A Carott Christmas

This little story was inspired by @AgentBarstow (Scott) and @KillerRednHeels (Carina) who have come to life on Twitter.  Their delightful banter entertains me greatly and I thought I would write a little something to say, "Merry Christmas" and "Thank You" to them both.  (For the record, I don't know who is behind the Twitter handles.  Whoever they are, they are awesome.)

This is also for the biggest Carott shipper of them all, Catrogue.

P.S. - Thanks to AgentInWaiting for reading over this for me and making sure Carina was "spicy" enough. :)

“No.  I won’t do it,” Scott Barstow, agent of the CIA, said.  He crossed his arms with a harrumph and stared down at the floor, refusing to make eye contact.  He knew he was acting like a petulant child, but he didn’t care.

Carina Miller, DEA agent extraordinaire, sidled closer to him on the black leather couch.  She slipped one arm across the top of the back cushions behind his broad shoulders.  Her other hand uncrossed his arms and dropped on his chest.  The way her front pressed against him, her close proximity, the fragrance of her warm, spicy, citrusy perfume all made him more than a little light headed.  “Come on, Scotty,” she purred softly.  “Do it for me.”  With a finger, she drew tiny, lazy circles at the center of his chest.  Her touch burned through the fabric of his white t-shirt and scorched his skin.

He kept his gaze pinned to the arbitrary spot on the carpet and stayed silent.

Her voice remained silky smooth.  “You know you’re going to give in to me.  Why not just skip all this and just do it?”

“Do what you want to me, Carina,” he said with bravado.  “I won’t change my mind this time.”  He knew it wasn’t true.  He would change his mind and they both knew it.  But he didn’t want to go down without a fight.

The chuckle was low and throaty.  “Oh, sweetie.  I always do what I want to you.”

The corner of his mouth twitched and lifted despite his best effort to stay serious.  His stare drifted from the floor to the splash of color at the collection of bottles on the small table against the wall.  A red Santa hat with furry white trim sat atop a bottle of Kahlua.  It was the only Christmas decoration that graced her entire apartment.

She curled back her arm and rested the side of her head on her fist.  “Look, you flew all the way to DC from Colorado to do this with me.  Relax.  It’ll be fine.”

He gave her a side-eyed glance.  “You promise you won’t tell Agent Walker?  Or Colonel Casey?”

Heaving a sigh, she said, “I hate to tell you this, Scotty, but she already knows.”

“She does?”  He groaned and dragged a hand over his face in dismay.

The circles she trailed on his chest turned into figure eights.  His defenses were rapidly weakening.  “But look, Walker and her nerd are so busy with those seven kids of theirs, they don’t care what we do.”

It was true. “They are going to have a guest for a couple of weeks over Christmas break, too.”

“Mm-hmm.  Walker told me about that.  The redhead from Amsterdam, right?

“Yeah.  Amy, Fred’s Scottish... friend.”

Carina somehow managed to move even closer to him.  “Even more proof of how busy they’ll be.”

He was quickly running out of excuses.  “What if the kids see pictures?”

She shrugged.  “They might.”  Shifting ever closer, her lips moved to within mere millimeters of his ear as she rested her forehead against the side of his head.  “It wouldn’t be the end of the world.”  His entire body buzzed when he felt her hot, moist breath on his ear.  When he realized the moan he heard was his own, he knew he had lost both the battle and the war.  But she still wasn’t done with him yet.  And frankly, he was okay with that.  He was disappointed when she leaned back.

“Besides, I already went to your stuffy CIA holiday party the other night.  God, what a bunch of uptight bores,” she said with a groan.  “Although our own personal after party was rather festive.”  His face flushed crimson at the lascivious look on her face.  “And you looked particularly yummy in your tuxedo.”

He turned his head a little and peered at her.  “You looked pretty good in that green dress, too.”  Truth be told, he almost fell over when she appeared in the sparkly, low cut number.

“Please,” she said with a snort.  “I looked fantastic.”

He had to admit that she had certainly turned heads everywhere she went during the party.  It was especially true after Agent Walker arrived.  When the two beautiful women laughed and chatted together, everyone else in the room stopped and stared.

“I was surprised when Chuckie and Sarah showed up,” Carina said.

“Maybe they thought it would be a good idea since they both work for the Agency.  And they didn’t go last year,” he said, shrugging.  “I was just as surprised to see them as you were.  I was under the impression Agent Walker never went to Christmas parties.”

“Well, apparently, now she does.”  She gently slapped his chest and said, “And we’re getting off the subject.  I played nice at your dreary CIA party so now you owe me.  You have to come to my DEA one tonight.  I held up my end of the bargain.  You have to hold up yours.”

“But why does it have to have a theme?” he said, a whine edging into his voice.

“The DEA is the fun agency.  Our parties always have a theme.  Come on, Scotty.  Loosen up.”

“What was the theme last year?”

