Disclaimer: IPS is not mine...I know...sadface.
For someone who had just come back from a week-long vacation, Mary had never felt as relaxed as she did when she stepped out of Marshall's guest bathroom, a fluffy towel wraped snugly around her body, wet hair clinging to her shoulders. As girly as her partner could be sometimes, he had excellent taste in shower heads. Twenty minutes in there and she had literally felt the tension melt away from her body.
She stood for a moment, contemplating her visage in the mirror, twisting her hair around her fingers until an awkward cough attracted her attention. Mary turned around and caught sight of her lanky cowboy, an entirely too amusing flush covering his cheekbones as he leaned against the door.
It was all she could do to keep from laughing when he stared blankly at the towel, his towel, wrapped low across her chest. She could almost convince herself that she had seen him lick his lips too.
"Hey moron, why don't you finish perving on my tits some other time and tell me why you're in my bedroom," she said, smirking as she crossed her arms over her chest. If it happened to push up said bodyparts in question, well, she couldn't really be blamed.
She watched with interest as his adam's apple bobbed up and down when he swallowed to regain his composure.
"Well, I figured that whenever Sleeping Beauty woke up, she might require nourishment in the form of chocolate chip pancakes, but perhaps I was mistaken," Marshall drawled, blue eyes twinkling at her from within his own amused face.
Mary would never admit to it, but the little spark in his eyes did something funny to her stomach that had absolutely nothing to do with how famished she was.
"I knew I kept you around for some reason, Pervis!" she crowed instead, using one arm to back him out of the room so she could shut the door and change.
She wasn't normally the type to spend hours on presentation, but the speed with which she threw on a pair of Marshall's old pyjama pants and a tank top was a record even for her. Within moments, she was sliding into a seat in his breakfast nook—because of course Marshall would have a nook—and he was placing a steaming plate of pancakes and eggs in front of her.
"Marshall Mann...you are a GOD," she moaned, sinking her teeth into her first bite, eyes closed in bliss.
"If you cook like this all the time, I might have to wake up here every day," she breathed, ogling the array of food before her such that she missed the barely impercetible twitch of his lips.
Oh how little his jungle cat knew...Things were going to get very interesting now that she was home and the lanky Marshal had no intentions of letting her escape.