Chapter Seven.

Kate sat on the white couch that was in Jack's living room. She couldn't see anything imperfect there either. How the heck does this man have time to keep his house looking like this?

After she had walked thru the house several times trying to find something interesting to do, Kate found his wardrobe. Making an amusement and evilish grin, she opens its door and starts going thru its contents.

She finds many prefect and simply boring things in there. Expensive black suits, many ties (mostly black and blue ones) and loads of white shirts. Kate makes a yawn. Just what she had expected to see. But there had to be something a little wild beneath all this McNess.

She was contemplating and trying to figure out where he could've possibly hidden his wild side. Kate sat on his bead and was thinking hard.

Then it hits her. Men used to put their secrets under their beds. Or at least that's what they did in the movies. Kate couldn't imagine Jack hiding them somewhere else.

She bended down to look beneath the bed. When she saw a little brown wood box, she smiled. Now let's see. What could it be? His porn cache? She shivered and thought if she really would like to know his secrets or what if something totally weird comes up? If I find a video where there are two leathered men called Gunnar spanking each other, I'm so out of here. She giggled and decided it was worth the risk and pulled the box out.

It was dusty and Kate tried to clean it with her hands so she could see the writing on top of the box. After dusting it for a while, Kate was able to make sense out of the engraved letters.

"To Jack, my son. May your life be filled with happiness and joy. Love, Daddy."

She made a disgusted exhale. Jack hadn't told very much about his past to her but she knew could tell what kind of father he had had from the way he talked about him. Never-quite-there-when-their-kids-really-needed-them kind of father. His kinds of parents wished that their fancy presents would make up for their absence. She rolled her eyes and sighed.

Trying not to be bothered by the text, she opened the box. The engraving had actually made her even more curious. Kate just couldn't see that the Good Old Doctor would've had the guts to hide his leathered men in his daddy-box.

The lid opened with a loud creaking noise and Kate peered quickly around her, scanning the room and made sure that no one could caught her peeking to his box. It could be that even she would have hard time trying to explain her way out of this one.

Even his freaking secret place was organized Mc-likely. There were nice family pictures where everybody were smiling and having a jolly time. Dear God. He must've had a horrible childhood living amongst these fakers! she thought to herself. Tossing the family photos aside, she started flipping thru the other piles. Pictures of friends, some more smiles from various family gatherings and friends again. His mates looked like they were having real fun in the photos. Maybe his life wasn't so bad after all.

Then as she continued going thru the pictures, her eyes got caught on something interesting.

Just before she had managed to escape from the authorities, Kate had given Jack a folded piece of paper with a message on it. She had written it to thank him for everything he had done for her on the island and to basically say goodbye to him. Yet here I am. she thought and rolled her eyes.

And now three months after she had given it to him, Kate saw it again. Kate put down the photos and started examining the paper more carefully. It was still folded in the same way. Actually the only visible difference in the paper was its texture. It felt like it would've been wet one time and then dried leaving it slightly wrinkled. Has he been crying?

Suddenly Kate heard keys being clinked and with a loud bang the door had opened into the house and someone walked in.

"Kate!"

It was Jack.

Kate was stuck with panic when she realised that the box was still laying wide open on his bed. She had no time to sort out the pictures and was now stuffing them randomly into the box, not caring that they wouldn't be in his McOrder anymore.

"Kate! Where are you?" he kept on yelling.

Finally she had cramed all the pictures in to the box but had decided to slip the paper message into her back pocket. She quickly slid the box back under the bed yet trying to do it with caution so she wouldn't make so much noise.

Kate heard him pacing around the house and eventually he was climbing the up the stairs and opened the bedroom door.

She was sitting on the bed, legs crossed and pretending to read his magazine. She hoped to dead god that he would buy her act.

"Oh, here you are. Why didn't you answer me when I yelled at you?" he said and put down his case and started taking off his tie.

"I was just reading this magazine I found and…."

"Say no more, love. I understand that…" he peered over to see what she was reading, "…cars? Well that cars can be interesting."

She only now noticed what the magazine she had grabbed was about. Go figure. Bad karma is starting to kick in already.

She tossed the issue of Cars Gone Wild over her shoulder and turned her face to him.

"So how was work?"

"Same old, same old. Few car accident patients and some other normal things. But you're really not interested about that so you don't have to pretend that you would be."

Kate had tried to put on her best I'm-listening faces but he obviously had seen right thru it. She blushed and Jack started smiling.

"It's OK. Although I'm a doctor I do get why some people just aren't that into the world of medical stuff. To tell you the truth I'd actually rather hear about your day."

Nothing much, Jack dearest. I was just trying to locate your porn cache and I ended up finding your secret box with my goodbye letter in it. Maybe that wasn't the best answer.

"Nothing special. I have just mostly been reading your magazines and tried to clean up a bit. Bet you can't even notice it," she responded.

He seemed to be content with this answer and continued talking.

"Well I thought the house looked somehow different. I don't really have anything good to read around here so I'm hoping you weren't completely bored."

"I've been doing that for about three months now – reading boring magazines. The only difference between now and then is that this is no coffee shop."

He was smiling to her. Jack saw something new in Kate. He just couldn't quite put his finger on it. She looked reliefed.

"Anyways, I'm glad that you didn't leave because I bought a little surprise for you," he said turning to go out of the bedroom.

