He'd been right in his teasing when he'd implied she'd end up sleepless. Because even as he'd finally let himself run raggedly exhausted hours before, head buried in her chest as he'd grated a growling and shuddering orgasm into her, she'd been wide eyed awake. And she'd stayed that way even as he'd slept, fitful shiftings and sleep muddled jerks of his body intentionally soothed by the way she'd turned them facing to their sides with soft touches and wordless whispered sounds. She'd wrapped a leg up against his hip to keep him bent close and she didn't think he'd even realized that he'd curled himself so tightly into the center of her body that breathing had been a difficult and counted measure of the morning hours.

She'd kept every promise she'd made when stepping into her debate with Gemma, letting him bury the remnants of the day into her and drop his guilt between them before she'd wrapped them around the shared weight of it. And regardless of what it may have made her feel when she put on the uniform, that new compromise he'd offered as he'd dropped into the sleep first, no argument about it… It settled a sort of tension that had been so long in her shoulders she didn't realize how uncomfortable the tightness had been until it was gone.

And even more surprising, the sound of a bike in her driveway didn't necessarily rouse it back on her. Not when his jaw lifted into her clavicle at the guttering sound of it shutting down but stayed there pressing instead of drawing away. The silent decision he'd made to stay unmoving was, all at once, everything she hadn't realized she'd needed from him.

"Your guard dog is here, VP." Her testing whisper didn't push him away like she'd expected. He just dug in closer and pulled her thigh higher against his hip. And that shifting broke her of being able to judge him for what he'd done the day before.

Because there was still a line of goodness in him. And it was tying her up, knotted into him as she inexplicably had been since the first time he'd really smiled.

Ally let her lungs settle into the way he'd ignored her jabbing comment and instead just laid his mouth down her breasts, his shifting closer to a whispering than an argument. Even hearing what she assumed were Trager's boots on her steps and shunting against her already battered door, it didn't reach far enough between them to pull them apart. Not with the way he was completely ignoring the world in a tacit trade for letting his mouth close against her nipple, tongue swiping it before his teeth raked against it. She couldn't help the catch of her hand against the back of his head, spine arching into the way he very suddenly dug her beneath him on a rushed turn of his hips, his knee spreading her legs apart in a more than practiced balance.

"He can wait." The sure tip of his words on damp skin held an unswayed confidence and orderly assurance that made her spine go loose under him. "I'm not ready t'leave yet."

He very rarely gave her any sort of goodbye when he tipped from the solace of her bed. She was suddenly very sure of the shift she thought she'd seen coming but hadn't once believed in. And she watched it in the composure of his face before he dropped kisses down the front of her, letting her lungs loosen a sigh as her hand following his shoulder down between her legs. She dug her nails into the back of his neck as his hands dug her lower on the mattress and he pressed his mouth between her legs. A moan lit off her when his tongue and fingers met into wetness and she damn well didn't care if his brother heard it.

His bloodied up brothers couldn't have him yet. This was still her time.

And they'd made an agreement on that without getting trapped up in words.

He sealed their quietly made deal with sure and quick fingers inside her, letting his tongue slick against her clit before he lifted his head into watching her, following the arched stretching of her spine as she dug otherwise empty fingers into her hair. And he couldn't help smiling into the sound of Tig in the kitchen as she broke off a breathy moaning that brought a wider grin over him. He'd meant to stay there, finish her on a teasing that was already making her hips drive down into the way he'd shifted his thumb back and forth on her clit, slick warmth making the movements sure as he drove his fingers tighter inside her.

"Althea." Her name was something he hadn't ever meant to want to say that way, and especially not when his brother was waiting for him and he couldn't seem to pry away from the way she was clenching down on keeping him tight and close.

But he'd wanted to see her eyes in this. Needed to see how even they'd really become.

"I hate it when you just go away, Filip." The hand she'd kept at the back of his neck was digging scrapes into his skin, her face a flushed begging that broke him into unmitigated resignation.

He wasn't going anywhere until he was finished. He wasn't leaving her without having her.

Because he was the club's. But she was so suddenly very much his.

He was a murderer and a thief, no arguments there. And what he was stealing was too damn precious to part with.

"Look at me." He demanded tightly, bemused by the fact that the sudden drive he made up over her didn't startle her so much as ride a knowing victory into the arch of her body under his.

For once, she had the good damn sense to stay hushed up and pliant, her jaw lifting her head back on the pillow to hold the searching way he studied her face. He leveled his weight into his elbows, eyes thinning into the way she'd already matched his intent with a rise of her hips and her hands already stroking the hard length of him, slicking him into a welcoming wetness that made him swallow jerkily as heat snapped open and bled through him. He couldn't breathe past how close she had him to just taking everything he could. It was a turn of vulnerability from her that was more than just endearing. It was damn near trusting.

