AN: Mornin campers! Happy turkey day to those of us imbibing in the US tradition of stuffing a bird then stuffing ourselves with that bird. My boss was super nice to me yesterday. Apparently her boss yelling at HER about nonsense made her remember why the jerk irks me. Also my new assistant is working out really well so NOW I can focus on training my staff instead of doing 3 people's jobs. For a while I had an assistant manager that had no clue so I had to do his job, my job and my assistant's job. I finally told my boss that too. Now that she's seeing the results of having a nice but idiotic replacement for our usual AM... she conceded I may have a point that I was stretched WAY too thin for one person for 2 months.

Chapter 9

Sunlight was streaming through the bedroom window – they forgot to close the blinds - as Sam woke up snuggled against Jack. Her dress was smashed in a ball at her waist after their first round of lovemaking. And Jack, from what she could feel was down to a sock on one foot and nothing else. Well, now what? She wondered about their situation. The itch scratched did they go back to how things were or…? Sam closed her eyes and sighed. He felt so damned good wrapped around her. A part of her was surprised with how many times they reached for each other during the night. They had woken three hours after that first heated release only to make love again more gently, doze off for a few moments and make love a third time before finally falling heavily into sleep locked in each other's embrace.

But in the cold light of day, she knew that he'd have regrets about giving in to his desires. And then the next few hours would be discussion of damage control and assuring each other that they could stay professional after this. It wasn't like she didn't daydream about making love to him prior to doing so. Now she just knew he was an amazing lover and, well, crap. That's the problem. Now that she experienced that… how could she want anyone else or just pretend making love to Jack wasn't mind blowing? Sam sighed, eyes closed.

"Penny for your thoughts, Carter?" Came a soft rumbly sexy morning Jack O'Neill voice from the other side of her eyelids.

Sam opened her eyes to find warm brown ones regarding her with a gentle light. Sam bit her lip and looked into his eyes, unsure of what to say. "I don't regret what happened last night." He told her gently. "I don't want you to, either." He did, a little but he didn't want her beating herself up or second guessing herself for having given in to physical need exactly once. They would have to talk about it, of course, but ultimately they would put this behind them and continue to be the soldiers they had been until now and be there for each other whenever necessary.

The decision to have sex with each other didn't have to change anything else about their relationship in his estimation. But he knew it would not be easy. Sam was everything Jack could imagine and more in a lover and his feelings for her were now tangled with the knowledge that their love life would surpass any fantasies he'd had in the past about it.

"You're sure?" Sam looked at him with concern. He'd slept with his subordinate. It didn't really reflect well on either of them as officers in her estimation.

Jack cupped her face gently and leaned in for a very chaste kiss. "It wouldn't have happened if we hadn't both wanted it, Sam." he admitted.

She nodded a couple times.

"Come on. Let's go get a shower and get some breakfast, okay?"

"Okay." Sam agreed softly and couldn't stop herself from ogling his bare rear as he got off the bed and walked to the bathroom.

"Shower?" he asked her over his shoulder.

Sam gave him a perplexed look. He couldn't be serious.

Jack made a 'silence' motion with his hand and rolled his shoulder to indicate she should follow him.

Still confused, Sam got out of bed, feigning confidence, shimmied out of her crumpled dress and followed Jack into the bathroom even though neither of them had anything on. Other than Jack with his sock on his left foot. By the time she stepped into the bathroom, Jack had already turned on the water and motioned for her not to talk again. After he tested the water the third time, he stepped into the tub and motioned for her to join him.

Sam drew her eyebrows together. He could not actually be serious about them showering together but his hand snaked out from the water and drew her arm forward. The bathroom was fairly small and there really wasn't anywhere she could avoid his reach without physically leaving the room.

She sighed and reluctantly complied, following him into the tub. He yanked the shower curtain closed and wrapped her into his arms and buried his face in her neck.

"Act natural. The house is bugged." He said low against her neck.

She turned to look at him. "How?"

Jack put a finger to her lips. "I had to pee around oh three hundred. Goose was playing with one of them in the hallway." He chuckled. "He was batting it around like a kitty sized soccer ball. Whoever was listening got an earful."

Sam giggled in spite of her ridiculously sexy commanding officer who she made love to last night repeatedly and was currently nuzzling against her neck again in the shower. The sock now missing from his foot. "Good." She stopped and thought for a second. "Jack, which means last night…"

"Yah." He agreed.

"That's a problem." She said frowning.

He shook his head. "No, the problem is now we have to keep doing that or they will get even more suspicious."

"What?"

"We've been really careful not to discuss work except on our walks alone in the park. It's not normal for a couple planning a wedding to not be ridiculously horny for each other."

Sam blushed bright red. "Jack." Her voice squeaked.

"Speaking of which, we should actually work on wedding plans so this looks more legit." Not realizing he was doing it, Jack's hands had slid slowly down her lower back and were now cupping her rear, holding her close to him.

