Afterward, they lay on their backs next to one another, the sheets pushed down to rest just over their hips, covering their bottom halves but leaving the top bare to the warm air that fluttered in through the window. In early August, nights were still warm but not as humid and unbearable as the dead of summer, when Lauren would need the blast of ice cold air from the AC just to fall asleep.
Marc’s body was cooling beside her, their shoulders brushing with every heavy exhale. Sweat still glistened on their bodies. The space between Lauren’s legs was pleasantly sore. She could feel the bruises from his fingers beginning to form on her hips and the hickeys he’d left on her neck. She’d left a few marks of her own on his skin and the thought made her smile.
She didn’t think she’d ever be comfortable with marking somebody else—or being marked by somebody else—ever again. But with Marc Kelly, it felt so right.
“You doing alright?” he asked. She turned her head, furrowing her brow at him. “Your breathing is a little heavy.” She opened her mouth with a smart retort on the tip of her tongue and he shook his head. “Stop,” he chuckled. “I just meant…heavier than it should be. Considering…”
She nudged his shoulder. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” she husked, turning to nip at his ear lobe, before pulling back. “I am the doctor, after all.”
“And a very good one at that,” Marc teased. “Remind me to leave you a good review on Yelp.”
Lauren snorted and nudged him again.
“How’s your knee?” she asked, after a long moment. “Is it sore yet? You spent a lot of time on it.”
“And whose fault is that?”
“Yours,” Lauren huffed.
“Oh really? Because I seem to remember a certain somebody begging me to keep eating her out. In fact, I do believe I still have the claw marks on my back to prove it.” He turned his back to her. “How deep are they, Doc? Am I gonna need stitches?”
“Not quite,” Lauren laughed, sitting up. “But let me get you some ice before you start to really feel your injuries. Or else you won’t be able to walk in the morning.”
“I think that’s more a reflection of your skills than my injuries,” Marc murmured, folding his arms under his head, but Lauren could see the way he moved; carefully, cautiously. The bruise over his ribs was a deep purple now. His knee was probably worse.
She stood, stretching her pleasantly sore body and pulled the sheet along with her, leaving him bare on her bed. Unashamed, he looked evenly into her eyes after he caught her gazing over the delicious naked form. Her gaze paused on his knee, confirming what she already knew. His injured knee was swollen so much she wasn’t even sure he’d be able to bend it, let alone walk on it.
His face didn’t betray any discomfort; only satisfaction at her sheet clad form.
Lauren allowed her hips to swing as she exited the room, opening the door to find Emma in the hallway, laying down just outside. Her tail thumped on the floor at the sight of her master and Lauren reached down, stroking her behind the ear. “Good girl,” she murmured as she walked past her loyal pet.
In the kitchen, she grabbed a towel and filled it with ice, tying the ends to make a pouch. On her way back to the bedroom, she turned off the lights, leaving their empty dinner plates where they lay. She could get to them in the morning, before she left for work. She doubted that Marc would do anything, even without his current injuries.
When she got back to the bedroom, she found Emma laying in the corner, in the bed that she had bought the dog when she first came to live there. She never used that bed, always preferring to sleep in the bed with Lauren. But seeing Marc in her spot must have clued her in on how things would be that night.
Lauren climbed back into bed, crawling up so that she sat at Marc’s hip, facing his injured knee. “Can you bend it?” she asked.
“I’ve never tried,” Marc retorted, looking decidedly north of his knee, “but I’m gonna go ahead and say no.”
Lauren scoffed and shook her head. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
Marc laughed and lifted his leg, letting out a soft hiss. “Nope,” he said. “Can barely move it without feeling some kind of vicelike pressure around it. You sure that ice is gonna help it?”
“It’s going to have to,” Lauren sighed, placing it delicately onto his knee. “I don’t have anything else at my disposal.”
“Seriously? No painkillers?”
“Only the over-the-counter kind,” she admitted. “And they’re going to do next to nothing for this. You need to go see a doctor.”
“Good thing I’m in bed with one.”
“I meant at a hospital,” Lauren laughed. “There’s one in the city. I could—”
“No,” Marc grunted, pulling himself up the bed until he was propped up against the pillows. “I told you, I don’t do cities.”
“Then you’ll have to come to the clinic with me in the morning,” Lauren countered. “If the swelling isn’t significantly down by then, you’re going to have to get an X-ray. You’re lucky that they have a machine where I work. Otherwise there would be nothing to stop me from driving you straight to the city hospital.”
“As if you could lift me,” Marc scoffed.
“I’m a lot stronger than I look.”
He was silent for a long moment and Lauren got the notion that, for the first time, he actually saw the scars all over her body and recognized what they meant. He nodded, slowly.
“I’m starting to see that,” he said, low in his throat. There was a look of something in his eyes for half a second. But it was gone so quickly that Lauren was sure she had imagined it.
No feelings, a voice that sounded a lot like Marc’s said in the back of her head. Just sex.
She sighed, internally, and laid back down, feeling the warmth of his body against her side.
“Keep the ice on your knee for thirty minutes,” she instructed, turning on her side away from him, “then switch to your ribs. It’ll bring down the swelling all over.”
“Thanks for the advice, Doc,” Marc retorted, with laughter in his voice. Silence, then, “Good night.”
“Night,” Lauren replied, keeping her voice as casual and emotion-free as possible as she closed her eyes and willed her breathing to even out.
She dreamt of him that night.