He wasn't stealing a goddamn thing. Not at all.

She was giving it to him without her general judgmental commentary.

That was her gift of a compromise and he nodded agreement to it.

"You know what I am, Althea." He sadly whispered the words along her jaw a breath of a moment before driving roughly into her, thrusting hard into the slacked whimpering moan she let up as her hands dug up onto his arms.

"I know." She wasn't looking away from the truthful admission in his eyes, no matter how much hurt discolored the brown of them, her hands sloping up to catch and lay along his cheeks as she kept his pointed glance. "It's okay."

Ally couldn't help the tightening arch she made into the way he roughed his hips slowly into hers, driving and pulling and intentionally riding his thrusts so slowly on her that it shivered her lungs up near closed. Because he wouldn't stop looking at her, watching the colors in her eyes as he let her hands lay along her cheeks without shying away from them. And she just let him watch the acceptance of their matching movements on her face as she sighed small moanings into each slow and deep thrust he laid into her. Her nails reflexively went digging into his scarred cheeks in the same tight clutching as the muscles of her as she tightened around his length and his frame.

"We're even, love." He hushed the admittance into her lips, groaning into the driving kiss it brought from her as she pulled him even closer and tighter, clenching him into coming roughly as he let her bring him close. Too close. But too close had become exactly close enough to what he needed on the edges of all the shit that broke him down.

"Come on then." He whispered raggedly as he dug his hand between them, forcing his fingers to find purchase between how tightly she'd tugged them, his hips still shivering into her as he found her clit and rubbed hard against it. "Meet me, Cu Sith."

"We've already met, Filip." Her eyes glittered on golden as she smiled, biting down on her bottom lip as her breathing shivered, hands flat on his face. "I know who you are."

"Then give up already. I'm keepin' you, Althea." He nodded as he brought her onto an edging with quick fingers. "Stop fuckin' fightin' me on it. It's done."

"Christ, I gave up the day I met you, Scotty." The words barely caught out before her head shunted back on such a pleased moaning that he couldn't save himself from smiling into watching her shatter, lips parted and jaw high in winning.

He was near sure she'd just given him a clawing along his jaw but he wore the sting of it like another brand of badge. Her breathing was nowhere near level but her entire body had loosened calm beneath him and he enjoyed the unfettered weakness of it as he pulled from inside her and lifted his head from her sliding fingers.

"It's done." Chibs kissed against her jaw. "We're even."

She just nodded into a sated and catty curling stretch, a smug smile on her lips as her eyes lidded closed, both hands wiping sweated hair back. "You can go now, I guess."

"Fair leave now, huh?" he pinched against her in a testing teasing, swiping his tongue against her collarbone as she moaned a humor into agreement. "You're right full of yourself, Lieutenant."

Her legs clenched his hips still before he could move, the tight jerk drawing his head up to catch the lidded way she was smiling over him. "Rather be full of you again, Telford."

His jaw went to a cocked angle, a lusted grinning making his face younger, "Can't. I gotta go, darlin'."

"And come back." She whispered into her fingers strafing his cheek.

He nodded once as he laid his lips down on hers softly, "Can't seem to sleep anywhere else these days."

Her eyes held his as he winked, her fingers gracing off his jaw on another stretch, "Good."


"I got him, AJ." Trager lifted the coffee pot toward her, jaw raised into the way she met his aiming hand with her half empty cup for him to refill, "Stop worryin'. This is how it works."

"Changing of the guard?" Ally quirked the question into the way he dropped a teasingly appreciative glance over the tee and socks she'd tugged on before leaving the bedroom.

"Yeah." The taller man shunted the carafe back to its home, a hand waving in her direction so that he could point at her as he turned lithe hips along her counter, "Exactly that. It's my shift. And you gotta be okay with it for me to be okay with it."

She cocked a glance over him, a sated smile still framed on her lips as she sipped at the strong dark brew, "I think I'm okay with it."

"I think you love him more than you think you do." Tig waved his finger at her playfully before laying his palms back onto the counter, hips shifting higher against it as he shrugged forward a thoughtful glance. "And that's really fuckin' weird to me. Just sayin'."

Ally straightened up into an accusation she didn't necessarily have an argument against.

"I think you need to shut the hell up." She murmured into a warning tone, unable to drop the humor from her eyes as he met a knowing grin between them.

"Yeah. That's what I thought." He turned the bright blue of his eyes down the front of her, but it wasn't anywhere near leering – it was a softened concern that turned back up the length of her, "Seriously, I got him, Ally."

Her teeth ribbed against her bottom lip before she held the softness he was turning in her direction. "Just bring him home, Tig."

"That what this is now?" Trager's head lifted as the sound of running water ended down the hall, the shower shutting off and breaking a silence over the small house.

"Something like it." She surprised herself into the dropped admission that seemed awfully big for so few words.

