Wearily, Laura slumped down to sit on the side of the bed, rubbing her palms against her thighs. When the tremble rippled over her body like a wave skimming over the shore, she relinquished the rigid control she'd been exercising over her mind, body, emotions for hours now. Tilting back her head, she blinked rapidly at the ceiling while she focused on breathing.

Something deep inside of her - her heart, she suspected - had broken that afternoon when she'd found the shotgun on the side of the road. She'd instinctively known that gun meant Mr. Steele had fallen into Descoin's crazed clutches. The thought of the destination that lay at the end of the road - and what she'd likely find when she arrived - made her hold her breath. It was the image of finding Mr. Steele in one of those vats that left her stomach heaving.

When she'd spied Mr. Steele running full tilt towards that destination, she had nearly convinced herself the vision was nothing more than a mirage. Mr. Steele doesn't run, she'd reminded herself. In fact, there was an extraordinarily long list of physical activities in which he didn't partake without a great deal of grousing: Running, swimming, biking, climbing stairs, working out… legwork.

Still, she'd slapped her hand against the car horn repeatedly and when he'd glanced over his shoulder, her heart had immediately come back together then soared.

It was him.

He was safe…

And still frantically fighting for the proof he didn't commit the crimes for which he'd been framed. But he was alive. There. She'd known with unshakeable certainty that as long as he was, they'd prove his innocence. When had they, as partners… a team… ever failed?

Afterwards – key to the storage unit where the proof of Remington's innocence was safely in the hands of Jarvis at the LAPD – Remington had seemed to simply… shrug it all off. He'd requested that she drop him at the Rossmore so he could shower and dress for their date, then had suggested with casual aplomb…

"Perhaps we could order in this evening, Miss Holt? Watch an old movie on the telly?"

Maybe he hadn't been as unaffected as his easy demeanor had suggested, for an evening in with an old movie was to him what an afghan, cup of hot cocoa and a book were to her: A way to decompress. She hadn't hesitated to agree, and was rewarded with a quick brush of his lips against her cheek, before he was suddenly out of the Rabbit and walking towards the doors to the lobby of the Rossmore.

She toed off her shoes, as her hands reached for the buttons of her blouse, her mind far away in another place.

"Maybe it's time to start thinking about fulfilling some other fantasies."

"Whose? Yours or mine?"

" Ours. It's always good to take things slow, and not rush things between us… not get in too deep. But only because we assume we'll both be around when the proper time comes."

They'd butted up against that very issue on more than one occasion now: Giving in to their need, their desire today, as there was no guarantee of a tomorrow. The night at the Federal Reserve when she'd fallen from the beam. After her house had been bombed. Now, after that shotgun she'd found lying on the road.

Standing, she tugged the hem of her shirt free from beneath the waist of her slacks with more zeal than was necessary.

We'll never know what we might have had now, was the first thought that had followed her heart fracturing in her chest. I'll never know now.

Regrets and losses, she already carried so many on her slim shoulders. Her father leaving. Never measuring up in her mother's eyes. The strain between she and her sister. Her grandmother passing. Wilson leaving…

Her house…

She let her slacks fall to the floor, then kicked them to the side, before ridding herself of knee high stockings, bra, and underwear.

Damn, she was tired. Isn't he? she asked herself plaintively, silenty, while picking up the towel off the bed and wrapping herself in it.

Yet, faced with that question… again!… what did they do? Reverted to form: Parting ways, allowing each other time to sort their feelings out, then coming together again later in the evening when neither was quite so vulnerable.

What was wrong with them?!

Stepping into the bathroom, she pulled open the door to the shower.

"Laura!" Remington exclaimed.

He quickly turned his hips, concealing a most delicate part of his anatomy from her. The thought that he believed himself to be protecting her virtue by doing so made her lips quirk upwards in a smile that lasted as long as a blink, but he'd seen enough to be left even more confused and flustered than he was by her appearance in his bathroom.

"If you'd hand me a towel, I'll—"

"You won't be needing a towel for a while, Mr. Steele," she refused, a sultry note he'd heard far too seldom in her voice weaving though her tone. It was only then that it clicked.

Laura. In his bathroom. Wearing nothing more than a towel.

