Melinda felt chilly, impossibly.
Well, maybe not impossibly. It was November in Ireland. Improbably, she thought. The heat was on, she was under a blanket. She shouldn't be cold. Evaporation, her sleepy brain knew. Sweat cools skin. A warm shower would help, but she didn't feel like getting up. She was tired.
And there was the not-so-small matter of the bed's other occupant, who was apparently sleeping peacefully on his side, wrapped up in most of the covers. Waking him could make things awkward. Which, clearly, they aren't already.
He hadn't wanted to cuddle, after. Cuddling might warm her up, but Melinda wouldn't dream of waking him up and asking, like some lovestruck schoolgirl trying to win over a distant boyfriend. Melinda had never been that desperate, that she could remember. She shifted and tried to get farther under the covers, instead. She almost jumped when her foot brushed his leg. Sharing a bed with a casual fling never stops feeling strange.
She was no blushing bride. He was neither her first nor last overnight guest. Any fairytales about needing love before you could have sex or sex leading to love evaporated a long time ago, for her. Had she ever truly believed either, even as a teenager? Certain schoolteachers had at least tried to feed her the party line. Idly, her thoughts drifted to her first man, to her ex-husband . . . no, she couldn't remember whether she'd ever tried to make someone love her in bed. She had loved some of her partners. But they were all in another lifetime.
Live and learn. She'd certainly learned a thing or two about love by now, and she knew you couldn't make it by bumping bodies together, even if you tried. No. Love came from fighting together, saving each other, comforting each other in hopelessness, valuing each other. The way she loved Phil. Loved him enough to leave her desk job and go undercover in the field. Loved him enough to not care that he didn't want to kiss her, come to bed with her. But if he did, she mused, he'd probably want to cuddle after.
It would have been nice if Ward had wanted to cuddle. Warmer, anyway.
She tried to shrug away such thoughts as she turned over to get comfortable. She could see his outline in the faint light from the streetlight outside, now. She couldn't see the scars on his back, but she could remember them. She'd felt them under her fingers and peeked when she straddled him to squeeze his tense shoulder with her teeth. A less jaded woman might have gasped at the sight. Ugly lashes, souvenirs from hell. She could guess what they were from, but hadn't asked. He'd been kind enough not to ask about any of the strange marks that decades of fieldwork had left on her body. Not even the most conspicuous one, a bright pink circle along her bikini line, left by a twisting knife. Possibly he hadn't even noticed.
He hadn't made conversation at all. Hell, he'd barely made eye contact. That was probably the staff's effects showing. Rage, pain, and shame don't encourage intimacy. Good thing neither of us are looking for that, she mused as she finally started to drift off. And it was true. Melinda had no complaints about the events of the previous hour. Ward hadn't been selfish, just too broken to care about romance. He'd asked whether he should get a condom, and hadn't pried when she replied "No need." Pillow talk was unnecessary. Overanalyzing the situation would've been silly. The sex was mutually enjoyable, it would help them both relax, and that was what mattered.
But she still wished it wasn't so chilly in this room.