A/N: So here it is, the second half of the spicier portions of the "Three Sides to Every Story" from the 'Theirs' portion (Chapter 7) that were too hot for the main page. This half is a slightly belated birthday present for the other (better LOL) half of Jedi's Pal, my writing partner, the amazing Purdy's Pal

Lastly, a tip of the hat is due as well to reviewer extraordinaire DKougar for use of (aka borrowing without asking in Sam-speak) a comment from one of her reviews that was too perfect to pass up.

This story begins in the middle of 5.11 Better Halves the morning after the momentarily declined bath scene and ends with Pearce escorting Michael from an interrogation cell at the start of 5.12 Dead to Rights (aka the end of the Blue Sky Breezy phase of BN or the beginning of the end for some Burners).

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Quite sated and still sleepy, Fiona was only mildly disappointed to find Michael missing and the linens cool to the touch when she awoke, reminding herself that he was frequently out of bed before she was.

Previous to them living together, she'd often been hurt by the assumption that he was running away from her and whatever intimacy they'd just had. Now she was coming to realize that possibly Mr Westen was just not one to linger in the sheets, unlike the first incarnation of him she'd come to know in Eire.

Not that it wasn't true that sometimes he had been running away from her… but the past was the past...

Her mood improved significantly when he returned to the bedroom with another downy robe to slip into because breakfast was on its way. The Irishwoman stretched, smiled and kissed him softly, still basking in the glow of their lovemaking against the back wall of the large walk-in shower last night.

He'd been right, she was forced to admit. It wasn't an ideal romantic getaway, but the job had its perks.

The amenities at the government training facility they'd gone to in Costa Rica a few months ago had been quite nice, but nothing as luxurious as the exclusive couples' resort where their covers had been booked into a lovely central suite while they were tracking a traitorous bioweapons engineer who'd sold out to the Russians. Now that they knew their targets, code name Cheshire, were actually under the aliases Kevin and Nikki Skylar, it was simply a matter of meeting them and figuring out how to con the couple into joining them for a helicopter ride that would end up somewhere besides the rain forest.

The petite paramilitary approved of the second part of his plan and the vegetable-studded egg white only Spanish omelet that arrived accompanied by a mimosa. Better yet, she hadn't been forced to listen to the Skylars squabble all through her morning meal. Apparently Michael had gotten up quite early to eavesdrop and already knew where they would be, along with their body guards Serge and Karina.

"So, any thoughts on how to arrange a meeting…?"she asked, placing her plate on the coffee table in front of the couch and then draining the crystal flute. Overall she preferred a Buck's Fizz to a mimosa, but he'd had no way of knowing that… another part of her past life that she'd kept to herself.

"Nikki has persuaded Kevin to join her for a little fresh air and sunshine."

"And I'm sure I don't want to know how that happened…" Fiona settled back onto the couch, tucking herself into Michael's side and nuzzling his neck as she had the previous evening while he tried to focus.

The covert operative pulled up a schematic of the pool deck on the laptop. "Their room is near this end of the pool, so it's most likely they'll be at these deck chairs here. If we can get to the chairs next to theirs, it'll only be a matter of time before Kevin leaves and you'll be alone with Nikki."

"And Karina won't be able to get close enough to interrupt our girl talk. I guess I'll need my swimsuit."

Michael followed her into the bedroom, digging out a grey polo with white piping and a pair of white chino shorts with thin grey stripes out of his suitcase. He shook his head at the pink and white cloth belt Fiona had packed to go with the outfit. Definitely not his style... the fact that nearly every pair of pants or shorts she'd picked out for Mr Jensen was white or cream suggested an ulterior motive on her part.

Then the travel writer turned around to find his wife standing there holding a tube of sun block in one hand and the one of the tiniest string bikinis in Fiona Glenanne's impressive collection in the other.

She was wearing a bright smile and nothing else. Despite all the years he'd known her, and intimately known her in the most carnal sense of the word, the Irishwoman's ability to be unabashedly naked and yet utterly casual about her state of undress in non-intimate settings still managed to throw him.

"Can you help me, darling? The sun's so strong here and I don't want to burn," she said in Christina's voice. "Especially if we're on this stakeout into the late afternoon," Fiona finished in her normal tone.

As he stared openly at the lithe redhead, he was honestly having trouble finding any discernable tan lines. Something else she probably did in her free time he presumably didn't know anything about…

"No, we wouldn't want that," her lover agreed solemnly.

Fiona presented her back to him, sweeping her long loose auburn tresses onto the top of her head with one hand and handing her man the SPF-30 over her left shoulder.

Michael rubbed the white substance between his palms before he massaged the sunscreen into her lower back and then swept upwards. He placed several butterfly kisses on her exposed neck while he was rubbing the lotion onto her shoulders and down her outstretched arm.

"I can do the rest."