He swallowed hard, and took a moment to despise himself for not being able to get around the nobility she seemed to inspire in him.

"Laura," he winced at the slight whine he heard in his answering tone, "I don't think this is the right time—"

He couldn't think past the towel that slithered to the floor. It wouldn't have mattered anyway, as she pressed a pair of fingers to his lips as she stepped into the shower enclosure.

"Don't think, Mr. Steele," she ordered softly, as she backed further into the stall so the water sluiced over them both. "Don't talk…" she stepped closer, running a hand up over his chest, then shoulder, before her hand caressed the back of his neck. "…Just feel…" the last word said in a drawn out whisper before she tugged his head down, replacing her fingers with her lips.

He stiffened beneath her hands, cursing his fate. Should he have her after a day such as today, she was certain to have regrets for which he'd ultimately pay the price in the distance she'd put between them.

He gasped, then fought for control when her tongue slipped past his lips to caress his. Rarely did she kiss him like this, making his quiescent hunger for her clench at his stomach. With no little desperation, he tore his mouth away from hers, cupped her face in his hands and leveled wild blue eyes on her smoldering brown ones.

"Laura, I don't think—"

"I'm tired of thinking," she cut him off, as she whispered her fingertips down his back, "I want to… feel," she sighed the word, her breath warming his skin before her lips grazed his neck and her hand kneaded a firm cheek of his bum.

Bugger it all.

He drew her lips up to his, feasted voraciously on her flavor as his hand left her face to grasp beneath her arms. Lifting her easily, he hummed against her lips when she wrapped her legs around his waist. With a quiet, sultry laugh, she dragged her fingers through his hair, over his shoulders as he spun her around to press her back against the shower wall.

Then, there was only sensation. A large, masculine hand exploring the contours of her firm, rounded bottom. A splayed hand stroking her hip, then waist. Shifting position slightly to allow more room between them, his lips left hers, leaving sparks in their wake as they trailed over jaw and neck, while he palmed a breast in one hand. When his thumb flicked over a taut nipple, she cried out and arched her back. She burrowed her hands in his hair, encouraging his mouth to move to where she most needed to feel it. She groaned with pure pleasure when his lips clamped over a puckered peak.

He pampered each breast in turn, suckling, nipping, flicking a thumb or tip of a tongue against their sensitive tips. She writhed in his arms, alternately panting and purring.

Then she shoved a pair of palms against his shoulders and when he lifted a pair of desire glazed, confusion filled eyes to look at her, she slipped from his embrace and moved away. Chest rising and heaving he rubbed a frustrated hand over his mouth as he turned to face her, his frustration evident.

There again, were they? How often had she backed away once things became heated between them, then had made her apologies and fled? But now?!

She laughed a low, sensual laugh.

"If you think I'm stopping now, you've lost your mind," she mused in a sultry voice, stepping close. One hand cupped the back of his neck while her mouth explored the texture and taste of his neck, his shoulder, as the nails of her other hand raked lightly through the matting of hair on his chest. His eyes closed and he swayed on his feet in response to the feeling of her small hand against his bare chest, his stomach.

He groaned her name aloud when that same hand caressed a delicate portion of his anatomy. His erection throbbed and twitched hard, at the feeling of at long last being held in her hand. Helplessly, he clutched her back, convinced nothing could be closer to heaven than this.

She proved that belief wrong, when she lowered herself to her knees, and ran her tongue along the underside of his shaft.

"Laura," he gasped, stumbling back a step where his back came into contact with the wall.

She followed. Easing the foreskin back, she swirled her tongue around the engorged head then took him in her mouth. Her hand found his sac, squeezed lightly.

She couldn't help the laugh that escaped past her lips when he veritably growled. Easing away from her, he yanked her to her feet, and before she knew what had happened, an arm clamped around her waist, holding her backside tightly to his front.

The feeling of the hair on his chest tickling the tops of her shoulders, his rock hard erection cushioned between his stomach and her back, sent jolts of desire coursing through her slim frame. Turning her head, she reached behind them, cupped the back of his neck and urged his lips to merge with hers. Then she only knew sensation. His fingers tweaking, plucking at her nipples. A hand caressing her breasts. A lone finger that slipped between her damp folds, flicking at, dancing over the tender bundle of nerves found there. Her orgasm crashed over her. Tearing her mouth away from his, she panted as each wave of ecstasy shook her to her core. When it finally ebbed, she turned in his arms and threaded her fingers through his hair.

