John parked his car and leaned his head back against the headrest a moment. He flicked his eyes up to see the lights on in Anna's flat and smiled to himself. With a snort he pushed out of his car and walked across the small street to her building.

His finger depressed the buzzer and her voice answering soothed all the worries from his shoulders. "It's me."

"Finally. The patient's been very patient."

"Has she?"

"Very."

"Now that the doctor's in, perhaps I could help with that?"

"Come on up." The door buzzed and John shivered before pushing through to enter the building.

His ascent in the lift had him pulling at his clothes and arranging himself until he was sure he shook from the trepidation of knocking at her door. But he manage it, with barely a twitch in his fingers, and lost all the breath he gathered so carefully into his lungs at the sight of Anna. She leaned on the door, her eyes looking him over, and grinned at him.

"Aren't you a sight for sore eyes." John could only drop his mouth open as Anna pushed the door open further to allow him inside. "If you'd like."

"Yes." Was all John could manage as he moved into the flat. He stopped in the entryway as Anna slid by him in the tiny space after closing the door. "How long… How long have you been waiting?"

"Felt like an eternity." Anna sat down on her sofa, patting the cushion at to the other end with her foot as she stretched across the length of it. "Would you like to sit or are you going to continue standing and gawking?"

"I…" John searched for words but his lexicon fled the moment she opened the door in her black silk dressing gown that barely graced her thighs and hung open to show off the black lingerie that did anything but conceal or contain. "I can't help it."

"Aw," Anna faked a pout of sympathy, "Am I distracting you?"

"Yes." John nodded, taking the offered seat as Anna propped her head up with two fingers at her temple and her elbow on the armrest. "I think you did this to me on purpose."

"I did say the patient was impatient."

"You did." John reached out and held one of her feet in his hands, massaging it more for something to do as a distraction from the growing constraints of his trousers. "I just didn't think this would be how you retaliated."

"Maybe it's a promise." Anna nodded at him, sighing into the careful mold of his fingers on her foot. "Did it go well?"

"What?"

"Meeting David, did it go well?" Anna carefully enunciated every word and John hurried to nod.

"It went… It went well." John forced his eyes to focus on the task in his hand as Anna's other foot skated over his trousers toward where a publicly indecent tent formed. "I can't focus on telling you how it went if you keep distracting me."

"I thought you were a doctor."

"What's that got to do with it?"

"Aren't you supposed to focus on fine details despite all the possible distractions around you?" Anna's foot continued, running over the fabric of his trousers to add another layer of sensitization to his arousal. "I don't know if I'd trust you to operate on me if you're so easily distracted."

"Is this a test?"

"Maybe." Anna grinned, nodded at him as her feet changed positions. "Did David like you?"

"He was nervous at first. The social worker had to talk to him for awhile before he would speak to me." Recounting the story almost pulled John from the sensual distraction Anna provided. "But we've mapped out a schedule for the next two weeks. He'll see the house, he'll come to work with me one day, and we've got afternoon activities planned for everyday under the supervision of Mrs. Hughes."

"Sounds fun."

"It's…" John coughed as Anna's foot increased its determined assault on his hardening erection. "I can't focus on anything but you right now."

"What a shame." She shifted, moving onto her knees and then straddling his lap. "Because I find I don't mind."

"I thought you wanted to know more."

"Later." Anna put her hands gently along the lines of John's jaw as she lowered her mouth to his. "We've still got a bit of time."

She ground down against him and John's head pressed hard into the sofa cushions behind him. Her hips rolled over his and he barely managed to get his hands on her thighs as she set a pace that rubbed the material of his trousers as a way to get him harder and hotter. Forcing himself to focus past the pleasure that threatened to embarrass him in a way he had not experienced since he was a teenager, and had hoped to forget, John's fingers tracked their careful way to Anna's knickers and slipped inside.

