AFTER STEELE INC.
You're very quiet, Mr. Steele said Laura slowing down as they glided through the streets of San Diego.
May be…
Are you angry about something?
No. Not especially. Would there be something to be angry about?
Silence enveloped them again. Laura bit her lip and swiveled around in a "U" suddenly causing Steele to jump up and disarm in him passenger seat.
What are you doing, LAURA? .- he reproached her through clenched teeth with his jaw clenched as he had been all the time during the case that brought them to San Diego and after it was over.
She braked as hard as she had turned.
It is more than obvious that something bothers you and I want to know what it is .- she shouted with very little patience and a seriousness that did not give rise to doubts of her anger about it
Laura ... get back on the road and drive back to Los Angeles please ... it's been a difficult day today.
Do you want to take advantage of the trip and eat something in a quiet restaurant in the bay? She asked a little more calmly, granting him a small truce.
He was about to answer affirmatively when she put on first speed and ran back with the Volkswagen back to San Diego.
Yes, of course, as you say ... - he mocked with his face longer than before
Mildred said she would stay at a lodge until she was sure George completely dismantled the offices. She thinks that our friend Mulch non- stops considering a good business about the franchise of our agency ...
He was silent again and said nothing about it.
"It's funny." Laura laughed. "Make a copy like that, of our offices were more than daring ... that was an exact replica. Do not you think?
"Uh ..." he conceded, sighing.
Laura looked at him out of the corner of her eye. The streets of San Diego were not as familiar to her as those in Los Angeles and she could not be distracted but that that she saw in his face was not liking her and he would have to go very slowly because he was not only angry, he looked furious. It was very telling to her how she had managed - in this time together - to know every change of mood of her Mr. Steele. His face turned stony, like now, when he really was very angry. He was rarely really angry and that was very disturbing for her.
She did a mental review of everything that happened and it was surely something related to what she could have said or done wrong. His eyes, generally bright and roguish, showed nothing, except fatigue and perhaps a little bewilderment at all the confused events they had endured. Once again in something dangerous, again shots and runs ...
She could hear him breathing with difficulty, another clear sign of his dislike for that "something" that she could not fully discern.
He saw the sign of a restaurant that seemed calm, at least the gardens showed a peaceful atmosphere where perhaps he would deign to explain what was happening to him. Laura, who was just trying to relax after the events that happened that day, suddenly felt nervous.
It was not that she was not used to being alone with him, but it had been a long time since she and he had gone to dinner together and that the distance between them had become almost a breach. The worst thing that could happen to them, in their opinion, was not to see each other ... not look each other in the eye. Losing that clarity and that understanding just by looking into each other's eyes was something she did not tolerate. She was going to tell him this, as soon as they took a place at a table.
It struck her that he ordered any wine without bothering about the harvest and without making use of the gallantry that accompanied that special moment in which he summoned the goblins of wine to help his attempts at seduction. He let her order the food as if he did not care too much. The waiter took the order and left after serving the glasses of that red wine of dubious quality.
Come on, Mr. Steele, let go ... what's bothering you so much?
-It's precisely with those words that everything began ... he said turning the reddish liquid of the glass without drinking a drop.- In the false offices of the agency you said: Let go, confess, kneel Steele and tell me when you did this trick, when you opened a franchise in San Diego and since when you operate behind my back with an exact replica of the Los Angeles offices. I forgave you once, I forgave you two, but I smell you here again and YOU HAVE TO CONFESS IT ...
Oh ... Is that the reason for your anger? Well you see, it was not you, again I judged you hastily ...
-You ALWAYS judge me hastily. Whatever happens no matter how minimal the first guilty person you find is me. I do not know how much longer I can bear to be the object of your distrust and the culprit of everything STRANGE that happens in our lives.
- Mr. Steele, it's true, I owe you an apology ...
-No, Laura ... not this time.
She flinched in her chair, but she also felt her heart skip a beat.
