Special Agent Fox Mulder was deeply engrossed in the report on serial killers he was working on. So engrossed, in fact, that he didn't hear the door to his office silently slide open or the quiet footsteps that were muffled by the carpet. He kept his eyes resolutely fixed on the computer screen and the first he was aware of another person's presence in his private office was a touch on his shoulder.

Mulder jumped in his chair and Special Agent Dana Scully burst into laughter. "You're losing your touch, G-Man," she said. "What if I had been a psycho mutant alien vampire sneaking up on you?"

Mulder chuckled and pulled his wife into his lap for a quick kiss. "What are you doing here at headquarters, anyway? I thought you were going to be out at Quantico all day, as per usual."

"Skinner and some of the other bigwigs needed me to come over to explain the science behind one of my recent findings. Are you free for lunch?"

"For you, Scully? Always. In fact, we could take a *LONG* lunch," he suggested with a mock leer.

"Ooh, Agent Mulder! Do you want to start rumors flying again?"

He sighed and shook his head. "I keep telling you, Scully, gossip about our possible sexual relationship was only interesting *before* we were married. Now that everybody knows we're legit, we could do the Naked Pretzel right in the middle of the lobby and the only thing other agents would say would be 'Get out of our way'. Nobody cares how often husbands and wives have sex with each other."

Scully laughed softly at his remark and cuddled closer for a moment, then stood up. She was glad she had because, only seconds later, there was a quick knock and then Mulder's secretary was putting her head around the door. "Agent Mulder, there's another agent her to see you. He doesn't have an appointment, but says he needs to consult with you."

"Want me to go?" Scully asked. "No, stay. Whatever this is, it shouldn't take long."

The man who walked into the inner office looked about ten years older than Mulder. He was slender, with glasses and a receding hairline. "I'm looking for either an Agent Mulder or an Agent Scully," he said.

Scully was surprised that the man mentioned her by name. After all, she wasn't normally assigned to Bureau headquarters and it was by the merest chance that she was here today. But her husband stood up and offered his hand. "I'm Agent Mulder and this is Agent Scully. Have we met?"

"No, although I know of both of you by reputation. I'm Special Agent Shue. I understand that, several years ago, the two of you dealt with a case involving a man who worked as a professional magician under the name The Amazing Maleeni; that you were able to foil a wire fraud heist he and an associate had planned that - if it had succeeded - would have been one of the largest bank robberies in history."

Mulder and Scully glanced at each other, their eyes locking in mutual unspoken communication. They remembered the case, primarily because it had been one of the few they had dealt with during their years on the X-Files that hadn't involved even a hint of something paranormal, supernatural or conspiracy related. Despite some smoke and mirrors provided by the would-be bank robbers, it had been nothing more than a wire fraud caper, albeit a sophisticated and meticulously planned one.

"Yes, we dealt with the case. Technically speaking, we never *solved* it; that is, we never made an arrest," Mulder pointed out.

"Are Maleeni and his friend up to their old tricks?" Scully asked.

"I wish it were that simple, Agent Scully," Shue said. "Instead, they've learned some new ones. Are you familiar with the practice of art kidnapping?"

"Just a bit," Scully said. "It's a relatively new kind of crime that combines elements of art theft and kidnapping. Thieves steal a work of art; usually something priceless, often out of a museum. But, rather than trying to sell the painting or sculpture on the black market, they contact the museum curators to let them know they have it and issue a ransom demand. If the curators pay up, the artwork is returned undamaged. If they refuse to negotiate, the art is either returned to them defaced or it's sold on the black market."

"Is that what Maleeni and his sidekick are into these days?" Mulder asked.

"So it would seem," Shue replied. "Last night a Remington canvas was stolen from the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. This morning the curator received a phone call from a man offering to sell him his own painting back; voice print data indicates that it's Maleeni."

"I'm not sure that we're really the right agents for this case," Mulder said. "The F.B.I. has a whole division staffed with art experts who deal in these sorts of crimes. Scully and I will be glad to work with them, give them our insight into Maleeni's possible behavior patterns, but I don't know that we should be the lead investigators."

