed arms as he squinted at her in bemused challenge. "Don't you ruin this shirt too."

"I'll buy you another." Chibs shrugged into reaching his mouth to hers, huffing an annoyed noise when she leaned farther back, forcing him to grip tighter. "Althea."

"What?" she wasn't teasing as her fingers wiped his cheek, her tone sinking low and breathing quiet as she watched his features soften.

"C'mere." His grin was ever an inevitable devastation to any strategy she may have thought she really had.

Ally cocked him a tipped and surreptitious glance, "Why?"

"Because I said." His arms flexed hard and she felt the sudden up slant of her spine in response to his jerked shifting, the pull shunting her harder against his laxed hips as he lifted his mouth into catching hers roughly.

The width and spread of his palms sloped calloused down the silken spread of her back before he grazed his hands against her hips, swallowing the whimpered noise she laid onto his tongue as he dug her roughly into his groin and forced a knee between hers. His fingers were already skidding up the hem of her skirt, a rough noise slanting off him as he jerked his head back, eyes dark as he searched over her in accusation.

There was as near a genuine pout as she seen on his face and she laughed into it, tightening into the way his knuckles were backed up and brushing against the inside of her bare left thigh. "You're a cruel woman, Althea. Been lookin' forward to that all day and you already took it off?"

"My kitchen." She laid a soft kiss against him, catching the groan he let off when her hair brushed his cheeks, "You don't get everything you want here, President."

"But you do?" he clipped his jaw up, brow arched high, "Huh? You're demandin' plenty but - "

"I'm the one with the balls here, Telford." She cocked over him tightly, angling a whipping glance over his taunting. "Don't hear you saying - "

"Say what?" He smirked into the quick dip of his jaw, eyes still lifted past lashes as he let the smile slant wide. "Y'scare the hell outta me too, Ally. Ran two lights and didn't once abide a speed limit gettin' here."

"And then made a phone call that condones criminal activity from inside my house."

He gauged the slanting of her tone as he blinked, his fingers slow in their shifting as he blindly curved his palms against her thighs, "And why?"

"To get rid of your murderous boyhood pal?"

"Sure," he sucked against his teeth before making a noise in his throat, riding her skirt higher as he shrugged lazily, "and why?"

"You get jealous and petty when the other boys play with your toys." Her fingers lifted into wiping along his temple, tracing the hedging of gray on his hairline as his hands stroked up under fabric to curve her closer into the pressing heat of a half erection.

A smirk flickered on his lips before he lifted her a hazy glance, voice dragging low and gritted up, "Why?"

She felt the flush hit her cheeks as she shook her head over him, "Because they're yours."

"Yes," the sure shifting of his palms bunched the skirt and dragged her hard into his lap, standing into the way he drew her onto him to force her pulling higher, "you are."

Once he turned his mouth grazing along her throat she didn't care to fight the assertion, letting him draw her legs higher against his hips as she smiled into the curl of him catching her up into his chest.

"Not your toy, Scotty." Her voice hummed heat into the way he was shifting across the kitchen floor on heavy boots, his mouth still strafing her throat.

He let an affectionate noise off his throat, rubbing it into her neck as he aimed for the hall, "But I take very good care of my toys, love."

Her elbows jacked into his shoulders, dragging a cusp of breath off him as she pulled higher into his chest, "I'm not - "

"I know, Ally." He groaned as he bridged the line of her spine into the doorframe, hands downed to curl her thighs as he pried them tighter on her hips and dropped his forehead into the leaning of hers. "Christ, woman. You're not an easy woman to - "

"Don't drop me, Telford." She teased a softness into the obvious swinging frustration that had him flat stroking his palms along the backs of her bared thighs, his hips keeping her pinned up along with the flat press of his chest.

"Shut up." He growled a nipping along her ear, "Sweet Christ… You're not an easy woman to care for."

"I - "

"But I do," he hushed the interruption along the way her head dropped back into laying her throat out open for his mouth, "don't I, love?"

"Do you?" Ally whispered into the graze of his teeth along her throat, letting her hands brace up along the back of his head as she moaned into the swipe of his tongue against damp skin.

"Take care of what's mine." He demanded into her skin as he sloped his hands against her hips, letting his knees slacken their combined weight and dragging her carefully down the doorframe.

She shifted forward into the cradling of his arms as he settled her into his lap, his legs tightened up under her leaning, "You're just twisting up words, Scotty. There's a difference between taking care of someone and caring about - "

"Not for you." He shook his head tightly, swallowing hard into the way he focused on the trapped darkness of her eyes. "They're the same for you. Both when it comes to you, yeah? Couldn't breathe when I thought he was too close to you."

A smile curled her lips that was innocent of anything but shy warmth, "Okay."

"Okay?" Chibs snorted a dry laugh between them, tucking her closer by dragging her legs farther around him with slow moving hands, "Y'pry it out of me with a goddamn crowbar and when I finally fess to it, just 'okay'?"

"I dunno what else to say. It was sort of a Hail Mary." An embarrassed flush tinted the general pale of her cheeks as she fingered the edge of leather, her jaw dipping into the shrugging she made, "I didn't think it was actually gonna work."

He blinked a quick humor into the way he grazed his hand into her hair, fisting it along the back of her neck so he could angle her head back into matching his glance, "You're surprised I like loving on you?"

She let her eyes dipped closed into the way his mouth graced back against her throat, exhaling into the harsh curling way he drove her arching again, "Absolutely speechless."

His tongue lined up her jaw before he nipped on her ear again, "Then shut the hell up, Althea."