Incentive

"We should get up."

"Why?" Christian raised his head slightly from where he was sprawled next to Ana and looked at her lazily. "I'm not in a hurry. Are you?"

"No." Ana smiled and inched closer to him, laying her head on his shoulder. "But if we stay like this too long, you might have a hard time getting rid of me."

"I guess I'll get comfortable here, then."

Ana gave him a sweet, pleased grin, and turned her head to kiss his neck. "Is this okay?"

Christian nodded. "Don't be hesitant, Ana. I don't want you to have to think about where you can touch me. I'll tell you when you're crossing a line."

"But when I touched you before, you-"

"I know. I'll take care of it. I'm used to making sure people don't touch me in the wrong places." He leaned forward and kissed Ana's forehead, hoping she would accept that. "This is new for both of us, and we're just trying it out, remember. I want to make this as normal as possible for you."

"Except for the whole domination thing."

Christian grinned. "Do I sense a bit of desire for the whole domination thing?"

"Possibly." Ana cast here eyes down coyly.

"Yes, except for that."

She smiled with what looked like satisfaction, and then glanced up again, her expression curious. "How did you make sure the other submissives didn't touch you?"

Christian gazed down at her and watched her face carefully as he answered, "I bound their hands."

"Oh." Shock crossed Ana's eyes for a moment, but a moment later they became speculative. "With what?"

"It depends," Christian shrugged. "Why are you so curious?"

Ana flushed and dropped her gaze.

"Was last night boring for you?" Christian asked, his eyes twinkling mischievously in anticipation of her response.

"No! I just- I wondered-"

"I use handcuffs, usually," Christian answered, taking pity on her struggle to find words. "Silk cords for beginners." He hesitated, and then beamed wickedly as he added, "I bought cable ties with you in mind."

Recognition and recollection of his visit to Clayton's dawned slowly on Ana's face, and Christian couldn't help but laugh and lean down to kiss her. "I told you," he chuckled. "Unimaginable depravity."

"We'd just met! That was right after I interviewed you."

"I know." Christian's eyes burned darkly.

"Are we going to use them?"

"Miss Steele, are you growing impatient?" Ana began to look down, and Christian caught her chin and trapped it in place. "I think you are."

She nodded, breathless.

"You're very eager."

Another nod.

"You're going to have to learn to wait."

She squirmed and tried again to look down.

This time, Christian frowned disapprovingly. "Stop trying to hide yourself."

"Sorry."

"Sorry, Mr. Grey," Christian corrected, the words half instinctual as he saw her willingness and fell into a familiar role. "Say it."

"Sorry, Mr. Grey."

"You have a lovely body. Stop denying me of it."

"Yes, Mr. Grey."

"You're curious about the cable ties?"

Ana began to lower her eyes again, but caught herself at a look from Christian. "Yes, Mr. Grey."

"I like you curious and adventurous." Christian stroked his lower lip contemplatively. "But I need to teach you patience. You've put me in a predicament, Ana."

She bit her lip - intentionally, Christian thought - and it gave him his decision. "Now, what if the cable ties were a reward?"

"For what?" The heat from Ana's body was nearly palpable.

"We'll see how well you do with the new things as they come."

"And if I don't do well?"

Christian kissed Ana lightly, lingeringly, too briefly, and smiled. "Then we'll have to wait for the cable ties."

"That's not fair." Ana frowned.

"I don't want to wait either." He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers one by one, his tongue tracing patterns across the sensitive pad of each digit.

"Then don't."

"Ana," he sighed, letting go of her hand and propping himself up on an elbow to look at her more directly. "This isn't just about delayed gratification and me having control. It's for your safety."

"What?"

"Cable ties are not comfortable or romantic," Christian reminded her sternly, "and you're not going to get any pleasure out of what I have planned with them if you're not ready for it."

"It sounds a lot less fun now."

"Good."

"I thought this was supposed to be for both our pleasure," Ana contested, pursing her lips at Christian challengingly.

Christian thought of Elena's belt and the lesson accompanying it, and he leaned down to kiss Ana until her lips softened into a smile beneath his mouth. "Pain and pleasure are the same thing. You can't have one without the other."

He could sense Ana's confusion at his words, could feel it in the way her lips hesitated for a moment, in the way her eyes flickered open, a question written in them. He slipped his tongue between her lips before her question could leap from her eyes to her mouth, and silenced Ana, kissing her until she was breathless and then swooping her into his arms and asking what she wanted for breakfast.