He spread the lotion across her behind and over her hips, skimming just past her womanhood on each side to finish on the flat plains of her stomach while she switched the arm that was holding her hair.

"Turn around," her boyfriend requested, his voice a little hoarser than he wanted it to be.

"Seriously, I can manage this." In spite of her statement to the contrary, she spun around slowly.

"They taught us to never leave a job unfinished."

He grinned as he worked his way over her waist and across her rib cage. Raising his hands to both sides of her throat, he swept the slickness front and back and then over her clavicle before cupping and covering her breasts. A throaty moan slipped out and his smile broadened when he moved to finish with her right arm.

He leaned in for a kiss and she sucked on his bottom lip before giving it a light nip as they separated.

"I guess they taught you something useful after all," Fiona agreed breathlessly. "And I really can finish up myself." But when the redhead's gaze dropped downwards, she smirked. "Then again, there appears to be something else I need to finish up."

Michael reddened slightly. "It'll be fine."

Her merry blue green eyes bored into his and then lowered to below his belt buckle again.

"Not with those white shorts on it won't."

"Fi, we need to get out there…"

The wily woman had said garment around his ankles along with boxers before he could finish protesting.

"And you'll have the whole resort looking at you." She blew on the tender flesh in her palm. "I thought spies didn't want to be noticed." She was going to have her way with him and he was going to love it.

Whatever counter argument he meant to give turned into a guttural groan as Fiona deep throated him, sucking hard. He reached out, intending to stop her, but ended up tangling his hand in her flowing hair.

She grinned at him triumphantly; loving the power she had over him to shatter his focus. Then his wild Irish rose proceeded to drive him insane, her fingers skimming his thighs and abusing his ass once more while she used her oh so talented tongue to make the normally controlled spy come completely undone.

His world shrank down to his woman, the incredible things Fiona was doing with her mouth and hands before it exploded in a white hot gush of pleasure that made him weak in the knees. She drank him down while he groaned out her name and every part of him pulsed in rhythm with what she held in her manicured fingers. Michael felt lightheaded, almost giddy as she looked up to give him a saucy smile.

"Never leave a job unfinished," she quipped, bringing his clothes up off the floor along with herself. He didn't have a single comment to make while she tucked him back into his shorts and fastened the belt.

"Now you can help me tie me up," his fiery lover instructed, retrieving her string bikini from the floor.

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"I don't think they're going for it," Michael had advised as they'd waved and turned their backs, walking away from their targets while listening to the intense whispering going on behind them.

"They're going for it," Fiona had countered confidently. "I know what she's thinking. I know that look she gave him."

"I'm not so sure."

The redhead had been convinced that the hours she'd invested in plying Nikki with beluga caviar and champagne, he'd mentally flinched when he'd put that on the expense report later and then grinned, and loads of quality social contact would make her pressure Kevin into accepting a trip on a chopper that would go basically from paradise to prison for the germ maker and his embattled spouse.

And she'd been right.

"Christina!" Mrs Skylar had shouted across the lobby. "We're in. Since you guys got the helicopter tour, dinner's on us."

"See you at seven," she'd rejoined in her Christina voice before whispering triumphantly. "Told ya…"

They'd returned to their room to change for dinner, which in the lightly perspiring case of the slender woman had involved a shower, and plan strategy for getting a controlled situation in which to pitch their assets, but a voice he'd started to think of as McBride was debating whether it was best to lick every inch of Fiona's exposed skin before taking her to the shower for a repeat of last night's performance.

Instead he'd made himself go and listen to the bug in his targets' room rather than indulge his sex drive gone mad like he'd done when he'd first moved in with the petite paramilitary back in Dublin. It was part of the job, a fucking fantastic part to be sure, to romance his asset and she had been intoxicating.

Except he'd had to admit finally that it was only on his mission objective and no one else's to become Fiona Glenanne's boyfriend from Kilkenny; in fact multiple people had protested that change of plans.

Continuing to gather intel had pleased the man he had become after being forced out of Ireland, the spy hardened by deserts winds and Middle Eastern suns who'd made himself forget the love of his life by pouring himself into the mission, just like Tom Card had trained him and Larry Sizemore had forged him.

That man had continued to remind him of the disastrous results of letting her take his mind off the job.

As a spy, you're trained to never pitch assets in situations you don't control. Still you can't always avoid it. If it's a choice between that or losing the asset altogether sometimes you have to grit your teeth and roll the dice.

However, they'd survived recruiting them right under the noses of their Russian bodyguards in the middle of the crowded dining room, but just barely. Another few seconds and he might have found himself bringing a knife to a gun fight. Still he'd had experience taking out FSB agents with a blade...

And having sold their assets on a new life, one where they were not locked in a gulag with millions they would never spend, next was to successfully separate the death merchant and his wife from their heavily armed Slavic babysitters. During the dessert course, he'd informed his new recruits they should be back at the pool by mid-morning to discuss the next phase of their plan. By that point, Nikki had been drinking a little too heavily, even for her, and Kevin had been glassy-eyed and starting to sweat and the spy had judged that it was time to send them to bed before their minders got suspicious again.

