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Because she’d slept at his place last night.
After their sexual interlude in the wee hours of Saturday morning, they’d briefly gone back to sleep, and then gotten up in a few hours. They’d gone out to breakfast and then both gone off to their various assignments—her at the Spring Mills Walmart parking lot and him at the Hedgesville game. Then, they’d come back to her place in the afternoon and slept. They’d stayed up too late the next night talking and fucking and talking more and mostly going round and round, and then Sunday, they’d been at his house.
He’d watched sports on TV. She’d snuggled into him on the couch with her ereader. She hadn’t thought she’d be able to tune out the game to read, but it had worked out pretty easily. Then she’d slept at his place that night.
Were they together?
Yes?
They wanted to try it out, but they were both alternately convinced it wasn’t going to work for various reasons. Time would tell, she supposed.
“But I thought about it again, and it just seems dumb. Everyone will know why I’m wearing a scarf,” she said.
“Yeah, but it looks like I fucking tried to kill you. Couldn’t you… makeup or something?”
“I did sorta try, but my makeup matches my face, not my neck.”
He glanced back and forth from her face to her neck.
“I mean, it doesn’t really match my face either, to be real. I don’t really wear the foundation-y stuff that much, you know?”
“Whatever you want to do with makeup is fine,” he said.
“I’m not Mandy,” she growled at him.
“I very much know this,” he said.
She sighed.
He sighed.
“Look, it’s worse for me,” she said.
“It’s so much worse for me,” he countered. “But…” He reached out, gentle, barely brushing the bruises. “I hate that you look hurt. I hate… you’re lying to me by saying it’s not painful, aren’t you?”
“I’m not.” She leaned into his touch. His fingers were shivery and sweet there, and she was feeling a little swoony towards him. “I promise.” She leaned in, pressing against him. “You don’t hate that the bruises are there at all,” she whispered. “Admit it.”
He gave her a look. “Essence.”
“Come on.” She gave him a wicked grin. “Admit that you like that you left a physical sign on my body that stakes your claim.”
He kissed her.
She twined her arms around his neck.
He pulled away, resting his forehead against hers. “We said we weren’t going to do this here.”
“We said that at one point, and then, during that other conversation, I thought we decided it probably didn’t matter, since everyone knows anyway, and—”
“Yeah, but it’s unprofessional,” he said. “And it makes me feel weird to be all over you when I… marked you.”
She felt a rush of something forbidden and sweet go through her and she went up on tiptoe to capture his lips with hers again.
When they finally went into the office, she was still feeling the giddy undercurrent of his touch, even though they weren’t touching any more.
They did walk in together, but they didn’t hold hands or look at each other.
He held the door for her, and then she held the next door for him, and he gave her a little look when she did, and she grinned at him.
