I think that the only thing that I love more than my amazing reviewers are stories that depict strong women who won't stand to be in any kind of abusive relationship, no matter what.

You guys know the drill; blah-blah-blah, grammar, blah-blah-blah, let me know.

I'm exceptionally relaxed as I lie in Remy's arms early the next morning. I don't want to get up and face the reality that I'm being hunted down like some deer, and there's little that the police can do to stop Christian. I know what Michelle meant when she said that there wasn't enough proof that it was Christian, and I want to make the legal system work in my favor.

But, Christian also knows the legal system, and right now, he's only just making it work for his favor instead of mine.

"Hey," Remy whispers; he presses a kiss to my forehead.

"Hey," I reply as I stare into his burning blue eyes. I try to pull away from him and realize that I'm slightly stickier than usual. I wrinkle my nose in disgust.

"So it would appear that we're both rather sticky. And I thought that I'd licked all of the paint off. Would you like to join me for a shower?" I agree as I pull on Remy's discarded shirt from last night. Remy takes my hand and leads me out to the hall.

"But what about Charlotte and Adam?" I say as I tug down the end of the shirt; Remy pulled me from the room before I had a chance to get my panties on.

"Don't be absurd; they don't wake up before 10 and on a good day, they won't get out of bed before noon," Remy says. He pulls me into the bathroom, and slams me up against the door so that I closes, and he kisses me with gusto. He quickly pulls the t-shirt off from me, and then pulls away before I can devoid him of his boxers. Remy turns the water on in the shower, and then pulls his boxers off.

He offers me his hand, and we carefully step into the shower stall. Remy pulls the door closed, although it won't really offer much by the way of protection, since it's only just frosted glass with stainless steel trim. Remy wets a cloth, and squirts some body wash onto it before he starts to rub it over my neck and chest. At first, he seems to have the same attentiveness to washing me as a nurse would a patient, but I realize that his hands linger for a bit too long over my breasts, and on my butt.

When Remy moved the cloth to wash my vagina, I bit my lip to stop myself from groaning out loud. But, it didn't do much good because it came out anyway. Remy kissed me, and I moved back until I was flush up against the far wall of the shower. Remy's fingers moved in frustratingly slow circles around my clit through the washcloth. He stared into my eyes until I came undone, and shuddered around him.

I opened my eyes and smiled sheepishly at him. I watched as the water trickled down the hallow of his throat, before I leaned in and lapped it up. "Oh no. How are we supposed to get anything done if your only thoughts are of sex?" Remy said teasingly.

He spun me around and moved me so that I was out of the spray of the shower head. I heard him open a bottle, and a minute later, he was pressed up against my backside. Remy's semi-hard erection pressed up against my lower back, and he slowly started to rub shampoo into my hair. I was still pretty relaxed from my orgasm, so I leaned my head back until it was resting against Remy's shoulder.

Once Remy was finished lathering my hair with shampoo, he wrapped his arms around my middle and took a step backwards until we were in the line of the shower head again. He then rubbed the shampoo from my hair, and rinsed the soap residue off from the rest of my body. Then, he handed me another wash cloth.

I rubbed all over Remy's torso, and paid special attention to his chest, since that was where I had made my wonderful painting. Then, I wrapped the cloth around Remy's cock, which was now quite hard, and I started to slowly rub it up and down his length. "What are you doing?"

"Don't you remember? I painted it last night; I have to make sure that it's clean. Besides, I don't exactly recall you putting any paint on my vagina last night."

"No, but it's important to keep it clean."

"And I can imagine that it's important to keep your penis clean, too."

"Touche," Remy said with a roll of his eyes. I kept up a rather fast rhythm as I rubbed his penis until he braced himself against the wall and came. The wash cloth caught most of his cum, but some of it dripped onto the shower floor between our feet. But by the time that Remy came back to himself, the water had washed most of it away.

