"What if I do mind?" Jamie asked, his voice low and serious as he looked her up and down.

"Um. What?" Juno asked, whirling around to look at him, her eyes wide with horror.

Jamie couldn't help but snickering. "I'm kidding, Juno." She visibly relaxed at his words and his smile and he felt bad for teasing her. "I'll be right here. Go ahead."

"We did just fight about two minutes ago, right?" Juno asked in disbelief at the sudden turn they had both taken in the conversation.

"Yes." Jamie agreed. "But I'm a forgive and forget sort of man."

"I thought maybe you were a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde sort of man." Juno said over her shoulder, closing herself into the small bathroom with her stack of clothes. Jamie smiled at her when she emerged a few minutes later, fully dressed and a little less flushed.

"Better?" Jamie asked with a small grin.

"Yes." Juno nodded. "Feeling much less like a hooker and more like a human being. Thanks for waiting."

"Listen, Juno, honestly… it was never my intention for you to pay me back. It really was my pleasure." Jamie said seriously, and Juno cocked her head to one side, watching him for a long moment.

"If you didn't care about the money, why did you come back into the room?" She asked after a lengthy pause.

Suddenly, it was Jamie's turn to blush a little. "You aren't easy to walk away from when you are dressed like a Greek goddess, woman." He said gruffly. "If you'd told me you needed to use me for target practice for a few hours, I probably would have come back in here without a second thought."

Juno gave him a slow smile. "I'll keep that in mind." She paused, and then continued. "But I am going to pay you back."

"You aren't."

"Oh, I am." Juno smiled. "I don't like being indebted to people."

"You aren't indebted, Juno." Jamie shot back. "It was my pleasure, and if I ever find an envelope filled with money on my door step, I'm going to come to America and give it back to you."

Juno looked at the floor shyly. "Promise?" Jamie gave a low laugh and nodded.

"Promise."

"Or is this just a ploy so that I don't find out where you live, thus avoiding awkward stalking practices in the future?" Juno teased, making Jamie laugh even louder. "I'm sure I could be quite stealthy trailing Thor the Thunder Car through the countryside."

"Well, that too." Jamie agreed, laughing at the image of Juno in dark sunglasses and a trench coat, prowling around the grounds of his family's home.

They both smiled at each other for a long moment before Jamie broke the silence. "I'm sorry I stormed out."

Juno nodded. "I'm sorry too. For all the things I said, and for making you storm out. I didn't mean… this is all really new to me, Jamie. Really new feelings, really new situation, and I'm just really unsure of myself, which scares the hell out of me. I'm just… I'm going into self preservation mode."

"I know." Jamie whispered. "But instead of doing that, why don't we just forget it and enjoy our time together? I don't want to part on upsetting terms with you, Juno. I like you too much for that."

"Okay." Juno answered quietly. "That sounds good. What should we do?" She asked innocently, looking around the room and trying to decide if they had enough snack food to eat for breakfast. When Jamie didn't answer, she looked up to see the most salacious grin she'd ever seen. "That's… that's not what I meant." She stammered, feeling like a tiny gazelle being stalked by the king of the lions as Jamie began inching closer and closer to her.

"What did you mean?" Jamie asked, still gilding towards her, his eyes locked on hers.

"I meant, you know, should we sightsee or grab some breakfast, or… " Juno stammered as she backed up from Jamie's approach, suddenly picturing a repeat of last night's sexual Olympics.

"Or?"

"Or, we could, you know, have wild monkey sex, which I'm thinking is your only short term goal right now." Juno said, unable to keep herself from grinning.

"Yes, I'm feeling very primitive right now." Jamie agreed, closing the distance between them. "Sex and food are the only things on my mind. In this case, you might be both…"

Juno giggled and took two huge strides to the side, putting the bed between herself and her stalker. "Well, there's a lot of me to go around."

Jamie growled and leapt across the bed, trying to swipe her playfully. "That's it. There's going to be some punishment for that crack."

Juno giggled as he grabbed her arm and easily yanked her down on the bed, tumbling her body up against his, bumping elbows and knees in their eagerness to touch again. Just as Jamie straddled her, pinned her arms above her head and gave a small roar of triumph, his mobile phone rang.

Jamie groaned in agony at being so close to Juno and yet…

Sitting up, he fished his phone from his pocket and flipped it open. "This is Fulham, and this better be an absolute emergency or I'm hanging up."

Juno giggled from her vantage point beneath him at his clearly aggravated tone. Her expression changed drastically when Jamie held out the phone for her to take.

"It's for you." He said softly. "It's Darcy."

1005 / 30947 / 50000

before . after