It was in her moments that he thought maybe he'd pressed too much for some sort of safe lay of peace in his life, because there was a certain silent guilt threaded into the way he'd laced the fingers of his right hand through her hair. His palm knotted into the dark at the back of her head, keeping her head tipped back into the way she'd fallen asleep so tightly pressed into his chest.

If he'd been given the option, surely not, no, he wouldna accepted Jax's death as the cost for her so cat-curled up into his side and chest. He would've foregone her heat if he'd damn well had to - if that had saved something. But no, Jackson had made salvation something intentionally impossible in his case. He'd constructed his own destruction and waged a grand guilt war between the two of them to be sure it would come. He'd had no ability to trade this hushed peacefulness for his brother's survival.

But then, he only had a mind to save certain things these days…

His boys. And Jackson's boys.

And maybe… maybe more than, maybe likely her.

And that bred guilt in the slow rise and fall of his chest into her pressing. But it sank a little back out of conscious realization when he watched her soothed sleep, the long and lean lines of her face so surely soft and curving in passivity. He'd let her leg force up between his as she'd slackened into sleep and the pressing was numbing the muscle in one thigh but he ignored it, just as he ignored the fact that his right bicep was tingling mutinous too. But the way she'd curled her hands up so loose and harmlessly innocuous between them, three long fingers cradled up in beads, had him reflexively curving the other hand against the slant of her jaw to cage her head upturned.

And it was her. More than a maybe.

It was his brothers, Jackie's sons, and her.

And the way the realization slapped him chilled reminded him of white silk and an unspoken threat, a taunting tailored specifically to him and his wanting of her.

Just a dress. A dress was something so perfectly expected in every day romance.

It was exactly what he'd brashly told her he'd never give her.

Romance or even an expectation of normalcy.

And even if he'd said so while making a point that seemed lost now - the subtlety of it drove between his ribs and nailed him right into the lungs – that even the Irishman had known it was her before he'd found the moment and means to admit it to himself.

"Ally." He laid his lips brushing along her warmed forehead, keeping his tone whispered hush above one eyebrow.

The more paranoid parcel of him didn't like that she slept so heavily sometimes - except that he loved it a bit. Because the only time he knew her to be so relentlessly unavailably unconscious to the world was when she begged him into curling her this close. And it didn't at all last when he slanted away from her, and she was awfully damn aware when she was alone in her bed.

"C'mon, darlin'." He laid the pad of his thumb under her jaw, fingers bracing her cheek as he lifted her head back into his other hand and watched the flinch that finally tightened her muscles start around her eyes and rivet down her. "Hey."

"Don't." It wasn't anger crowding her suddenly dark eyes as it was a sort of childish petulance, her fingers jerking into and tugging down on his beads as her head ducked toward his throat. "Not nice, Scotty."

"M'not all that nice, baby." He responded quietly, curling her head back into his spread palm, leaning her into his open hand. "Look at me."

"I look at you all the time." The teasing tweaked her lips into a lazily cradled smile as she blinked at him, lashes held low on dark eyes. "You woke me up for a staring contest?"

"So maybe I did." He whispered the velveted answering.

"You're crazy." She blinked her jaw down into his touching, letting her eyes dip back completely closed as she shifted her hips tighter up against his and tugged into his beads to pull closer.

"So maybe I am." He admitted. "And so are you."

"I know." The jaunty shrugging she gave him was hazed over with a laughing tone as she curled back into his chest, leaning her face into his throat. "You seem to like it."

"Gonna put that dress on?" He leaned his mouth down into an urging, drawing her back up into his leaning with a slow kiss.

"I am not." She was suddenly far more awake and aware than he'd assumed, a glint hitting her eyes right smack along with the accusation in her tone. "I will not."

"Sure y'don't want it?" Chibs asked into catching her glance, lifting his jaw into a supposedly passive questioning. "You can - "

"I don't want anything from him, Filip. Don't do this." The jerk she raked against his beads tweaked on him. "Don't make this into something it's not."

"You let me take care of it then, yeah?" He smiled into it with a darkened lilting to his whisper, the sudden but subtly leaned shifting of his weight laying her back so that her head pressed his arm flat to the mattress into numbing.

