Christmas Eve continues as Daryl and Carol find a haven for a private celebration.

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

"It's beautiful out here." Carol said, turning her flushed face up to catch a slowly spinning snowflake on her tongue. It had let up a bit from when Daryl and Rick had been in the woods yesterday, but was still falling steadily in light fluffy flakes. If anyone was still keeping track this would've counted as one of the biggest snowstorms in west Georgia history, the pristine white blanket temporarily covering over everything wrong with the world, burying walkers and worries alike, at least for one night.

"You aren't too cold?" Daryl asked, wrapping his arm around her shoulders a bit tighter. They'd snuck out the back way from the Tombs, coming into the prison yard, grabbing a couple of coats from the store room that they pulled on so they could make their way through the courtyard to the Administration Building. The boys had been out earlier and had shoveled paths to all of the buildings and around the perimeter of the fences so that the sentries had an easy path, but Carol had also pulled on a pair of boots she'd found in the clothing store room.

"No—you?" Carol asked, trying to catch another of the icy spinners on her tongue.

"Naw—I run hot." he told her and he gave her a sideways look of promise. He felt her shiver, but this time he didn't think it was from the cold.

It had been her suggestion, this walk in the snow. Back in Tombs, when the carol singers had, somehow without irony, segued into "Walking in a Winter Wonderland," his busy hand had found its way under her skirt, skimming lightly up the back of her thighs to the surprise of the scrap of lace thong that she'd donned under her pretty new dress, at Maggie's insistence, to avoid a panty line. Expecting another layer to be covering her, instead his hand met the satin soft skin of her ass and he groaned and gently pushed her face first against the wall, holding her there with his big overheated body while he touched every inch of bare skin on her bottom and then pushed his thumb under the elastic at the waist with the obvious intent to lower and remove the flimsy excuse for panties.

It was too much, too fast for her, to go from their first kiss to this in less than a couple of hours. It wasn't that she didn't want it...want him, but sex had never been any good for her and she was afraid she would ruin everything they had begun by not being what he wanted. She was starting to panic and cried out his name.

When she said his name in that frightened voice Daryl immediately stopped what he was doing and stepped back, letting her skirt drop down. Released from his grip and the trap of his body, Carol turned to face him, her cheeks aflame and eyes over bright.

"I—I think I n-need to cool off a bit..."Carol stammered, putting her hands on his chest and gripping his shirt so he would know she wasn't rejecting him.

"Too much?" he said quietly, looking her over—she was so damn pretty all flustered like this. He liked that he'd made her that way, but he hadn't wanted to scare her.

Carol nodded and swallowed hard, hoping he understood.

"It's just...I've never...have... I've never been any good at doing any of this..." she admitted in a small voice, looking at the floor. She felt his hand come under her chin, lifting it so she had to meet his eyes.

"Think I can help with that." Daryl told her solemnly and she frowned at him.

"Daryl—I...' she tried, but there was so much she should tell him that she didn't know where to start. The abuse her husband had doled out wasn't just physical, although that had certainly been a large part of it. Ed had also excelled at the slow chipping away of her self esteem, including stripping her of any confidence in her attractiveness. She knew that she brought valuable skills to the prison community, knew she was respected, loved, but in this one area she was still full of fears. Somehow because of Daryl's own shy manner up until now, she had been able to be bolder with him than she'd ever imagined, flirting and teasing, in large part because deep down she'd never expected him to respond to her as a woman.

All of those years of being a grey shadow, a thing that Ed had only slept with because he'd had the right as her husband to use her any way he wanted, had taken their toll on her ability to trust that any man would want her. She knew from her secret reading as she tried to plan some escape for her and Sophia that she was a marital rape victim, suffering the equivalent of PTSD.

"I know he hurt you. Saw it." Daryl said in a clipped voice, angry at himself, sighing, wishing he'd been able to do more for her back then, but he'd had his own complicated shit, namely Merle, to deal with at the time. "I'm sorry –I wasn't thinkin'. We can go slow as you need."

"You're sure?" Carol looked at him searchingly, wondering why he didn't just find someone without the baggage, someone fresh and innocent...