"Actually, what I want you two to do - and I already cleared this with Assistant Director Skinner, so the case is yours if you want it - is more in the nature of surveillance," he replied.

"Of Maleeni and his associate?" Scully asked.

"No. Of the pair of thieves who are going to be stealing the Remington back for us. Or, as we prefer to say, retrieving the assets."

****

Rita groaned as she read the assignment sheet that Agent Shue had slid under her door. "They want us to retrieve another damned painting, Johnny!" she grumbled. "We have to be so *careful* when we deal with works of art."

"You're just mad because it will mean you don't get to blow anything up, or kickbox anybody or shoot anybody or anything like that," Johnny pointed out.

"Oh, it gets better," Rita assured him in her slightly Australian-accented voice. "Considering the way we ditched our electronic surveillance bracelets the last time we did one of these complimentary jobs for the feds, they've assigned a pair of F.B.I. agents to keep us in line. Male and female, just like us; a man named Fox Mulder and a woman named Dana Scully."

"It's better than serving time in Leavenworth, Rita," Johnny pointed out with a shrug and a smile. "Now, if you'll hand me the papers with the specifics about our mission and our temporary new associates, I'll read it over, then do some contemplating."

"Contemplating how to pull off the job, you mean?" Rita asked. "No, contemplating what kind of warped parents would name their son 'Fox'. They must have been a pair of weirdos, huh?"

***

Mulder and Scully sat across from each other in a restaurant a few blocks away from the Hoover Building. The place had been one of their favorite lunchtime retreats during the years they worked on the X-Files together, but Scully hadn't been in it for over a year.

"Do you come here a lot, still?" Scully asked. Sharing lunch with her husband was one of the things she missed now that she was out at Quantico during the three days a week she worked and home with their 11-month-old daughter, Melissa, during the rest of the week.

"Never," Mulder replied.

"Never?" Scully questioned, suprised. "Mulder you *love* this place! You used to drag me here at least three times a month the entire seven years we worked together. Why don't you ever eat here any more?"

Mulder smiled and shrugged. "You pretty much answered your own question, Scully. It's a place we always went together. Going here by myself would be lonely. Going with somebody other than you would feel wrong."

"Mulder, that's. . .sweet," Scully said softly.

"So, about this case. . ."

"You want us to take it, don't you?"

"I'd like to, yes. But you get to make the decision. You tell me whether or not you think Melissa's old enough to be away from us for two or three days in a row while we investigate this. . .and whether you feel your mother is up to watching her both night and day for that length of time."

"Actually, Mom mentioned this morning that since Melissa is weaned now, she'd be happy to watch her overnight if you and I wanted to go away together sometime. But I think Mom was envisioning something more in the nature of a romantic weekend, rather than a business trip!" Scully said with a laugh.

"Scul-lee," Mulder said, giving his wife the whipped puppy expression he used when he really,*really* wanted her to agree to one of his suggestions.

"You really want to do this, don't you, Mulder?"

"Scully, I know it wouldn't be everybody's cup of tea but the two of us working together again - someplace far away from Washington where we wouldn't have to worry about other members of my team paging me at ungodly hours or cutting short our investigations to hurry over to your Mom's house to pick up Melissa - that would be romantic. For me, anyway. Especially if we got to engage in some of that great verbal foreplay that was such a hallmark of our courtship."

"Verbal foreplay?" Scully asked, one eyebrow arching.

"Come on, Scully. That's what it was. Don't tell me you didn't get turned on everytime we started exchanging ideas at the top of our lungs."

"Shut up, Mulder," Scully replied, her face beginning to turn crimson.

"I love you, too, Scully."

"Huh?"

"You know, the first time you told me to shut up, my feelings were hurt. After the third or fourth time, I realized what it meant. It was your way of saying 'I love you'."

"Mulder!"

"Hmm?"

Scully sighed and rolled her eyes, but then smiled softly and said, again, "Shut up."