"We are going to be in so much trouble when we get home."

"Yap." Jack agreed and then he kissed her slowly, gently until she sighed in surrender when her brain couldn't process how she'd expected to have the 'okay we shouldn't have done that' conversation and were now planning to break regs to stay in character.

Sam's low needy moan had Jack pressing her against the tiles and sliding into her as he hiked up her leg to give him a better angle. "I shouldn't want you this much, Sam." He admitted but he couldn't have stopped if he wanted to. They had held back so much that with the seal on that room now laid in tatters on the floor and all he could do was let himself be swept away by his feelings and hope they could cope with the damage later.

Sam was no docile passive participant either. Her hands gripped his hips and encouraged him to increase the pace and hardness of his thrusts until she was whimpering and gasping his name. "Oh god, please, Jack…" she moaned.

Not a man to tell a lady no, Jack kept up the pace until Sam cried out and her nails bit into the skin of his shoulder and ass.

"Fuck." He swore as she sent him over the edge too, his hips bucking hard without any rhythm as he clung to her.

They stood shaking for a movement, holding each other up as neither could stand alone. Water flowing over them until the hot water tank ran out.

"Holy Hannah." Sam finally breathed against his shoulder which elicited a rumbling chuckle from Jack.

"I don't think we'll have to fake it for the bugs." Jack muttered between chuckles. "Might need to be a little quieter when Lisa is home so we don't traumatize her."

Sam snorted with mirth then started laughing. "Oh god. Mark would kill us." She giggled.

"Worth it." He told her. "Water's getting cold. Let's get dried off."

"Shouldn't we try to dispose of the bugs?"

"That would just let on that we know they are there. Someone went to a lot of work to bug the house after I got here. Let's feed 'em crap and dirty fantasies." He knew Jimmy had planted them of course but had no real idea if he was listening or someone else was. If it was Jimmy he deserved it for being a lazy agent letting someone else do his work for him.

She shook her head though. "Jack… we don't know how long, I mean, they will notice that we weren't having sex before."

"Guess I need to loudly discuss the success of those little blue pills you bought me then."

"Oh my god." Sam said and laughed even harder.

"Of course now I have to requisition them."

"What? No! Don't you dare!" Sam said scandalized.

Jack chuckled. "Don't worry, there's always a shady doctor in every town. I'll find one to falsify a script for me."

Sam blinked up at him. "I don't want to know." She said with an eye roll.

"Get your own shady doctor." Jack said in a defensive tone. "Come on, we have a busy day. We're going to have to have private conversations in the shower from now on. Just in case."

"Oh, just in case."

"Yah. For… privacy and… stuff."

Sam giggled helplessly. "What have I done?" she asked philosophically.

"We'll worry about that part later." Jack said with a small, perturbed frown. He wasn't sure he could put this one back in the bottle this time.

"Okay." She agreed softly and stepped out of the tub as he turned the water off, a thoughtful frown still on his face. They had a lot to deal with after this op. This wasn't some 'drugged by aliens, hardly remember what they did' incident. They had utterly lost control last night then willingly chucked the rule book in the river this morning in the shower. She didn't want this to ruin either of their careers and she didn't want to break up the team but could they go back to just being close friends with a hard crush on each other without slipping up again? She didn't know. They already had enough missions that went sideways that made them have to make a lot of effort to walk away from heated kisses and exploring hands.

Jack snagged his towel off the bar without leaving the tub and scrubbed the water out of his hair. "Doc was right. Those pills work great." Jack said enthusiastically. Once Sam also left the bathtub.

"I'm just happy you're back to your old self." A toweled-clad Sam said warmly. Her face turned slightly red as her eyes tried to imprint the image of a fully wet naked Jack O'Neill on her brain and admitting to herself that he might not be the most ripped man on the planet but he was toned and hard in all the right places and seeing him dressed in nothing but wet hair made her want to yank the towel he was wrapping around himself away and do some imprinting of her own.

"Oh yah. Right as rain now." He flashed her a grin from under his towel. She'd been staring at him and his body had responded accordingly. His smile grew bigger when he flexed his arms and noticed her reaction.

Sam turned away blushing having been caught. She didn't even noticed that his eyes ran over her as if he too was trying to capture of the image in his photographic memory that she didn't realize he had.

"We should get dressed and go check out your office. You said you wanted my help painting it. I'm working pretty much every day lately but I think we could do it overnight or next weekend. We'll just get a sitter for Lisa." Jack said casually as they both went back into the bedroom.

Sam rolled her eyes at the change of subject while he dried off still at full staff. "Sounds good. I was thinking something nice like a warm green. More yellow then blue and not too seventies, you know?" she said, ignoring his physical state while she pulled on a pair of panties and a bra.

"That sounds nice. Did you talk it over with them about the color?"

Sam shrugged. "He said make arrangements and that he didn't care about the color as long as it looked classy with the artwork we already had."

