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[nobasisinfact]

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[nobasisinfact]

It was perfectly adequate phrasing.

[He leans around carefully to have access to her lips.]

[11calls]

[And she kisses him back of course before she adds:]

Perfectly adequate if you wanted me to laugh that is.

[nobasisinfact]

Well,

[He pauses to think.]

It kept you from saying something stupid.

[11calls]

Oh please, Richard. There are some things that even I wouldn't say.

[A beat and a grin.]

Even before you threaten to put my shirt back on.

[nobasisinfact]

I wouldn't put it past your sap stained wheelhouse.

[11calls]

Oh come on, I'm not that bad, Richard.

[Alex is just going to lean back into him with a cheeky grin.]

[nobasisinfact]

Says the woman practically grabbing my hand when we first met.

[He'll just weaponize your touchiness against you.]

[11calls]

I did not!

[Yes, Alex you did!]

[nobasisinfact]

You did.

[It's just a fact Alex. You wanted him from day one. Or at least you wanted his hand.]

[11calls]

[To be fair she did already tell him that she'd found him sexy since she'd met him, but that wasn't this. This was Alex laughing and blushing from her ears down to her bra.]

You know it didn't mean that, Richard!

[nobasisinfact]

I think your physical reaction betrays the truth.

[It didn't mean that, he knows it didn't, and while it had been, awkward, it wasn't something he took as an advance either. It had just been Alex being Alex.]

[11calls]

[It hadn't been an advance, not in the slightest at that point. And all of the touches that Alex had given him from that moment until she asked him to run away with her hadn't. No, he was a man who was very in love with her wife, and she had journalism ethics, and Alex never would have thought to make an overt movement of hitting on him like that.

So, she's just going to laugh.]

I was just being nice, Richard Strand!

[nobasisinfact]

And yet,

[He lays a kiss on her shoulder.]

You've admitted to wanting me to ravage you on my desk when we first met.

[She really should have expected that to come back again eventually.]

[11calls]

[Well, now she was crimson practically down to her shoulder blades, and one hand covered her face before she just laugh-whined.]

Richard! I can't believe you brought that up!

[nobasisinfact]

Are you saying you were lying?

[He's just going to plant a kiss on her shoulder.]

[11calls]

No, of course not! But still! I wasn't like putting the moves on you, Richard.

[Alex is just going to smirk at him over her shoulder.]

If I was you would have definitely been aware of it.

[nobasisinfact]

[His brows raise at that, a small smirk coming to his face as he kisses her neck again.]

Would I have?

[11calls]

[Alex is just going to shiver as she pretends to consider.]

I don't know. You can be pretty blind as a bat at seeing what you don't want to.

[It's entirely teasing without a doubt.]

But then again, I do tend to go overboard on things so it counteracts that a bit.

[Like you know, showing up at your partner's office wearing a corset and stockings and a trenchcoat.]

[nobasisinfact]

Maybe you were trying without realizing it.

[Now he's just being torturous, his words spoken into her skin.]

[11calls]

[Okay, it's getting a little harder to focus right now.]

I will never deny I was probably too flirty back then, but I definitely was just shaking your hand!

[nobasisinfact]

Of course, you were.

[And he knows it's true. That doesn't mean he can't torture her by both insinuating that she was romantically flirting and doing so while pressing his lips against her shoulder.]

[11calls]

You know...

[She's just going to counter and let herself go limp and boneless against him.]

You were pretty flirty yourself, Richard Strand.

[nobasisinfact]

I was being friendly.

[He can do friendly when he wants. He just usually doesn't want to. Also, oh look! Better access to her collarbone.]

[11calls]

You don't do friendly. You do barely restrained politeness.

[Okay, that was definitely a sharper intake of breath.]

You were flirting, whether you want to admit it or not.

[nobasisinfact]

I, was still in love with my wife.

[There's a soft undertone of annoyance. Not for the conversation, but for Coralee and the things she'd done. He'll just keep going.]