They move through the next few weeks in a fog of desire.
She sleepwalks through work, efficient but not entirely present. She doubts she could remember a name or face from any of the court cases or depositions she reported from those days. The planes and angles of his face, the way his eyes change from green to blue to brown and back again, the flex of his muscles under her hands, the feel of his hands on her...those are sharp and clear in her memory.
There's a constant buzz of arousal beneath her skin, itching to be released. Images flash in her mind at inopportune times sending her into erotic daydreams and she finds herself back in her office or halfway to the courtroom with no idea how she got there. After one overly long 'lunch hour' (which involves absolutely no food) causes her to arrive late and disheveled for a deposition and saddles him with an afternoon of paperwork as punishment for a forgotten meeting, they carefully avoid even calling each other during their work day.
They're both absentminded. One evening, she forgets her apartment keys and has to call Katie at the hospital to borrow hers. After the detour to fetch them, they arrive at her place, only to discover that he's left a report he needs to finish on his desk, so she tags along when he returns to pick it up.
The lights are still on in the office, and their entrance doesn't go unnoticed.
"So this is where all your attention has been." An impossibly tall, wide, bear of a man walks out of the inner office toward them. He flashes a grin from under a bushy mustache. The mustache, like the close-cropped hair on his head, is auburn tinged with grey. "I can see why she'd be distracting."
"Hey, Chief." He glances at his boss, and sideways at her, from under the brim of the hat. "This is Winona. Winona, this is Chief Marshal Chuck Paul."
"Call me Chuck," he says. His huge hand swallows hers. Raylan is tall, but this man towers at least six inches over him. Standing between them she feels positively Lilliputian, even in her heels.
"Sorry to break up this cozy little twosome," he says. "But I got a prisoner transfer out of Reno I need you on come Monday. Brett was going to go but Trina's due any day and I hate to send him out of town."
"Not a problem." Raylan says.
"Shouldn't be more than a day or two." Chuck smiles at her, and Winona wishes she didn't have to crane her neck to meet his gaze. "Think you can handle that?" He winks.
"I've been looking for a way to get rid of him." She deadpans. "I need some rest." Raylan tips his head down, hiding a grin and the Chief bursts out laughing.
"Givens, I think you may've met your match," he says, shaking his head. "She's a firecracker."
Raylan gives her a brief tour of the office, ending at his desk where he snags the folder he needs. Glancing around she notices that most of the other desks have personal items; framed family photographs, childishly painted rocks used as paper weights, one desk even has an odd ceramic figurine of a pig wearing a top hat. His desk is empty, save for a glass mug with some kind of inscription she can't read that serves to hold pens and pencils.
"Ready to go?" He asks, startling her. He's standing there holding the folder, looking at her curiously.
She takes one last look at the desk. It reminds her of his apartment. It could belong to anyone, there's no imprint, nothing personal. She wonders if it's possible to really know someone who keeps so much of himself hidden away.
She takes the hand he holds out to her and decides that she's going to try.
-o-o-O-o-o-
Her roommate is out of town so they're at her place tonight. Her bed with its smooth, cool sheets seems sinfully luxurious after the nights spent on the lumpy futon. They lay inches apart, facing each other, and she traces a jagged scar along his bicep with one finger and raises an eyebrow, questioning. He tells a story of an escaped fugitive, a foot-chase through a rail yard, and a shard of splintered wood wielded as a weapon. The story ends well, with the fugitive back in custody and nothing more than a few stitches and a tetanus booster for him, but it casts a shadow in her mind...a nudge of worry. But then he leans in to kiss her and she pushes the unpleasant thoughts away.
Later, she finds a scattering of small indentations on his hip that brings a laugh and a tale of a teenage prank and an angry neighbor with a scatter gun. "Took Helen almost three hours to dig the buckshot out of my ass. And she wasn't gentle, either."
They haven't talked about their families much at all, each intuitively sensing the other's reticence on the subject. But this seems a safe memory. "Who's Helen?" She asks.
"My aunt." He closes his eyes, not offering anything more, leaving her wondering again about his mother, whom he's never mentioned, and his father, whom he only refers to as 'Arlo'. The tone he uses when he speaks the name suggests the relationship is not a good one. She understands already that quizzing him only makes him less likely to open up. Better to listen carefully and weave some kind of picture from the bits and pieces.
The next night he lies on his stomach in her bed and she straddles him as she rubs his shoulders. There's another scar, old and faded, two thin lines stretching diagonally down across his spine, ending at his hip. It looks vaguely familiar, and she cringes recalling pictures shown in court of the back of a child who'd been whipped. She kneads the muscles with her thumbs, feeling his tension ease. "What happened here?" She runs her hand along the mark.
He doesn't answer and she wonders if he's fallen asleep. She raises up, leaning down to look at his face. "Raylan...did someone..." Before she can finish her question he grasps her hips and turns over. She's still straddling him, but now in a much more provocative position. It's distracting, to say the least, but still she's determined to get an answer.
"What happened to you, Raylan?" She keeps her voice soft. Low. Careful.
His jaw tightens and he shifts his gaze away from hers. "Arlo." He says, as if that says everything, and, maybe it does.
Oh, Raylan. She thinks. She lowers her hips, taking him in, flattening herself against him, covering his mouth with hers, offering the only comfort she knows he'll accept.