"You think I don't have my own messed up shit you're gonna have to deal with?" he asked her wryly. He knew she'd seen his scars that day at the farm and probably a few times since—their winter on the road last year hadn't left any of them much privacy—he knew her soft flesh was marred with evidence of her husband's savagery just as his had been by his daddy.

At his admission she gave him a little smile and a sigh and nodded.

"Let's go for a walk in the snow." she suggested, the Winter Wonderland carol still ringing out in some umpteenth verse.

"Wanna cool me off a bit?" he gave her a sweet lopsided grin. She took his hand, a plan for where to go forming in her mind as they headed for the clothing storage.

"Moon's almost full—be good trackin'" Daryl observed, turning his face up to the big round glowing white orb peeking through the clouds. Carol watched the flakes accumulate on his tousled dark hair and light reddish beard or melt as they touched his heated skin. He really was a striking man; not classically good looking like Rick; Daryl was interesting looking. With his slightly crooked nose, off kilter eye socket, (evidence of some unknown trauma to his face), the pointed fox face with narrow eyes and high cheekbones, which was more often than not settled into a scowl or frown, but with the beauty mark by his mouth punctuating every look somehow; she could stare at him all day.

What had Michonne said earlier? His body looked lived in. Carol saw the same sort of vital beauty in his face. It was his eyes she noticed most. They were the most clear pure deep blue she'd ever seen, like the evening sky as it deepened toward night. He was violent and mysterious and proud, even while being shy and also so very careful around those who needed him to be. He was amazing.

"Done starin' at me?" Daryl said, not looking at her, opening his mouth and sticking out his tongue as she had been doing, catching the floating flakes as they fell. She almost thought she could hear them sizzle as they hit it, turned to steam by his heat.

"Just paying you back for all the times you did it to me." she teased, but it was true. It had puzzled her at first, how often she felt his eyes on her. Sometimes she'd look up and he'd quickly look away, other times he'd give her a little nod or that mouth quirk that passed as a smile. It had been one of the things that Lori and the others had teased her about, how Daryl always sought her out with his eyes or made sure she was in his sight line when they were working or scavenging. She'd thought it was because he worried that she was helpless, hapless, hopeless and needed his protection.

Lori and Carl had Rick, Maggie had Glenn, Beth had Hershel, and so she had Daryl to watch over her. That had been her theory anyway until Lori had pointed it to her that T-Dog could've watched over her just as easily, and he did care, but she never caught him staring at her or setting his bedroll up next to hers when they made camp at night. Of course in the end it had taken both of them to save her that day in the Tombs...

"Man oughta be allowed to look at a pretty woman if'n he's got a mind to." Daryl observed lazily, and then tried catching the snowflakes in his open mouth instead of on his tongue.

"Daryl." Carol protested. Lori, Beth, Maggie, Andrea, Karen—they'd been surrounded by not just pretty, but beautiful women since the farm.

"What?" Daryl asked, and without even turning to look down at her recounted what he saw. "You got that obstinate lil' pointed chin, those soft lips and that turned up nose and those eyes—shit, a man could drown in the ocean a' those eyes, woman." Carol felt tears forming. He knew her by heart.

"Come here." Carol ordered softly and then he did turn and look down at her and she raised her hands to his face, her thumb brushing against the mark on his cheek as she looked into his eyes. His skin was warm, almost fevered, but he looked calm, peaceful, contented, going with whatever she wanted.

"Whatta ya need?" Daryl asked.

"How about the keys to the Admin. Building?" Carol asked.

"Check the left front pocket." he told her and she leaned back and looked down at the front of his tight black jeans. His big buck knife was hanging next to the left pocket (opposite of where it was usually, so he could grab it with his unrestricted left hand) and the jeans were so tight she could see the outline of the keys. She looked back up at him and raised an eyebrow.

"Want in there?" he nodded towards the door in front of them, where their meanderings had finally taken them, "Ya need the key." he shrugged, unrepentant. Taking the challenge Carol lowered her right hand to his pocket, keeping her eyes on his face. His eyes startled wider and he blinked.

"Oops." she grinned. "Missed the pocket." And then her eyes went wider as he responded to her touch. His fingers went to her wrist, easing her hand away from him.

"Thought you were all about slow, sweetheart...that ain't no way to slow me down..." Daryl admonished and she blushed. He released her hand and pulled the keys out of his pocket and handed them to her. "Ready to go inside now?" he asked, glancing towards the door.