Ally cocked him a glance that brightened up her eyes, "You gonna wear it?"

"Cute." He mocked over her sarcastically before laying his mouth against hers, digging her head up hard into the drive of his tongue between her lips.

If he'd ever seemed completely sure in anything in regards to her, it had always been kissing her. He always made it seem like it was the only option he had in the whole wide world.

She slacked intentionally weak under his stretching, letting him use the other hand to grip into her thigh and part her legs so he could angle between them with such a sure and easy shifting that she knew it was reflexive and annoyingly practiced. She ignored it though, letting his mouth grace down her throat as he let his weight sink into her carefully. His lips stopped their movement but his free hand took over a slow sliding and stroking and what seemed a conscious memorization of each inched stretch of her from her throat to her pelvic bone.

"He concerns me." She admitted sullenly as she stared at the shadowed ceiling, letting her fingers scrape her hair back off her face as he wiped his palm along the worn fabric of her tank, the movement suddenly stilled.

"Not letting him - "

"I'm not afraid of him." She broke raggedly over the intentionally gentled way he was trying to console, "I'm concerned. He forced himself into my kitchen. He broke into my car. He's not just leaving love notes, Scotty."

The lift of his head was slow and intentionally patient, something in the slinging of her tone smacking of more than worry or concern, "Ally. He's not touchin' ya."

"He already has. He knew my dress size. How many men can just guess something like that?" She shifted so suddenly that he moved his shoulders up with bridged arms, surprised as he watched her lean over the bedside table to tug a paper from under her badge, "Has he been in this house when I'm not here? I... I can't be sure."

"He's not going to - "

The way she slacked back and laid the note against her lower ribs stalled up his breathing, her name scrawled elegantly across the paper in a sort of visual invitation that instantly had his stomach welling bile.

"You can't be sure. I can't be sure." She whispered worriedly as she flipped the paper over, letting him read the shortly worded invitation to enjoy the gift that had been left for her.

"Where was this?" he laid his palm flat over the words, blocking them from their sight as he lifted her a deliberately forceful tone.

"On the dress." She admitted quietly.

And his eyes rising on hers were the back up to the definitive order of his tone, "I want you at TM tomorrow."

"Filip - "

"I mean it." He'd shifted into sitting up and curled the paper crumpled into his fist in the same movement, "Boys and I are getting some work cleared in the garage and then we're going through the clubhouse with Oswald. Getting some small time stuff done on our own. I want you in house."

She lifted on her elbows enough to match his watching, knee drawn up into the way he'd angled sidelong to her legs. "I have things to do tomorrow. I'm not sitting in a garage all day; it's my only day off."

"I'll make it a short day." His empty palm squeezed lightly against her knee before he shot the paper toward the garbage, watching as it arced into the basket. "I'll help."

"You're gonna run to the bank and help me grocery shop? You wanna pick out furniture while we're at it? Oh, wait…" Her voice drawled off into a sarcastic dryness that had him slinking her a petulant glance.

She watched him exhale the impatience before he shook his head, jaw lifting into the way he blinked, "Can't lose you too, Ally."

"Jesus." Her shoulders sank flush into the way he'd dropped such a weakened admission between them, "That's not fair."

"Why y'think I don't want Caffee close to you at the same time, huh?"

"I can use Sean." She murmured between them on a pliant note, sitting up farther into the bed as they braced slowly apart, cautious and slow in their combined movements. "You have to trust me. I can do this."

"I can't." His voice dragged sharp, "And I can't keep Kerrianne close, but you? You I can drag up and cover when shit falls apart. Done it before. I'll sure as hell do it again."

"I know you would." She admitted into a saddened softness that didn't seem right in between them, so feminine and innocently domestically soft, "Wish you'd let me do the same for you."

"Althea."

He knew she was blocking at him before she pushed away from him, the sudden paleness of her in too much white creating a bright contrast to the way the one light shadowed the rest of the room. He watched her rise from the bed, her hands wrung up against her arms as she turned a look over him that bent toward defeated. One shake of her head and she was swallowing into the way she was standing so awkwardly far from him.

"You don't understand. I can use Caffee in a way that saves the both of us. I've used him before as an informant." She rattled the words off in a quick dumping of breath, turning to grab at the short satin robe that was pooled in one of her chairs, the slip of it always grazing heat down the center of his chest. "If he reports to Patterson then she's going to have another source that clears you of the gun business."

