Chloe gently placed a hand on his face. “Well, I am... tired.”
“Of course,” Wes began, and she smiled, because whatever he was feeling, he would always respect the desires of the other person.
“Mentally tired. You know how physical activity can help you get a really good deep sleep? And maybe a really good deep sleep can stimulate my mind!”
“I have been thinking about stimulation,” he told her with a straight face.
Then he grinned.
And she paused, wincing slightly, and he took her shoulders and said softly, “Chloe, please don’t worry, we can just go back to—”
“I don’t want to go back!” she told him, meeting his gaze and shaking her head. “I don’t know... Did we just play a married couple so well we need to take it all the way? Should I have known you all my life? Does any of it matter right now? I don’t know—”
“We can’t know right now,” he whispered, gently moving a stray lock of hair from her forehead. “But we are here, playing a married couple and in real life, we’re adults with, I like to think, a modicum of intelligence and human decency—”
“Decency?” she inquired, causing him to grin again.
“Okay, I can try to be very indecent, but the point is—”
“So tonight you’ll be indecent,” she said lightly.
“By morning’s light we’ll be decent human beings, always, no matter where we go, where this leads, how it ends,” he said. He cocked his head to the side slightly. “From the beginning, my love. ‘As you wish!’”
“Ah, but ‘as you wish,’ as well!” she assured him. And she smiled. “Because that’s how you make things work, right?”
“Could we not bring Celia into the room?” he inquired lightly.
“Hey! You just said her name!” she told him.
“Hm. I’ve got to fix that. Oh, okay!”
With a sudden strong gesture, he swooped low and swepther into his arms. “The couch isn’t nearly as comfortable as the bed, though when I’m touching you... hm, I barely notice anything else!”
She curled her arms around his neck. “Smooth talker!”
“I try!”
They were both laughing when they crashed down on the bed.
Then they weren’t laughing. They were urgent again. And she loved the fiery heat and the vibrant play of his muscles under the touch of her fingers, her lips...
Loved the way they could be so intense, so hungry, so urgent...
And laugh together in a tangle of their clothing before they could discard it all.
And even in the end...
She loved lying next to him, feeling his arm around her as she curled against him.
Loved drifting to sleep... waking at his touch... grinning... finally, drifting into a deep and real sleep that lasted them the night.
When she woke, he was still lying next to her, his head on the pillow next to hers. He was awake, eyes gentle as he smiled at her and she realized that he had watched her sleep for several minutes.
“Hey,” she murmured.
“Hey,” he said, giving her a pained look. “And it’s morning. Wow. Another morning of the beautiful sea, of the blue sky above and a gentle wind blowing! And, of course, still not knowing what the hell is really going on!”
“Well, it is the job,” she reminded him. She smiled. “We’re called agents, but state or federal, our job is that of investigators.”
