AN: Here we go, another little chapter here.
I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
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The feelings invaded Carol's senses even before she was fully conscious, working their way into her dreams in odd manners as her mind worked to flicker over to the reality she was surrounded by. Touching, rubbing, damp places on her skin, flickering shadows just inside her eyelids…all finding a way to blend and mix with the visions that her subconscious mind created for her, scenarios that made little sense to her waking mind.
When she did wake, finally pulling herself out of the dreamlike state, she was being touched by Daryl. In the almost complete darkness he was exploring her body with his hands and his mouth. He was doing it quietly, almost like he was alone in the whole thing, and the only reason that she even realized that he was awake and not acting in a somnambular state was because she could see that his eyes were open and his breathing was elevated, and every now and again he let out a sound that fell somewhere between a moan and grunt.
When she moved slightly, her body responding to his touch even before her mind had become fully aware of what was taking place, Daryl froze in his movements and froze over her, searching out her expression in the darkness.
His mouth found hers and she returned the kiss. It was a hard kiss, a kiss that was full of need. All his touch at the moment seemed urgent and full of need, and it was a touch that didn't seem to require words at all.
He offered her no words, in any case, and she didn't request them. She moved her hands, now that she was awake and fully enveloped in her feelings, to join in with him and to work along with him toward the goal that she was sure that he was working to.
His rough and calloused hands scratched down her belly and she felt his fingertips slide under the band of her underwear. She felt him stop, rubbing a moment at her most sensitive parts until she almost absently lifted her hips into his hand, and then he slid lower, teasing his fingers across her, probing her shallowly, his palm working the spot that had gotten the attention that he'd been seeking while his mouth trapped her nipple between his tongue and the back of his teeth, tugging at it.
Carol groaned out at him, the two of them sounding more like Walkers than people in the instant. She pulled away from him just long enough to slide out of her underwear and lose them somewhere in the bed and she twisted back toward him.
"Come here," she whispered. "Come on…"
And he did come, though he still offered no words. She wrapped her legs and arms around him as he found a position that was comfortable to him over her. She trailed her fingertips across the bumpy, raised landscape of his back, cruel reminders of the life that had shaped him to be what he was, and he lifted her hips slightly with his hands and connected them in one strong thrust that drew a grunt from both of them that came out almost in harmony.
When he moved against her, his movements just as hard and full of need and urgency as any of his touches before, Carol tried to match him. She kept one of her hands on his back, rubbing the skin there that was somehow comforting to trail with her fingertips, and she slipped the other between them to work herself in time with his thrusts, closing her eyes and biting her lip harder than she'd intended when she felt herself come undone and her body began to jerk beyond her control.
Daryl followed after her, a few hard thrusts later, grunting loudly before collapsing for a moment, hanging his head, panting next to hear with his hot breath blowing on her.
He rolled off of her, still silent, and lie to the side of her on his back, panting up at the darkness, arms thrown about.
Carol rolled on her side and supported herself with her elbow, her own breathing ragged but not nearly so much as his, imagining that his smoking habit probably had a great deal to do with that. She trailed her fingertips around his chest, teasing his nipples.
And for a moment he didn't look at her, but finally he turned his head in her direction. The darkness kept their expressions secret, but she hoped that he was looking at her with the same expression that she could feel taking over her own features.
She heard him swallow and trailed her fingertips up to his neck, resting them lightly where she could feel the bobbing of his throat as though she were blind and reading his reactions like Braille.
"I should go," he said. "Gotta unload the trucks…report on what happened. Lot ta do today."
Carol snorted to herself and with the thought that maybe other women heard more romantic words after they had sex with someone, but Daryl had dissolved immediately into work.
"I'll come with you," she said. "I can help unload."
Her fingertips trailed up his neck from their spot, crawled across his jaw bone, came to rest against his fingertips and he kissed slightly at them when they rubbed there. She replaced her fingertips with her lips, pressing them gently against his and he responded.
When she pulled out of the kiss, he sat up a little, shaking his head.
"No," he said. "Gotta lotta shit…let everyone else unload. You stay here an' sleep some."
"Well I'm awake now," Carol said with a smile. "Not a bad wake up call," she teased. "I've had worse."