She didn't follow his at first but then he thrust out his hand and after she had grabbed it, he led them out of the room towards the living room area.

On the table that was in front of the TV, was a huge pile of Chinese take away cups.

"Now I know it's not very fancy or nothing but I just thought that it would be fun to eat something together," he seated her on the couch and handed the chopsticks to her.

"Thanks."

She was blown away by this. It wasn't anything fancy like he had said and even the sauce in her chicken was way too hot but for some reason, she got the same feeling you get when you are on your first date with someone. Even though they had had sex just last night this felt more intimate to her. The butterflies were there in her stomach and the excited feeling when you don't know what is going to happen next, went thru her spine.

"Are you enjoying your chicken?"

Kate had moist eyes from all the spices she had consumed but she still managed to give him a smile and a nod.

"Good. I didn't know for sure what you would like so I decided to go with the safe choice. Usually everybody likes chicken."

Jack finished his pork meal before Kate. She was struggling to swallow the hot food but with time, she got it all down.

After he had taken the leftovers to the kitchen, Jack returned and Kate was sitting alone on the couch. He quickly joined her with the remote control and started travelling from channel to channel.

She briefly frowned at the telly, then the remote and then brought her eyes to Jack. When he noticed that she was staring at him, he yanked himself into a better position so that he could see Kate properly.

"Not so interested about watching telly either?"

"Not particularly. But I don't mind if you want to watch something. I can just lay here while you flip thru the channels," she said and was starting to lean her head against his side.

He raised his arm and put it around her shoulders as she jerked herself closer to him. She let out a sigh and closed her eyes.

Kate's eyes were fluttering open. She searched the clock with her gaze and it was 11.55pm. She yawned widely and Jack felt her movement in his arm and turned his face to look at her.

"Did the TV wake you up? I've tried to keep the volume as low as possible but sometimes Conan just makes these sudden loud sounds…"

She stopped his talking by bringing tiredly one of her fingers to his lips.

"Please, Jack. Don't speak."

He looked surprised how she wasn't amused at all. She actually looked quite angry.

"The telly didn't wake me up. I just did. So don't worry about that," she said and then the happiness came back to her face when she curled her lips into a little smile.

She fixed her eyes to his and tried to read his expressions.

"Kate…"

"I said no talking. Not tonight. I just don't have the energy to do that," she said and has moved her gaze to his chest and she started rubbing it with her palms.

She swung her knee over his legs so she was sitting on his lap, frowning down to his face.

Kate shifted her hand up from his chest and entwined her fingers behind his neck. First, he did nothing and was just sitting there, enjoying her caressing hands on him but soon after he had his fingers tickling her back's bare skin.

Kate tilted her head back so that she could get rid of the loose hairs that were hanging around her face. She let him do what he wanted with his hands for a while and then grabbed them into her own possession. Jack pulled back wondering what she was going to do with them.

Kate looked into his eyes and he saw her determination. She forced him to raise his hands above his head so eventually she was holding them against the wall with her palms, not letting him to move them.

She brought her face closer to his and started kissing him – first on the forehead and the moving to lick his earlobes. He tried to get control over his hands but whenever he moved them, Kate would apply more pressure against them and after a while, Jack gave up and went along with her game.

When she moved to work on his neck, Jack stiffened and let out a low groan. Kate noticed that she was having the wanted effect on him and decided it was time to quit foreplay.

She raised her head to his face's level and started kissing him on the lips. She let his hands free and moved her own to stroke his hair. Jack brought his arms slowly down while responding to her moving lips. His hands stopped on her shoulders and he started to push her down gently until they were laying on the couch – Kate's figure under his body.

He continued kissing her and was now using his tongue. It was thrusted into Kate's mouth and it was her turn to go all stiff.

They made out for a while until Kate had had enough of his mouth and wanted him on other levels.

She tried to flip their positions but they ended up falling off the couch and Jack got a nasty hit into back because it had been the first thing that had touched the floor.

"God. I'm so sorry. Are you OK, Jack?" Kate was asking and pulled away from him.

Jack squeezed his eyes shut as the pain really sunk in. When he saw the concern in her eyes, he tried to smile but only managed to make a terrible looking grin.

Kate made a comforting laugh and started kissing his nose gently and after a while she was trailing butterfly kisses all over his face.

And with that Jack's pain was forgotten. It was still there but he didn't care about it anymore.

He stopped he kissing by cupping her face between his palms and forced her to look at him. He pressed his lips again against her mouth and made her come up into an upright position.

She broke the kiss and brought her hands to get rid of his shirt. Her tiny fingers were unbuttoning it while he was frowning down to her as she worked her way thru the buttons. When she was finally done, she tossed the shirt on the couch next to them and moved her hands to his chest. Kate was moving them up and down on his muscles but he stopped her palms.

"Not now."

She pulled her fingers back and raised her arms up while Jack pulled off her top. Soon after that their pants were gone too and she finally had him.

There was a small bit of light in the room, only illuminating certain parts of it and forming dark shadows to the walls. He was moving slowly back and forth above her and was panting warm air against her neck while she was making quiet moans against his shoulder.

They were laying on the floor breathing heavily. He was on his side and she mirrored his position. Jack took her hand into his palms and entwined their fingers as they both started to drift asleep.