- Sometimes it is very hard to be nothing but the head that someone else hits and who loses the knowledge with the blows. It is very difficult to receive the punch for the mistakes of others or that you cramp your liver when you are careless ... defending something that is not even yours ...
-Excuse me ... I was wrong and again I apologize, I do not ...
He did not let her continue.
-No, Laura. I've been thinking about it these days and almost all the time today ...
Laura's heart skipped two beats this time. Something was very wrong between them. What could she do?
The entrance plate of both was untouched. The waiter raised an inquisitive eyebrow, but withdrew everything without asking. Then she brought the veal meat that looked exquisite with its garnishes of vegetables but except for one or two bites eaten with barely by both, it was relegated and the dessert, a Scottish chocolate that at another time she had devoured, went to melt in the dish irremediably.
What ... is what ... have you been thinking? She asked cautiously
I want to leave the agency. It is a very big weight for me to be that Remington Steele that evidently does not meet your expectations. That really ... I wonder if he ever covered them ...
I swear Laura that at this very moment I want to run away on the interstate but not precisely to the north ... I do not know, I would run to Tijuana ... I would miss there ...
His eyes were so dark that not even an outburst of humor that she invented could with the icy storm that fell in that look.
I want to get out of your life, Laura. As well as once I entered it without you expecting it ... I want to leave but not stealthily, but knowing that I'm telling you and that you'll keep going no matter what happens. I can change my name, I can get as far away as possible so as not to hurt you again with what I do and even more so with what I never do or do to cause you any harm. I want to free you from the nightmare of not knowing who is in front of you, what kind of man I am that you have not yet been able to read in me as you read in others what is a lie or what is true ...
I…
He raised his right hand in sign that She let him finish his thought.
I do not know how much effort on my part is enough, but I see that never it is enough for you and that can be very discouraging for me.
In fact, I think that if we really kill Mr. Steele, if we put him in the press and I simply disappear from your life, you will be better than we are here, as we have been for a long time ...
How can you say that, I've already apologized. "She stumbled over the words." You can not leave ... you have not done the wrong things ... "
He asked her for silence with a gesture again.
-No, Laura. Sometimes it is hard to receive blows to the soul, the blows that come from a fist may hurt less but you have at the tips of your fingers each of my previous failures that were not really my faults ... You always take me for the scammer that I left to be a while ago ... no more scams, no more frauds, I cut as best I could even a deranged who came from the era of the Remington Steele that did not exist and I think I had too much ...
-Okay ... I think you're right ... I've been unfair to you several times and I admit it ... but I also think that we've been even in trusting and distrusting ... you've run to escape the police many times and left me alone thinking that you would disappear and that you were not going to return, "she said in a barely audible voice." And given the circumstances, it's almost logical that I think the worst if I see things go out of perspective. So many things that are not spoken between us lead to a confusion that we have already discussed several times ... and it is exhausting for me as much as perhaps it is for you the fact of holding something that does not take us anywhere ...
He looked her straight in the eyes.
Besides ... "he rasped." You know ... I want to expand ... meet someone ... I dont know, someone who accepts me without so many questions ...
She fixed a nonexistent wrinkle in her jacket and removed nonexistent fuzz in her black pants and tried a cool composure that she didnt feel at that moment.
Well I ... I do not know what to say to that ...
Okay, Laura ... I think it's best to go through different paths now and not think about what could be but what it is ... a dead end as I see it ...
The waiter at a signal from Remington brought the bill. He pulled a few bills out of his own wallet and paid. Then, resuming his accustomed chivalry, he withdrew the chair so that she would start out of the quiet Balboa Park restaurant and silently escorted her out.
The ominous silence continued in the car. Laura was absorbed. But when they began to circulate through the difficult streets of San Diego, an idea crossed her mind and she turned unexpectedly again in U, she looked among the few luminaries for a sign that indicated something suitable where she could make this talk take them to roads that will certainly work.
She had not even thought about their most remote dreams to spoil what they had or the time they had spent together working as a team ...