"Now."

The word was neither said as a command nor a request, more like a suggestion. When he lifted her, she gladly held onto his shoulders and wrapped her legs around his waist. He carefully turned them around and rested her back against the wall.

It never occurred to him ask if she was certain. He'd wanted her too badly, for far too long to turn back now. His long fingers wrapped around her neck, drew her lips upwards to give her a tender thorough kiss, while he positioned himself with his other hand.

"Laura," he breathed against her lips.

With a thrust of his hips, the head of his shaft penetrated her. She gasped, stiffened slightly in his arms, as her flesh stretched to accommodate his girth. He buried his face in her neck, battling for control, allowing her time to adjust. When she rocked her hips, he pulled back slightly then thrust again. They repeated the stop-start tempo a handful of times before they both trembled when he was buried to the hilt within her.

"Laura," he murmured against the skin of her shoulder.

"Move," she whispered the order.

So he did. His lips reclaimed hers, as began thrusting slowly in and out of her. Out of sync at first, very quickly they learned the nuances of one another's rhythms, Laura doing the best that she could given the position she was in. Yet it was that very position that allowed her hands remarkable advantage, and she made good use of it. Nails scraped lightly over his nipples, her fingers wove in and out of the thick hair on his chest… hands stroked his stomach, caressed his sides and shoulders, explored the bunched muscles of his bum.

When that same hand slipped between them to fondle his sac, to give it a gentle squeeze, his hips faltered.

"Not now, Laura," he growl-panted, through clenched teeth. He'd been holding onto fragile constraint by sheer willpower alone since she'd kneeled before him.

She took the admonishment in stride, laughing quietly. Removing her hand, in a calculated move, she drew it up his back whisper soft then smiled as goosebumps scattered over his skin. She'd need to remember –

She lost her train of thought when he began to move again. He'd shifted just the slightest bit and was now stroking that sweetest of spots with each thrust. Almost instantly she was on the precipice of another climax.

But she wanted him to ride the wave of ecstasy with her. She used her hands, her mouth, to touch anywhere she could reach, trying to drive him closer to the edge. She battled against the rising pressure, fought against it much as she had her attraction to him since he'd walked into her life, and much like that battle, she lost this one as well. Her legs clenched his waist, her back arched, lips parted, and the short, blunt tips of her nails dug into the back of his shoulders and as the climax rocked her slim frame she mumbled his name.

The feel of her nails against his flesh, the sound of her muttering his name in ecstasy, the sensation of her muscles clenching and fluttering around his throbbing erection sent his own orgasm washing over him. He buried his shaft fully within her, and allowed her body to drain his, incapable of doing anything more than keep them both erect while he pressed his face into her shoulder and groaned her name on a sigh.

Laura was first to recover. Unwrapping her legs from around his waist, she stood on tiptoe, one hand cradling the head still resting on her shoulder, while the other stroked his back. When Remington finally stirred in her arms, it was to murmur her name, before his lips covered hers again. Folding her into his arms, as he kissed her with quiet ardor, he turned her into the spray of the water. One arm still wrapped around her, his lips still moving over hers, he reached for the soap and lathered his hands. Returning the bar to the soap dish, he stroked his hands over her back, his lips never leaving hers.

His hands explored relentlessly under the guise of cleaning her, learning her soft curves, her slightly muscled back… The slope of her buttocks, the roundness of the cheeks. All the while he continued to kiss her, smiling against her lips when she began to squirm in her arms wholly against her will. With a soft touch of his lips to her, his lips moved to lay next to her ear.

"Turn around, Laura," he urged, quietly. He chuckled when she reluctantly did so, confirmation that he had her off-balance. Good.

He surprised her, when he reached for his shampoo bottle. It wasn't the brand or scent she preferred, but when his fingers began massaging her scalp, it didn't matter at all. She absently hummed as her mind wandered back over the day's events then jumped when a palm brushed over her breast. At some point he'd stopped washing her hair, and an arm around her waist had pressed her backside firmly against his front side.

