"You obviously don't know Max's mother very well," Daniel said with a smirk, leaning down and sealing his mouth over hers.
Max, she knew.
Max, she had grown to love like a friend.
In fact, still being an agent, he fit in seamlessly with all of her friends. He had even shown up at Lam one night and Vin comped his drinks. No more Balvenie 40, but he had a couple beers and shot the shit with her, telling her old war stories about him and Daniel, telling her how long it took him to best him in a grapple and how, despite his much bigger size, Daniel could always drink him under a table.
His family and why she needed to meet his family was a little beyond her when Daniel first mentioned it to her. But after about ten seconds, she figured it was due to the fact that Daniel had no family of his own. She couldn't imagine that he spent all that much time with Max's mother and sister, but he was likely always welcome when he wasn't on a job. That was more than he had anywhere else. It was the closest to family he had.
So the least she could do was be there with him when he went there for dinner, as awkward and uncomfortable as she felt about it.
She had never dated the kinds of guys who were close with their families so she had never had to have that "come meet my parents" dinner. It was uncharted territory for her. But, fact of the matter was, she and Daniel were on a serious path.
After four days of living at the hospital, they had gone home to her apartment. No words were spoken. They didn't need to be. They both walked to the bathroom and slowly stripped as the water warmed up. Then they climbed in. While Daniel had scrubbed the shampoo in her hair and she had leaned back into him as he did so, it was chaste, sweet, bodies just comforting bodies that were too warn out to even consider physical activity. Then they grabbed chips out of the cabinet and curled up in bed each eating half the bag before they passed out.
She had woken up with his body curled up behind hers, his arm heavy on her belly, his hand between her breasts, his head tucked into her neck.
With a full night of sleep and a burden of worry off her shoulders, her body had come alive, the memory of his hands and mouth on her stoking a desire she had tried to keep repressed for over a week.
She wiggled her ass back against him and he made a low, growling sound as he slowly came awake.
"Good morning," he grumbled, planting a kiss into her neck.
Her hand slid up his forearm and grabbed his hand, pulling it to cover her breast, sighing when his fingers immediately started rolling her nipple. "You're making it better," she said as he rolled onto his back, pulling her slightly so his other hand could slide inward and down, pressing between her legs.
Then he gave it to her a way she never found herself comfortable with before- sweet, slow, loving.
There never was a conversation about 'where they were heading' and 'what does this all mean'. They just fell into step. He stayed at her place most nights, was there for her when she got back from work, went with her to the hospital. He even hit the pet store to pick up food for Rhoda when she ran out. Without her having to ask.
It was small, silly almost, but having been a woman who had done absolutely every single thing for herself from making money to buying food to cleaning her damn bathroom since she was sixteen years old, it seemed huge to her. It was one less trip she would have to make.
And she had a small feeling that maybe, just maybe, she could get used to having him around.
Then she did.
Danny- 9 months
"I'm just saying, can we negotiate on how much fucking purple there is," he said, shaking his head, talking about what was now their apartment.
About three and a half months in of him staying at her place every single night, she had bluntly, as was her style, told him he could 'just move his shit in'.
He hadn't shared a place with a woman since he was in his early twenties. Faith found herself similarly out of her depths.
But he was somewhat surprised to find it simply... worked.
He helped train her classes when she would let him, eventually easing him into the women's shelter when the women got comfortable with him- so they could use him to learn how to fight a bigger, stronger opponent.
Shayna eventually, begrudgingly, accepted his resignation, not just from undercover assignments, but the Bureau as a whole.
He hadn't realized how much of a weight that had been on him until he was free of it, until he could shake his shoulders easily again.
And while he had more than enough money to live off of for a good long while, that wasn't the kind of man he was. He was used to action, to thinking on his feet, to doing- not sitting around thinking about doing.