The unexpected turn surprised Steele again, He had the worst face of annoyance and she felt that she should let out the crazy Laura of other times, the one she was jealously hiding from him and that from time to time she got her in trouble or took her out gloriously of them. She bet with all her heart on the second. She was not going to allow Remington Steele, his Remington Steele who had turned out to be this guy, to slip away in the mists of time -she sighed dramatically- and leave her forever ...
She quickly entered the car in the parking lot of a good category hotel, it was one of those who had read out of the corner of her eye in the pamphlets that he had thrown in the car at some time that day and without saying a word, had him follow her.
What are you doing, LAU-RA ... "he murmured, taking the path she marked while the hotel's bellman seized the Rabbit's keys to park it in the hotel's private parking lot.
She went to the reception desk. IT WAS NOW OR NEVER. The receptionist smiled at them. She asked for a room.
Suite 456. In the name of ...?
Mr. and Mrs. Steele, "she said resolutely.
Lau-ra ...
She turned and said to him with the sweetest smile she could show on his face.
"Honey ... it's time to talk more exactly about what's happening to us ... do not you think?
-Laura, we are exhausted, we are far from home ... we are ... hungry ... I think the best thing is ...
-By here please ... - said another diligent bellboy
-Thanks.- she smiled at the gentleman
They climbed the four floors in silence.
The elevator seemed the slowest thing in the world at that time
He looked at the rubber floor of the elevator as if he wanted to pierce it with his eyes.
The bellboy took them to room 456 and opened the door. It was a splendid suite.
Remington went ahead to Laura who was already looking in the wallet for some change to give to the bellboy as a tip.
Thank you.- said the man smiling at the generosity of the passenger
Remington smiled coldly but suited his mood.
Laura said:
You said it, Mr. Steele ... we are exhausted, upset ... hungry ... we do not have clothes to change unless we buy something in the hotel shops but that will be ... tomorrow ... now I have other things in mind ...
Something in Laura's voice suddenly encouraged him.
She got rid of her bag and her shoes without heels that she had worn all day and began to untangle her hair braid slowly sitting before a beautiful antique mirror in the place that served as a dressing table and small desk. When the task was finished he noticed that his hair would need a good wash. She hated the toiletries in the hotels but with a brief call to the reception she asked her account to bring her some toiletries that she preferred and two toothbrushes. Remington was sitting on the bed swaying against the mattress with his ass slowly and rhythmically. He had not taken off his blue sack or even loosened his tie. Neither had he thought, apparently, to divest himself of the first thing he used to take off whenever the shoes were. She did not comment on it.
Silent but with a very seductive walk, she was introduced into the bathroom as soon as the items that had requested arrived.
Twenty minutes later she came out wrapped in the toweling robe that had the monogram of the hotel and with an orderly pile of her clothes. Of all her clothes. He noticed, remaining imperturbable.
She smelled like gardenias and fresh. The senses of Remington Steele were truly flying alert.
He stood up and took off his jacket, relegating him to a chair. The shoes came off cleanly from him feet and also the stockings. He detached himself from his tie and shirt with deliberate delay. She did not dare to look at him. She was dedicated to drying her hair as best as possible and combing it. He disappeared into the bathroom without giving her the chance to enjoy watching him continue undressing.
About twenty minutes later he emerged with a towel covering his waist and another towel hanging from his neck. His hair was totally disheveled and wet. Her heart skipped a beat. She wondered swallowing to see him so sexy if she was willing to go ahead with this. She closed her eyes and said to herself, Yes, Laura, if that's all you've been preventing and wanting at the same time! Suddenly even her demure Victorian robe seemed transparent.
His silence did not encourage a continuity of events other than these sidelong glances as if shying away that in those moments it is what each one was willing to give to the other. While he was taking his shower, she had asked the room service for a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne and strawberries with cream. She had resolutely taken a strawberry, smeared it on the exquisite cream and tried to bite it as sensually as possible. She was not exactly a stunning beauty like the ones he had been seducing whenever times allowed ... but if she was sure of something it was that that night there, in San Diego in that beautiful suite where they were, she would make him change him that grim gesture for another more sweet and relaxed.