"You got shift work?" He asked.
"Not morning," Carol said. "I've got commissary for second."
"Get some decent damn food," Daryl growled.
Now he was awake and he was fully awake. He pulled himself into the full sitting position in the bed and Carol watched as he scratched his fingertips through his hair. He shook his head again and she went in search of the lighter by the bedside and lit the lamp.
Once there was light, she could see that there were still traces of sleep on Daryl's face and she didn't want to even imagine the picture she must paint in the morning. She was sure that seeing her in the morning's first light like this might be enough to make him change his mind about this whole thing, but if he noticed, or if anything bothered him, he didn't say anything.
"Rest this mornin'," he said. "Take the mornin' off…"
Carol still had her shirt on, but that was all that she had at the moment. She slid her hands down under the blanket, noting there the wetness that her moving about had left as evidence of her wake up call, and searched for her underwear. She didn't find them, though, so she got up, unapologetic at the moment about her nudity, and went to the bathroom to run a cloth under the tap and clean up.
"I don't mind unloading," she said. "You get first pick."
"You wanna go look at what we unloadin'," Daryl said, "then you do it. Get whatever the hell you want, but I got you some stuff too, special an' in my bags. I ain't brought nothin' in last night, but my bags is marked."
"You brought me things?" Carol asked.
Daryl grunted in response and Carol came back into the bedroom, looking through her clothes to figure out what she was going to wear for the day.
"Get what you want," Daryl repeated, "but don't be out there unloadin'…unpack or somethin' at post…but piss on haulin' all that shit if you ain't gotta."
Carol laughed at the tone of his voice and the words combined.
"I'll walk down there with you," Carol said. "I'll see where they need a hand."
Daryl gave her a look as he went about getting into his own clothes, only finding them because she yanked open one of the drawers, the one that really held just about all the clothing that Daryl owned, and showed him where they were.
"I can tell ya where the hell they need your hands," he said. "An' it ain't unloadin' shit."
Carol made a face at him in response, her hands going to her hips instinctively at the tone of voice that he was taking, a tone that she'd learned not to appreciate very much since she felt she'd found a voice for herself in the aftermath of her life with Ed.
Daryl shook his head at her, the silent conversations between them taking place now as naturally as they ever had before.
"Don't'cha get no damn attitude with me," he growled. "You havin' a kid. You said I gotta be fine with that. Fine…but you gonna act like you havin' a kid an' that means you ain't doin' the shit jobs no damn more. Do shit the way you s'posed ta do it. Rick ain't let Lori hardly even carry shit she had ta have when she was knocked up."
"You're not Rick, thank God, and I'm not Lori," Carol responded.
Daryl chuckled to himself.
"Thank God," he growled. "Point is, that's about all the hell I really know about kids…an' you go with what'cha got. You ain't unloadin'."
"So you think you're going to start bossing me around now?" Carol asked.
She didn't really mean it sincerely and she let a little levity creep into her voice to show it. She could tell that Daryl wasn't trying to be an asshole. He was doing his best to be protective, and though that sort of thing seemed to get under her skin these days, it didn't really bother her at the moment. She recognized that being protective, in this case, was a way of showing what affection he was comfortable with showing.
It was clear when he looked at her, though, chewing his lip, that he wasn't sure if she was being serious or not, or if he'd overstepped some sort of boundary.
She smiled softly at him.
"I'm not mad," she said.
He looked slightly relieved and the expression of simply not being a morning person returned to his countenance.
"I am not going to just sit around all the time," Carol said. "Not if I don't have to. If I have to later, then I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. But…"
She held up a finger at him.
"I'm going to take it easy a little. I'm going to be careful, and I'm not going to overdo it, OK?" Carol responded.
"An' you ain't gonna unload trucks," Daryl said defitively, pulling on his shirt and running his hand through his hair again.
Carol stepped forward, still somewhat in disbelief that Daryl Dixon was even in her bedroom, all of his things moved in for the duration, and even more in disbelief that they were having a conversation such as this.
She kissed him, verifying once more that everything was real, and he responded, smiling and even blushing slightly when she caught his lip gently with her teeth as they pulled apart.
"I'm not unloading trucks," she agreed.
