Daryl rides ahead of the four-wheel drives as always. His mind is a morass today, he's damn lucky he hasn't hit a walker. Taking a hand off his bike he scrubs it over his face. He was a fuckwit, no doubt about it. To call her a pro. She wasn't, she was a woman. And a woman had needs, same as a man. She and Rick had been apart for months now.
And even if she was a single woman he was helping out, it didn't matter. He'd insulted her, been hurtful for no reason. Once he'd have had his cock so far up her at that offer she'd feel him for days. But the days he could pick up a woman, fuck her and leave her in the dead of night are gone. He'll never have that opportunity again. Not that he did it that much anyway. But still.
And a relationship? Daryl's self-deprecating laugh is taken by the wind. Who was he kidding? Himself for one. No way in hell a relationship was gonna grow between him and Olive. Soon as the kid was born Rick was gonna come running, he fucking knew it. Wouldn't matter if the child was his or Shane's. He'd take care of it.
But you'd take care of its mother. Daryl ignores the voice in his head that says taking care of the child is different to taking care of the parent. He knew full well Lori was trying to stand on her own two feet these days. She was doing an admirable job of it given their situation. He admired her. She had guts. Always had had guts. She'd been the one who'd wanted to put up signs to warn people away from Atlanta, no one else had wanted to do that. She would have too if Shane had let her.
She might not be practical sometimes but she was learning, getting better. She was adapting to the world they lived in now. And she was adapting well. And she thought of him. That was the crux of it all. She'd admitted that day at the tents, she thought of him. Sexually.
Shifting on the bike Daryl tries to will himself soft. But the bike itself was a deterrent to that fact when he was thinking of mile long legs and a waterfall of soft brown hair and those wide-set eyes that looked straight through him sometimes.
As they break for lunch Daryl ignores Lori and she ignores him in return. He talks to Rick about how miserable they all are and he stays in T's vehicle that night after his watch taking the front seat while T and Carol stretch as best they can in the back.
Sometime in the early morning before he falls into a light nightmare riddled sleep Daryl makes the decision that he'll apologise to Lori and then he'd see just how much she thought of him. He'd let them develop. Naturally. And if in developing they had an end, well he'd deal with that too.
##########
"God, what I wouldn't pay for a massage." Lori tries to stretch the kinks out of her back and shoulders as she stands outside the Cherokee. Rick absent-mindedly agrees with her as he stretches himself. Carl is bright-eyed and chipper. But then he wasn't yet tall. Lori eyed his short statured frame resentfully even as she knows she's heading for a first class temper tantrum. But she's sick of sleeping in the car, they've done it for ten nights now.
"Me too." Daryl agrees with her as he walks past rolling his shoulders. Lori blinks. He'd spoken to her in front of the others. He usually didn't do that. She found herself smiling after him as she walked to the fire to warm herself and eat some breakfast. She's standing at the back of the Cherokee putting on another sweater when hands land gently on her shoulders.
"Let's see if I can help any. Be grateful if you'd consider it an apology." Daryl runs his thumbs up her neck pushing them into the muscles as he goes and Lori drops the sweater she's holding as she groans outright.
"Geez Lori. Daryl must be good, you sound like you just had an orgasm." Maggie laughs as she walks past. Lori feels herself blush for the first time in years. She tries to move away but Daryl's hands hold her still.
"Ignore her, she's jealous the Chinaman doesn't have hands good enough to satisfy her." Daryl raises his voice so Maggie hears it along with Glenn who protests.
"I have excellent hands thank you very much Daryl." He's about to say something else when Maggie shuts him up with a kiss. Lori finds herself relaxing as Daryl's thumbs ease up and his fingers take over.
"You are het up though. Hot bath'd do you wonders." Daryl says. Lori shivers as she feels his breath ghost across the back of her neck. She closes her eyes allowing herself to fantasize that Daryl's hands aren't purely practical, that he's trying to arouse her, that his touch is a prelude to sex.
She feels herself grow wet, he lips swell and her clit throbs. The moan that slips from her lips is husky and low, the need, her need is clear in it. Daryl's hands pause in their ministrations.
"Don't stop." Lori whispers as she drops her head. After a few seconds Daryl's hands continue to knead and rub and they slide slowly down. All the while he's unknotting the kinks in her neck, her shoulders and her back. But underneath that is the pleasure, pure female pleasure that a man's hands are touching her. No it's not strictly sexual.
