A/N: Thank you to Lala Kate for the prompt starting this all. Wine, Lips, Stare. I wrote a drabble, read it back, and realized I wrote Mary and Charles without intending to. So it's my first go at them and my first go at a Modern AU (taking place in America). The title comes from Mumford and Sons' "Lover's Eyes." I intend for this story to start as if the reader is watching this relationship through a pinhole and each chapter for the view to become wider and deeper. This will be the longest author note you ever see for this story. I've promised myself. I'm also nervous. (Forgive slow updates because my other work-in progress, A Girl You Knew, is a priority as it is at the tail end).

1. Wine

"Don't look at me like that," she tells him coldly, as they wait by the ornate front door, each waiting for their town car to pull around.

"I'm not looking at you," he replies stiffly. He pulls his shoulders back, though both already carry themselves with a kind of proud arrogance that results in perfect posture. Mirroring her is not lost on him and yet he cannot do anything about it. Of course, the straighter he stands, the more he lies. While he avoided her eye for most of dinner, dessert was another tale altogether. Her lips, stained by the red wine she drank, beckoned him. He could not help but stare, even as they debated on sustainability in third world countries.

"Just because you are friends with my father," she continues cooly without looking to the left or the right. He never knew that stillness could be something beautiful; she is a statue but with life just below the surface of her pale skin, blood rushing through her veins–able to tremble but unwilling to."Just because he has these asinine ideas, like trying to push us together–"

"Just because we slept together that once?" he interrupts. He can't help it. She is unattainable in the structured emerald dress, cut just above the knees, with diamonds cheerfully winking from her ears through her long dark hair. It would be easier if she worked hard to look the way she does but as far as he can tell, it's effortless–wine used for color on her lips instead of lipstick.

She ignores this, except for raising a single eyebrow. Though he is right; they did sleep together. Once. Only once. Only once and not to be repeated. "...does not mean you can look at me like that. So kindly stop."

She doesn't mean it kindly. She's never meant anything she's ever said to him kindly. Still, he moves behind her. "I'm not looking at you." He places his hand lightly on her hip, his voice very near her ear. She lets out a silent breath to keep from jumping at his touch. Her stillness costs her but she would never tell anyone such a thing.

"I can feel you looking at me." Sometimes it is even too difficult to be still and perhaps that is why she dislikes him. They both ignore the fact that she is a bit breathless, that her chest starts to rise and fall like the beating wings of a hummingbird.

"I am not looking at you." He takes a step nearer, moves the sweep of her long hair away from the nape of her neck with his fingertips. He places a slow, deliberate kiss there. "I am doing the opposite of looking at you."

Her knees begin to shake. They ignore this too. "This is not happening again."

His hand trails up her hip, along her torso, before retreating back down again, just before her breast. "When you say this is not happening again...Do you mean we won't be forgoing our separate cars back to the city? And we definitely won't make out like teenagers the whole drive, barely making it back to your place? And, of course, you most definitely will not throw me out of your apartment in the morning?"

"That..." she pauses searching for the right words. She is always composed. Somehow, her bottom is snug against the front of his trousers and she wants... "That was not...That was a mistake."

He laughs lowly in her ear. She bites her lip at the sound of it. "Thank you for admitting throwing me out before I could get my pants on was a mistake."

"I wasn't referring to..." Her chest is rising and falling more quickly now, her heart pounding in her ears. She wonders if he can hear it as both of his hands trace designs on her hips (he does have lovely hands), bringing her back and his front firmly together. She bites her lip a second time; only this time, she makes herself bleed to hold back a moan. "What I mean to say is–"

She takes a small step forward but both of them know she isn't going anywhere. The wanting between them is palpable, like heat coming off them in waves. She turns, takes him by the lapels and pulls him to her and they stumble into the wall behind them. His lips are ravenous and one of her hands slips beneath the collar of his white starched shirt to the tan of his skin. One of his hands grasps hers, tightening until bone rubs against bone, and linked, he raises their arms above her head. "Oh God," she moans, her leg hitching its way up his thigh so his other hand can slide along it, touching the pale skin of her knee and then rubbing against the the fabric of her dress.