***

Rita paced through the lobby of the expensive hotel, getting more agitated by the minute. "Why do we have to wait for them?" she muttered to Johnny. "It's bad enough working with *you*, but now we've got these two agents following us around. If we get any more people, this is going to be like the Brady Bunch!"

"Take it easy, Rita. Have a drink. I have a plan."

"Johnny, I'm getting a bit tired of your plans. They never work." "That's because you never *follow* them, Rita! You know what I'd like you to do once? Just once?"

"You'd want me to do it more than once, Johnny. Trust me."

Johnny grinned. "You've got sex on the brain, Rita. What I'd like you to just once is to follow the plan!"

"Would you two be named Johnny and Rita, by any chance?" a deep male voice interrupted. Johnny and Rita glanced up and nodded. "I'm Special Agent Fox Mulder and this is my partner, Special Agent Dana Scully," Mulder said.

Johnny and Rita gazed at the two agents across from them. Mulder was a tall, handsome man of about forty, with a full head of dark brown hair. Rita found herself taking a quick peek at his left hand and didn't know if she was disappointed or relieved to find that he was wearing a wedding ring. She noticed that the petite redheaded woman, who seemed to be a couple of years younger than her partner, was married also. She wondered, idly, if their respective spouses minded the two of them jetting around the country together, but told herself firmly it wasn't any of her business.

Mulder and Scully quickly sized up the pair they'd be overseeing on this case. Johnny and Rita had both been busted for an attempted jewel heist and had been offered a deal retrieving assets for the government in exchange for having the charges against them dropped. Such deals were actually more common than the public probably realized, but usually they were made to white collar criminals whose talents could be used in hunting down wire fraud and things of that nature, rather than to cat burglars. Scully noticed that Johnny seemed to be about her own age, shorter and not as handsome as Mulder, but with a charming smile. Rita was quite young, probably no more than 25, with an icy blonde prettiness; she, however, made no attempt to be charming.

***

Scully closed her eyes and sunk deeper into the bubble bath in the hotel suite she was sharing with Mulder. She had a headache from trying to follow Johnny's impossibly complicated, 14-step plan for retrieving the Remington from Maleeni.

"Scully, do you plan on actually working at any point during this case?" Mulder inquired, walking in and sitting down on the side of the tub. "Or is your sole contribution going to consist of looking gorgeous?"

"Produce a body for me, Mulder," she said langorously without bothering to open her eyes. "I'll autoposy it. Find some sort of weird chemical residue and I'll analyze it. Tell me you think the whole case is the work of shapeshifting aliens and I'll try to talk you out of the theory. Otherwise, pretend I'm just a wife accompanying her husband on a business trip." She lifted up a handful of bubbles and blew them at him. "Want to join me in the tub?"

"Want to? Hell, yes!Unfortunantly, Johnny and Rita are going to meet us here in fifteen minutes and I don't think we want them walking in on us just when things in the tub are starting to get interesting. Why don't you dry off and get some clothes on?"

"Can I at least have a kiss?"

"Of course," Mulder replied, leaning over to drop a lingering kiss on her upturned lips.

***

"Rita, you know the kinds of things you always say about my plans?" Johnny inquired as they walked down the hotel corridor toward the F.B.I. agents' suite.

"You mean that they're harebrained, impractical and uttery ludicrous?"

"Among other things. Well, take all those adjectives and add about twenty more and you'll come up with my opinion of *your* current plan. The agents aren't going to like what you have in mind."

"A deal's a deal, Johnny," she replied. "You do things my way now, I promise I'll follow your plan to the letter once we're actually retrieving the painting."

"Something tells me I'm going to regret this," Johnny said with a sigh.

***

Mulder and Scully had taken advantage of the last few minutes before Johnny and Rita's arrival to phone Maggie and check on Melissa. Scully had spoken first to her mother, then her daughter, then handed the phone to Mulder. The baby couldn't talk yet, but her ecstatic coos seemed to indicate she recognized her father's voice.

Mulder heard a knock on the door and quickly opened it to admit Johnny and Rita saying, as he did so, "Bye, Melissa. I love you." Then he hung up and placed the cell phone on the dresser.

