It was no secret to Charlie that a certain level of sexual tension had been developing between her and Bass since their first journey back from New Vegas. There was a time when this knowledge had tortured her to no avail and she had desperately fought against what she felt, but things had changed since then.

It was like she had told Connor during her second and, hopefully, final trip through New Vegas. She knew that their life-span at this point was looking incredibly short. So she could spend her time fretting over and fighting every feeling that she had, or she could decide that she would go down fighting the Patriots and try to enjoy herself as much as she could in the time leading up to that. And if that enjoyment meant admitting to herself that she was sexually attracted to former-president Sebastian Monroe, and maybe even flirting with him to make her days a little less heavy, then so be it.

And speaking of Connor, he wasn't half bad himself. He was definitely cute and surprisingly charming. Maybe it was genetic, she wasn't sure, but what she did know was that she found herself drawn to him as well.

Her feelings weren't one-sided either, with the father or the son. She knew that they were both interested and they seemed to know that as well, since they had been becoming more and more competitive with each other, especially since Bass had caught her and Connor practically in the act back in New Vegas.

Charlie knew that it probably wasn't the most morally pure thing to do, flirting with both Bass and his son. But then again, there wasn't a lot that they did these days that was morally pure anyways. Besides, she liked the way that they tried to outdo each other. It made them much more bold and made days that usually would have been boring and tedious surprisingly enjoyable for her.

Maybe it made her a bad person to get some kind of sick pleasure from pitting them against each other, but it's not like there were really any good people left in the world these days anyways.

It was this reasoning that urged Charlie, after days of things being suspiciously quiet from the Patriots, to immediately volunteer to go along on a stake-out with Monroe and his son after they were tipped off to a possible late-night delivery arriving in Willoughby.

They had just arrived at the spot beside a couple of bushes where they would be camped out for the rest of the night.

Charlie watched Bass and Connor lie down on their stomachs on the part of the ground where they thought they would have the best vantage point and took in the view with the absolute tiniest of smirks pulling at the corner of her lips.

There was a little space between the men, obviously not where they had intended for her to lay, but also wide enough for her to fit as long as she was alright with being nice and close to the man on either side of her.

That definitely wasn't a concern for her and she hadn't come out here to lie in the dirt with rocks digging into her chest and thighs all night to not have a little fun. No, she was planning on kicking things up a notch tonight and playing with them a little.

Both of the men's heads whipped to look at her as she sprawled out between them, keeping her attention towards the gates of Willoughby instead of either one of them. She felt their gazes move to her and had to bite down on her bottom lip to hold back a smirk at how easy they were already making this for her.

"Pass me those," she said as she shifted her weight to reach a hand out in Connor's direction.

A second of hesitation passed before Connor's brain seemed to catch up to her words and he handed the binoculars over.

She took them from him and peered through as she investigated the gates to Willoughby. There were a couple of armed guards, but nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary for the Patriots. That was no surprise though.

She brought the binoculars away from her face and offered them to Bass.

He took them and looked through quickly before setting them down and muttering, "This is going to be a long night."

Charlie tended to agree with him and she could already feel dents forming on her thighs from the chain on her belt, so she figured that, if she was going to be stuck there all night, she may as well be a little less uncomfortable... Besides, she was sure that she could make quite a show of taking her belt off without getting up.

Bass's gaze turned back towards Charlie as he heard a quiet jangling beside him.

When he saw that she seemed to be stripping, he asked her, "What are you doing?"

His voice came out sounding a lot more hoarse than intended, so he quickly swallowed to try and wet his throat so that he wouldn't have that problem again.

"You try lying on this belt all night," Charlie commented as she looked up to give him a small smile before directing her attention back towards her belt.

She was intentionally removing it as slowly as possible. She wasn't really concerned about the noise, since they were reasonably far away from any Patriots to be convinced that they weren't going to hear the jangling. She did, however, want to milk this out for as much as she could as she wriggled her hips more than was necessarily required in order to remove her belt.

She chanced a glance upwards and was not surprised to find that Connor's attention was focused solely on her backside.