"In here." Carol told him, leading the way to a large wooden paneled door behind which was the warden's office suite. They had been working on making this a fall back shelter since it was one of the only places in the prison complex with a fireplace. The cell blocks had been outfitted with potbelly stoves they'd scavenged from surrounding cabins and homes and they gave off enough heat to keep the place at about 60 degrees even in the recent cold snap, but none of the other buildings were heated.

After checking the flue, Carol gathered up some of the paper strewn around and used it as tinder to start the fire which had already been laid up in the brick and stone fireplace, adding larger logs as it caught. That had been one of her tasks over the winter, literally keeping the home fires burning, and she had learned it well. As the room warmed she tugged off the oversize coat she'd put on and laid it spread out over the warden's desk chair to dry.

"Gimme a hand?" Daryl asked, trying to drag the large leather couch over closer to the fire. This arm in a sling shit was getting old real fast. He thought to himself. Hershel's cattle pill had worn off and he was feeling the ache deep in his bones. He had another of the pills, but Hershel had warned him that even at half it would knock him out for the night so he wasn't about to take it yet.

"Daryl—you shouldn't be—stop, I can do it." Carol told him, moving behind the couch and using her body weight to slide it across the floor and he followed her lead until they had the big sofa about 5 feet from the fire. "Sit." she ordered him, and went to the small cache of supplies stored in a milk crate on the warden's desk and found a bottle of water and the small med kit. He perched on the edge of the seat cushions, waiting for her. She sat down beside him and opened the kit and took out the bottle of Ibuprophen and shook out about six of them.

"That for me?" Daryl asked. "Rather have a shot a bourbon." he grumped, but the idea of some relief from the pain in his shoulder and collar bone that wouldn't make him catatonic was welcome. Carol shook her head at him and gave him the pills and opened the water bottle for him. After downing them with a swig he leaned back against the soft leather and handed her back the bottle. She took a long drink from it as well and then set it on the floor, unsure of what to do next. There was about a half foot of space between them on the couch.

"Sure like to kiss you some more..." Daryl murmured softly, reaching out his hand to run his fingers down the side of her arm on the soft velvet sleeve. Carol felt a little like she was a teenager in the back row of the movie theatre with the sweet boy she'd had a crush on forever. His hand closed over her wrist and she slid across closer to him. He turned sideways facing her, but with his immobilized arm the attempt at an embrace was awkward.

"Wait." Carol said and stood. He looked alarmed, worried she was leaving, but instead she carefully pushed him back to his original position facing front and sat herself sideways on his lap, curling against his good shoulder and his arm went around her back to support her. "Is this ok?" she asked him. "I don't want to hurt you."

In reply he lowered his face to hers and lightly kissed her on the tip of her nose, chin, then both cheeks, until finally finding her lips with his. She tasted like sugar cookies, his favorite, salty sweet delicious, and he couldn't get enough of her. He deepened the kiss, his tongue meeting hers, slippery soft, gently insistent that she respond in kind.

How could just kissing be so hot? Carol wondered. The way his scruff of facial hair abraded her cheeks and chin should've been itchy, annoying, but it was so him, so masculine and so carelessly sexy it made her wet. She found herself kissing him back more desperately, sucking down on his tongue and heard his groan, felt it deep in his chest as he held her tighter against him. His mouth left hers and moved to her ear, pressing little kisses all along her jaw and cheek.

"Carol?" he whispered, "You doin' ok, darlin'?"

"Mmm Hmm." she murmured and he continued to kiss a line down her neck until he reached the collar of her dress, which he took in his teeth to pull to the side out of his way, making her smile.

"Wait." she said and reached up to unbutton the first two collar buttons to give him better access to her neck and he gratefully continued his lips' path on down over her collar bone.

"More?" he pleaded and she undid two more buttons, showing him the top edge of the lacy push up bra, another gift from Maggie, and the deep V of her cleavage it created, making the most of her slender figure.

"Damn." He breathed hot against her skin and she felt him lick and taste her there and her little cry and hitched intake of breath emboldened him to make a point of his tongue and push it between her tightly held together breasts in imitation of other more intimate acts.