Without breaking eye-contact with me, Remy reached for the bottle of shampoo and handed it to me. I squired some onto the palm of my hand, and Remy sat on the small ledge on the other end of the shower so that I could reach his hair better. I'd never washed another person's hair before, not even my mom's, but I felt as if I probably shouldn't quit my job in the publishing world and become a hairdresser. Once I was finished, Remy stood and rinsed his hair out.

He grabbed me to him again, and gave me a sensual smile. I wanted more, but Remy probably hadn't brought any condoms into the bathroom. I was just about to ask him when somebody pounded on the bathroom door. Remy quickly shut the water off. "What?"

"Ana, Kate just called," Charlotte said. "She and her parents just got into Seattle, so you'd better finish up in their quick, because they'll be over to your apartment in a few minutes to see what the damage is."

"Oh shit, I completely forgot about Kate," I whisper to Remy. "It's her parent's apartment."

"It's not like you trashed the place and sliced up the furniture and your clothes," Remy whispered to me, his lips near my neck.

"I'd better call Michelle; she said to do that when Kate got back."

"Okay, I was willing to let the entire Christian Grey thing slide, but this has gotten out of hand," Kate says as we stand in the doorway of our apartment.

"The guy obviously doesn't know how to take no for an answer," Ethan says with a sour look on his face. "He's your brother, Elliot. Can you do something?"

"I'm sort of with the police officer on this one," Elliot says quickly. "You don't have proof either way that this was Christian." Kate gives him a rather sour look; so it would appear as though a guy that she's known for about a month know isn't more important than her best friend.

"You should probably just be lucky that it was only your clothes, your mattress, and the sofa that was damaged," Kate's dad, Charles, says.

"And a painting," I quickly tell him. Charles looks like he's about ready to say something rude, but his wife, Amelia, stops him with a glare.

"The insurance company will probably cover for a replacement bed, and of course, a sofa," Charles continues. "But I don't think that they'll cover your clothes. Sorry."

"It's alright; Charlotte already bought me some things last night."

"That was really nice of her," Amelia says softly. "Kate, Ana, I don't want for you girls to stay here anymore. I know that the damage has already been done, but I won't rest easy knowing that some creeper broke in here once already."

"It's going to take forever to get this mess cleaned up," Kate said with a deep sigh.

"Well, maybe we'd better," I tell her. "After all, I didn't exactly look around real hard yesterday. There might be some small things of ours that are missing, too, and we should find out if they are as soon as possible so we can add it to the police report."

"Good thinking. The insurance company won't exactly be happy if we keep adding things that were stolen," Charles says. "I'm going to go down to the office right now to file the report. Ethan, can you go home with your mother and help her find a place where the girls can stay for a while until we can find them some place better?"

Kate's family leaves, and Kate and I are left alone in the apartment with Elliot. I'm not quite sure if I trust him or not; he is, after all, Christian's brother, but I do feel better that he's here. Kate and I slowly start to clean up in the living room, while Elliot sits on one of the chairs around the kitchen table. I was thankful that they weren't damaged, as I really love those chairs.

"So, aside from all of this, how have you been?" Kate asks. I tell her about how Remy and I ran into Christian at Jose's art show the other day. "The guy has some serious boundary issues," Kate whispers; her voice is low so that Elliot can't hear her. "But, I agree with the police officer; a restraining order isn't going to keep Christian away from you, and it sure as hell didn't stop him from hiring somebody to break in here. But, enough about him. How's Remy?"

"He's good," I say quickly. I hide my face, because I know that I'm blushing from the memory of our shower earlier.

"Anastasia! Look at you! I've never seen you so happy!" Kate gushes. "Look, Ana, I know that I'm somewhat to blame for pushing you into a relationship with Christian. I was a little worried about you, because you'd never expressed any interest in sex before. But, maybe I pushed you before you were ready, and before you knew all of the facts about the guy you were getting into a relationship with. I didn't want to say anything, because you were rather happy after you spent the night with him, but… Remember how upset that you were after your first date with him? And later, you were miserable. I mean, sure, relationships can have their ups and downs, but that guy is really a piece of work."