But there was hardly any inside. John's moment of pause had Anna laughing as she adjusted back for a moment to show him. "There are a number of stores that sell the most fascinating things."

"Like gusset-less knickers?"

"They also had flails and whips and more than a few options as far as restraints." Anna contorted to keep her core away from his trousers but put her lips to his ear. "If you ever want to try handcuffs, I know where to get them."

John's lips met Anna's in a frenzy as he took full advantage of the rather pointless knickers. His fingers slipped and slid over her already weeping folds to delve deep enough to drive a screech from Anna that broke their kiss. The disconnection of their mouths allowed John to immediately attack her neck with sucking kisses as Anna's fingers flailed and scrabbled with his belt.

Between the two of them, both trying to focus on multiple things at once and failing miserably in carefully achieving any of their objectives, they finally managed to get John's trousers and boxers to his knees so Anna could work herself forward. It took less than a second, and only a meeting of their eyes, for Anna to sheath herself on John. And while both of them quivered and trembled, the tension in their jaws matched in mirror, neither of them looked away.

With a flex of his fingers, John held steady at Anna's hips and attempted to set a rolling pace. Her fingers found his shoulders, breaking occasionally from her hold there when John gave her a minute of reprieve from his carefully calculated thrusts, to loosen his shirt. A few tugs got it over his head and John sighed into the massage her hands and fingers worked there. Anna's knees tightened at his hips and held firmly until John ceded control to her.

"If I weren't sharing a room with other artists on this tour," Anna managed, huffing between her words as she dug in with her knees at his hips to depress the cushions of the sofa. "I'd offer to do this over Skype."

"Not sure it'd be enough." John leaned forward, altering their angle enough to have Anna gasping when his thrusts rubbed at her differently now. "Jacking off to a camera's not my idea of sensual."

"You don't think I could get you off from Dubrovnik?"

"I think I could get off thinking about you but…" John paused, gritting his teeth as Anna tightened her internal muscles to cling at him so he had to fight to slip to the edge. "Not sure I should."

"Oh?" Anna gasped out as John drove into her and his fingers bit into her skin. "Why not? Dear Gods why not?"

"It'll just make me miss you more." John's kisses went for the other side of her neck, holding her steady as he continued to thrust as hard as he could into her. "And I thought this trip was about working beyond our sexual compatibility."

"Can't have… Can't have my cake and eat it too?" Anna's eyes scrunched closed and John grinned at the sight of her face contorted in pleasure while one of his hands moved careful fingers to play over her clit while his lips settled on her breasts through the sheer fabric of the useless bra she wore. "Shit!"

"Guess not." John drove as fast as he could from his position, trying to counter the desperate cling of Anna's walls around him. "Feck Anna I'm not going to last much longer."

"Then don't." The nails of her hand raked over his skin. "Just-"

She buried her face in his neck to moan through her finish as the ripples of her body grabbed at John. He worked faster, driving mindless into her, and emptied with a grunt into her shoulder. Their bodies bucked and stuttered together until all that remained was their heavy breathing.

John pulled back, resting his head on the back of the sofa as Anna pushed herself up with a hand on his chest. "I'll miss this."

"It's about the only consistent exercise I've had in a bit." John managed a grin, closing his eyes to bask in the sensation of her until Anna slipped off him. He cracked his lids to watch her walk toward the piano, leaving her dressing gown on the coffee table. "When do you leave tomorrow?"

"Just after one." She sat on the seat and trilled over the piano keys for a minute, wearing just her black lingerie. "Do you work?"

John nodded, "Although I wish I could see you off at the airport."

"Probably best you don't." Anna's fingers moved lightly over the keys, the somber tune setting the mood for the bluish lighting eking through the windows from the street outside. "I might just dissolve into tears."

"You joke but-"

"Who said I was joking?" Anna smiled at him and John managed to kick off the rest of his clothing, folding it a bit to leave on the vacated end of her sofa. "When I've got that waiting for me here?"

