A rolled up yoga mat under her left arm, a water bottle dangling from her fingers, Robin Ellacott frowned at her phone as she made her way along Denmark Street in the early evening light. Twisting her key in the lock of the old and worn black door, it swung free as she shoved a hip into it then immediately retreated as her trainer clad foot returned it into place.
Reaching the top of the metal stairs she pushed open the office door, a smile stretching at her lips as the sound of a rumbling kettle reached her ears. Stepping inside she leaned back against the door, the thud of it closing causing her partner's head to turn towards her and a smile of his own begin to form.
"Do you want a cuppa?" he asked, reaching for a mug even before she could murmur her assent.
"Thanks," she said and made her way into their shared office, resting the mat against a filing cabinet and sinking into her chair with a grateful sigh. Opening her laptop she quickly found the email that had caused her to frown and began to re-read it more carefully.
"So, how was yoga tonight?" Strike asked as he placed her favourite mug on the desk beside her. Adorned with a large grinning donkey wearing a Santa hat, he'd seen it on a Christmas market stall and her smile when he gave it to her had meant everything and more.
"Just what I needed," she answered without looking up. "I feel like my shoulders have loosened up again," she added rolling them experimentally.
"Good," he said softly and made his way round to his own chair.
With her attention fully on the email she was reading, he found himself watching her without guard. Her pale blue eyes were shining, her cheeks still a little pink from the class and the walk to the office; her strawberry-blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail from which a small handful of strands had escaped only to be hooked behind her ears. A long expanse of neck was subsequently on show and his gaze traced a path down its length until it met her collar bone and the loose neck of her baggy sweatshirt.
He swallowed.
Probably best not to even allow thoughts of those very tight leggings to enter his brain right then.
Too late.
Shit.
He sighed and gave his head a brief, brisk shake before belatedly realising his partner's sparkling grey-blue eyes had left her email and begun to track the green of his, an amused smile pulling gently at her lips.
Robin sipped at her tea and observed a faint blush rise up from beneath Strike's collar until it reached the tip of his nose. Kicking off her trainers she crossed her legs beneath her and re-focused on the screen.
"How's Margaret this week?" he asked conversationally, studiously returning his attention to his notebook and the interview he had conducted that morning. "New hip alright?"
Robin released an unexpected burst of laughter. "Well she's certainly been putting it through its paces."
"What, with yoga?"
"That..." she paused, "and the new boyfriend."
Although his head remained bowed over his notebook, Strike's eyes rose up followed by a single brow, intrigued by this revelation.
"Really?"
"Really," she confirmed with a brief nod. "Told me she met him in a ballroom dancing lesson and now feels like, and I quote, 'a radiant and sexy woman for the first time in decades'."
"Well good for her." Strike smiled. He liked Margaret. Now in her mid sixties she'd been an early client of theirs and it had been a pleasant surprise when Robin had started a yoga class and rolled out her mat next to the older lady.
Although initially upset by her husband's blatant and widespread philandering, Margaret had quickly come to the conclusion that it was actually a far less complicated way out of an ultimately unhappy marriage.
"Oh, and there was a new guy there tonight." Robin began picking up her mug again and cradling it in both hands as she sipped at the tea.
"Right," he murmured, stretching out the word, recognising a story was likely to follow.
"He was..." she paused and cleared her throat, searching for the right words. "Very... into the breathing."
Strike frowned and looked up to see Robin watching him from behind her mug. Her expression was playful and he couldn't help but be drawn in by it.
"What do you mean into the breathing?" he questioned intrigued by her tone. Taking hold of his own mug he leaned back in his chair, the notebook quickly forgotten.
"Well we were all rather aware of him doing it."
"Bit loud, was he?"
"Oh yes."
"A bit like old Mr Pryor coming up the stairs?"
"That's not funny," she said suddenly, sending him a warning look across the desk. "Pat wouldn't buzz him up last week until I'd put all three nines in my phone, just in case."
Strike laughed long and loud, the sound warm and rich, and Robin could feel it wrap around her like a warm blanket.
"He's eighty-three and he's paying us to follow his twenty-seven year old wife, whose vast sexual appetite seems to be focused on no other man but him," he said, then smirked broadly and laughed. "I don't think it's our stairs that's gonna do him in."
Unable to prevent the burst of laughter she released, Robin placed a hand over her mouth and prayed tea wouldn't inadvertently drip from her nose.
Their shared amusement sat between them easy and unhurried. They had learned to appreciate these moments over the years; had learned to sit and savour them safe, not only in this space, but in the knowledge they only deepened a connection which they no longer sought to name.
"So back to the guy at yoga: not like My Pryor?"
"Definitely not," she confirmed then took a moment to consider her answer. "More like... you..." Strike narrowed his eyes. "Friday evening," she added carefully and waited for his expression to show understanding. It didn't take long.
"Oh," he said and the faint blush from earlier returned. "You mean when you-"
"Yup."
"And I-"
"Yup."
"And then we-"
"Yes."
"Hmm," he considered and smiled at the memory. "That was good."
"It was," she agreed showing no signs of awkwardness or embarrassment.
"Though to be fair you did kind of catch me by surprise."
"I did," she allowed.
"And it'd been a while since I'd had any, so my level of enthusiasm may have been... well... you know..."
"Oh, I do," she assured him.
Both sipped at their tea in silence for a moment.
"That must have been pretty off-putting," Strike noted evenly, his fingers rubbing along his jaw.
"Yoga man, or you?" Robin queried lightly, an eyebrow raised and a smile playing on her lips.
He laughed again and she joined him.
"Probably an argument there for both," he acknowledged with a touch of self deprecation. "But they were bloody good chips."
Robin laughed and shook her head, finished her tea with a small flourish and closed her laptop.
"So what are your plans for the rest of the evening?" he asked softly, watching as she pushed her feet back into her trainers and made her way towards the door.
"Thought I'd start with a shower," she told him.
Pausing in the doorway she looked back over her shoulder at him, raised an eyebrow and simply asked, "You coming?"
Strike rose silently with a gentle smile, flicked off the desk lamp and stepped across the room to her. His warm hands immediately reached for her waist and slipped beneath her sweatshirt, whilst his lips lowered to her exposed shoulder and forged a soft, sweet path all the way to her ear. As they shuffled towards the main door, Robin turned in his arms, pressed a lingering kiss to his waiting mouth and began to unbutton his shirt.
"I didn't think you were going to stay tonight," he murmured against her cheek as she worked open a third button quickly followed by a fourth.
"Me neither," she admitted, pausing as his warm breath fanned across her neck and sent a light shiver the length of her spine. "But then I had this sudden, irrepressible... urge not to go home."
"Is that right?"
"Mmm-huh..." she answered against his lips as they kissed again: longer, deeper.
"Well in that case," he said in a low, sultry voice. "Shall we take advantage of that sudden..." Kiss. "Irrepressible..." Kiss. "Urge..." Kiss. "And see if we can't give yoga man a run for his money?"
The tug on his shirt and the smile that accompanied it was the only answer he needed.
Fin