"An informant?" Chibs slacked his hips to the edge of the bed, hand wiping along his face as he watched her, "So he's a rat."

"He was a paid informant." She slung back in a tightened tone, drawing the fabric over her shoulders in a way that quickly offended his eyes, annoyed the part of him that wanted to keep watching the livid tautness of her shoulders.

He ignored the slide of the fabric, knowing the whiter silk of the dress was only feet away to the left of his vision, "He's a - "

"Yes, okay? He's a rat." Her hands jerked the belt into a hard knot, laying the creamy color over the lightness of her skin as her hips slanted in a suddenly sturdier and harder stance, "He shot me, Filip. In front of my family. What the hell did you expect from a man like that?"

He lifted his head into watching her, realizing that somehow and somewhere she'd drawn something stronger back up the line of her spine, the very shifting of her stance making her a livewire tight, "Y'want me to okay somethin' like this without talkin' to the boys? Told you I needed to - "

"And I didn't argue." She aimed a hand at him quickly, her hair looking wildly mussed and deliciously tangled. "I didn't."

He shook his head against the way her rising writhing annoyance pulled at the heat in his gut, "And let it play t'Patterson? I become a rat. Not happenin', darlin'. I'm still who I am. I'm not taking my business to the law."

"Really?" Her face lit with a smile that was anything but humored. "Just your dick?"

"Hey." The length of him was so much more enticing when it was tightened up in her direction and she watched the suddenly leaned prowling of his body come toward her, "They're my family. Y'know my loyalty is - "

"To your family." She leaned just as formidably into him as he'd stepped into her and she caught the way it ranged his shoulders up higher to span his height over hers, "Not to me. Because they'll never accept me as family."

"That's not true." The sway of his accent actually dipped a little apologetic into the softness of his countering.

A huffed breath parted her lips as she shook her head slowly, aiming her hand out into the spread of his chest so that she could wipe on skin, "That's completely true. And you know it. Half those boys wanna see me burn, Filip. Just because of who I am."

"Ya don't make it all that easy to change their minds, love." His point was made with a tone that had been stripped of caution and patience, bared toward cool and controlled, "You keep the distance much as them."

"You keep me at a distance." She murmured into the way his hand was closing against the knot in her robe, gripping around it.

"No." Chibs angled quietly into the whispered argument, "Did I not just tell you I wanted y'with me tomorrow?"

Another huffed noise of derision came off her, "Because you think I'm in danger."

"Because you fucking are." The control he'd so intricately laced around each swing of his accent had thread-snapped clear and his voice shunted over her with the same jerking as the way he tugged her tighter by a fisted handful of satin, "And so's my daughter. Jesus Christ, Althea, he's not playin' at this. It's fucking real. It exists and it's legitimate. Do you understand that?"

"The dress hanging in my car was a pretty solid goddamn clue." And the way her tone had snapped toward sardonic and near on cruel had his other hand lifting along her jaw, fingers splayed up under it and toward her throat in a shift that he continually used to keep her attention on him and what he wanted.

She hated that it didn't scare her more.

Because the motion should-have-would-have put a fear in a smarter woman's head.

"Get back in that bed, Althea." His eyes had lit up darkly as he'd lifted his jaw and hers with the force of his palm.

It never scared her so much as made her burn up in his touching, throat flushed. Because she knew he'd hurt himself before he was legitimately violent with her – not in an abusive way. This was their battle. This was their play. Their push and pull and tear-me-to-pieces. This was the way two people like them could love without weakness. This was conquest and surrender, victory and subjugation - the players just changed parts sometimes. They traded who won and lost and she wasn't quite sure yet whose turn it was to give in.

"Don't start your Reaper bullshit with me, Scotty. It's not sexy when you're just using it to be an ass." She whispered it so quietly that his hand loosened a little in its holding, head cocked as he listened to her rattled rage. "You're just a man. You don't get to send me to bed without dinner, President. Grow up."

"I told you t'get back in bed." He murmured his mouth closer to hers than she'd expected.

She refused the peace-keeping kiss he was offering, biting out a retort instead, "And I'm telling you to fuck off."