John glanced down at himself and grinned, "I think you might need to check your eyes if you think this is the best you can manage."

"I didn't say that." Anna's fingers stopped and she turned on the bench. "There've been a number of attractive, well-to-do, muscled men who've sought me out before and I take no shame in admitting that I've sampled most of those buffets with relish."

"But?" John leaned forward, his elbows on his knees to try and hide the surprisingly swift rise of his body given the current line of conversation.

"But…" Anna dragged the word out dramatically, "Would you believe that the muscled men take steroids and therefore have testicles the size of grapes?"

John laughed, rubbing over his face. "I believe it."

"Or," Anna stood up, holding up two fingers. "That the well-to-do men are only concerned with how fast they can go because they've got something else planned and they don't want to change their schedules?"

"You don't say." John kept his position as Anna moved to lean on the closed piano. "Men only thinking about themselves."

"I know, shocking." Anna grinned, her hands moving behind her to unclasp her bra so John's mouth went dry. "And then, the attractive ones… well they spent most of the time preening themselves. They used more hair products than I did and smelled better too."

"That's not right."

"I'm glad you agree." Anna let the bra dangle off her fingers a moment before nodding toward John. "You, on the other hand, are very concerned with my personal welfare and never stop trying to get me off first. It's a sign of incredible generosity."

"Says the woman who allows me to even touch her." John stood, crossing the distance between them in two steps to crowd Anna back into the piano while his fingers played with her knickers. "Not sure it's even fair to compare."

"It's really not." Anna lifted her head slightly. "So, what are you going to do now Doctor?"

"I think I should investigate the care of my patient." John's hands at her hips lifted Anna into the air. She squealed and grabbed at his forearms as he set her on the lid of the piano. "Do you consent to an exploratory examination?"

"Yes." Anna barely breathed, bringing their lips together as his fingers immediately worked into the knickers before pulling them off. The slight squeak of her skin and the bump of her ass on the lid reverberated through the piano but neither of them cared. John's fingers worked a familiar pattern inside her until John broke from the kiss to take over her breasts.

Freed from the earlier confinement, John reveled in the feel of them in his hands. His tongue painted incomprehensible designs over her skin that his fingers tried to match inside her. And he relished every little sigh and whimper she made when he crooked his fingers to find those sensitive spots or nipped with his teeth against her nipples. Each motion and caress meant to drive her higher and hold her there longer until she keened and moaned for him to finish her.

And John did.

Anna's quivering body was all he needed to keep him focused. She tried to reach blindly for him, her fingers searching for his shoulders and her knees trying to urge him to use the perfect angle of lid for him to slide right in. For a moment John debated and then acquiesced. There was still time for what else he had planned.

They moved together, slippery and soaked as the sucking sounds of their bodies joining set a kind of adult-only soundtrack. Bumps and knocks against the piano echoed through the lid and John only paused once when he thought the force of a particular drive might have dragged the piano over the floor. But the legs remained in place and John used the pause to take better hold of Anna's thighs. He pulled them wider, held her higher to sink deeper, and drove harder until she shattered around him.

He pushed through, even when his body emptied into hers again, and focused on the sounds Anna made. The ones that changed to worried whimpers when he drew out of her. The sounds that morphed into cries of increased pleasure that tipped her shoulders back to knock so loudly against the piano lid a banging came through the floor. But John ignored the dissatisfied neighbors and focused on the woman chanting his name like a choral piece as his tongue and fingers worked over her swollen and sensitive core.

Mingled tastes coated his tongue with each maneuver and guided a primal response. One that set a punishing pace with fervor and fury, guided by the rise of his body encouraging him to drive Anna mad with pleasure. She writhed and bucked against the piano, John only just managing to keep a hold on her as she let her body shudder and wrack with her cries, until she came with a rush into his mouth.