But this time she would not take control. She would let it do. She saw him remove a couple of blankets and an extra pillow from the closet.
I'll sleep on the couch, he announced in a barely audible voice.
It is not necessary, we can share this huge bed ... - she murmured as a suggestion when passing ...
He opened the blankets and went to bed.
I'm ... naked, Laura ...
That's what the sheets are for ... wrap yourself in them ... "she suggested in a voice as natural as she could though her throat strangled knowing that nakedness so close to her own.
The aroma of the soap he had used invaded her senses.
God…
He began to see things from another perspective as soon as his nose brought him the perfume of Laura's wet hair. Trying to feel a fictitious composure that could break at any moment, he got into bed revealing parts of her that she looked askance at. Even the lights were on in both lamps on the bedside tables. Laura cleared her throat. His heart gave one cartwheel after another. Without looking at him and turning to his own side of the bed, he said decisively "Good night"
Remington stretched like a feline. It was as sensual as she knew he was. But she stayed very still. She did not want him to accuse her as in Cannes of having promoted the consummation of their relationship with an intimacy that they could have decided together, by mutual agreement.
If he took the first step, she was not going to deny the feelings that entangled this heart that bounced absurdly but seemed to have things clearer than her brain. If he did not dare to move forward or did not want to do it, she would not encourage him and would understand that everything between them was really over.
But the silence, the attenuated lights, the beauty and comfort of the room and the peace of the place created the appropriate atmosphere. They were really tired and it did not take long for them to fall into a restful sleep, forgotten about inhibitions.
Two hours later, Remington woke up suddenly, but gently noticing the fact that during the dream they had embraced. She had a leg tangled in his. Her right shoulder was inches from his lips as an open invitation to be kissed. He, with absolute delicacy began to caress first an arm, then the silky thigh of her. Even though she had lain down in her dressing gown, the belt had come loose and her body was as naked as his. Laura's fragrance altered Remington's heartbeat. Laura, at her first touch was already with all her senses absorbing, feeling ...
He wanted to wait to react but he gently against his ear reaching to gently kiss the lobe and resting his lips there murmured:
Lau-ra ...
She turned slowly. She would have hugged him without letting go of him for a moment but she could not, she waited ... she wanted him to seduce her. She wanted him to know that she was not the one in that place. He had thought about each of the words while he said them in the restaurant and he was right. She always preferred to be the boss, to be the boss.
He once said that he felt like the teenager who had to ask permission ... because now she did not want him to feel that again. But there was still the other ... how was she going to tell him when ... when they were deeply interpenetrated with one another in ecstasy in passion? What name was she going to scream, to whisper ... to implore in the climax ... Remington? Mr. Steele? My love? Honey? Sweetheart? What was he going to do at that moment? Kiss it? Lip biting? "Put me the name you want, I've probably already used it, " he said long time ago when the question had been asked how to call him when they were alone ...
Richard ... as Richard Blaine did wonders, she thought.
Mr. Steele had begun to walk with his lips around her neck and leaving soft kisses like rose petals scattered all over the skin of her shoulders and lips.
Laura ... are you awake ...? Do you love me, Laura? .- asked with the voice crossed by the storm of a terrible desire .- His manhood member in full erection was looking to emerge triumphant from the sheets that prevented him from further contact. He thought he would go crazy if he did not have her in his arms at once, loving her, shaking her, letting her know how much he had wanted her for so many years ...
Laura's lips sealing hers were the most beautiful answer she could give him. Remington looked at her in the light of the lamps that scattered amber over her and it was a feast for her eyes ... it had to be his ... nothing mattered more ...