While Fiona had gone to slip into nothing, which was more comfortable, Michael had listened intently to the bug. Advising them to pretend they'd had a little too much to drink and turning in for the night had been an easy sell, but it hadn't stopped the arguing. Their low hissing voices grated on his nerves from the moment the FSB agents had left the room, presumably to take turns watching the security cameras.

The highly trained covert operative kept taking notes, reviewing scouting reports and making plans.

Despite his best efforts, his thoughts kept drifting back to all the different times in his life that angry drunken people could be heard arguing through locked doors and from behind walls instead of over a listening device wired into a hotel room outlet. On the good nights, and it was only good by comparison, the noise eventually stopped. On the bad ones, the voices got louder until it was sounds of breaking…

Broken furniture… broken glass… broken things… broken people… broken lives…

It was getting way too noisy in Michael's neatly ordered mind and it was pissing him off…

"So, how do you plan on separating Serge and Karina from the Skylars?"

Fiona's question called out from the bedroom startled him into the present. He ground his teeth and tried to re-center on strategizing the best way for them to complete the mission and get back to Miami.

Woulda ya nae rather have been back thar between har legs than listening ta this crap all night, lad?

"Otherwise, they'll be wanting the other two spots on that six-seater you allegedly booked," she stated, sauntering into the room and saving Michael the trouble of internally telling McBride to shut the hell up.

"That's going to be the trickier part," he admitted as the lithe woman in the thick white robe settled down next to him, running her fingers through his dark hair. "I think we'll need to divide and conquer."

Fiona took the laptop from him. Leaning back against the arm of the coach, she laid her calves across his linen-clad thighs and began to study the various maps and other intelligence he'd been looking at.

"You see that café on the water across town?" he asked after a moment. "Remind you of anything?"

"The layout seems familiar…" She bit her lip for a second. "Oh, where we gave Walsh's crew the slip..."

Their eyes met of the top of his computer, each recalling one of the first jobs they'd done together after she'd forgiven him for being an American spy instead of a petty Irish criminal newly returned from Italy. However, Michael decided to get back to business quickly before McBride could try reminding him about what had happened afterwards in the back seat of their stolen getaway car. And it had been amazing…

"You take Nikki out on the patio. Karina will be stuck inside. Two exits back to the parking lot and a nearby marina full of boats to hot wire if things go wrong. Those bay windows should have hurricane glass, so even if she does take a shot at you on your way out, it likely won't go through effectively."

"Sounds like you're expecting trouble."

"Always," he agreed with a wry grin. Especially where you're concerned, he thought, smart enough not to say it out loud. In that moment, the covert operative wasn't sure if he was more worried about something happening to the vivacious redhead or what trouble she might get into on her own.

"And what are you going to do with Serge?"

"Take him somewhere private that he can't wear his vest or his Makarov…"

The Irishwoman leaned over, placing the computer on the coffee table, and then sat up until she was halfway in her lover's lap. "The steam room perhaps…?" she asked, slipping her fingers between the buttons of his orange and blue pinstriped shirt. "Like you said, if you can't hide a gun in your average bathing suit, he definitely won't be able to hide it in his sauna towel either."

She started to slowly unbutton his shirt. "And if you oil yourself up, he won't be able to get a good grip on you…" The Irish vixen licked her lips and then leaned into his ear before nipping the lobe. "Are you sure you won't need back-up? I'd hate to miss out, the two of you grappling, half naked and… sticky."

"You'd probably be rooting for him to lose his towel," he smirked. "You'd be too distracted to help."

"I can think of easier ways to see you naked, Michael," she whispered, pulling his shirt tails loose.

"I'm sure you can." He smiled softly. "But I think we need to finish planning this out and get some rest."

Fiona gave him a mock pout and then grinned. "Then maybe we might have to save it for tomorrow when you help me with the sunscreen," she teased, her fingers walking from his waistband to his fly.

"We might have to save it until the job's done," the spy answered, stilling her hands. "And don't worry, I'll have black trunks on at the pool. It'll be fine." Michael cut her off before she, or worse McBride, could come up with a compelling alternate proposal. "Just think of it as anticipating the moment."

His lover kissed him thoroughly albeit quickly, tweaking his nipple when she drew back.

"Consider that a down payment."

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As they drove up on the disused and out of the way helipad, the contentious couple in the back seat of the Hummer stopped sniping at each other and fell silent. But if the two traitorous Americans thought they were about to be handed two tickets to paradise, Kevin and Nikki Skylar were sadly mistaken.

Exiting the dusty heavy duty SUV, one of the pair not expecting commandos to exit the chopper paused and protested. It was music to Fiona's ears. Another highlight in a day filled with happy endings.

"I'm not getting on that thing until I know where it's going!" the death merchant declared.

