CHAPTER TEN

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M below. Fair warning for the smut-fearing!

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Juliet was at a loss.

Carlton was still sitting on the edge of the bed, still had his head in his hands, still wouldn't talk to her.

"What are you sorry for?" She'd already asked three times.

Finally he glanced back at her, his gaze briefly on her uncovered nether regions, and while she knew she blushed, she would not hide herself from Carlton, not any more.

The words came at long last, full of self-recrimination. "You deserved better."

"Than what?"

"Than me acting like an animal," he said harshly.

Ahhh… no flowers, no candlelight. He was a romantic, under that bluster and ire. She couldn't have begun to guess where his pants were, his shirt was rumpled just like his black and silver hair, he was completely sexy to her but all he could see was the lack of romance for their first time.

But in her view, it was only the first time.

"I thought you were acting like a man who wanted me, and in case you weren't paying attention, I loved every minute of it. That—exactly that fast, exactly that hard—was what we both needed." She was still thrumming through the aftershocks.

He scrubbed at his face, as if he hoped to wake up from this situation.

Juliet hoped he never woke up. "Carlton."

Abruptly: "Why did you kiss me?"

"When?"

"After the game."

She answered honestly. "I wanted to."

"And when did you decide you wanted me? Was it after you found out about Emily?"

Oh, her doubting Carlton. But she couldn't hold that against him; her behavior must have seemed erratic over the summer.

"No. It was long before Emily. Emily and Manda only amped it up."

Surprised, he turned to see her again. "You sure?"

Juliet smiled. "I wanted you before I kissed you. I just didn't fully understand how much until that night."

"You don't think this could all be about easing yourself away from Spencer?"

"I know it's not about easing away from him." Giving him a long, considering once-over, she sat up and pulled off her tee, following that action with undoing her bra and tossing it over the side of the bed (so that's where his pants went, she thought absently). "Now are you going to come back here and go all animal on me again, or are we going to keep putting off the inevitable?"

"Juliet," he managed, gaze not-so-briefly on her bare breasts. "You deserved better. I was more angry than anything else."

She lay back on the pillows, drawing one knee up provocatively. "I was angry too. But given our ages and relative good health, I expect that was only the first of about fourteen million times we're going to make love, so you need to get over it, okay?"

His blue eyes went wide… and then darker with desire. "You're killing me."

"Not yet I'm not." She grinned, and trailed one finger down her abdomen. "Please come closer. Preferably without that shirt on."

He swallowed, but persisted, "Do you at least get why I'm…"

"Skeptical?"

"Yeah. Skeptical."

"Putting aside the implied insult, which is that I must be crazy or delusional to care about you?"

He was affronted. "I'm not saying that. I'm just asking if you're sure you really want me. Me. Of all the better guys you could have."

"So I'm lowering my standards for you?" She wasn't sure why she was baiting him. She just needed him to get this out of his system.

"I didn't say that," he snapped. "You know what I mean."

"Yes. You think you're not worthy of me. You can hardly see to the top of the pedestal you put me on. You're an idiot."

Again she'd startled him, and privately enjoyed the widening of his so-blue eyes.

"I'm an ordinary woman, Carlton. You've seen me drool on myself when I fall asleep during stakeouts. You know I can't have too much fried food or my stomach goes all wonky. And now you know I can become totally crazy with jealousy when another female gets too close to you. I'm just a woman."

"Just," he scoffed, but still had more. "If you felt this way about me all along, then why did you refuse the offer of my spare room?"

She felt her cheeks warming.

One of his dark eyebrows arched upward.

"I couldn't trust myself."

"Come again?" It almost sounded sly.

"I'm sorry; did I mumble? I was afraid I'd give myself away, you big dummy." She glared at him. "Plus I didn't want to share the bathroom with your bimbos."

Carlton scowled. "Shut it."

"As if. What made you watch Love Actually? I didn't think that was your kind of movie."

"Couldn't reach the remote to turn it off." He rubbed his face again. "This is insane."

"I agree. You're half-naked, I'm all naked, you love me, I love you, you've been inside me once already and I want you there again, and yet there's all this empty space between us. Why?"

He flushed—with arousal, she hoped—and yet remained rooted to his spot on the edge of the bed.

Juliet took action.

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His eyes were closed when she started to move, and so he only felt her drape her warm soft nude self against his back and slide her arms around his middle.

For a minute she just hugged him, but then started tugging at his shirt, the last barrier of clothing between them.

Carlton could not resist. He raised his arms to help her get the shirt off, and then she pressed to him again, her breasts a tantalizing pressure against his bare back.

With her lips nuzzling his shoulder, she allowed her hands to go wandering, and he didn't stop her. Over his stomach, across his chest… pausing to play in the curls of hair there and then down to brush her fingertips along his thighs.

He watched, neither helping nor hindering. This was only a dream, right?

Then, to his fundamental astonishment, she encircled him with one warm sure hand, stroking his flesh, causing immediate spasms of pleasure to shoot through his entire system.