A vaguely familiar position, she mused. As her mind flashed over him bringing her to climax exactly in this matter not long before, a jolt of desire swept through her, settling in her loins. He felt the answering shiver cascade over her skin and dropped a kiss on her neck.

"Water's getting cold," he noted, stepping away from her, and holding open the shower door. "Go, dry off. It'll take me just a moment to finish up." He enjoyed the view of her backside as she stepped out of the shower and picked up her towel.

Without Remington distracting her, Laura grew inexplicably nervous. It wasn't as though she hadn't used his bathroom previously, to change for a late night foray, to touch up her hair and makeup before they went out of an evening. But, over the course of the last hour their status had changed dramatically, and there was nothing casual about drying off after their exploits in the shower. After rubbing the excess moisture from her hair and patting herself down, she wrapped the towel around herself and retrieved her brush from her purse lying on the credenza near the front door then returned to the bathroom.

True to his word, just as she was brushing the last tangle from her hair, Remington stepped out of the shower and reached for his towel. She watched, appreciatively, as he rubbed the towel briskly over hair and skin then tossed it aside. That movement earned him a lift of the brows in the mirror.

With a crooked smile and smoky eyes, he stepped behind her and lightly grasped the top of her arms. He plucked the brush from her hand and lay it on the counter when she turned to face him, then with the flick of his finger, sent her towel tumbling to the ground. A smile lifted her lips, and she wrapped her arms around his neck.

"Have something on your mind, Mr. Steele?" she purred with a waggle of her brows.

"I don't know about you, Miss Holt," gathering her in his arms, he peppered brow and cheeks with kisses, "But in all my dreams about our first time together, I never once envisioned a quick shag in the shower." She closed her eyes as he touched his lips to them one at a time.

"You've dreamt about us?" she asked, pleasantly surprised. He laughed low in his throat, his breath warming her skin as his lips journeyed along her jaw.

"And you haven't?" he challenged. Well, there was no way she was going to answer that question.

"Intend to correct that, do you?" she teased, the fingers of one hand threading through his hair, the fingers of the other, dancing along his shoulder and chest.

"I do indeed," he confirmed nuzzling her throat.

"But we've already had our first time, Mr. Steele," she reminded him, coyly.

"I beg to differ, Miss Holt," he countered, lifting her easily into his arms. "That was merely a preview. The feature presentation is yet to come."

Turning sideways, he ducked through the bathroom door and into the bedroom.

In the early morning hours, before predawn threatened, moonlight spilled into the bedroom through a pair of a sheers, the only illumination in the otherwise darkened room. Laura stirred in the bed, then her eyes blinked open when the sensation of being watched fully registered in her mind. Her eyes skittered over bedside table, lamp, dresser, as she tried to weave the furnishings into a mental picture of where she was. She nodded, slightly, unconsciously, when it registered with her. She turned over to face Remington, certain he was the culprit behind those tiny hairs on the back of her neck standing at attention.

Only to find the bed empty…

Heart beating a little faster, as the memories of her own dreams – nightmares – in which she woke to find he'd disappeared into the misty night after his curiosity had been satisfied, she shifted upwards onto an elbow and scanned the room. She found him standing next to the window, gnawing a thumbnail as he kept watch over her.

"Couldn't sleep?" she asked, her quiet voice piercing the silence. He gave his head a couple quick, short shakes, then answered her question with one of his own.

"Any regrets?" He held his breath after pushing the words past his lips, fearful of her answer, afraid that it was now when she'd cut and run.

Then he held his breath for a wholly different reason. She looked like a petite, fiery goddess to him, when she allowed the sheet to fall from around her, then rose and walked across the room, a bare as the day she was born. She was utterly stunning both in the light the moon cast over her cinnamon speckled alabaster skin, and in her confidence, traversing the room as though fully clothed. When she reached him, she tugged loose the sash to his black, silk robe, and tucked herself against him. She tilted her head to look up at him as he folded the material of his robe around her slim frame.

"Do I look like a woman with regrets, Mr. Steele?" He studied her soft brown eyes, her face, and found a contentment there that once would have inspired him to pack up and leave. Now, he found comfort in it.

"No, you don't," he finally acknowledged, holding the robe closed with one arm while stroking the back of a pair of fingers along her cheek with the other.