"Virginia…" Michael answered casually. "CIA HQ in Langley… maybe a quick stop in the Caribbean."

"Guantánamo's lovely this time of year." The soggy redhead couldn't resist rubbing it in… Although the buxom blonde had almost gotten her shot, Fiona still had a certain amount of sympathy for Kevin's wife.

She had zero empathy for the man waving a gun at her boyfriend. Michael was nonchalantly explaining his new reality to the nearly-captured germ maker and was unfazed by the automatic pointed at him.

"Fine, you wanna stay here? Good luck with your Russian friends."

"After your daring escape, don't expect a warm reception," the Irishwoman advised. This was satisfying.

She could almost understand why Michael enjoyed doing these jobs for the CIA. Of course she still found a lot of what the Agency did to be odious. But there was nothing like seeing a despicable person get what they deserved. Kevin's brief brag about the new neurotoxins he was developing confirmed her opinion.

"OK, you know what, I know my rights! You will never get a word outta me!" shouted Mr Skylar.

"Yeah, well, they're gonna get plenty outta me!" Nikki yelled at her likely soon-to-be-ex-husband who was being led between two heavily armed men in blackout gear while another had her by the elbow.

The spy was watching the completion of the extraction while Fiona only had eyes for his handsome profile, a warm glow spreading throughout her body.

"Thank you, Michael," she said simply as she came to his side.

"For what…?" he asked, turning his attention towards her.

"Quality time…"

The energy crackled between them as her lover's face blossomed into that eye-crinkling dimple-making smile she loved. It was one of her favorite of Michael's expressions. Her all-time favorite though was him helpless in the throes of passion while she took them both to heaven astride his glistening naked frame.

And she planned on seeing that look on his face very soon.

So when her man suggested quietly that it was time to go, the ex-urban guerilla was all for it.

In battle, not even the best laid plans survive contact with the enemy. If you want to survive, you have to be willing to improvise. Of course, there's such a thing as too much improvisation.

Even without all the unexpected events leading up to the extraction, it would have been too risky for the Jensens to return to Copa de Oro resort, especially not now, after leaving Serge unconscious in the steam room and any number of dead or disabled Russian operatives back at Fiona's last stand. Their rendezvous was intended to be little more than a dead drop, exchange vehicles, collecting their new legends and travel papers before heading out for the private hangar thirty minutes down the road near the General Jose Antonio Anzoategui International Airport to board their flight out of Venezuela.

"Does this place we're going have a shower, or at least somewhere for me to change?" she asked.

And since McBride rightly pointed out that her still damp and now nearly transparent pants would definitely have attracted unwanted attention and it would be very uncomfortable for her to sit in somewhat wet clothes all the way to St Martins to pick up their connecting flight, Michael had to agree.

"It's in a very busy tourist hotel; should be easy enough to arrange a room for as long as we'll need it."

Already full of adrenaline, Fiona could hardly wait for the ride back to end now that she had a more promising potential place to have her way with her boyfriend than the back seat of the Hummer. And at least some of the wetness between her legs could be attributed to something more appropriate for public viewing, like taking a dive off a restaurant patio railing to avoid being shot by an FSB agent.

"Come on, up and over, in the drink, honey!" She'd almost wanted to throw Nikki in the bay personally.

It had been as a good strategy as she could come up with on the fly. Starting a fire fight in the restaurant with so many innocent bystanders around was not an option, even if she was a better shot than Karina.

"I think the silencer she had was too heavy for the gun she was using," the petite paramilitary mused aloud. "I would have never used one that big on a PPK/S."

"Fi…?" Michael glanced at her before returning his eyes forward. "I'm guessing there's more to that story," he promoted when the details were not immediately forthcoming.

"You mean like why we were late getting to the rendezvous."

"That would be a good start," he agreed, accelerating now that the Hummer had cleared the fence line around the helipad and the chopper was rising into the air, sending more dust and debris their way.

"I told Nikki if she didn't quit looking at Karina like a scared little bunny, she was going to tip her off."

"So, of course she did," the spy quickly concluded.

"I picked the key off the bar manager and locked the patio door. But then Nikki knocked half the table settings on the floor and instead of apologizing like mad to cover it up, she stared right at Karina."

"And that led to her shooting at you with an overly large silencer on her Walther?"

Michael took his eyes off the rough track that was substituting for the road where it had washed out to study her for a second. He had felt the water that had lingered in her clothing, the dampness still in her hair as they came together in that abandoned bar. Arriving right before the brunette could put a bullet in his beloved had sent a surge of relief crashing through him that was almost indescribable. He might have hit Karina with a little more force than strictly necessary to render her unconscious, but in that moment he hadn't really cared. McBride agreed that the cyka was bloody lucky he hadn't blown her brains out.

"You were wrong about that glass by the way," Fiona informed him, meeting his gaze. "Two shots to that door and it shattered. But it stalled her long enough for us to get over the rail and into the bay."

