It was around 7 when she woke up again and got up, heading for the bathroom. He realized that he was wearing his shirt when she came back.

She slipped under the coverlet, nestling up against his body. He growled, tugging at the shirt. "Get that off." She sighed, following that order. When she had finished, he spread the blankets over her bare shoulders. She placed a kiss upon his chest.

"Have you heard again from your boyfriend ?" The question startled her. "Ex friend!" she corrected. "And no." She smiled after another moment. "He didn´t even try to call me." His fingers massaged her neck softly. "Good." The satisfaction ringing through his voice made her laugh.

"You´re not serious about that guy, are you ?" he asked, settling down. She sniffed at that. "Seems that I don´t have the right touch with men." He ignored that. "I hope you didn´t lose your maidenhood to that wimp." That made here blush badly. "Excuse me ?" He stretched, relaxing again afterwards, observing her lazily. He could almost see thoughts whirling behind her forehead.

"What ?" he asked. She frowned at him. "You know, I am not sure if I would have wanted to lose it to you." He chuckled. "You might have been surprised." She laughed. „Yeah – badly!" She considered that thought for a moment. Besides the permanent trauma she would have ended up with, she would at least remember some feeling from that nowadays.

"I expected you to slash him immediately after your nice little act in the showers with Cameron. At least, there would have been some reason here." She shook her head, still disbelieving. "I mean, what did you do!" In fact, she had loved it, watching him, all flexing muscles, outrivaling Matthew just through his mere appearance. She realized that she just had loved to see him do what she had him accused of months before. She knew only too good how it felt to get stared down and frightened to death by him. And she had to admit that she had enjoyed to watch her former boyfriend almost wetting his pants.

"Didn´t like it ?" She only chuckled, then grew serious again. Why wasn´t there any jealousy around this guy, with whom she had actually lived for years. "So how many years did you waste on this guy ?" he asked. "Curious today ?" He didn´t answer. "Actually, around ten." His fingers stopped moving for a moment. She smiled privately. "Yeah. I wonder myself how that worked." She shifted her weight, trying to reach a more comfortable position. "I think we should have become a couple at high school already, but actually, it happened after that."

He closed his eyes, concentrating on the sound of her voice. He pictured the guy for a moment, compared him to her. Her usually dishevelled hair, the casual clothes. It was obvious that the two of them had been a weird combination – like some role reversal. "And why did you leave him ?" His constantly asking still surprised her.

She lifted her eyebrows. "You listened in!" He growled. "I already told you that I could hear you shouting for miles." She imagined him for a moment, relaxing on the veranda, enjoying the show while she screamed bloody murder at Matthew. "Why didn´t you interfere earlier ?"

He chuckled. "Let´s say I enjoyed listening to you shouting at someone else for once. Besides that, I interfered before you hit him, didn´t I ?" She felt herself blush slightly. "That wouldn´t have happened." He laughed. "You´re sure ?" He had never smelled her angrier before. In fact, every sane guy would have realized that he had overdone. He had felt the turmoil in her when he had touched her – he knew that feeling, too. Still, some part of him had quite liked that.

"I let some guy fuck me at work." He opened his eyes. "What ?" She caressed his chest with one hand. "You asked why I left. I had sex with a colleague." "You´re pretending." She smiled. "Oh, actually I am not!" She closed her eyes for a moment, remembering the delicate scene. Well, things hadn´t been that delicate – which was exactly what had made it that good for her.

She laughed, lowly, a content sound. "Miss Principle breakin ´the rules ?" he teased. She sighed. "O yes. And believe me, I enjoyed it!" He immediately felt a sting of jealousy – fully aware of how ridiculous that was. "Misleading some youngster ?" he mused. Laughter again. "No! But you will like that – it happened at the showers – men´s changing room." "You let some guy fuck you on duty ?" He had always known that female soldiers only brought trouble. "Oh, to be precise, at that time, we we´re already officially of duty." And, as she may have been nuts at that time, but not completely insane, she had made sure that nobody would catch them.

"So you told your wimp of a boyfriend that you´re fucking someone else and he still wants to marry you ?" She flinched. "You´re crazy ?" "Oh." He grinned. "You didn´t tell him, didn´t you?" She blushed – deeply, this time. "I couldn´t. Besides, that was two days before my little accident happened." "And you haven´t told him afterwards ?" She shook her head. "No. No need for that."

He put one arm behind his head to get a better look at her, catching up. "Did I got you right - you stayed for a decade with a guy you never felt fucking you ?" She looked offended and embarrassed at the same time. "You´re hopeless", he commented.

"Not everybody´s a born rapist", she snapped. "Careful, darling. I might take that personally.

She took a deep breath. "What about you, Mr. Creed ?" she asekd, out of an impulse.