Checkmate

At least she'd get some paperwork done, she thought as she used the bathroom and cleaned up. She hated doing paperwork, but now that she was stuck in bed for a day she had no excuses not to do it. That wasn't entirely true since she was pretty sure that she could come up with a good excuse not to do it. Maybe she should just suck it up and get it over with, she decided as she opened the door and sighed with relief.

Co

She didn't even bother wasting her time trying to figure out what the man thought he was doing in her bed this morning. It would just be one of those things that was best left alone. Her stomach rumbled as she reached her bed and she tried to ignore it, but it refused to be ignored.

Grumbling and admittedly bitching a little, she padded barefoot out of her room, down the hall and down the stairs as she prayed that her brothers hadn't hit her kitchen on the way out. Her cabinets were mostly empty to begin with, but if her brothers somehow forgot to make a side stop on their way out the door last night she should be able to whip something up with the half sleeve of saltines, third of a jar of olives and scrape a teaspoon or two of peanut butter out of the jar that probably should have been thrown away last year to make something somewhat edible.

Her stomach rumbled approvingly at the thought of an oily peanut butter and olive dip smothered over dry brittle saltine crackers so she quickened her pace only to stop abruptly when she passed the open double doors of her living room. Knowing, hell, praying that she was wrong, she backtracked until she was in front of the open doorway. She took a deep, calming breath and slowly turned around until she was facing her living room.

"They cleaned you out," Co

"What the hell are you still doing here?" she demanded as she walked into the living room.

"Working."

"I told you to get out," she reminded him as she crossed, well, tried to cross her arms over her chest, but her left arm apparently wasn't happy with that move. She settled for propping her hands on her hips and glaring down at him as he continued to ignore her.

"I did," he said.

"No, you didn't!"

With a heavy sigh, he sat back on the tan couch and finally looked at her. "You told me to get out and I did."

"No, you only left the bedroom," she pointed out, sounding a little irritated. "I told you to get out so you should have left the house."

"You didn't clarify that," he pointed out with a shrug.

"It was implied," she snapped.

"It really wasn't.

"Get out!"

"Sorry, can't do that," he said, shrugging.

"Why not?"

"Because I'm waiting for my food to be delivered and you and I have some work to do here since you decided to lounge around all day," he said, gesturing to the computer and the files before he flicked his hand lazily in her direction.

"I was not lounging around!"

"What do you call sleeping until one in the afternoon then?" he asked with a frown as he once again focused on his computer, clearly dismissing her.

"I call it being knocked out by painkillers, you jackass!" she snapped even as she desperately tried to reign her temper in, but it was always a difficult thing to do where Co

Her stomach wouldn't stop rumbling, her head was starting to pound and her damn arm was killing her. All she wanted to do was get something to eat, grab some aspirin and go back to bed, but she couldn't do that until her unwanted guest left. If he didn't get off her couch and get out of here soon she was going to-

"Come over here and sit down before you pass out," Co

"I'm fine," she said, casting a discreet look around the living room as she wondered what his game was. Co

"I need you conscious so that we can get some work done," he said on an exaggerated sigh as if that much should be obvious. While he took her elbow and led her to the couch, she guessed that maybe it should have been. The man wouldn't do anything unless it somehow benefitted him. Still........

Having Co

"There's no poisonous spiders or snakes ready to leap out at you," Co

With a sigh and a few muttered words about her being a big baby, he opened the bottle, popped two pills in his mouth and swallowed them dry as he handed her the bottle. Reluctantly, she took the bottle. When he handed her a bottle of water she glared at him and swallowed her pills dry as well.

"No trust," he said, shaking his head in disgust as he took the bottle from her and handed her a file.

"What's this?" she asked, opening the file and nearly groaned when she realized he'd handed her a spreadsheet. Since looking at numbers aggravated her eyes she shoved the file back at him and settled for bringing her knees up to her chest and hugging them while she laid her head against her arm.

She couldn't believe how badly her head hurt. It seemed with each passing moment that it became progressively worse. Between that, her arm and ribs, she really wasn't in the mood to deal with Co

There was too much to do today. If she gave in and fell asleep then she'd have to deal with a ton of paperwork on top of all her other duties tomorrow and she simply didn't have the time or patience for that. She needed to stay awake, throw Co

"Shhh, go to sleep, Rory," Co

"I always knew that you wanted me," Co

"Ow! Leave my nipples alone, woman!" he snapped and she fully expected him to push her away. Instead, he pulled her closer, mumbling something about rules and nipples as she fell asleep.

Chapter 12

"No," Rory said as she snatched the slice of mushroom and meatball pizza right out of his hand.

"What the hell do you mean by 'no'?" he demanded, snatching back his slice of pizza. He took a huge bite out of it, making his claim on the slice, but of course the damn woman snatched it right back and took a bite out of his pizza. If that wasn't bad enough, she washed it down with his Coke.