She could see the covert operative was trying to mentally image the scenario based on the layout of the restaurant he had on his computer, but she had already moved on in her head to the next part. Her blood was singing in her veins and she couldn't wait to get back to the hotel and culminate the mission.

"Karina still managed to cut us off. She ran better than she could shoot, although at that distance it would have been hard to hit anything with a pistol. I could have done it, of course."

"Of course," he agreed, looking out the windshield again while watching her out of the corner of his eye.

The petite paramilitary was always so energetic after a successful job, her words tumbling out almost on top of one another as she gestured animatedly with those small but lethal hands. She was stunning…

"They taught us better in the IRA than they do in the FSB apparently. Except she called all her friends and managed to get a road block together, which you can't exactly break through on a dirt bike."

He remembered them chasing through the jungles of Costa Rica and how recklessly she rode. Fiona was recalling about the same thing right before refusing to think about from whom she'd learned her skills.

"And that's when you decided to make a last stand…"

The not-quite reinstated CIA agent turned the heavy vehicle onto the busy driveway, bypassing the front entrance and picking up the road that would take them to the back of the tourist property where their new wheels, a nice non-descript silver Chevy Aveo, would be waiting. Passing by the middle aged woman in the maid's uniform who had just dropped the keys on the ground, now it was just a matter of loading the bags from the SUV into the compact, sneaking into a room, cleaning up and hitting the road.

McBride was suggesting there should be enough time to try the shower out again and Michael wasn't totally opposed to the idea even if it would put them on a tight schedule to make the plane on time. He wasn't unaffected by the rush of the gun battle and the satisfaction of knowing the operation had been extremely successful like he'd been banking on had definitely elevated his mood. The covert operative consulted his watch. It was the perfect time of day to slip in behind housekeeping. This could work.

While Michael might have been getting in the mood as they made their way inside in search of a promising place to take care of business, Fiona was already on fire.

"We might have to save it until the job's done... Just think of it as anticipating the moment."

She'd been anticipating this moment since he'd stopped her hands last night. Since then he'd teased her while helping her into her bikini that morning and she'd dodged plenty of gunfire, on land, in the water and on the back of a motorbike. Her wild ride with a Jeep full of Russians on her tail had tested her skills and her ability to take down two of those goons with one center mass shot a piece had pumped up her pride. The fact that Nikki had managed to drop and scatter some of her remaining ammo was something she only had time to get pissed off about on the back side of it, now that she'd lived to think about it.

As she'd knelt on the ground, the clicking of her empty Glock reminding her that she was out of options and yet refusing to believe this was how it ended for Fiona Glenanne, he'd shown up with another grand gesture that was up there in her top ten. The thud on Karina's skull had been the most beautiful sound.

"Michael, how'd you find me?"

"I know you. You'd want to go down guns blazing."

It had been in a badly lit Belfast back alley just after dark, a decade or so ago, the last time they had taken out their targets wrapped in each other's arms and watching each other's backs. The Irishwoman licked her lips, already plotting how she was going to re-enact what had happened back in her dingy little flat after they had left the bleeding remnants of that ill-fated RIRA cell for the RUC to clean up.

"Shall we?"

"I thought you'd never ask."

The former urban guerilla had barely been able to contain her zeal for the impending firefight; it was all she could do not to tackle him now while her security conscious boyfriend cleared the room. Satisfied they were safe for the moment, the covert operative put their go-bag on the edge of the bed.

"You should be good to get a shower now." Fiona could hear anticipation in his tone as she whipped off her wrinkled pink shirt and flung it onto the floor. Michael had removed Brenden Jensen's button down and was in the process of pulling the undershirt over his head when the one-time terrorist struck.

Slamming him partially into the wall and partially into the entry into the bathroom, her lover exhaled in pain, the air leaving his lungs and his back and backside impacting the door frame. However, the vixen had no plans of letting him catch his breath again. Her hands and her mouth were everywhere, clawing, grasping, pinching, kissing, licking and nipping, his chest and his throat being marked in a flurry of need.

Fiona pulled his head down to meet hers, latching onto his mouth and demanding entry. Their tongues began that delightfully familiar dance for dominance while her nimble digits started working on his belt and pants button. Michael took the opportunity to unsnap her rarely worn bra and slip the straps down to her elbows. Temporarily snarling her in the garment, he used the opening to swap their positions.

With his superior height and weight, her dark haired lover kept pressure on her upper limbs with his forearms while he massaged her breasts and began his own assault on her neck. In spite of his divine distraction, the Irishwoman reached between them, palming him roughly through his linen trousers and then making short work of his belt and zipper. Sidetracked by her handiwork, he lost his grip on Fiona.