Connor had never been one to act shy about his interest in her and there wasn't a doubt in Charlie's mind that he was an ass man. He saw no shame in it and she didn't mind if he was maybe a little blunt in his staring at times.

What Charlie was surprised by though, was Bass's blatant staring.

He wasn't one to have his eyes linger on her assets for too long. He was more of a smoldering gaze kind of guy than a state at your ass as though it held all of the answers to life itself man.

Charlie's heart-rate picked up a little as Bass continued to stare. She was pleased that she had managed to get him to take a nice long look after months of him struggling so hard to keep his gaze locked only on hers.

It felt good to have managed to take the Sebastian Monroe by surprise enough to have him slip a little.

She finally couldn't delay any longer as she pulled her belt through its final loop before dropping it on the ground in front of her. As it fell with a satisfying clattering sound, it seemed to drag the men back to reality. Each tore their gazes away as if they were hoping that she hadn't noticed their ogling.

Charlie rolled from her side back onto her stomach and crossed her arms in front of her to use as a pillow. Her head turned to face Connor as he began to speak.

"If there's anything else you'd like to take off, feel free to go ahead," he told her with a wry smile as he ignored the glare that his father was shooting from her other side.

A small grin formed on Charlie's lips as she told him, "Nah, I think I'm good... But if you'd be more comfortable wearing a little less, I wouldn't have any complaints."

Behind her, Bass muttered under his breath, "Why don't you two just get a room already?"

His question had come out so soft that if Charlie had been any further away, she was sure that she wouldn't have even known that he had spoken. But she wasn't further away. She was lying with her body mere inches from his and she had heard every word.

It seemed to Charlie that someone was feeling a bit jealous and neglected.

So far the night may not have been going too successfully as far as figuring out what the Patriots were up to went, but Charlie was catching her own little victories that were making her journey well worth it.

She turned back to face Bass and plastered on her best look of innocent confusion as she questioned, "Did you say something?"

Bass was surprised that she had even remembered that he was there with how absorbed she was in trying to talk Connor out of his clothes. She'd managed it before and he knew that if he weren't there, that she probably would have managed it again.

As much as Bass liked having the kid around, he hated watching Connor and Charlie together. They were just so blatantly, disgustingly flirty and he wasn't quite sure of how Rachel hadn't done something about it yet.

Then again, he and Charlie'd had their fair share of lingering glances and quite the lack of regard towards personal space since she'd found him trying to hide out as Jimmy King. Hell, they'd even grown to form a sort of unspoken understanding with each other that he hadn't felt in years with anyone other than Miles... Maybe even including Miles these days considering all of the stunts that he was pulling to try and keep in Rachel's good graces for reasons that Bass couldn't fathom.

And the way that they fought together was something else. Bass had never found himself so in sync fighting alongside anyone but Miles. With Miles, he knew that it was from years of learning through experience of fighting together, but with Charlie it was something else.

Bass would be lying if he said that he didn't wonder about other applications of their bodies' synchronization. Thoughts of whether or not they would be so atune to each other in the bedroom crossed his mind more often than he cared to admit.

But now was not the time to think about that. He'd already let his eyes linger too long in areas that they shouldn't have. The last thing that he needed was to spend the rest of the night lying on a bunch of rocks, which were already digging into delicate places, with a hard-on to try and keep hidden from Connor and Charlie.

So he forced his thoughts to other places as he grumbled back, "I didn't say anything."

Charlie kept her gaze focused on his for a few seconds longer, her eyes challenging his response, before she finally just commented, "I must be hearing things."

She shrugged and turned her gaze away from his and Bass felt his entire body relax a little in relief.

Relief cycled right back around to frustration as he watched Connor shoot her one of his flirty little smiles while he shifted a little closer.

Bass's earlier words seemed to taunt him now. He hadn't known just how right he had been yet when he had said that it was going to be a long night.

A/N: Please read and review! :) This story is dedicated to the lovely Steph-Schell who seems to always end up fuelling my ideas until I can't stop myself from starting a new story.