But it's also not strictly non-sexual. Daryl's hands don't stop when they get to her jeans. But he stops rubbing. Instead he palms her hips and pulls her back against him. Lori sighs as she feels his hard body come into contact with hers. Along with his cock which is also hard.
"That a pencil in your pocket Popeye?" She questions softly only to shiver as Daryl laughs against her neck.
"Not even close Miz Olive. I'm just right happy to see you is all." Lori's heart skips a beat when she feels the brush of Daryl's lips and the scruff he called a beard on the side of her neck. When Daryl pulls away she feels the cool air on her skin and realises he'd licked her as well.
"Oh God." She says as she feels her clit spasm softly. It's been too long.
"Shh, it's okay I've got you." Daryl's arms slip around her as he holds her through the orgasm. It's mild, but an orgasm nonetheless. "Shh, it's okay. No one can see, its okay." Daryl's murmurs are low and only for her ears. He moves his right hand down and cups her through her jeans. The heat of him makes Lori's eye's flutter. She rides out her orgasm as Daryl continues to keep her hidden from the others. Holding her close, letting her feel his own arousal so it feed's hers. When she calms down Lori turns around to face him.
"I've never," She breaks off not knowing what to say.
"First time I've ever made a woman come by giving her a massage as well." Daryl smiles at her. The smile he shares with no one else Lori realises. He rubs his hands up and down her arms. "You okay, good to go now?" He asks as he looks at her.
Lori nods. "Yes, I'm fine. Better than fine, better than I've been in weeks." She grabs Daryl's forearms when he goes to leave. "Your turn next." She finds herself blushing again for the second time in a matter of minutes as Daryl stills and simply looks at her. His eyes narrow as they then glide over her face before he brings them back up to her own.
"Kinda' partial to your mouth." He says softly as he looks at Lori's lips and then back up into her eyes. Lori swallows as arousal threatens to overwhelm her again. God, the man was, she didn't know what he was other than turning her on like crazy.
She opens her mouth mortified by what comes out. "You trying to make me come again Popeye?" Shit, did she just say that? The wicked smile that Daryl lets free tells her yes, she truly did just say that out loud. And then he nods once and steps back and is gone.
Slumping back against the Cherokee Lori inhales and exhales before she turns and grabs the sweater. She is tugging it on when Carol speaks behind her.
"Did Daryl's massage work? I'd be happy to trade you a massage for a massage if you want?" She asks Lori. Lori rolls her eyes before she turns around to speak to Carol.
Yeah, Daryl's massage had worked, just not in the way or only in the way Carol was asking. "That sounds like a deal. Now or tonight?" Lori asks,
"Well, I'd like to say now but Rick's eager to be on his way, so tonight? After supper?" Lori nods.
"It's a date, we'll give the men a show, strip down and everything." She laughs as Carol does and Herschel walking past surprises them by stopping and answering Lori's statement.
"Well now, I'd pay good money to see that, I might even be able to dig up some oil for you to use." He wiggles his eyebrows at them and almost cringes as Beth hears him and chokes out a scandalised answer.
"Daddy!" She is flushed with embarrassment. Lori can't help herself from laughing out loud. She bends over at the waist, her hands cupping her stomach to support it. She can hear Carol sputtering beside her as well.
"Well Bethie, you didn't think the stork just dropped you off on our doorstep did you?" He asks innocently.
Lori laughs so much at that statement that Beth cannot answer with anything other than a beet-red face that she snorts inelegantly. Carol joins her and Herschel merely looks at them and grins. "It's been way too long since I've laughed like that." Carol says as Herschel moves off and they pack for their daily trek.
"Me too, me too." Lori answers her.
That night they again sleeping in the vehicles.
It is two days later when they find a farmhouse. Off the road and uninhabited well before the world had gone mad by the look of it. But it was isolated and as a result it was clean of walkers and the living. It was several rooms, enough that they can spread out into the pairs they've all settled into. Rick and Carl are now bunking for warmth. Herschel and Beth with Glenn and Maggie. Carol and T and Daryl and her
Daryl surprises her by coming into the room before he takes his night watch. Usually he'd stay out when she turned in. He pauses as he sees Lori undressing in the lantern she has lit. Usually she's in bed and shivering by the time he gets in for the night. Lori keeps herself turned away. She is trying not to shiver but she can't help herself. And she's trying to hide how fat she is.