The one-time terrorist hooked a calf behind his knee, shoving with all her not inconsequential strength, tripping her taller adversary. Michael stumbled backwards, just missing the edge of the mattress and landing unceremoniously on his butt. The second impact to his back pocket reminded the spy that his phone was taking almost as much abuse as he was. But then his wild Irish rose was on him again, astride his lap, kissing, nipping, nails scratching, thumbing his nipples and trying shuck off his slacks.

Never one to concede gracefully in such a contest, Michael mirrored her behavior and then drew several satisfying gasps from his girlfriend when he suddenly switched to teasing the hardened peaks with his tongue and teeth instead. He peeled her still slightly sodden pants down to expose her shapely ass, but no farther as she was sitting on the apparel. Gripping her bare backside, he pulled her closer to him.

Unable to stop herself, the impassioned woman threw her head back, moaning into the ceiling at the increased pressure in all the right places while her fingers scrapped over his scalp. But his self-satisfied murmur set another kind of fire burning in her slender frame and she grabbed his hair, forcing his head away from her aching breasts. She kissed him hard and then their tongues were dueling once more.

"Fi… Fi… Fiona…" Trying to slow the sudden descent of her mouth downward, her lover threaded his fingers through her long auburn tresses. "Truce…?" he suggested. "'Til we get undressed…?"

"Fine…" The lithe vixen was on her feet, pulling him upwards non-too-gently. The fiery redhead had him naked to his knees in seconds and was clearly planning on violating the terms of their ceasefire.

But the covert operative was prepared for her duplicity and side stepped, sending her tumbling onto the bed since she was too tangled in her apparel to stop her fall. Fiona rolled her shoulder and tried to bounce back up, but Michael was too fast for her. Grabbing her waistband, he jerked her upwards and flipped her onto her back as the material moved in the opposite direction from the rest of her body.

With the last of her clothes around her ankles, her boyfriend landed on his knees between her knees. Forcing her legs open with his shoulders, she squirmed as his hot breath caressed her mound a moment before his mouth descended onto her wet waiting womanhood. Michael caught her wrists in a powerful grip, holding her dangerous hands flat onto the mattress and the sheets they were now scrunching.

Fiona bit her lip, determined not to give him the satisfaction of the pleased sounds she was longing to let loose. Several low moans half escaped and her traitorous hips bucked into the rhythm he was setting with his tongue very much against her intentions. Damn him for being so good at this was her last coherent thought and then she was seeing stars. Michael released her hands and filled his with her undulating ass, going deeper, sucking hard right there and the overcome redhead jolted into him, gasping his name. He was so pleased with her flushed features he never saw what else was coming.

The smug spy was instantaneous in a headlock, pinned inside her powerful thighs. She smacked the go-bag off the bed, scattering a good portion of the contents on the floor. Fiona twisted her slender but strong form, tossing them both off the end of the mattress. She landed with her hip on the canvas carry all and her shoulder on the part of the comforter that had fallen down with their momentum, whereas Michael impacted the floor with every part of him that was not encompassed by his fiery lover.

Rolling away from her and onto his back, her man let out a groan that was more about aching in the wrong way. She would be fixing that soon enough. Refusing to be denied the prize the Irishwoman had been waiting all day to collect, she backed down his muscular frame on her hands and knees, holding her wedge heels up over him as she went, the white linen just ghosting over his heaving chest and waist.

Fiona maneuvered carefully, straddling his stomach until she had him aligned with her entrance. Michael watched her progress through half-lidded eyes, his mouth falling open slightly at the sight of her bringing their bodies together, being encompassed by and then disappearing into the center of her, his hurts fading into insignificance compared to the rightness of being joined together with his woman.

Fiona's mouth formed a lopsided grin while she tightened those muscles meant only for him and was rewarded for her efforts, her smile broadening as she felt him stir and grow inside her. Setting a slow deliberate pace, she began to move, her walls sliding against his manhood, the friction taking them toward the perfect release they were both seeking. Her nails trailed lightly over his torso, raising goose flesh, and she licked her lips as the expression she'd desired to behold started to form on his face.

Encouraged by the adoration in his eyes and the look of bliss building, his wild Irish rose quickened her movements, riding him harder, more recklessly. Her breasts began to bounce in time with her hips and Michael put his hands there before sliding them forward so that his thumbs were brushing over just the right spot on every down stroke. With her own orgasm building, Fiona gave up any thought of control.

When his body began to jerk below her and spasm within her, she was rewarded with the sight of his eyes closed, his lips parting before forming her name in a long drawn out gasp of ecstasy. She wanted to keep watching but her lids shut of their own volition as utter pleasure exploded within her, rampaging through her. She ground into him one last time then collapsed onto his broad muscles and slick skin.

Strong arms held her tight and Fiona gloried in the glow while he pressed butterfly kisses into her hair.

There was no doubt in her mind that Michael Westen sucked as characteristic boyfriend material went, but she didn't want typical or average. She wanted extraordinary and the man in her arms was just that.