Her lips taste of red wine–pinot noir–and she is making these tiny gasping sounds in the back of her throat, driving him insane. Headlights graze their bodies which move against one another in a slow and inevitable rhythm. "Car's here," he mumbles against her throat. Where is the zipper on this dress? This must be madness, in her father's house, wondering how to remove her dress.

"Whose?" she asks, her head thrown back against the wall as she tries to wind herself around him. Unfortunately, the conservative hemline of the dress and the black pumps make it a little difficult.

"Does it matter?" He hates this dress with it's high and folded neckline, how it shows her arms but not her legs, with its imaginary zipper. But he loves it too because she is lovely in it, because she is letting him touch it, a thin barrier before her skin.

She pushes him away suddenly, though she cannot seem to part from the bottom half of him. "Wait. No."

"No?" he asks, his eyes piercing, breathing heavy. "If it's no, then we'll stop. I'll–"

"I don't know if it's no," she hisses. "Obviously, it's not completely no." She rubs herself against his belt buckle. "But there must be rules."

"Fine," he says shortly. The control it takes keep himself from matching her small thrusts may drive him insane. "Such as?"

"We don't ever talk about it." She is breathing as if she ran a marathon. "We don't discuss it ever again. And this...Only this once."

"Twice," he contradicts and presses his hand to the place where her heart beats erratically.

Her brown eyes narrow. "That's talking about it."

He holds his hands in the air in surrender. "All right."

"And we tell no one," she insists, taking his hands and placing them back on her hips. His nose grazes her cheekbone. "No one," she whispers before he kisses her, slowly this time– thoroughly–his tongue tracing the seam of her lips.

He takes her hand then, pushing the door open. "And don't think we're having sex in the limo." She whirls around to face him, her hair long and twisting in the wind.

"Do you consider that a hard and fast rule?" he asks, squeezing her hand in his. "Pun intended, of course." His teeth are blindingly white as he grins. She hates his charm, that it's genuine. She has to hate it in order to keep herself from liking him. She cannot like him.

"No jokes," she hisses at him. "You aren't funny."

They wait for the driver to come around and open the door for them. In the meantime, somehow her backside once again nestles itself into his front. If it were daylight, they would cast a single shadow. "Right. I'm not looking at you. I'm not making jokes. I'm not funny."

"Exactly." She lets out a long breath. "And the thing about the limo?"

"Yes?"

"For the record, I might have spoken prematurely. I could be persuaded to break that rule." Then she climbs elegantly into the car, ever the lady.

He pants against the long length of her throat, his mouth dry, his hands on the smooth skin of her naked hips. She points her toes against his calves–still–and he remembers from the first time, the last time this happened, she did the same thing before letting out a loud, singular moan she could not hold back, going limp in his arms but for the pointed toes, evidence of her former profession as a ballerina. One hand slides up along the side of her body, gentle against pale skin, her stomach, the side of her breast.

Her hand flexes in his hair spastically. The nape of his neck is sweaty with the effort it took to withstand her in the limo, make it up the elevator with her neighbors eyeing them sideways, stumbling into her apartment like two drunken teenagers, swearing as she tripped over her heels, swearing again when her hand slipped to the buckle of his belt, maneuvering towards the bed, banging his elbow against the door frame, falling artlessly on the mattress, crawling up her body, dragging at her dress while she eagerly stripped him of his own clothes, the ecstasy of naked skin pressed to naked skin, pulling each moan and groan from her like a triumph with his tongue and lips, reaching for his jacket, her cursing as she struggled to rip the package open before taking care of the rest, sliding into her slowing, hissing out a breath, feeling her quiver around him.