"I should ask the same of you," she considered. "Any regrets?"

"Not a one," he answered with quiet certainty, before his eyes skittered away to focus on some unknown part of the room. She felt him stiffen within her arms, before he dared to add, "Unless, of course, I should awaken and find you gone come morning." She tipped her head to the side, and studied his deceptively passive expression. It had never occurred to her that he might dread the morning after, afraid of finding himself waking alone, and understanding what exactly that meant. A soft smile played on her lips, as she brushed a lock of hair off his brow.

"I'm not going anywhere." His eyes darted back to her face at the words, just time to watch her arch his brows in challenge. "Are you?" He drew her fully into his embrace, until her cheek rested against his chest, and his cheek lay against the top of her head.

"Not if I have any voice in the matter," he answered, then sighed, wearily while stroking her back and hair. "I know you need me to make you a promise of some sort about our future, Laura. You have—"

"I don't need—" she began to protest.

"Yes, you do," he interrupted quietly, yet emphatically. "You always have. It's one of the many things I admire about you, standing your ground as you do, refusing to give an inch unless your demands are met, even when it's me you're being buggering stubborn with." He was relieved when he heard her soft laugh. "I don't know that two people can honestly promise one another tomorrow let alone a lifetime, Laura," he admitted ponderously. "I can't recall a single marriage or partnership that has stood the test of time, be it because the infatuation wore off or because kismet had its own plan in mind." He puffed out a breath. "To make the kind of promise you'd require would mean I'd have to lie to you, and I've never done that, at least when it comes to…" behind her back he flicked he gesticulated with his hand as he tried to evoke the right words "…this… dance… we've been doing around one another. What I can honestly say is that for a long time now, I've been unable to envision a future without you in it." He knew what the words meant to her when she unconsciously pressed closer to him, before leaning back in his arms to look up at him.

"It's a start," she pointed out, a dazzling smile on her face. He answered with a wide grin of his own, shifting on his feet, before he grew serious and bussed her on the forehead.

"It is, isn't it?" She slipped from his arms and tugged at his hand.

"Come back to bed," she insisted. "I'm cold."

Lying beneath sheet and comforter, with his warm body spooned against her backside, sleep quickly threatened again, but for him it continued to remain elusive.

"Laura?"

"Hmmmm?"

"Not that I'm not terribly grateful to whatever it as that brought you back here," he qualified. "But what exactly was it that led you to do so?" Her eyes popped wide open at that question and she had to fight the urge to feign sleep, retreat.

"That's a rather complicated question," she hedged, then rolled to her back. He automatically shifted to give her room. "Descoine, I suppose. On the way to the loft, it occurred to me that he'd painted this portrait of you, framed it, then convinced even the LAPD his vision was the truth. It took repainting that canvas for the LAPD to see him, and you, for what you both are. Then it occurred to me, that unless we did some reframing of our own, we'd always be…" she grimaced and shook her head, then with a puff of breath, continued, her frustration evident in her voice, "…stuck in place.

"Reframing?" he questioned, as he propped his head on a hand. She nodded her head then, shrugged her shoulders.

"Your past, my past…" She lifted and dropped a hand, then reconsidered and pressed her palm to forehead. "When I found that shotgun on the side of the road, I realized that if anything had happened to you, I'd always regret not taking the risk… never knowing what might have been." She shook her head again. "I don't want that." He palmed her cheek in his hand, stroking it with a thumb.

"Nor do I." Having grown weary of the serious turn their evening had taken since she woke, a mischievous grin lifted her lips. Before he knew what had happened, she'd flipped him to his back and landed astride atop of him. Leaning down, she kissed him long and deep, until he grasped her hips and gasped against her lips.

"How do you feel about triple features, Mr. Steele?" she asked in a sultry voice. He lifted a heavy fall of hair back over her shoulder, then with a hand at the back of her neck, eased her down to sample the taste of her skin.

"You know me, no matter how large or small the task, I'm always willing to rise to the occasion," he teased.

"I'll be sure to keep that in mind at the Agency next week," she retorted drily.

"No need to get carried away, Miss Holt," he murmured against her skin, "We've each our roles, no need to muddy the waters by attempting to… reframe… them."

With an eye roll and laughter lingering on her lips, she bent down and kissed him.