John licked through the last of it, tasting more of her than him then, and drew back to watch Anna come down from her high. The rise and fall of her chest, pushing her breasts up and forcing him back up in an ungodly swift amount of time, signaled her return to the present as Anna propped herself up on her elbows. She only watched him as her body squeaked in her slide to dismount. He smirked and nodded at the streaks her body left on the lacquer but Anna only shrugged.

"At least it held." She put a hand at the back of his neck and pulled his lips to hers to kiss him, hard. John crowded her back against the piano but bucked away when she wrapped a hand over him. "I'd like to do it again."

John went to lift her back to the piano but Anna shook her head and turned in the tiny space be left her. With her ass pressing against him, rubbing maddeningly against his already impossible erection, Anna's fingers gripped the piano lid. Another breath passed before she spoke.

"If you'd be so kind as to senseless take me right now, in this position, I'll be most obliged to you."

"Are you sure?"

Anna glanced over her shoulder at him, "You may be surprised to learn, Doctor, but in my line of work this doesn't happen astoundingly often."

"I'd rather hope not." John edged closer, urging her legs a bit more apart as he slipped between them to coat himself further with her. "I can't imagine what I'd think of the symphony if I knew this was going on backstage."

"Tease."

"Minx." He bit at her neck, continuing his slow, taunting slide against her to spread her folds over him. "Why now?"

"Because I trust that you'll be the pinnacle of my experience and I need to build up memories for all the time I'll be away." Anna's neck twisting so she faced him forced John's head back a bit while his hands settled on her hips and ass. "And I need to imagine what sorts of other things I'd want you to do with me while I'm away. It'll make the time pass faster."

"So we're just broadening your imagination?"

"Offended?"

"Excited." John paused, holding as still as he could manage. "I've already got so many ideas for you."

"Then you'd best get started."

The streaks of Anna's fingers over the lid of the piano, the dig of his heels into the rug on her floor, and the slip of his toes as they slid on the wood were all like awkward noises over a movie. Like the wrong words to a song that was them. But somehow they broke through to John's brain, cataloguing as the oddest of oddities that way someone will watch time slow amidst a cataclysm. But he noted them and used them as Ariadne's string to guide himself back to the sounds of Anna.

To her little whimpers when he held himself still and quivering inside her. The moans of… gratitude when he drove into her as deep and hard as he could. And even the hissed groans when the piston of his hips added the sweaty slap of skin to the score they wrote together. The slippery suck of them together drove John to put his forehead on her shoulder, holding her closer so her body fit snugly into the cradle of his. It shortened his strokes but changed the angle so all it took to bring out the strangled cry of pleasure that was all he needed, the one she already uttered like a refrain so often that evening, was the dance of his fingers at her clit.

She shuddered and trembled in his arms, the final waves of her body allowing John to finish on the ebb of her climax. They both leaned against the piano, the fog of their hot skin leaving lines and smudges on the lacquer. A moment later John withdrew and stumbled unsteadily to the sofa. Anna joined him, taking his hand as a guide, and landed next to him.

"Record for you?" Anna turned her head toward him and John nodded, snorting his laugh as she joined with him. "Look at us, setting a personal best."

"Yes." John sighed and then frowned, "I thought you weren't leaving for your European tour until next week."

"I wasn't but then we had to fit in Dubrovnik and that required an earlier departure." Anna shrugged and forced herself to stand. "I'll have to pay my cleaning lady more this week."

"I'd probably not tell her why." John stood as well, reaching for his clothes a moment before Anna made an inquisitive noise. "What?"

"You going to feck and run?"

"I didn't want to interrupt your final departure ritual."

"You won't." Anna found his hand, "I'd like you to be a part of it. If you want."

John grinned and took her hand, following her into a bedroom with a king-sized bed, a wardrobe, and not much else. "At the risk of sounding jealous, how many others have participated in your departure ritual?"

"Not many." Anna shrugged and pointed toward the bathroom. "I'm going to shower. In other circumstances I might incite you to join me but I think we could both use a minute to recover."