She hears Daryl sigh and then she feels his hands on her shoulders, massaging again, digging in. Releasing her tension. Letting herself go Lori moans again. And again Daryl kisses the side of her neck bared by her hair being plaited down the other side of her neck. Lori ignores her self-consciousness and leans back on Daryl's warmth.
Brushing her palms back against his thighs she feels him spread his legs a little in invitation so she brushes one hand up and palms him though his pants. Brown jeans he's wearing today she remembers. Kind of baggy, holes in both knees, but somehow, when she sees him in them she can't help but look at his cock as it swings between his legs when he walks. These pants of the three pairs he has showcase him beautifully unlike his other ones.
"You offering your mouth tonight Olive?" Daryl asks her softly as he runs his teeth along the side of Lori's neck, digging them in, making her feel the burn of his whiskers as well.
"I'd be more than happy to Popeye, but I'm a little easy to overbalance so I'll need to lie down." Lori answers with a grimace. Daryl simply smiles and steps back. Lori misses him immediately.
Then she kneels, she's dressed in Daryl's flannel shirt and the long johns he'd managed to procure for her from God knows where. Crawling onto their bedding Lori turns on her back. She watches with hooded eyes as Daryl watches her move and then begins to undress. She can see his erection pushing against his pants.
As he disrobes Lori sees his body for the first time. She is glad Daryl is undressing fully, she instinctively knows he's showing her a level of trust he shows few others, especially women. And that makes her green-eyed monster purr contentedly.
"You sure are handsome Daryl." She says softly and is shocked to see a flush cross those gorgeous cheekbones and move down his neck and across his chest. Lori smiles as he drops his eyes. "Daryl, look at me." Lori says still soft, but in a firmer tone of voice. Undressing fully and standing Daryl kneels and then looks at her.
"You are beautiful, inside and out. Whether you believe it, doesn't make it any less true." Lori says no more on the matter, she can tell by Daryl's flagging cock she's made him uncomfortable. So she draws on something else instead. "Bring me your cock, I want you to come in my mouth." She says baldly. Daryl's cock leaps at her words and she grins at him.
Leaning up on her elbows she extends her neck as Daryl moves toward her on his knees. "Gorgeous." She murmurs as he comes closer. And he is, soft skin, pale and golden in colour. He is smooth, lightly veined and a perfect size. His balls hang low and heavy and Lori leans in under his cock to nuzzle at them, lick at them and kiss them wetly. "God, I want them in my mouth too." She speaks to Daryl. Looking up she sees him watching her in that quiet predatory way he has. "I want to taste all of you Daryl." She is gratified to see his eyes widen in shock before he schools all expression from his face.
"I saw that." Lori laughs.
"Fuckin' slut of a woman, never saw you do that shit to your Deputy now did I?" Daryl questions her abruptly. Instead of feeling scandalised Lori admits something she never thought she would. To anyone, not even Daryl.
"I knew you watched us you know." She sits up suddenly thoughts of sucking Daryl off gone for the time being. "I knew you did, not all the time but sometimes. And it made me hot, made me come. And you're half the reason I kept going out with him when I wanted to stop, because if I stopped I wouldn't see you." Lori bows her head in shame. Shame of what she'd done, how she'd used Shane for her own ends.
"It's my fault he's dead, I let it go on, I gave him hope even at the farm. I told him to stay, for Rick. For Carl, not me. But he took it to mean me. I was so stupid and now he's dead and that's on me. It will always be on me. Carl had to shoot Shane or he would have killed Rick when he turned. And that's on me too." Lori looks up at Daryl.
"Why? Why me?" She asks him. Daryl shrugs. He lies down, his head opposite to Lori's down near her feet.
Sitting there Lori watches him, he looks like he's turning stuff over in his brain, deciding on something. Then he begins to speak. "I saw Atlanta get bombed that night too. Was heading back to get Mer and go to the quarry while we decided what to do, where to go. I'd been down the line, told a few people about it, Ed, Morales." He looks at Lori evenly. "Shane too. People with kids. I knew the highway was going to turn bad sooner or later." Breathing deeply Daryl looks at her and then continues. "I saw you, your first time with Shane. It was your legs that got me. And then it was your shitty personality. Gotta love a woman with sass. Me and Mer had that in common. Though he likes 'em busty and blonde."