Scully was sitting on the bed, Rita noticed. Were the two of sharing this room, she wondered? But it really wasn't any of her business, she told herself firmly and if they tended to get cozy with each other while on the road it would acutally make her plan easier to carry out.

"We have something we need you to look at," Rita said. "It's a map, but on a rather small scale, so why don't you sit near each other." Mulder nodded and sat down on the bed next to his wife. Moving quickly and in tandem, Johnny and Rita each grabbed the wrist of one agent and handcuffed them together, the short chain of the cuffs threaded through the rails of the bed's headboard.

"I don't know what you two are into and, frankly, your personal preferences are of no interest to me," Mulder deadpanned. "But, for starters, we're supposed to be working a case here and, secondly, bondage and orgies aren't our scene."

"We're going to work," Rita replied. "We just work better alone, rather than with babysitters tagging along. We'll go get the Remington and return it to you, then you can give it to the museum curator."

"You realize that detaining federal agents against their will is kidnapping, don't you?" Scully inquired. "You two could get in a lot of trouble for this."

"We're already in a lot of trouble," Johnny said with a shrug. "I think, no matter what we do at this point, we're either going to be in prison or working for the feds for the rest of our lives. We should be back in a couple of hours. Toodle loo, now."

***

Mulder yanked at the cuff around his wrist, trying to see how snug it was. It wasn't particularly tight, and that gave him an idea. "Scully, your hands are small and your wrist bones are tiny. Any way you can wiggle out of these things?"

"I'll try,"she replied. However, after several minutes, she shook her head and said, "Sorry, Mulder. I can't do it. Any other suggestions?"

"Well, we can either start hollering and banging on the wall and hope we attract enough attention that the management sends someone up to check on us and they free us; or, we can simply wait for Johnny and Rita to return and let them do it."

"Which option do you think is better?"

"Well, leaving aside the embarrassment factor of having a maid see us like this, I don't know that we'd accomplish much at this point. By the time we made enough noise that somebody got up here with a passkey, Johnny and Rita would be up to about step six in that plan of theirs."

"So you're suggesting we just lay here, handcuffed to each other and the bed, and trust that a couple of professional thieves will keep their word and come back to release us?"

"Compared to some of the situations we've been in over the years, it's not that bad," Mulder said. "We're together, we're not in any immediate physical danger and we're even relatively comfortable. In contrast to sleeping in the woods while being stalked by mothmen or being covered in hallucinegenic mushroom goo or being swarmed by phospherescent insects, this is pretty easy to handle."

"Those weren't the really bad times," Scully pointed out. "At least we were together for those cases. The awful times were when we were away from each other. When we didn't know if we'd ever see each other again."

"Yeah," Mulder agreed. "That was the worst."

The agents lapsed into silence for a while then said simultaneously "Are you?" Mulder chuckled and said, "Ladies first."

"I just wondered. . .I mean I know you used to watch all those videos that weren't yours and stuff. . .so, I just wondered. . .if this was anything you used to fantasize about?"

"Scully, I don't know what exactly it is you thought I was watching, but I was never into hardcore pornography. Bondage, S&M and stuff like that was never a turn-on for me. I mean, yeah, occasionally I'd stumble across something of that nature, but I'd usually just fast forward through it or turn off the tape at that point. I liked looking at pictures of pretty, naked women and I liked watching depictions of consenting adults having various types of mutually pleasurable sexual experiences together. I was never into anything that depicted women being humilitated. Now that I get to see a very pretty woman naked in real life on a regular basis and get to actually participate in mutually pleasurable sexual experiences with her, I don't need the fantasy stuff anymore."

"So. . .I guess the answer is no?"

Mulder swallowed and said, "I never particularly fantasized getting creative with our handcuffs, no. But I did used to fantasize about maybe being. . .caught. . .with you someplace where we'd be in close bodily contact for a number of hours."

"It seems to me that happened several times," Scully pointed out. "Well, yeah, but there was always a catch to it," Mulder replied. "Like we were out in the middle of the woods with no food and no sleeping bags, or we were wet or we were covered with goo or something."