"Does it need new frames? There's a craft store in town that does that kind of thing. We might get a discount if it's several pieces at once and it's not like you aren't saving them money on labor doing it ourselves."

Sam pretended to think about it. "I'll ask. I don't know if they want the lab painted but you can see down the hallway as the door is glass. I'll talk to them about getting me a key to that part of the building for a weekend."

"Good idea." He agreed. They knew not to act like they had any interest in the contents of the lab at all beyond getting paid to paint it. He could play it up that he was angling to charge by the square foot and would charge less per square foot if they gave him more work.

By this point, Sam was dressed and Jack had on his jeans though they were unbuttoned and he was digging around for a t-shirt to throw on. He didn't notice Sam staring at the play of muscles on his bare back. "Sam, did you wash my t-shirts? I can't find my Earth Day shirt."

"Earth Day isn't until April." Sam said chuckling

"I know that." He grumbled. "It's one of the few I can get away with at school. Usually I have to wear dress shirts." His frown was mutinous.

"Aw… poor baby, have to dress nice for the middle aged lonely single teachers." She teased.

Jack turned and tugged her into his arms. "The only lonely woman I want staring at my shirt is you." he growled into her neck.

Sam slid her arms around him unsure how much of that was his truth and how much was acting for the bugs but either way she would play along. "Since when am I lonely?"

"The woman I met had her nose stuck in a book and hadn't talked to another human in days." It wasn't far from the truth. Sam, while incredibly cheerful when they met, wasn't exactly known for being into going out or doing much of anything besides reading and fiddling with scientific things… and she hadn't changed much in his estimation.

"You met my last boss. Would you have wanted to hang out with the kind of people he got along with?" Sam said pointedly of General West.

Jack chuckled. West had only chosen him because Jack had a death wish and West liked expendable assets. "Okay, good point. I liked the guys he didn't get along with."

Sam giggled. Jack meant Daniel. And she couldn't exactly say they really got along so much as they loved each other like brothers. Who bickered a lot.

"Keep giggling and we'll be late to breakfast." Jack growled at her. His fingers had slid under her shirt and were slowly hiking it up.

"Okay okay. I'm hungry. I'll stop."

"I'm hungry too." He told her leaning back but the look in his eyes clearly indicated it wasn't pancakes he was hungry for. "But I'll settle for breakfast." And then he grinned at her in the way that made her blush every time because she could literally see the lust in his eyes.

Sam backed away out of his arms. "Do you think Goose will be all right here by himself?"

"Sam… he's a cat."

"I know, but he might get lonely." She told him.

"I'll turn the TV on. He can watch lions chasing gazelles on Wild Kingdom." Jack groused as he searched for a clean shirt. "I really need to do laundry."

"Find a shirt you feel is acceptable in public." Sam told him chuckling, knowing this was an affectation of the character for the assignment - the real Jack O'Neill was willing to go out of the house in a wide variety of outlandish getups because he simply didn't care what anyone thought of how he dressed. She really liked that side of him. The side that knew other people have opinions about how you look… and he couldn't care less about what those opinions were.

But for the job he was a fussy dresser. For her, she had on jeans and a tank top with a sheer floral overshirt. Nothing that made her appear as anything more than a hard working office worker on her weekend off… which wasn't so different then her cover for her regular job of murdering homicidal megalomaniac space snakes, she supposed.

Jimmy sighed in frustration.

"Well?" May asked him in exasperation.

"The stinking cat got a hold of one of the bugs. I think it was the one for the bedroom." Jimmy admitted.

"Great, Jimmy." She told him sarcastically.

"I don't think they noticed. They were too busy ah…." Jimmy blushed.

"I thought you said they weren't doing that."

"Well, from the very muffled conversation I heard apparently he's been… having uh… problems in that area. He's got pills now. So I guess they're good." He flushed a shade darker

May just shook her head. "Did you find out anything?"

Jimmy shrugged and awkwardly scratched behind his ear. "They plan to go through with painting the office. But I don't know… We might possibly.. uh, be wrong about them."

"Why do you think that?"

"Well… They walked right by where the cat was playing with the bug and neither seemed to even notice and well, honestly, from what I could hear… you um… well, you can't exactly fake that kind of… er… enthusiasm." He coughed.

"I take it you've never watched When Harry Met Sally." May said dryly to him.

He looked at her blankly over his coffee. There was no one at the counter in the diner but him.

"Never mind. It's probably not important. We still might be able to take advantage of the situation."

"How so?" He brightened slightly. Nothing could ever really get Jimmy Woo down.

"What exactly did they say about the painting job?"

"That she wanted to paint it green and you could see the lab through the glass doors and she'd try to get a key so they could do the hallway that's visible from the front end."

"Perfect." May said.

"What is?"

"They get the key, we nab it, make a copy…"

"Oh... oh! Yeah. right. Good idea!" He agreed cheerfully.

May just sighed inwardly.