Her eyes flashed with amusement.  “It was a casino night.  Monte Carlo if I remember correctly.”

He let out a guffaw.

“I know,” she said with a smirk.

His eyes lasered in on hers.  “You promise this isn’t some kind of prank you’re pulling on me?”

“I promise.  I’ll be there, too.  Remember?”

“Yeah.  I still can’t believe you’re willing to do it.”

“Please,” she scoffed, tossing her hair.  “I can make anything look good.”

“That’s true.”  He had one more card to play.  “You have to let me pick the music we play in the car on the way to the party.”

“Ha!” she snorted.  “No way, Scotty.  I’m not allowing that crap you like to be played in my car.”

He sat up straighter.  “Crap?  I’ll have you know that Lynyrd Skynyrd is an American institution.” 

She rolled her eyes.

“It’s better than that techno club drivel you listen to.”

With a wicked grin, she hummed, “You didn’t seem too bothered by it when we went clubbing that one time.”

His breathing grew shallow and his ears burned red-hot when he thought back on the way she danced against—.  He closed his eyes and shook his head to clear the thoughts away.  “I see what you’re trying to do.”  He folded his arms against his chest again and squinted at her.  “The entire nine minute album cut of ‘Freebird’ or I stay right here.”

A little squeak escaped from him when the hand on his chest moved lower.  He felt like a mouse being batted around by a cat just before it met its demise.  “Do you really want to negotiate with me, Scotty?”

With her hand sliding ever lower down his abdomen, he found it impossible to form any words—or even have a coherent thought for that matter.  All the blood drained from his head and rushed to another part of his anatomy.  Apparently she took his silence to mean he was firm in his convictions, so she huffed and said, “Fine.  You can listen to ‘Freebird,’ but I get to pick on the way home.”

He blinked away the stupor.  If she was willing to listen to that, she really wanted him to go with her to the party.  “Deal.  Let’s get ready to go.”  He patted her hand.  “And we can listen to Sinatra in the car instead of ‘Freebird.’”

Tipping her head to one side, she flashed a grin at him. “Deal.”  He shuddered when she nipped his earlobe—a very Carina way of sealing a deal—and then stood and strode into her bedroom.  From the doorway, she threw an article of clothing at him, hitting him in the face with it.  “I’m putting mine on, too.  I’ll be out in a minute.”

Sighing, he found the shoulders of the piece of clothing and lifted it up to take a look.  It was the ugliest thing he’d ever seen.  It was a red knit sweater with a big green Christmas tree covering the entire front.  It wasn’t that the tree was just large.  It had textures to it.  Lots and lots of textures.  “Oh my god, Red!  It’s 3-D!”

From her bedroom she shouted back. “Isn’t it fabulous?  I love the little beads that make it look like it has ornaments on the tree.”

“No, it’s not fabulous!  It’s horrifying.”

“Quit your bellyaching and put that thing on.”  She peeked around the doorframe.  He could see only her face and the strap of her lavender bra over her otherwise bare shoulder.  “I promise to rip it off you later.  We haven’t emptied that box from Amsterdam yet.”  She disappeared back into the bedroom.

That was a plan he could get on board with.  He leapt up from the sofa and pulled the sweater on over his head.  He felt like a complete idiot and was pretty sure he looked like one, too.  “Then can we burn it later, too?”

“I’m not sure it would burn,” came a disembodied voice.  “My guess is that it would just sort of melt.”  Walking out of her bedroom, her gaze raked over him.  “Ho, ho, ho.”

He grinned.  “How can you make that sound so dirty?”

Sauntering toward him, she said, “It’s a gift.”

His heart thumped faster when he saw her.  “And how can you look so good in such an ugly sweater?”  Hers was a black zipper cardigan with big red Santa Clauses and red and white candy cane trim.  It was 3-D as well.

“It’s a gift,” she said again. He noticed that her sweater was only zipped up part way, stopping well below her chest.

“Yeah, that and the tight red tank top you’re wearing underneath.  You’re cheating.”

“Are you complaining?” she asked, closing in on him.

“No.  Not even a little.”  His gaze swept over the Santas on her sweater.  “I didn’t know Santa rode a unicycle.”

Snorting, she said, “I guess he’s more talented than we all thought.”

“We really don’t have to go, you know.” He reached out and tugged at the zipper, pulling it lower.  “We could stay right here.”

The look on her face told him she knew exactly what he was up to.  “Oh no you don’t.  Your subversion tactics won’t work on me, Agent Barstow.”  She gave him a sly wink and caught his lips in a kiss.  He must have blanked out for a minute, because the next thing he knew, he was in the hallway with Carina Miller’s hand hooked into the crook of his arm as they walked toward the elevator.  She wanted to not only take him to her work holiday party, but was willing to be seen in public with him when they wore the most revolting Christmas sweaters known to man. He suddenly realized that wearing a giant Christmas tree on his chest was worth it after all.