"Kate, you aren't to blame for any of this. I'm the one who went with him to Seattle, and I'm the one who chose to… stay with him," I said carefully.

"You know, that was really messed up; him just taking you to Seattle like that. I mean, if you'd wanted to leave, you probably would have had to call me to come and get you. And it's a two hour drive. That's two hours of you being alone in Seattle."

"He treated my virginity like it was something that was wrong with me. He seemed to be under the impression that sex was some sort of highly contagious disease that everybody eventually catches once they're over a certain age."

"Ana, you have to admit that being a virgin when you're twenty-one-" Kate starts, but I cut her off.

"No, Kate. This is my body, and I won't be shamed into letting anybody tell me that it was wrong of me to wait. You've made your mistakes; you told me so when I came home that afternoon. And you have to let me have mine. It just so happens that maybe I shouldn't have gone with him because I barely knew him. It's something that I think about a lot, but dwelling on the negative stuff that's happened in the past isn't going to change what's happening to me right now."

Kate sat back on her heels and stared blankly at me for a moment. "You're right," she finally said. "Your body is not mine to judge." We silently kept sorting through the things that were scattered across the floor. "What are we going to do for tonight, though?"

"Well, I suppose that I'll continue to stay with Remy, and you'll just go stay with your parents."

"Is this it, then? The end of our friendship? Driven apart by some creep who couldn't take no for an answer?"

"What? Kate! How could you say such a thing? Just because we won't be living together while we sort out our living arrangements doesn't mean that we won't be friends."

"I suppose so. I just feel like this is the start of something, and maybe it's not all that great. I mean, we've both got boyfriends right now, and if we're not living together, I feel like I'm not going to see you as much anymore."

"Oh, come on, Kate! You're just being completely absurd now," I say with a roll of my eyes.

"Maybe," Kate finally agrees after remaining silent for a long time.

Even if Kate's parents manage to find us a new apartment, there's no way that it would be move-in ready in just a few hours. And even then, I still don't have a bed. So, after Amelia and Ethan come by to check on us and to tell us the news of their apartment search for us, I get into Wanda and head over to Minerva's Worn Books to catch Remy at work.

He's helping somebody check out when I come in, but the store is quiet. There's a lady reading in the cafe, but I can't tell if there's any other patrons in the store at the moment. The man at the counter leaves with his purchases, and I make my way over to where Remy is behind the till.

"Hey. What did Kate's parents have to say about the apartment?"

"Mr. Kavanagh said that insurance will pick up my destroyed bed, but not my wardrobe."

"Aw, I'm sorry. But that shirt looks nice on you, though. Charlotte's got great taste."

"Thanks. I'm glad that Charlotte bought me some nicer things to wear to work; it's bad enough that I'm going to have to spend most of my first paycheck on new clothes."

"What are you going to do about living arrangements? I enjoy waking up to have a shower with you, but it's probably not good for our relationship at such an early stage."

"Kate's parents are looking for another apartment for us. Mr. Kavanagh says that we probably shouldn't stay there, since it was already broken into once before. But, it's going to take a while for an apartment to be move-in ready."

"Right. Well, just for a few more nights, then. Which is just as well, because we didn't exactly…" Remy trails off as the bell above the front door jingles as somebody walks in.

"Well, I don't want to bother you while you're at work," I say quickly. "Maybe I'll just go stare longingly at some books that I'm not going to be able to buy for a while."

"No, don't torture yourself, Ana. Just go home. Well, back to my place. See what Charlotte is up to right now."

"But what about Adam?"

"He's probably working on something right now. But Charlotte will probably invite you to do something."

"Okay. When are you getting off from work?"