"God, Daryl, what are you doing to me?" Carol moaned, reaching up to tangle her fingers in his hair.

"More? Please?" he begged, lifting his head to look at her, unable to help undress her because of his bound arm, but also letting her be the gatekeeper, in control of how much of her to which he had access.

Staring at his intense face she reached down and unbuttoned her dress to the waist and opened it, pulling it to the sides, showing him the wisp of white lace against her creamy lightly freckled skin. He could see the blush of her nipples, now hard little peaks pushing against it, through the sheer fabric and his mouth watered. His hand at her back found the other side of the bra, tracing his fingers across it, but then he looked puzzled.

"It unhooks in the front." Carol told him and he smiled slightly and nodded. She was still the gatekeeper. Taking a deep breath she reached both hands up and worked the fastening to undo it, but still held the fabric in place over herself, shy again, her eyes lowered.

"Won't do anything you don't want me to." he promised her, leaning back in to move his lips over her fingers, gently easing her fears that he would find her less than he deserved. She so wished she had met him when she was younger, still had that blush and firm skin of youth...he should be with someone as...

"I'll make it good—you'll see..." he murmured between kisses and then she felt herself loosen her firm hold on the lace and let her hands fall to her waist. His chin lowered again and he nudged aside the dainty cup so he could sweep out his tongue, hot and wet over her creamy white skin and she lay back against his strong arm, made weak at the riot of sensation.

"God bless Victoria's Secret." he said reverently, briefly lifting his mouth before doing the same to the other side and this time he enclosed the tight pink nipple with his lips and swirled his tongue around it, drawing it up hard against the roof of his mouth, making her cry out his name. He backed off, soothing with the swirls again until she gripped his hair tightly, pulling at it, pulling his face closer to her.

"More?" Daryl asked and at her wordless nod yes, happily obliged, paying service to her small full breasts with his mouth and tongue until she was almost writhing in his lap, admitting to herself that he had been right, he did know how to make it good and she definitely wanted more.

"Hot enough now to take yer dress off?" he asked, moving back up to lick her collar bone, as if the only reason she would still be dressed was the temperature in the room. Carol chuckled at the line...as lines went it was a pretty good one she supposed, not that she'd ever heard that many. She'd only ever dated two other boys before she met Ed and had married him instead of finishing her junior year at university.

"Pretty smooth there, Dixon." she told him and then slid off of his lap to the right so she could stand in front of him, back lit by the fire place's soft glow, her skin flushed.

"Not if it makes you run away..." he said with concern, but stopped short when she finished unbuttoning the velvet dress and let it fall to the floor, pooling around her feet. She slipped the bra straps off of her shoulders and it followed the dress to the floor. Now wearing only the white lace thong she stood there, one arm across her chest and the other covering the scars on her abdomen in a last ditch effort at modesty.

Daryl sat up on the edge of the couch cushions, his mouth opened in surprise at her little shy strip tease and then his gaze roved over her toned and trim form –shit, what she'd been hiding under those baggy clothes was a sin to cover up. Legs that a runway model would envy, tiny waist, breasts that perfect size to hold in one hand, long elegant neck and that ass—god damn, he needed to worship that ass...

"Com'ere?" he asked and she took a tentative step forward, a questioning look on her face, but he held out his hand and she took it, letting him pull her to him. He spun her around and she yelped a little when she felt his mouth on her in the small of her back as his hand at her hip held her still.

"You do realize you have a world class ass, right?" he growled.

"Daryl!" she protested, but his mouth just moved lower, over the left cheek, kissing where earlier his hand had caressed, while he hooked his fingers through first one side and then the other of the elastic at her hips and lowered the thong off of her to fall to the floor, baring her to him. His hand moved between her thighs then, fingers curling up, feeling how wet she had become from his loving attention and he groaned with desire. He spun her again until she was facing him and buried his face in her short curls, his strong tongue pushing inside, shocking her into stumbling back, her chest heaving.

Daryl looked so disappointed, like a little boy who's just had his favorite toy taken away from him, that she almost laughed. He leaned forward too fast, grimacing a little from the sharp quick pain that brought from his injuries, bringing her back a step closer to him in concern.