Her breath quickened in his ear, as if it aroused her to arouse him, and that aroused him more. He throbbed in her grasp, and she sighed anxiously.

He could feel the heat of her body, a pulsing, enticing heat, and watched her hand manipulate his hardening flesh. He may have sighed out her name.

This was Juliet. His Juliet. Touching him. Stroking him.

There was no possible real world where this could be true.

She'd said she loved him. He heard it with his own ears, moments ago.

Mr. Enough Now—who'd been right there with him when she said it—was tellingly silent for the first time in a long time.

Slowly he turned his head, and Juliet met his kiss with passion, her tongue quick and heated and delicious.

Her hand continued stroking him, and he let this wondrous thing happen, and he went on kissing her, exploring her delightful mouth, until she let out another needful sigh which commanded him wordlessly to do more. To do her.

Turning into her arms, he maneuvered them both to lie flat on the bed, and when her lovely rosy body was fully exposed to him again, he slid down to apply his mouth and tongue to the damp heat between her thighs.

To taste her was heaven; to hear her gasps and moans was even better. She was his.

Once he started he couldn't stop—her pleasure was his—and it was only when he was pushing her toward a third orgasm that she begged for him—please Carlton, please, now—and he had to obey, not just her plea but his body's overwhelming need to claim her—to sink into her silky heat repeatedly as he looked into those dark blue eyes and saw her love and desire and acceptance.

"Yes," she sighed with each thrust, with each push-back she gave him.

"Yes," he answered, but speech became impossible when the sensations took over all rational expression.

Juliet clung to him and he clung to her, and the waves went on forever.

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Stroking his chest idly, her head resting on Carlton's shoulder, Juliet decided she felt better than she ever had before. In her whole life, even.

Her jaw ached from the bottle-throwing incident, she was achy… elsewhere… from rather vigorous lovemaking, she was thirsty and desperately needed a shower, and come to think of it her stomach was growling too.

But this… she smiled. This was perfect.

Carlton was breathing evenly, but she knew he wasn't asleep.

He was so warm. From head to toe, he was all lean energy and heat. She curled up closer to him and heard him sigh.

"Hey. Do you believe this now?" she asked gently.

"Hmmm." He was quiet for a few seconds. "Yes. I believe this now. Do you?" It was a fair question, but before she could answer, he turned to kiss her forehead and added, "Why were you so royally pissed off when I showed up?"

"Oh… um. Well."

He tilted her chin so he could see her face, and she didn't miss the expectant smirk curving his lips. "Spill it, O'Hara."

She rolled her eyes. "Fine. I saw Emily's name on your phone last weekend and I knew you called her when you got home and probably let her talk you into starting over. Between her and that neck-sucking Manda and the apple crumble succubus and all the things you weren't saying, and then that drunk kid tonight crying about the girl who didn't love him back—whose name was Carly, by the way, which I know because he kept wailing it out—I had myself in a fine state of discontentment."

Carlton's gaze was impressively puzzled. "The apple crumble… succubus?"

Juliet thumped his chest lightly. "Your heart-stomping ex! Gaaah, I hate that woman. She wanted you back, didn't she. Admit it."

He grinned. "She did. I smacked her down. Same for Emily."

"Don't gloat." But despite the last few hours of happy proof of his love for her—not them—she was still inexpressibly relieved. "What was the deal with Manda and—was it a church pew?"

"Just one of the many places she was arrested for public indecency," he muttered.

"You dated a woman who was arrested for—"

"I didn't know it until it was too late! I let my guard down. I didn't run her priors soon enough. Trying to get over you was screwing with my standards."

She couldn't help it; she laughed until his blue glare silenced her. Mostly.

Smoothly, he turned the tables. "So what about you and Huggy-bear Spencer? You sure I have nothing to worry about?"

Juliet patted his chest this time. "Nothing. Never again. I'm yours, Carlton."

"I like the way that sounds." He kissed her, pulling her to lie on top of him, and as the kiss deepened, she felt her heart expanding, as if it might sprout its own wings and carry them both away.

"And you're mine," she said against his lips, nibbling at him and ready to forego the shower and the water and the food and everything else just to remain this close to him a little longer.

"Apparently true." He allowed the nibbles, anchoring her to him by the hips. "So are you finally going to accept my temporary-housing offer?"

"Uh, not if I have to stay in the spare room."

Carlton grinned. "I suppose you might be able to squeeze into my bed. Do you snore, kick, steal the covers or talk in your sleep?"

"I only snore when I'm congested, I don't kick, the covers will never even stay on the bed when we're both naked, and anything I say can be used against me in the court of Carlton. But it'll all be about you, my darling, so it'll all be good."

Looking into his eyes, seeing his smile, feeling his relaxation and acceptance, Juliet wondered if this was her preview of heaven.

But his smoky voice was her utter undoing. "I love you, Juliet." He said it quietly, gently, sincerely. "I love you."

For all the cockiness she'd been feeling, she was shocked to find tears in her eyes. One slipped out and onto her cheek, and Carlton brushed it away, kissing the damp spot left behind.