"In about… two hours, fifteen minutes, and a few odd seconds," Remy said after he consulted the over-sized clock on the wall behind him.

"Okay. I'll see you then."

"Good, because we didn't exactly finish what we started in the shower this morning." He offered me a saucy smirk. Even from just that one look, I felt my groin quiver from excitement.

"Then I'd better make sure to get nice and dirty before you come home, then."

Since I don't have a key, I have to knock on the door to the apartment. Charlotte answers, and I'm thankful that she at least threw something on before she decided to open the door butt-naked. "Ana! I'm so glad that you're here! I need somebody to paint with!"

"But I'm not much of an artist," I protest as Charlotte drags me into the living room. She's put down a paint-covered sheet over the floor, and has set up two easels that face one another.

"Nonsense! As long as you can smear paint around on a piece of paper, that's art! Oh, but hold on, let me get you something to cover up with. That blouse looks really good on you. Damn, I have great taste in clothing!" Charlotte leaves the room and quickly returns with an button-down shirt that's splattered with paint on the back. Charlotte instructs me to put it on backwards, so that it covers me the most, and then she hands me some bottles of paint and some brushes before she goes to the other easel.

I dip a brush into the red paint and make a nervous swipe across the upper left corner of the canvas. "Am I doing this right?"

"Darling, you can't do art wrong. There is no wrong way to do art. Just… paint whatever you feel like. So, tell me about your parents?"

"W-why?"

"I don't know; I'm just making conversation. I don't know anything about your parents. You know, you can really learn a lot about a person by what kind of relationship that their parents have."

"Oh…" I briefly tell Charlotte about my biological father, Ray, Carla, and Carla's string of marriages.

"Hm, your mother sounds a bit flighty. That's normally not a good thing."

"Why not?"

"Children of divorce are more likely to end up getting divorced themselves. They look at the relationship that their parents had and, unintentionally or not, view it as being normal. So, rather than try to make their own relationships work out, they'll just go for the quick exit. Speaking of which, did you know that most marriages start to fall apart at the three-to-five year mark?"

"I did not. Do you really think that my mom's relationship with Ray is an indicator of what might happen to me? Ray's not even my biological father."

"Hm, maybe. I's hard to say because your father died. But, in case studies where the couple was asked to try to make things work and to go to counseling rather than to get a divorce, a few years after, the couples were glad that they stayed together. The introduction of no-fault divorce made the divorce rate sky-rocket. And now, more than half of all marriages end in divorce."

"Oh. Is that why you and Adam aren't married?"

"That does have something to do with it, yes. You know, in some places, we would be married under common-law. But, common-law marriages aren't so common anymore. I don't think that there's more than a dozen places in the US that practice them now."

"What's a common-law marriage?"

"It's when a couple like Adam and myself have lived together for so long, that the government just marks us as being married anyway, despite the fact that we're not. We'd have the same benefits as any other married couple, and it would be just as difficult to get the status of common-law marriage revoked as any other marriage."

"So, if I lived with Remy where they practice this, then we'd just be married like that?"

"Well, not just like that. I forget the exact time-lines on this, but I think that it takes living together for several years in order for the government to classify you as being in a common-law marriage."

"How long have you and Adam been living together?"

"Um, let's see now… We met when we were freshmen in college, and decided to move in together after our first semester. Gosh, I can't believe that it's going on nine years now," Charlotte said. I tried to figure out how old that Charlotte was based off from that information.

"Are you really 27?"

"Shh, she's not a day over 19," Adam said as he walked by the entrance to the living room with a bag of Cheetos. Charlotte poked her head around my easel and dramatically rolled her eyes.

"Hey, looking good, Ana! I'll make an artist out of you yet!"

"Thanks, but I think that I'll probably mainly stick to writing."

"Hey, writing is just as much of an art-form as painting is. But, maybe you could write the award-winning children's novel, and I'll illustrate it!"

"That sounds like a plan, Char!" I agree with a laugh.