Daryl pauses as he looks at Lori, she is just watching him now, but he sees her breathing has settled. "And maybe I'm wired a little differently but I kinda' like the way you look down your nose at me. You think you're bein' smart and superior and all I want to do is fuck the living shit out of you. Paddle your arse until its cherry red and then fuck it until I come all over it." Now Daryl grins at Lori, her breathing has escalated and he can see her nipples have hardened at his words.
"Guess you like the idea of a spanking and an arse fucking Miz Olive. I'll get right on that when I've got the energy." And he laughs. Lori's response is to snake out a hand and grab his cock firmly. Daryl chokes off his laugh to look at her. Shaking her head Lori leans down and manoeuvres on her side.
"You're partial to my mouth, let me put it to use for you Popeye, you can screw my arse another day. Besides," Lori pauses and looks down her nose at him deliberately feeling Daryl's cock jump in her hand as she does so. "Kinky," She mutters before continuing. "You've got watch yet." And then she sucks Daryl's cock into the warmth of her mouth.
Daryl leans back and closes his eyes the better to feel. He can feel Lori's tongue as she swipes him all over, she's licking him like he's a dripping ice-cream cone. He can feel an erect nipple pushing on his thigh through the soft flannel of the shirt they share now. He can feel her hair grazing his legs and the side of his hip.
Reaching out a hand he places it on Lori's thigh, rubbing her softly as he pulls his focus back to her mouth. He'd seen her give Shane head, suck him off. She'd always been hard and fast. She was not doing that now. Not at all. She was licking him, kissing him softly, fuck. She was nipping him as well. One hand was stroking his sac, lightly fingering him. He feels it move back behind his balls to his perineum where she pushes on it lightly. To his shock Daryl feels his arse muscles relax and his cock jump.
His eyes roll behind his lids and he can't help his hips movement now. They're thrusting into her wet mouth. Daryl is mindless with the need to come. To have an orgasm he has not brought upon himself in too long. Suddenly his back arches off their bedding and his eyes shoot open to watch Lori as she swallows his come.
He gets a shock when he realises Lori's own eyes are open and watching him, their eyes stay connected, neither blinking as she sucks and swallows him dry.
Something indefinable passes between them and Daryl realises he has gone far past wanting Lori. He needs her now like he needs his next breath.
"So, are you still partial to my mouth now Popeye?" Lori asks him as she sits up again and wipes it. She goes to lick her fingers clean of some of Daryl's come when he leans up like a shot and grabs them.
Watching her closely he takes them into his own mouth and licks himself off, swallowing himself down. Lori's pupils dilate so fast in want, Daryl feels his own cock jerk.
"More than Olive, more than. Hope you don't mind if I return the favour when I finish my watch tonight?" He questions hoarsely. Lori shuts her eyes for a few seconds and then opens them again looking at Daryl.
"Any woman would be crazy to turn down an offer like that Popeye, even being woken in the dead of a cold night makes that offer acceptable." She smiles and Daryl leans in and kisses her cheek before he stands and begins to dress.
He is shrugging into his shirt when he realises he's turned his back on her. He freezes for a few seconds and then continues on. It was another acknowledgement that he felt something for her. Something unknown and scary, something he'd never felt for another female.
Slipping on his poncho Daryl turns to look at Lori, she is lying down again, under the covers now and watching him silently. He nods at Lori and she nods back reaching to turn down the lantern as Daryl gets to the door. Her words stop him though.
"Hey Daryl?" Lori calls softly.
"Yeah?" He doesn't turn, keeps his hand on the knob of the door.
"You do realise that Popeye and Olive were married right? That they loved each other?" Daryl turns back to Lori.
"Yeah Lori I do." He answers giving her the respect of using her name. He continues as Lori opens her mouth to speak. "I'm okay with that, very okay with that, but are you?" Opening the door Daryl steps out and shuts it quietly behind him. He waits in the hall looking down at the crack of light under the door. It takes a few minutes but he sees it go out and knows Lori has switched off the lantern.
Then he shoulders his crossbow and heads out for his turn at watch.