"I don't know how we're going to do this. Between the Chief and Spencer and our partnership itself—all the ways you're a hell of a lot nicer than I am—I don't know how smoothly this will go. But if you really love me back, I guess there's nothing we can't do together."

Juliet framed his lean face with her trembling hands, her heart pressed to his. "I really love you back. And we can do everything together. We will."

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Juliet's overstuffed chair, which was now their chair, fit perfectly in Carlton's living room. He was always comfortable curled up there with her.

"What's the movie tonight?" He had the remote ready as she settled in next to him, one leg draped over his.

"Love Actually," she suggested.

Carlton smiled and did not argue. When they were home, he seldom had any reason to argue with her about anything.

Of course they did argue—about politics, the thermostat, which way to put the knives in the drawer and sometimes even about toilet paper placement (he said over the top, she said it didn't matter as long as there was toilet paper)—but it was usually for fun, and besides, any excuse for make-up sex would do.

Once they had a protracted, twenty-minute argument about paper vs. plastic vs. canvas re-usable bags until she finally got his stuck zipper undone and they could get to the making-up part.

At the end of their fateful summer, Juliet had moved out of the hotel and into his apartment, and although they talked about getting a larger place to share, mostly they were too busy being together to care about their immediate surroundings.

They kept it quiet as long as they could, coming clean to Chief Vick only after Dobson asked why they were sharing a ride so often. She took it well enough, granting them leeway to continue with their partnership provided they behaved on every level. ("That means no… entanglements at work, Detectives, as well as leaving your personal issues at home. Do not make me regret this.")

So far, except for a hot little incident in the supply closet, so good.

Carlton still marveled that Juliet was his. That she seemed to be happy about it.

Christmas had come and gone, New Year's had come and gone, and Juliet still seemed happy to be with him.

Mr. Enough Now had apparently left town. Carlton bore him no ill will; after all, he'd helped prove that no other woman could ever surpass Juliet's role in his life.

Spencer had also backed off. Psych was working more private cases these days, and the SBPD didn't call on them much unless time and mayoral-attention demanded it. If Spencer had any issue with Juliet's new romantic situation, he'd made no comment, for which Carlton at least was profoundly grateful. He heard Spencer was dating a woman who owned a smoothie shop, so maybe personal distraction rather than personal growth was the reason.

From time to time Carlton looked up Ted Ridgway to see if any formal complaints had been filed against him, but he and his elderly love-bunbun must have learned discretion (or to keep the window closed). No new arrests for Manda Crockett either. He was skeptical about rehabilitation for that one. Juliet refused to let him go anywhere near the coffee shop where she worked, just in case.

"She does need to eat a sandwich," Juliet remarked about her namesake in the film. "Maybe two."

"Told you."

"Still think I'm perfect?"

"Every day, in every way."

Juliet nuzzled his jaw. "Good man."

She was wearing the nightshirt he'd given her for Christmas. Emblazoned with the picture of the same desiccated mummy featured in Love Actually, he'd never thought she'd actually wear it, but she loved it. It was soft and silky and looked as good on the floor next to the bed as it did on her supple warm body.

"I can't believe you love me," he whispered against her hair.

Juliet smiled up at him. "You should by now. I haven't moved out yet, have I?"

"But you don't love me enough," he said sadly, "to make apple crumble."

She rapped on his chest sharply. "No, I don't. But if I did love you enough to make apple crumble, it would be the most orgasmically delicious apple crumble you ever stuffed down your stinking Irish gullet."

"Of course it would, you sweet talker. Please note that I love you enough to take you shoe shopping."

"True. But that's because you're the better man."

"Also true. I could probably get that recipe from Victoria, you know."

"Uh-huh." Juliet glared at him. "You could probably pick up a host of diseases from her too but I wouldn't suggest it."

"I heard she re-re-married."

"Probably to a veneral disease specialist."

He had to laugh. "Think she got his name from Manda?"

"Manda probably slept with her. Are you trying to annoy me enough to get me to take you to bed?"

"We don't have to go to bed. This chair is just fine."

"You'd better pause the movie, then."

He did so instantly, and Juliet moved into his lap, hiking up her long tee to straddle him. He slid his hands under the fabric, along her warm thighs up to her hips. "You, my good woman, don't seem to be wearing any undies."

"There doesn't seem to be much point to it when I'm around you," she agreed, nibbling his jaw. "You seem to like me better without them."

"It makes up for the lack of apple crumble." He laughed when she tried to throttle him, slipping one hand between her legs to get her attention, which worked admirably.

"I'm going to kill that woman," she sighed, undulating against his fingers. "And then I'm going to kill you. And then… oh…. Oh Carlton…" Her dark blue eyes closed as she threw her head back, arching with a spasm of pleasure. "Oh…"

He made quick work of removing her tee, then returned to his task while also nuzzling her bare breast.

"Maybe I won't kill you," she amended breathlessly.

"Not today anyway," he suggested, fingers still moving.

"Not today… maybe not ever…"

Maybe not ever was as good as gold for Carlton.

Certainly it was better than an entire bakery full of apple crumble cake.

With coffee.

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