"What was it, exactly, you had in mind?"

"Something more along the lines of. . .It's late and we're tired and we're in the middle of nowhere and there's only one hotel for miles and miles around and it only has one vacancy and the room only has one bed in it, so we have to share and then in the middle of the night, the heat goes off and we have to snuggle together for warmth and then," Mulder broke off his recital when he noticed that Scully was shaking with laughter. "What's so funny?"

"Mulder, it's just that I used to fantasize about *exactly* that same thing. Every time you pullled into the parking lot of a podunk motel and went to check us in, I used to sit out in the car thinking "One room, one room, please just let them have only one room."

Mulder grinned, then rolled over so that Scully was beneath him and kissed her. It was a warm, deep kiss, both of them taking the time to leisurely explore each other's mouths. When they finally came up for air, Mulder moved his mouth to his wife's ear and whispered "And what were we going to do in this one room which, I'm presuming, would have only had one bed?"

"Well, you were going to be gentleman and offer to sleep on the floor, but I was going to say 'Don't be silly, Mulder. I trust you. You can share the bed with me."

"Then you were going to take advantage of my beautiful, trusting nature and use my body for your own nefarious sexual purposes?" Mulder inquired, licking her ear and nibbling lightly at the lobe.

"You bet your sweet ass I was!" Scully answered, turning to capture his mouth with hers again. Before actually kissing him, she licked and sucked at his lower lip for a moment, then aligned their mouths together and began to dance her tongue against his. She moved one hand down to grasp his butt, then slid the other into his hair. Continuing to squeeze his ass, she let her other hand casually stroke his biceps through the thin cotton of his white dress shirt.

When Mulder ended the kiss, he pushed up slightly, so that his weight wasn't pressing so fully down upon her. It wasn't until Scully moved both her hands to the front of his shirt and began unbuttoning it that she realized the significance of what she was doing. "Mulder, look. My hand slipped out of the cuffs!"

"Oh. That's great. Um, see if one of our keys fits, so that you can unlock me," he replied.

Damn! he thought. Just when things were beginning to get interesting, the situation flipped on him and his professionalism was too strong to allow him to put pleasure before business.

Scully quickly freed her husband, then said, "Don't pout, Mulder. I'll make it up to you when we get back."

***

Things weren't going well, Johnny mused. Actually, 'not going well' would probably qualify as the understatement of the decade. He and Rita had been caught redhanded by the original thieves, who didn't seem to take kindly to the idea of having their stolen property stolen. Then they'd been sprayed with some kind of fast-acting anesthetic.

Rita had immediately dropped to the floor and as soon as Johnny collapsed beside her, he realized that, this time around, she wasn't faking. "Johnny," she slurred. "What's the plan?"

***

When Johnny woke up, he looking into the concerned eyes of Agent Scully. "Johnny!" she said sternly, slapping him on the face.

"Hey, hey! I thought your partner said you two weren't into that sort of stuff," Johnny said, bringing his hand up to his face.

"I'm just trying to help you regain consciousness," Scully replied. "Although you *deserve* to be slapped, for pulling that stunt in the hotel. If we hadn't arrived in the nick of time, Maleeni and his friend would have walked away with the picture. As it is, they're in custody, the picture is on it's way back to the museum, and Agent Shue is on his way here to try to explain to the Houston cops exactly why you and Rita shouldn't be spending a considerable portion of the next decade in prison."

"Not Texas!" Johnny said, alarmed. "Don't put Rita in prison in Texas. These prisons have a bad reputation. Where is she, anyway?"

"I'm here, Johnny," Rita said quietly. "They're not going to put us in prison. We both know we're more valuable working for them then rotting in jail."

Mulder, who'd been conferring with the local cops, walked over and said, "Agent Scully and I are leaving now. The Houston police officers are going to escort you to their city jail, where you'll await the arrival of Agent Shue. I've got to say that, in a crazy kind of way, your plan worked. The painting has been returned undamaged and the perpetrators are in custody, so the curator and Shue, between them, should be able to persuade the locals to drop all charges. If you happen to be free by tomorrow morning, join us for breakfast at the hotel restuarant around eight. Otherwise, I can't say it's exactly been nice working with the two of you, but it's certainly been. . .interesting."