As much as he frustrated the hell out of her and sometimes hurt her to the depths of her soul, she'd have been dead without another grand gesture today. Yes, he was broken in places she didn't understand, but somehow their pieces fit together. If he wanted this, wanted them, she was willing to work for it.

00000000

It's important to keep your guard up at the end of an operation. Once you've found your target, won their trust and made a deal, it's natural to wanna relax a bit. But, the fact is, it's exactly the time to be most careful. When your life's on the line and things go wrong, they tend to go very, very wrong.

He can't stop thinking about that moment, about the sick sinking feeling in his gut as the Charger came slowly rolling into view on the footage that Pearce had gotten from the law firm on Third Street security camera, the not-great photo that she'd asked the NSA to clean up that proved he was there at the time.

"I can explain. The man who killed Max—"

"It was you. You lied to me. You were there. You killed him."

Sitting in the near darkness, shackled to a table once more in some part of a federal office building that was being used clandestinely by the CIA, the still disavowed spy couldn't get that image out of his head.

There's a reason I tried to teach you to only steal low visibility cars in your first year of training, Michael… How d'ya feel about cruising around town in the old man's car now?

Michael let out a long slow exhale and tried to relax. The specter of Tom Card was back to lecture him once again. In between being peppered with questions about everything to do with his trying to find out who had actually killed Agent Grant and framed him for it, he had been left in dark corners to wait.

As a spy, you're trained to deal with interrogation. You have to learn to let the disorientation, the sleep deprivation and the brutal isolation just wash over you and try not to go insane. In the end though, it's not so much the questioning as the uncertainty that gets to you, not knowing what the future holds or if you have a future at all.

He was fairly certain at this point that he was going to be cleared and that Agent Pearce was just leaving him here to let him know the depths of her disappointment in him for deceiving her all these months.

"No, Pearce, no, I was framed and I knew I would go down for this if I didn't find the guy who did it. Now I couldn't trust you back then," and incredulity had joined fury and righteous indignation in those brown eyes as she slowly shook her head at him.

If listening to the Skylars' non-stop squabbling over the bug he had wired into their room had somehow been enough to let loose the strident voices of his parents' past marital strife temporarily while he'd been monitoring them for the mission, and a very successful rendition at that, then what had transpired since yesterday had managed to unlock too many doors, freeing many ghosts of sins past in his head.

"Fi, this will work, I promise. We just have to show them that you're too valuable to me… to my work…" He'd come so close to saying what was really on his heart that chilly day under the grey Irish sky.

He'd already been hearing the voice of McBride long before his flame haired lover had attacked him in their borrowed bedroom at the hotel. It had been easy to go along with his Irish persona, as the many parallels of working with Fiona back in Ireland back in the day had continued to present themselves.

Lying on the floor in a filched Venezuelan hotel room, holding her close, he'd drifted back to the first time he'd made love to her on a floor, which had been their first time together period. Being with her, bodies entwined on blankets before a roaring fire had been so different than anything he'd felt before.

"Ar' ya happy…? Did I make ya happy then?"

Even though he'd lied to her about whom he was, just a lad from Kilkenny, he'd told her the real truth.

"Yes, luv, ya did. Ya made me happier than I've ever been in me entire life."

When she'd stood up to finally go and shower so they could get back to Miami, he'd missed her warmth. As she'd stepped back, unsuccessfully attempting to maneuver towards to the bed to remove her heavy wedges, the loud cracking sound had jerked him back to reality. His phone had been in his back pocket, the one that had hit the door frame and then the floor while he'd been wearing those pants. It was still in those same pants that were pooled around his calves and she had likely just crushed it completely.

But McBride hadn't been overly troubled by that turn of events, even if the burner was useless. She had a phone too after all. Oh, wait, hers was at the bottom of the bay… lost it escaping with their target.

They'd barely made it onto the plane in time, which just gave McBride another reason to tell him everything was fine. There were other voices in his head vying for his attention, but he ignored them.

"We used to talk about where we were going and what our lives would be and now the only time we talk about the future is when someone is coming to end it."

For the first time a very long time, he was not only willing to try to talk about a future that included the Irishwoman as part of his day to day life, he needed that future, which just told the jittery spy that he was teetering on the edge of a very deep precipice that was threatening to take him out of the game.

Listen, kiddies, covert operative is one of the most stressful jobs there is. I know you ex-special force types, you think R & R stands for recon and renditions. Are you listening to me, Westen, Rodriguez, Smith…? You have to schedule downtime for decompression. You can't run on booze and adrenaline."

Now that Fiona was fully integrated into his life again like she had been in Ireland, he was tormented by the possibilities of how their cohabitation could end the same way. Fear of losing her again, whether by violence from his enemies, the capriciousness of his bosses or his own ineptitude as boyfriend material was driving him way too much. It was more of a gut feeling than a rational thought and, for a spy who regularly cut himself off from his feelings in order to function in the field, it was a recipe for disaster.