He took off her robe completely and lingered contemplating it ... She was beautiful, she was warm, she smelled of gardenias and roses ... she disarmed his senses and defenses ... the reticence of that whole afternoon, the anger for the whole list of faults of which hee was innocent and everything she had reproached him for all those years. He was not going to let her fight against demons and storms that did not exist. The ghost of his departure at any time, leaving without warning, was going to be pulverized that night between those sheets because if he depended on it they would stay corroborating that every day that was necessary ...
He intensified caresses and kisses.
He moaned her name by placing his lips on hers that responded avidly.
He joked leaving only a few seconds of that kiss and watched as she thirstily pursued his lips and found them with eyes closed desperately.
Laura ... " He moaned again, his voice hoarse with desire.
She let him advance with his warmth, arching at his touch but he was not even thinking about penetrating inside her. He wanted to make that moment as long as his own need would allow him because he wanted her so badly that he did not want to ruin it.
Ignited the intense fire of the previous game, she was clay between his fingers. He encouraged her with his long, sensitive fingers to explore what he wanted in it. Be daring, Laura, love, do what you want encouraged. She opened the door to the bold and adventurous Laura who loved to do the things she felt and not the ones imposed on her. She entangled her little fingers in his hairy chest massaging his nipples, which she accompanied with her lips sucking each nipple with absolute delicacy and softness. The feelings grew and emerged like wild horses in a crazy race, she did not want to take control and did not, but let him take the reins of that adorable moment. If she knew how beautiful it would be, why had she been denying it? She sighed, moaned, enraptured with every soft and knowing touch of him. So many nights in front of the fireplace in his apartment, so many kisses if greater consequences had indicated him perfectly the right way to make her be wrapped in desire.
Remington placed himself gently between her legs but he still did not look for the center of pleasure ... she had to do it, she would scream his name ... she would have to tell him who he was ... He continued to leave a trail of kisses on her skin, on her breasts, on his flat belly and even centimeters of his pubic hair. He continued to entangle his fingers in the nape of her neck as he kissed her, fighting with his tongue for the complete delivery as if they were two swordsmen. His hands alternated looking for that hollow of the neck to caress and went down to take care of something more secret and smooth. She was mad with pleasure. She had not in her best dreams imagined that HER Mr. Steele was so sweet, so determined, so firm and at the same time so tender. She could not remember that someone else had ever made her feel the way she felt right now. And suddenly when he, seeing how devastated his eyes were screaming for her to be his finally, he penetrated her like silk caressing a crystal, as deep as he reached and her hips urged him, he shouted the only true name that he wanted to hear, that would confirm that she had not only imagined but created in flesh and blood, like that mother that he could not until that moment know who had been and how he lost it.
He did not care about anything, or if it was almost a joke, or if it was a typewriter ... nothing! It was the name of her man, of the real man who was making love to her like no one else had ever done it. He did not care if it was horrible. It was his name because it was hers.
When he heard her exclaim, Re-ming-ton, honey! It was music to his ears. He watched her as she enjoyed his soft thrusts again and again opening to him totally delivered.
She was firmly holding on to his shoulder blades, absorbing him. They had not thought about protecting themselves but he knew that she was taking contraceptives so that when he exploded in her and she with him they did not feel fears. No have nothing what temor. He loved what was happening. She was not a game nor would it be a night.
He could not count the times that he moaned her name Laura, Laura, Laura …. while leaving inside her the essence of man and his being. He did not remember having such an intense orgasm with anyone else. In those moments the world had stopped and he was small, a baby cradled in her small and glorious breasts of pure excitement. Nothing mattered, except that intense pleasure. She hugged him possessing him, she did not want to let him go. He had no plans to leave. He would sleep holding her possessively and they would rest together for a while to recover and start over. The city of Los Angeles a little over two hours away, was far, infinitely far away. Mildred would probably wonder what had happened to both of them ... on Monday when they went into the office again, they, full and happy, would give her many answers or more questions ... something in that magnificent moment had changed their lives forever. Remington Steel was born. He was finally born. And he was enjoying inch by inch the skin of the woman who had made him the happiest man in the universe.
TO BE CONTINUED…