"Then you got it." The quickly jerked nod he gave her was just as damn nearly surprising, bending into the way he suddenly grinned as he pushed lithe hips off the counter, "Catch ya later, Sheriff."

"Tig." Her voice tripped him still and glancing back half on his way out of the kitchen. "I'm trusting you."

The darkness of his hair seemed to pale his features as he studied her, "Naw. You're playin' the Old Lady card. Tellin' me to watch his ass when you know I'd do it anyhow? Classic Gemma."

"I am not Gemma. Or Tara."

There was a tipping surprise on his face at the quickly jerked assertion she made, her body rising up in a sudden defensive posture that made her seem a shade taller, but also more adorable in the t-shirt and bright white socks. He couldn't help smirking into the movement of her before the amusement faded off him, his eyes riding over the tensed up length of her as he gave a nodding of slow agreement. She was right. She was neither of those women. But the varied shadings of the two that merged somewhere in the warring brightness of her eyes – he knew those high rises and low swingings. He'd seen them arc before in the exact women she didn't want to be compared to.

"No, you're not, AJ." Tig shrugged it off into a slightly darker glance. "Badge sorta ruins the illusion."

"Help me make this work. I need you on my side of this, Tig." Her words hushed quieter into the kitchen, head tipped into the sounds that were coming from down the hall. There was an intentionally vulnerable questioning in her face, something asking him to help her.

It tweaked on his softness the same way most innocently asking women did.

"Haven't I been?" he shrugged at her with a blankened confusion. "I am."

"Why?"

"Because it's what he needs." It was such an easily made response and his clarity in it surprised her. "And he's my brother."

Ally flushed him a reflexively bright and warm smile. "You're a good brother."

"I know that." His humor rimmed the proud coloring of his eyes, a nod leading his jaw down as he started his steps away from her again. "And you're more than a pussy on the side."

"I know that too." She murmured her smile toward the rim of her cup, catching the sound of now familiar boot steps heading her way from the hall.

"It's my shift, Sheriff." He tipped off playfully before heading out toward his bike.


His dark eyes were still a little sleepy as he leaned his head forward into the way she was relaxed into the counter, sniffing at the coffee she was holding before he lifted her a questioning glance, "Tiggy?"

"I like it strong." She shrugged off in acceptance.

"I meant because it's just coffee." The lazed smirking he gave her was leaned into the edge of the cup, his mouth breaking against it so that she could tip it against his lips.

"I did it once, Filip. Jesus." She rolled her eyes into the way he lifted his palm into the bottom of her cup, taking it cleanly away from her so that he could continue swallowing down on it as he turned away from her, boots tucked in the other fingers as he settled into one of her kitchen chairs.

"That's a goddamn lie, Althea."

Chibs set the cup aside to the table before letting one boot dump, tugging the other on as she watched the slow stretching movement of his spine. Her eyes followed the tip of damp hair along his jaw, unconsciously stepping into the urge to catch against it so that she could run a glance along his scarred cheek to the surprised glance he gave her. It softened its own jerkiness as a smile took up onto his lips, eyes going thinner as he cocked his head into the way she was still tracing onto his jaw, wiping apologetically onto the scratch she given him.

"You're prowlin' Cu Sith." A half smile merged with wondering in his eyes. "Why stalk me, huh?"

"Your smile." She murmured the same response she'd given him before, knowing it was familiar to him when his face brightened farther awake.

"Sure." He grinned as he leaned forward to tug on the other boot. "And that's what I thought, Lieutenant."

She let her fingers wipe along his cut as she angled along his back, taking back her cup as his shoulders shunted back quickly and intentionally into the way she was pressed on leather. His hand caught along her wrist, keeping it pressed along the worn and warm fabric as he turned his face into her forearm, letting his forehead press into her skin. Ally just tipped a quizzical look down over the stretch him, letting him lean into the closeness as she sipped on her coffee.

Her head angled into a sighed humor as his beard roughed the skin of her wrist, "We can't actually stay like this all day, Scotty. You gotta go, remember?"

"Aye," he pushed off the press of her skin and leaned his palms into his knees on a long exhalation, standing into a turn that had him closer than she'd expected, his eyes a whole new level of velveted darkness. "I know."

"Take care of Tiggy." She teased at him. "He's a sweetheart. Ya know, for a criminal."

The arched brow and cocked glare he panned over her forced a smirking up on her features and he shook his head slowly in response. "He's already got himself a girl, Althea. Sorta."

She just grinned into the tweak of amusement coloring his eyes as his fingers caught up against her shirt and pried her forward, her fingers tapping his leather. "See ya later, VP."

He gave her a quick wink and it laid a comfort onto loosening shoulders as he pressed from her slowly, tugging his gloves from his pocket as he back-stepped away from her. "Damn sure y'will, Lieutenant."