***

Once they were in the car, Scully reached over and squeezed her husband's thigh. "Mulder, you know. . .what we were talking about earlier back in the hotel room?"

"You mean about how we used to have remarkably similar fantasies back in our pre-marital partnership days?"

"Yeah. I was wondering. . .I mean do you want. . ?"

Mulder decided to help her out a bit. He knew it was sometimes difficult for his wife to verbalize her sexual desires, so he appreciated it even more when she made the attempt. "Do I want to play we're back in our pre-marital partnership days, we're in the middle of nowhere and we've just come across a hotel that has only one vacancy left and it's a room with only one bed?"

"Yes," Scully nodded eagerly. Sometimes this 'unspoken communication' thing could work in her favor.

"Sure. But you're going to have to get your hand off my thigh if we're going to give this veracity. Unfortunantly, you never did that before we were married."

"We could wait until we're back at the hotel to start pretending," Scully pointed out.

"Nope," he replied. "We've got to start right now if we're really going to get in the mood of this."

Scully started to protest, but then simply said, "Mulder, you btter find us someplace to sleep soon. After dragging me all the way out here to investigate a bunch of aliens who turned out to be stoned college kids running around naked with phosphorescent paint all over their bodies, I am not going to sleep in the car!"

"There's a motel just up ahead, Scully," Mulder replied, pretending he was driving on a deserted country road, rather than Houston's congested freeways. "It's the only one between here and the county line, which is another 40 miles, so let's hope they have a vacancy."

When they got to the hotel parking lot, Mulder said, "I'll go in and check to see if they have any vacancies." Scully rolled her eyes when her husband got out, but remained in the car. Who knew that Mulder was a method actor?

Mulder walked into the lobby, went into the restroom, then returned to the parking lot with their key in his hand. "Good news and bad news, Scully. They've got a vacancy, but it's only one room. Still, I figured it was better than driving for another half hour or more."

"Fine, Mulder. But I get first dibs on the bathroom."

Once they'd reached their room - both Mulder and Scully had managed to gloss over the fact that their luggage was already there - Scully heaved a deep sigh of mock protest. "Mulder, you said we'd be sharing a *room*; but I assumed there would be two beds in it!"

"Shit, Scully, I'm sorry. But I really don't want to get back out on the road tonight. Look, I'll grab a pillow and couple of blankets and sleep on the floor or in a chair, okay?"

"It's okay, Mulder. I trust you. And the bed's the approximate size of Texas, anyway. We can share. But I still get first dibs on the bathroom. . .and I intend to take a nice, long bath."

Mulder opened his mouth to protest that she'd just taken a bubble bath a few hours earlier, but then promptly shut it again. He wasn't supposed to know that. "Fine, Scully. Take your time. I'm just going to go ahead and get in bed; I'm exhausted."

Mulder stripped down to his boxer-briefs and tumbled into bed. He linked his hands behind his head and tried to induce a mild form of self-hypnosis. . . trying to trick his mind into believing that Scully was still his partner not his wife, still his lover only in fantasies, not reality. He found it was suprisingly easy to do. The particulars of this case - being far away from headquarters and their beloved baby daughter, the two of them working independently of the rest of his team - made it easy to cast his mind back to the days when this had been their normal routine.

Let's see, he thought, I've already attempted to kiss her and been interrupted by a bee, I've told her I loved her and she said "Oh, brother." I'll pretend it's just after that. . .the time I dragged her out to Nevada; nothing happened on that trip anyway although, looking back, she was trying to tell me what she wanted - a husband, a house, a child, a dog. He felt himself growing hard in anticipation of Scully soon joining him in bed, so he supposed it was working. Or maybe not. He'd had the same response to the idea of Scully soon joining him in bed at home, while he listened to her comfort Melissa in the middle of the night.