"Probably." John frowned and then grinned again, "Don't you mean, invite?"

"Could be both." Anna opened the door to the bathroom. "Shower'll be free in a minute if you want a go."

"Probably wise." John sat on the edge of the bed and lay back as the sound of water hitting a glass cubicle sounded in his ears. He closed his eyes and breathed out to try and regulate the fierce pound of his heart. A practice that had him dozing on the comfortable mattress under him until a hand landed on his shoulder.

Anna smiled at him, her damp hair tied up onto her head and a robe wrapped around her. "Shower's free."

"Thanks." John pushed himself up and entered the bathroom.

He took advantage of the sink to brush his teeth with a spare toothbrush left on the vanity and then dipped his head to drink out of the faucet and stop the dryness of his throat. The shower, not much bigger than his own, allowed him to soothe any remaining tension in his body and when he almost fell asleep standing up in the cubicle he forced himself out of it. With a towel wrapped around his hips, he entered the room to see Anna pulling back the covers and leaving the robe to hang on the wardrobe and leave her just as naked as he had been in the sitting room.

She smiled at him, pointing to the other side of the bed. "Unless you'll get self-conscious sleeping naked."

"I'll take it as a compliment." John noted the packed bags and cases in the corner by the wardrobe. "Which lucky cello gets to go with you?"

"Vincenzo." Anna sighed, settling her head on the pillow. "He's the most reliable and the others are more for fun than for performance anyway. I have Diana going with me as well but she just doesn't have the same sound."

John settled on his side of the bed. "It's fascinating to think there's a distinct difference between all of them."

"They're like snowflakes."

"Easily offended and needing their hands held through everything?"

Anna swatted at his arm, closing her eyes as she sank into her pillow. "Unique and individual."

"Right." John sighed, "I guess it's what makes us good at being ourselves and not anyone else."

"If we were other people we wouldn't be here right now."

"Too true." John closed his eyes. "Too true."

It was still dark, the hint of her bedside clock blinking some hour with a single digit less than five, when John's eyes opened. He tried to shift through the fog of sleep holding his higher faculties hostage to identify what woke him. Then, as if at a signal from the conductor, he hissed and his whole body seized.

A small popping noise had John looking down at where Anna supported herself on her knees over him, her tongue now drawing a line to crown the tip of him. She did not speak, the glow of blue-white shadows over her providing the only light John had to see, but resumed her seductive suck of him. John's fingers dug into the sheets under him as Anna's exploration took him deeper and deeper.

He groaned, biting into the pillow to try and keep his moans to himself, but Anna continued her motions while her fingers squeezed the base of him before fondling at the delicacy of his sack. Writhing in her grip, his hips bucking as if to drive deeper into her mouth, John scrunched his eyes closed to find the swiftly departing thread of sanity. A thread that he clutched at desperately to stop himself simply letting go to enjoy the pleasure of Anna's mouth and lose himself completely.

Like pulling himself back from a riptide, John strangled his words in a bid to have her stop. Anna paused and, dragging her tongue from root to tip, pulled back. John relished the surprise on her face when he reared up to kiss her. Surprise that only increased when he flipped her onto her back.

The straddling position she adopted to bring him from sleep and drive him toward madness suited John just fine. It allowed him to rub against her, pressing hard so the hardness of his arousal excited and enticed the still swollen center of her. Anna moaned and brought his lips back to hers as John drove forward to join them in a single thrust.

But unlike before, John moved slowly. Each kiss and stroke were hard won. Every touch and tease matched to the very moan they elicited. And when they came together, unlike their previous lead-follow encounters- John sighed into Anna's skin. They held to one another, stroking and soothing as they fell back to sleep in the darkness as if the entire encounter was a dream.