"Sam and Jesse are tracking him right now. Just let me make one phone call. "

But the infuriated brunette had cocked the pistol and coolly advised him not to even think about it.

Exactly, said the other voice he'd being hearing from non-stop since Agent Pearce had ordered him to zip tie his hands together and marched him out of the loft and into an SUV at gun point. You were so focused on keeping that noose off your neck you didn't bother to check in with Sam and Jesse the second you landed in Miami. No, it was easier to go back to the loft and get a burner. How'd that go, genius?

Michael sighed. The voice of his younger self had returned, the one Sam Axe called a black hearted bastard back in the day, the one so focused on the mission he didn't have time to listen to a friend.

"Jesus, Mike, I always knew you were cold, but I had no idea you were such a black hearted bastard. You worked with her for god's sakes. she saved your ass when you damned well didn't deserve it. That's the best you got? Listen, buddy, you wanna stay friends? I better never hear her name from you ever again."

Where would he be right now if he had lost the ex-SEAL as a friend over the death of the woman who'd been his first senior field agent? Sam and Jesse had found Max's killer, served the man up on a silver platter for him and even crashed a CIA convoy so he could go to the meet and he had still screwed it up.

"You gotta choice, Tavian. You surrender peacefully. You give us information. I'll try to keep you out of Guantanamo. But one way or another, this ends today."

"Well you're half right. It does end… for me, but not for you."

The weary spy ground his teeth and tried to get the image of out of his head… the pool of blood slowly spreading from underneath Korzha's corpse, a broken body on the sidewalk thirty stories below, another dead end, another carcass like Kessler, with the answers he was after ending up in a body bag again.

Who the hell were these people that they rather kill themselves than surrender…?

And the chorus of voices was waiting to rightfully critique his actions. Sometimes they sounded like Blackheart, and sometimes it sounded like Captain Novak at the end of his days as a Ranger, rash reckless, irresponsible, and sometimes it sounded like Tom Card, thinking with your little head instead of your big one will get ya killed, hot shot, and a few times his dad, stupid, ignorant, bull headed dumb fuck.

Michael laid his head on his folded hands. He knew better, that was the worst part. He had known better the entire time but he'd done it anyway. McBride had gotten his way and look where it had landed him… in an interrogation cell hand cuffed to a table waiting to be cleared of Max's murder.

"You chose us when you killed our friend and tried to pin it on me."

"Yeah, and it didn't stick, did it? And when I came to kill you, you wouldn't die."

They had the confession, they had Sam and Jesse's testimony, they had his testimony, they had Fiona…

"They picked me up at the bridge. When I heard what was going on, I asked if I could say goodbye in case…."

He fought back the not-completely-irrational fear that the Irishwoman had been led in cuffs from federal custody to the hospitality of MI6 as the chains around his own wrists became unbearably heavy.

"Michael, come back to me."

Someone had brought one of his suits to change into for his review meeting with the brass. When he'd asked Pearce to let Fiona know when he would be released, the brunette had agreed to contact her. That meant she had to have been released and the CIA was eventually planning on letting him go too.

Inexperienced operatives abandon a cover ID under pressure; experienced ones just play their roles harder. The same went for burned spies fighting to hold it together after almost five years of fighting the people that had ruined his life and whoever else had to still be lurking out there in the shadows.

Blackheart even agreed that Michael had been doing a more than adequate job of pretending he still had it together. The more he felt undone and unstable on the inside, the harder he followed his training and reinforced his calm snarky exterior. He had the situation and himself completely under control.

Sometimes he even had himself believing that…

The illumination flared from barely there to blinding. Shielding his eyes as best he could, he braced for whatever came next. The chains came off and Michael was escorted out of the rooms by two large mountains of muscle, who then handed him off to the tall slim form of a silently fuming woman.

"Agent Pearce, what's going on?" She didn't answer, but she kept walking him towards the front door.

And then Fiona was going to take him somewhere, somewhere he could attempt to begin to process this. It didn't really matter where, as long as she was there. The Irishwoman was the rock he was clinging to.

Seeing his wild Irish rose was what he desperately wanted. What he got was a lecture, first from Pearce about staying in Miami and staying in contact and then from his mother about the consequences of his actions on all the roots he'd laid down in Miami. But the one thing that grounded him was missing.

He'd told Madeline it was over because he needed it to be over. He deduced on their ride back to the loft that his mother had convinced the redhead to allow her to opportunity to set him straight. He didn't need a speech, he needed the other woman in his life to help him finally decompress. Mrs Westen's observations, while possibly valid, just added another layer of exhaustion onto the mountain of fatigue he felt crushing him down, though the casual observer would never see it. He was too much of a pro.

As he approached the rusty metal gates, Michael heaved a deep sigh. His list had gotten very short.

Find Fiona.

Everything else could wait.

Before he started missing details… like a strange pair of shoes under the crack of his door….