Scully lay back in the bubbles and let her mind drift. Okay, pretend she and Mulder had never done it. When and where, exactly, were they? Nevada, she decided; just after he told me he loved me. Maybe if I would have responded in a more appropriate manner to that statement, we really could have ended up sharing a bed together during that case, instead of waiting another entire year before consumating our relationship. And it's not like anything happened on that trip anyway. . .

When Scully emerged from the bathroom, wearing the silky green sleep shirt she favored for night attire on business trips, Mulder seemed to already be asleep. God, he looks gorgeous, she thought. He was bare chested, with the covers pushed down to his waist. She climbed in on the other side of the bed and lay still for a minute or two; then, simultaneously, they each rolled over and met in the middle of the bed.

Mulder made a sound that, Scully guessed, was supposed to be a fake snore and pulled her close against him in a spooning position, her back to his chest. She wiggled a bit and let out a sigh that was supposed to sound like she was contentedly asleep.

Mulder bit back a groan as Scully wiggled her ass against his already straining arousal. He was supposed to be pretending to be asleep. He slid his hand up and cupped her breast through the silky fabric and she let out another sigh. At that moment, the lines between fantasy and reality blurred for Mulder and he rolled her over onto her back and kissed her. Nothing tenative, nothing seeking, this was a passionate, possessive kiss that went on and on, tongues stroking and teasing as they investigated each other's mouths.

Finally, Mulder lifted his lips and said, "I'm sorry, Scully." He felt like he'd spoiled their fantasy by being too eager.

"Mulder, I wish you'd stop doing that. It's highly annoying."

"Doing what?" he asked, perplexed. "Apologizing every time you kiss me. You did it a few months ago, when we were in your hallway and that damned bee stung me, and now you're doing it again. Did I act like I didn't like it? Either time?"

"Well. . .no," Mulder said. Apparently Scully was still playing and he was happy to go along.

"So, why don't you kiss me again?"

"Before I do, you need to know that if I kiss you one more time, there's going to be no turning back. Either I get out of this bed right now, go take a very long, very cold shower and spend the rest of the night sleeping on the floor or we spend the rest of the night making love."

"Mulder?"

"Yeah?"

"Kiss me again."

Mulder chuckled softly and bent his head to her mouth once more. After a long, leisurely kiss, he moved to her ear, nipping and licking at it. Scully let out a loud moan and arched against him. "Like that?" he murmured, his voice smug, as he trailed tiny, nibbling kisses down her neck.

Scully moaned again, but finally managed to reply. "Hey, Mulder. Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"

Mulder chuckled and groaned at the same time. "That is *unbelievably* corny, Scully!"

"Mulder, you're lucky I'm still capable of coherent sentence structure at this point, even if I do have to resort to cliches."

Mulder rested his weight on one elbow and used the fingers of his other hand to nimbly flick open the buttons to her sleep shirt, then spread it so that she was revealed to him. "No panties, Scully?" he asked, gazing at her milky breasts and the riot of red curls at the apex of her thighs in the faint glow of the moonlight seeping in through the curtains.

"I'm not comfortable sleeping with them on," she explained. Then began moaning again as he simultaneously lowered his mouth to one of her breasts and slid a finger inside her.

God, she was wet! Mulder thought. He'd meant to only tease her with his finger tip, but the whole thing had glided right in. She was panting and arching and clawing at his biceps and doing a very good impression of a woman who hadn't been laid for the better part of a decade rather than one who - as he well knew - had experienced several fulfilling sexual encounters within the past week.

"You ready, baby, or you want me to play with you some more?"

"Now, please!" she replied.

Mulder had to move slightly away from her to remove his shorts and she whimpered softly at the loss of contact. When he returned to her, he slid his cock easily into her warm, wet depths. And she immediately began to convulse around him, sighing out his name as she squeezed him tightly.

Mulder stared down at his wife, amazed. While it wasn't particularly difficult for her to achieve orgasm, and while she often came twice while they were making love, she didn't usually come simply from being penetrated, when he hadn't yet even had time to take a single stroke inside her. In fact, the only time he could remember it happening so quickly before was once when she was pregnant and they had both assumed, at that time, that the extremity of her reaction was due to the increased sensitivity of her genitals.