When John opened his eyes next, he watched Anna bending over her suitcase. He kept quiet, noting how she used her finger as if to count items and then slowly zipped all of her bags closed and rolled them out the door. Sitting up, body aching a bit from extreme exertion, John's hand had barely grabbed for the sheet when the pad of Anna's feet brought her back into the room. One of her hands held the black lingerie and the other his clothes.

"Are these my walking papers?"

"Not exactly." Anna put them down on the vanity in the bathroom. "I just though you wouldn't want to run into my sitting room buck naked."

"I walked out of there like that." John sat back on the bed as Anna sat near him, her black dressing gown from the night before gaping slightly so John noted a thong as the only impediments to any salacious plans. He forced himself to focus on her face. "That time already?"

"My cab'll be here in three hours and I still need to shower and eat." Anna's fingers found his, intertwining to kiss over his knuckles. "Have breakfast with me?"

"I'd like that." Joh shuffled in the bed, moving closer to her as he kicked off the sheet, and moved his free hand to drag a finger down his arm. "I'd like you back in bed better but breakfast'll have to do."

"Maybe we can do both." Anna leaned toward him, brushing hair behind her ear before tracing the contours of his face. "Even after our sexcapades last night I find I'm very interested in the thought of you this morning."

"As a goodbye gift?"

"Well," Anna shrugged, "It's not like you can see me off at the airport."

"You said you'd cry if I did."

"And I would." Anna bit at her lip, her finger tracing down John's chest now. "Thinking about all the ways I'd want you and couldn't have you in public."

"Daring."

Anna only shrugged, "Fantasies."

"All of which I'd love to fulfill in a universe where it wouldn't get us tossed in jail and ruin both of our reputations."

"But what a way to go." Anna leaned toward his ear, "And it's getting me ready for you… if you're up for it."

John turned to meet her eyes, his free hand taking hers to hold him. "I'm sure you can already tell how 'up' for it I am."

"It's rather remarkable." Anna's fingers danced over him, more teasing than actually engaging while John's free fingers explored the flaps of her dressing gown to push them aside and enter her thong. "You must take Viagra."

"No." John shook his head, bringing his lips to ghost over her neck. "It's just you and a host of stored orgasms from my years of celibate marriage."

"Poor Doctor Bates," Anna's fingers firmed around him and John's delved deeper in response so her next words were far breathier. "Whatever can I do to help you with your obvious medical condition?"

"Join us." John brought his head up, their lips close together. "Please."

Anna shifted, their hands still joined and their other fingers moving to accommodate the maneuver. John slipped Anna's thong to the side, her fingers guided him in, and then they held to one another. With their hands still clasped tightly together they guided their rolling, rocking motions until it was not enough.

She tipped back into John's bent knees, his fingers buzzed and danced on her clit, and they slapped together faster and faster. Each deep drive undercut but the play of Anna's fingers joining his until they surreptitiously touched him. Then, all it took was John looking down and seeing the glisten of her over his skin and the swollen swallow of him into her for his climax to strike. Anna rode it out and brought herself to join him so they slumped together on the bed.

He kissed her neck, cheek, and lips until Anna pulled back. "I'm going to take another shower."

"Want me to start breakfast?"

"I'd like that." Anna kissed him again, shedding her clothing to walk naked into the bathroom. "But please don't give my neighbors the view reserved only for me and walk out into my flat nude."

"I won't." John wrapped the towel from the night before over his waist.

He started the breakfast, switching places with Anna when she emerged almost entirely dressed, and showered in time to eat with her before the cab arrived. Helping carry her bags and instruments to the cab, the cellos taking the backseat, John kissed Anna goodbye. She caressed his face with her delicately calloused hands and smiled.

"Don't forget to write me. I want to hear all about how you and David are doing while I'm away."

"I won't forget." John nodded at the cabbie. "I think he wants you to go."

"He's just jealous." Anna kissed him one last time, her thumb tracing over his lips. "Don't forget me John."

"Never." He waved her into the cab and watched into it vanished from sight before squaring his shoulders. "I could never forget you."