Chapter 4: Walls

It hadn't been an easy few days... by anyone's standards. Who could have predicted when their plane had landed at LAX on Sunday night, that Remington and Laura would arrive home to discover they'd been 'murdered' and would end up living on the streets for two days? One night spent in a 'porno house'- as Laura had referred to it – and, then, on the second night, starting out in a homeless shelter only to finish it in a drainage pipe under the highway. Two days, during which they'd been on the run from several nefarious individuals, all determined to quiet them. Two days, during which it had been revealed it was Remington's friend, Freddie, and his girlfriend that had been murdered Remington's flat… and another old acquaintance who'd been the perpetrator of the deed.

Through it all, he'd been there at her side, guiding her, watching over her… he'd even been prepared to go it alone if it meant she'd sleep soundly. Two days. That's all it had been. But by the end of those two days…. Who was she kidding?... By the end of the first day, she'd been going out of her mind. She wanted a shower, a clean bathroom, her brush, her bed… her kitchen. God, she'd been hungry, and not knowing where there next meal would come, if it would come, had only made her obsess on the emptiness of her stomach.

How had he done it? He'd only been a child when he'd started living on the streets. Unlike those two days for her, he hadn't had the small comfort of knowing his homeless status would only last a short time. In fact, it would have been quite the opposite, as he'd have been bright enough to understand the odds of someone offering a child on the streets a home were not in his favor.

She'd been amazed by how quickly he'd adapted to their newly acquired homeless and broke status. The man who so often whined when a case pulled them away from a meal hadn't once complained of hunger, as she incessantly had. The man who was absolutely fastidious when it came to his grooming, hadn't batted so much as a single lash when he'd had far more than a few wrinkles to be concerned about. The man who wouldn't settle for anything less than Egyptian cotton sheets and silk pajamas, had easily surrendered to sleep wherever they'd landed. And, somehow, the man had managed to maintain his optimistic, devil-may-care attitude, while she certainly couldn't—

She snapped out of her thoughts when he spoke…

"All Candy had to do was to follow Freddy's girlfriend to wherever Freddy was and get the ticket herself." It had been a shock to her, as well, that the pickpocket who dressed like a hooker would be capable of killing her friends just to line her pockets

"She didn't strike me as the murdering kind, though," Laura mused.

"No. No, I don't understand that myself," he ruminated. "I guess greed got the better of her." Before arriving at Remington's she'd had a revelation where Candy was concerned, and she shared it with him now.

"Candy sent us to Pittsburgh Phil knowing full well how he'd react to seeing us alive."

"Mmmm hmmm," he agreed, having come to the same conclusion himself. "While she had ample time to bribe poor old Harrigan into using his track connections to help her to cash the ticket in without undue publicity."

"Unfortunately for Harrigan, greed got the better of her again," she noted.

"Mmmm. Ironic, isn't it?" he commented, as he reached for his glass. "We spent the past two days with hardly a penny in our pockets, and all because of a ticket worth well over a million dollars." A smile played at her lips. It was, indeed, ironic.

"It's amazing how little we can survive on if we really have—" She startled, then froze, as something grazed her leg, the glancing touch far too similar to whatever it had been rubbing against her leg the evening before. "Is that your foot on my leg?" she inquired, warily. Wagging his brows at her, he gave her a devilish little grin.

"Mmmm hmmmm," he hummed. Foot, glass, did it matter?

She laughed, a silent laugh, her lips lifting in a smile as she met him half way. Their kisses were soft as a glancing whisper at first, but soon he set aside his glass. Burying his fingers in her thick tresses, he palmed the back of her head, and eased her to her back, his lips settling firmly over hers. He savored her taste, nipping at her lips, caressing them, his tongue every now and then inviting hers to dance. Ahhh, he'd missed the sweet simplicity of kissing her the past days, neither finding the streets an incentive for romance.

The kiss grew deeper yet somehow more tender, her lips lifting beneath his in a smile as she realized he'd become lost in some thought, although it was patently obvious that thought was about her given the way he kissed her.

She was right, of course. His thoughts had led him to recall the moment she'd returned to the side of his bed in the homeless shelter.


"Stop hogging the bed."


Emotion had swamped him now, as it had then. In a situation far outside of her comfort zone, she'd stayed for him. It had left him gobsmacked, her deeds confirming the words she'd given to him in New York. His mouth left hers, to travel along her jaw, then down her neck.

"Laura…" he murmured, in that breathy way he had when caught up in his emotions. She smiled and traipsed her fingers through his hair, along his neck.

"As romantic as making love in front of the fireplace is, Mr. Steele, after the last two nights, I want you in a nice, clean bed," she suggested. He shifted upwards to kiss her again, then stood, and taking her by the hands helped her up.

Her Mr. Steele was a man of many moods, in bed as well as out of it. On this night, he was the avid lover. There was no silliness, no straying fingers intent on making her shriek with laugher as she tried to escape, no teasing remarks. There was no challenging her, no daring her to take the lead, to push him as far as she might before he wrested control of the game from her, no lift of a brow taunting her to try to take it him from it again. There was no quiet conversation, with glancing touches and brushes of his lips against her skin, the contact meant to arouse yet not distract…. until he wished his actions to do exactly that. Tonight, he was determined to keep their lovemaking achingly slow, to magnify every sensation, to coax every bit of pleasure from her slim form. It was both intoxicating and overwhelming in its underlying emotion, leaving them both trembling and breathless by its end.

Afterwards, as he was inclined to do when feeling particularly close to her, he lay with his head against her stomach, as her fingers alternately wandered through his tousled hair or caressed his cheek, a shoulder. He tended to be introspective after such encounters, saying little, but wishing to keep her as near as possible, often stealing her hand from where it attended to tangle their fingers together, to press a kiss to its palm. She didn't mind the lingering silence, as she'd often be lost in thoughts of her own. Before this last weekend, those thoughts had generally surrounded questions about what he'd been trying to convey. But not tonight. Tonight those thought centered on the man lying exhausted and partially atop her, as their conversation some weeks before played through her head. By the time he shifted upwards to kiss her, then rolled to his back, she was more than happy to follow, settling her head beneath his shoulder, tucking a leg between his, and slinging an arm over his torso.

A firm hand on her shoulder roused her shortly after midnight. Bleary eyed, she blinked up at him in question.

"Time for Cinderella to flee the ball should she not wish to become a pumpkin," he teased, taking care to keep a lightness in his voice that he didn't feel as he pointedly shifted his eyes towards the alarm clock. She frowned at the clock, then nuzzled her head back into his shoulder.

"No, it' not," she disagreed, sleepily, her fingers absently toying with his chest hair, as a pair of heavy eyelids closed again. He tipped his head forward and frowned down at the top of hers. He'd taken her word once before when she'd uttered the same words and his ears had been soundly boxed the next morning. He wouldn't be making the same mistake again. Cupping her shoulder in his hand, he gave it another shake.

"Laura, time to go." Her lashes fluttered upwards as she frowned. Shifting, she pressed up on an elbow to look at him.

"No more schedules, Mr. Steele," she informed him. She watched as first his brows drew together, confused and trying to discern her meaning, then as his brows lifted and warmth infused his eyes. Palming her cheek, he searched her eyes for confirmation of what he believed he meant.

"You mean…." She nodded her head and touched her lips to his, before tucking herself back against him.

"I like falling asleep with and waking to you, too" she murmured.

She was already back to sleep by the time he shifted more fully beneath her and dropped a kiss on the top of her head.