"Scully?" he murmured.

"Sorry about that, Mulder" she said.

"I think it's supposed to be guys who have that happen; you know, finish the party before it even gets started." he pointed out, amused.

"Who says I'm finished, G-Man?" she inquired with a smile.

Mulder began moving again. In contrast to Scully, he was able to last for a long time; when he eventually came, with a soft growl of her name, she convulsed around him again and murmured "Told you I wasn't finished." "I love you, Scully." "I love you, too, Mulder." They spooned up together again and were soon fast asleep.

***

The next morning, on their way to meet Johnny and Rita for breakfast, Mulder and Scully passed by a small jewelry store that had a boutique in the hotel lobby. In the window, displayed on black velvet, were a pair of dangling opal earrings. The jewelry caught Scully's eye and she said, "Look, Mulder. Aren't those pretty?"

"Want them?" he asked. Scully hesitated, but only briefly. One of the few things they'd argued about during their marriage was his tendency to buy her extravegent gifts. Even though they could easily afford them - in addition to both their salaries, Mulder had a lot of inherited wealth - Scully's own, more modest upbringing made it difficult for her to accept such lavish presents. But, she realized, that was really rather ungenerous of her. Mulder had pointed out early in their marriage that he'd spent a long time fighting the urge to buy her expensive presents and, as her husband, he had the *right* to buy her things now. So she said, "Yes, I do. Want to buy them for me?"

The look of pure delight on Mulder's face was more than enough to banish whatever niggling doubts Scully had about "wasting" money in such a manner. They entered the shop and, when they left a few minutes later, Scully was wearing the earrings. "I won't be able to wear these at home or in the lab, you know," she pointed out. "Melissa might grab onto them or I might catch them in a piece of equipment."

"That's okay," Mulder answered. "You can save them for special occasions, like when we go out together." He placed his arm lightly around her shoulders, guiding her into the hotel restaurant. They soon spotted Johnny and Rita.

"So the police let you go, huh?" Mulder inquired after they all had ordered.

"Yeah, after some fancy verbal kung fu by Agent Shue," Johnny replied.

"I like your earrings," Rita said, looking at Scully's new jewelry. "Thank you. Mulder just bought them for me. Of course, I won't be able to wear them at home, because my baby girl might yank on them."

There was silence for a moment, then Rita spat out, "I think you two are *disgusting!"

Mulder and Scully exchanged perplexed looks with each other and even Johnny looked confused. After a long moment Mulder said slowly, "Oo-kay. Would you mind at least telling us *why* we're disgusting?"

"Because you obviously take advantage of out-of-town business trips to sleep with each other, that's why! Don't you ever think about your respective spouses or your children or anything? I may a thief, but my morals are higher than *that*!"

Mulder and Scully looked at each other again and burst into laughter. When they could finally speak, Scully said, "Rita, you're right about us being married, but apparently the obvious escaped you. We're married to each other."

"But. . .you have different last names," Rita pointed out.

"I was already well-established in my career and well over 30 when we married," Scully explained with a shrug, "so I didn't bother to change my last name. Besides, it would be too confusing for the F.B.I. if they had to deal with two Agent Mulders."

"But wait a minute," Johnny broke in. "Yesterday, when we came to your room, you were talking to somebody named Melissa, telling her you loved her."

"That's out daughter," Mulder explained.

"So you two are married to each other and have a daughter?" Rita asked.

"Yes. This is the first time we've been away from her overnight since she was born. My mother's watching her, so I know she's in good hands, but I'm still anxious to get home to her," Scully said.

"You two seem awfully hot for each other for a couple who's been married long enough to have a baby," Johnny said.

"What's with you two?" Mulder asked. "She doesn't believe in extra-marital sex and you don't believe in sex *within* marriage? Guess you two won't be hooking up anytime soon."

After Mulder and Scully had left, Rita looked at the departing agents, holding hands and chatting with each other and said, "You know, Johnny, I'm beginning to think that maybe crime doesn't pay after all."

Author's e-mail addy: tapw63 @yahoo.com

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