Now, he feels (but does not see) her mouth open and close. She remains silent deciding whether to throw him out gracefully or gracelessly (although the question of throwing him out, he believes, is redundant). Despite the obvious chemistry (her toes still curl firmly against his calves, their legs tangled), she does not like him or will not like him. Everything he says is repungent to her; she must always have the last word. She remains aloof and still, except when they are like this, languid limbs still trembling in the aftermath, when she cannot remain aloof or still. But despite all this, he does not want to be thrown out (he would bite off his own tongue before admitting such a thing). His only hope is to feign sleep, which he does, his eyes blinking closed, body sliding halfway off of hers, hand swooping in a sleepy fashion to cup her breast with familiarity.

He feels her look down at him and she lets out a sigh before settling back into her pillow, her toes leaving his calves. As off as it sounds, even in his head, he misses them. She removes his hand from her breast and with a grunt, rolls him the rest of the way off of her and onto his back. He fights not to smile, imagining her expression. She leaves the bed altogether and he does not hear the rustle of clothing so he can only imagine she walks around the apartment naked. Through the slit of his eye, he sees the lights go out in the other rooms of the apartment and she returns with a glass of water in her hand. She gulps it down, sitting beside him on her bed, probably staring daggers at him, wondering if she should shake him awake. But maybe he is wrong. The next thing he hears is the opening of medicine bottle, the rattle of pills. She takes another drink of water. She curls toward the very edge of the bed.

She turns the lamp off.

So this time she lets him stay over.

She does shake him awake though the morning sun is shining on one side of his face when she does. "Do you always sleep so late?" she snaps.

He blinks the sleep from his eyes. She is wearing a silk robe in ivory, her hair loose down her back, holding a cup of coffee. He smiles slowly, against his will. "Is that for me?"

She takes a deliberate sip. "No," she tells him. "Although if a cup of coffee will get you out of my bed quicker, I would be more than happy to make it."

He glances at his watch, still on his wrist, never wrestled off from the night before. "It's six thirty on a Saturday."

She is still again, the robe knotted tightly, though her eyes narrow slightly. "I am aware of the time."

"Do you always get up this early?" he asks, sitting up in bed, running his hands through his messy dark hair.

"I wasn't aware my personal habits were any of your business," she chirps, setting her coffee aside on the nightstand. There is a photograph there they both ignore. She reaches down to pick up his pants and throws them at him.

"I'm trying to have a conversation with you," he continues.

"We have those," she replies, hands on her hips, chin tilted. "When my father invites you to dinner without telling me."

He grins. "Those are more like debates." He rolls to the edge of the bed and steps into his trousers before sitting with them unbuttoned, his belt still undone. He leans forward, elbows on his knees while she stares at the wall behind him. "Last night–"

"You're breaking a rule," she cuts him off with a bored tone. "You said you wouldn't talk about it."

"All right," he replies amiably. "Now that it's happened twice–"

"You're doing it again."

He decides to leave. It will always be a battle between them until he spots her toes, just at the edge of her robe, painted a vivid red. He remembers the way, at the very end, her toes point and flex against his calf, the tightness before she goes limp.

He slips a finger under the knot of her robe and pulls her between his thighs. She comes willingly enough, even raising her hands to his bare shoulders. She touches him but she does not hold on. "You should be careful," he warns. "You'll give me the impression you don't like me talking at all."

"I don't," she breathes while his hands slide around her hips to her bottom and tugs her forward. "Don't talk," she whispers before her mouth descends on his. She taste of coffee and toothpaste and now she does hold on to him, leaning in, while his hands drag up her body and tangle themselves in her hair.

The silk falls off one of her shoulders. Their noses brush when he pulls away, fingers on her chin. "Tell me you want me to stay."

Her eyes are closed and she rubs her lips together, savoring the kiss. Then, she opens her eyes, staring at him. He remembers her wine stained mouth from the night before. "No," she murmurs. "I won't tell you that." She takes a step closer to him so once again, they are pressed together while she makes a humming sound in the back of her throat. He leans back onto the bed and she follows, a dance to be repeated again in the morning light.

A/N: I am so nervous to share this and would appreciate feedback.