"You want my loyalty, Lieutenant?" His hand tightened up again, lifting her head higher into his leaning as he pulled them flush and full against each other, "That what this is about? You jealous?"

"This is about your past walking into my house and looking at me like a toy he can play with just to piss you off." Ally argued into a hushing, the sudden thrust of his hips driving her into backwards steps that he continued, leaning her back flat into the wall beside her bathroom door as her leg got caught up by the chair.

"And y'know why." His palm sloped off the knot of satin and stroked so intently up under the fabric that she blinked her eyes shut into the rubbing of long fingers against the crotch of her underwear, feeling his head crowd closer to hers as she made a noise of agreed assent in her throat.

She let her eyes lift open and bright into the way he was watching her face as he kept the rhythmic stroking of fabric, the hard break of his palm pressing her back, "Because you're a possessive and impatient son of a bitch."

"Because you're what I love. Just the same as usin' Kerrianne." The murmuring just barely preceded the dip of his hand into her panties and his shoulders went higher with his insistent lifting of her jaw, body angling her flat up against the wall as he stroked his fingers into wet heat, "And he knew it the moment he saw my face when I walked into that kitchen. Get to bed before I put y'there myself."

"What if it is about loyalty?" A whimpered noise caught up in her throat, eyes dropping shut as she intentionally ground her skull back into the wall and let him hook his fingers up into her, "What if it's what they have that I don't get?"

"Bed." His whisper wiped along her jaw with the same slowness as his thumb slicking along her clit.

Ally bit down on his ability to break her heat open with just his perfect hands and an angry whisper, "Go to hell, Scotty."

"Sure am." The agreement came warmly and lightly tripped along her lips, teasing her with a kiss that he wasn't giving into yet, "Come with me, Lieutenant. Won't be the same without ya."

"Christ, I hate you." There was a tinting of affection in her voice and eyes that caught his teasing and played it back like a repetitive record hitch.

"Be kind." Chibs murmured as he worked his fingers into and out of her, watching the way her tongue and teeth skated and grazed her lips.

"I really really hate you." She whispered into a slow shake of her head that negated her words.

"Ah," he hooked a finger deeper into her and raised his jaw into warning, "Kinder than that."

"I hate your cute fucking accent. And how tall you are." She softened between them, the ramping of her breathing making the words drive rushed and hush, "And the way you smell like leather and oil and cheap whiskey all the goddamn time."

"Gettin' warmer." He agreed into his thumb circling her clit. "Get to bed, darlin'."

Ally thinned him a smile just before her throat braced up a moan, "I despise the constant pet names."

"That's an obvious lie. Warm and wet and ready, aren't ya?" His kisses were lining along her jaw in such an innocently intimate warmth, "Come lay with me, mo ghràidh. You're losing your edge."

"I loathe the Reaper."

"But you're what he loves, darlin'. So beautifully angry all the day long." The grinding sweetness that was in his throat made her weak enough that she let him tug her close with his fingers still deep into her, "So wet and riled right up. Christ, Althea, you light up when I touch you."

The lay of her name on his accented tongue always jump-stop-started her heart and lungs.

It was his turn to win again.

It was her give in and give up round, "God, I love your hands."

"There you are." He finally smiled into the stroke of her palms along old wounds, her hands flat against scars, "There's my fury. Thought maybe I'd lost her."

"You know I love you." She tightened her palms on him, gripping him tighter into the way she pressed their foreheads together. "Why do you make me admit it?"

"Y'know I'm loyal to you." He chipped back into licking against her bottom lip, drawing her reaching for another swipe of his tongue as he lifted her leg, shunting it up onto the chair she was skirted around, "Why do you make me prove it?"

She slacked off a moan as he started his mouth down her throat and jerked open the robe regardless of the belt, her palm catching loosely against the back of his head as he sank his lips lower and drew his fingers from her, "Just to be sure."

Maybe neither of them had lost.

Maybe this was a stand-up stalemate.

At least until he hit is knees and skidded her underwear down. "Sure of what, love?"

"Of you. That this is real."

"Sweetheart," he wiped his mouth against the scar that circled on pale skin, "I'm the only thing you can afford to be sure of right now."