Jill emptied the continents of her bag onto the kitchen table at their home in Delaware and made two piles. She held one other sheaf of papers in her hand and flicked through them, reaching for her pen. Joe passed close by and stopped. He rested his hands on her shoulders and leaned down. Pressing a kiss to her cheek he laughed, 'that's cheating', he said, his eyes twinkling.
She grinned ruefully. 'You caught me!. Here, take it away with you and give it to me when I've finished this lot', she said, indicating the two piles of pages.
'Sure?'
'Yeah, it's too much of a temptation'.
'Hmm, tempted by anything else you see?' he teased, reaching out to take the pages from her hands.
'Of course, always', she replied, running her hand meaningfully through the thick hair on his strong arms.
He smiled. 'Well, I'll let you get on with your work and I'll keep this safe', he promised.
He stopped on the far side of the kitchen and turned. 'Jilly', he called.
She turned to look at him over her shoulder.
'You can have me anytime you want', he said with a wink.
The sound of his deep voice made her heart skip in her chest. She grinned, knowing he would be a willing participant whenever she wanted to cash in his offer.
She watched as he turned into the hallway, making his way to his private office. Sighing, she turned back to face the two piles, wondering if it was really just her imagination or had they actually gotten significantly bigger in the two minutes since she last looked at them.
Reaching for the scrunchie on her wrist, she deftly tied her hair back, grabbed a pen and reached for the first document.
Placing it in front of her she made a concerted effort to focus now. She had exams to mark and she owed it to all of her students to concentrate, to give them her full attention, even as her mind drifted again to the document Joe had taken away from her.
Shawns thesis outline had arrived by email last night and she had printed it before they left the White House. She'd glanced through it on the ride home. Tantalized by the few tiny segments she'd seen she was excited to read it, but knew she had to mark the other papers first.
Last night she told Joe to make sure she didn't become engrossed in it to the detriment of the rest of her work and he'd been tenacious in carrying out her request, removing it from her hands last night, and keeping his eyes fixed firmly on where she placed it this morning.
She knew he was getting way too much enjoyment out of his task, knew too that he would make sure she didn't fall down the rabbit hole until she was ready to. It was for her own good really she considered, and her students. And she knew he wouldn't let her down.
She sighed and opened the first paper, clicked her pen and began marking.
'You ready for this yet?' he asked her two hours later as he wafted the thick file in front of her.
She looked up in surprise. She hadn't even heard him coming, she'd been engrossed in her task. She leaned back in her chair now, threw down her pen, pushed the block of Post-It notes aside.
'What time is it?' she asked.
'One o'clock', he replied, rubbing his hand gently across her cheek. 'You've been busy', he said, noting the migration of papers from one side of the table to the other, indicating her progress. She was more than half ways through.
'How about we just order some sandwiches from Jensen's? I'll ask Anthony to collect them and you can just keep going for another while', he suggested.
'Mmm, sounds good', she replied.