"You don't have to..." she soothed, in part because she worried that it would hurt him to continue and also because she couldn't believe what he had started to do, how into it he had seemed. It was something that had never been part of her experience in her marriage—one of the reasons she'd sought out her little battery powered boyfriend—Ed had never cared if she got any satisfaction.

"Want to...need to..." he said in a low gravelly voice, "Make it good for you—promised..." He lifted his fingers to his lips and slid them inside with an Mmm sound of gourmet appreciation and a wicked raised eyebrow look, "So sweet ... please?"

"Daryl..." she moaned, taking a step towards him. He wasn't playing fair. "You'll hurt yourself." she protested, knowing he shouldn't stress his shoulder or collar bone.

"Not if you help." he replied, capturing her wrist and urging her closer.

"Help?" she asked, not yet clear on what he was suggesting.

"Com'ere." Daryl said, standing now. Carol took his hand and he sat her on the couch, right at the edge of the seat and then, bracing his good arm on it, lowered himself to sit on the floor of front of her.

"Are you ok?" she asked, putting her hand on his left shoulder and he nodded at her.

"Lean back—relax." he commanded quietly, his voice soft and reassuring and so she did as he asked, reclining back against the soft leather of the couch already warmed by his body and the closeness of the fire. Then he drew her right leg over his left shoulder, opening her to his gaze and leaned in. She startled, her hips flinching up when she felt his strong bicep graze under her inner thigh, his forearm curling around so he could draw his fingers through her curls again, wet now in anticipation, opening her further to him. She felt his breath on her and tensed, but then almost melted at the touch of his soft tongue. Of all the skills she knew Daryl Dixon possessed she never would've guessed that this would be one at which he excelled...as much as she loved him, he was still such a mystery to her in so many ways.

Daryl could feel her breath grow irregular as he pleasured her, wanting her to know how much it meant to him to be able to give her this, knowing that the bastard she'd been tied to for so long wouldn't have cared enough to be there for her like this, like she deserved. He'd been hard since he'd kissed her under the mistletoe, wanted to sink into her soft hot wetness more than anything, but it needed to be good for her first. For the first time in his life he understood what it meant to care about a woman as both a friend and a lover; he'd never had one before who was both.

Carol looked down at him silhouetted in front of the blazing fire, all in black, his long dark hair spilling over her upper thighs and belly as his head bobbed rhythmically against her, feeling the flush of some delicious frission beginning at the place where he so patiently used his talented tongue.

Daryl raised his head and looked up at her, saw the flush beginning at her chest, the dazed look of pleasure on her face and waited until she met his eyes. She caught her lower lip between her teeth, unsure if he was done, as if she was afraid to voice her desire, to ask him to continue what he'd been doing.

"Good?" he asked, waiting to be sure. Carol nodded her head up and down mutely, her breath coming in little pants and he shook his head, agreeing with her. "This's what you wanted me to do ...first..." her mouth came open and she blushed. "Right? Like you said when we first got here...to the prison...that first night?"

The man had the memory of an elephant.

"Been thinkin' 'bout that ever since—imaginin' what it'd be like—to go down on you first—to taste you until you screamed..." he eyes narrowed and darkened to midnight blue, "You ready to scream now, sweetheart?" he asked, taking deep rapid breaths like free diver preparing for a plunge, saturating his lungs with oxygen. Carol whimpered with desire, grabbing onto the soft leather of the couch to anchor herself and he grinned to watch her do it.

She screamed. Loud and long and hard, but she also laughed in delight and crooned his name as he took her to places she'd never been before. And then, at the end, it wasn't just the way he found the exact right place to strum her with the tip of his tongue or that he sucked her rigid little clit into his mouth and delicately nibbled at it and then licked it over and over with velvet softness, or even that when he felt her go rigid, knew that her orgasm was rising he used his fat tongue like a small slick cock and thrust it up inside her, sending her over the edge...

All that had been wonderful, mind shatteringly so, but it was after, when he pulled her down beside him on the floor and held her while she wept, so unused to anything but a beating for being inadequate at this that she was overcome with emotion at his tenderness. He didn't question if he'd done something wrong or feel the need to soothe her with platitudes. He just held her, understanding, until she cried herself out.

One more chapter after this, folks. Thanks for sticking with it!