"I've got some work to do," Christian announced when Ana had eaten a sufficient portion of eggs. "Make yourself comfortable."

"I have to-" Ana paused and looked down, her hands twisting into each other at the hem of her shirt. "I, um, I have to go back to Portland and pack."

"Charlie Tango can get us there in plenty of time."

"Isn't that a bit excessive? A helicopter just so I can-"

"You're here now, aren't you?" Christian interrupted.

Ana nodded.

"And Charlie Tango is the most efficient way of getting back. Using your resources isn't being excessive, it's being smart."

"Okay."

"That makes you uncomfortable," Christian observed, turning in the kitchen doorway to regard Ana. "Why?"

"It's nothing."

"Ana, I want you to be comfortable here, with me." Christian watched the wry expression that flitted across Ana's face and wondered if she was thinking ironically of the playroom. "I mean it," he pressed. "Tell me."

"There's no need for luxury when I can do without it."

"I think the very point of luxury is that you could do without it."

"I don't need it."

Why did it matter so much to her? "Then do it for me."

"Fine."

"Good girl. I shouldn't be long. The television is at your disposal and Mrs. Jones will show you the library if you'd like."

"Thank you." Her words were shy, her shoulders curving inwards as they had the previous night, when she'd stood bashfully naked before him, as if there was any part of her that wasn't perfect.

"Look at me," Christian demanded, and he frowned when Ana's eyes darted flightily up to his. "No. With your whole body."

Ana's brow's drew together in confusion, and Christian rolled his eyes, striding across the room to her and rolling Ana's shoulders back, tugging her hands from where they were crossed over her belly and placing them at her sides instead. It was familiar, showing a woman how to arrange her body in a way that pleased him, and Christian might have felt more like a dominant in the moment if he hadn't been shaping Ana's limbs into the posture that he took on when he wanted to exercise control in the playroom.

But this wasn't the playroom, it was his kitchen, and most submissives didn't think twice about accepting the ease that Christian's lifestyle had to offer - it was part of the deal, part of what it meant to care for a sub. Ana, of all women, needed to be cared for, needed to be protected from herself and from him and from others who were just as undeserving as he. So why was she the one who wouldn't let him take care of her?

"Stand like this," Christian ordered when he was satisfied. "I already spoke to you about carrying yourself as if your body was something to be ashamed of."

"Sorry," Ana stammered, and Christian's lips thinned in irritation.

"The idea is for you to be more confident, Ana," he griped. He leaned forward until his teeth grazed the curve of Ana's ear and growled softly, "Do you need to be reminded that we are working towards the cable ties?" Christian could feel her body and energy change with those words, and he drew back to gaze sternly at her. "You need to be comfortable with your own body, first." He paused and frowned. "And for fuck's sake, stop biting your lip, or I'll tie you to the table here, preparation be damned."

"Better, Mr. Grey?" Ana asked, releasing her lower lip and running the tip of her tongue over it with what seemed to be intentionally seductive leisure.

"Marginally. Now let me work."

"Can I watch?"

"No." Christian frowned, already beginning to leave again.

"Why not? You ask me all kinds of things about my boring life and pretend to be interested."

"Because today's work isn't something I'd like to be doing, and the sooner I finish it, the sooner I can do something I enjoy." Christian beamed suggestively at her. "And I don't pretend, I find you fascinating. I'll be done within the hour and then you can interrogate me further, if you insist."

"Taylor," Christian called briskly on his way past the security office, "I need everything you got on Larron Voleur, and Welch should be here shortly. Take him up through the back so he won't disturb Miss Steele."

"Very good, Sir."

Moments later, the three were seated in Christian's office, Welch passing a manila folder across the desk to Christian. "He's a high-profile figure, finding photographs wasn't difficult."

"Good."

"May I ask what you're looking for?" Welch asked as Christian opened the folder and flipped past the general information in the front, hardly glancing at it.

"The location and the date of the university transfer matches with the time I was living in Michigan with my birth mother," Christian explained as he reached the pictures at the back of the stack of information.

"You think Voleur is your mother's partner?" Taylor asked, leaning over towards the photographs.

"He's the only person who would have the information he does." Christian glared quietly at Taylor and then across to Welch, daring each to show surprise at such a frank acknowledgement of his past.

"Excuse me, Sir, but do you think it likely that he would have studied religion?"

"I'm sure that the men at the Ecumenical Theological Seminary," - Christian sneered slightly around the name - "come as corrupted as the rest of us."

"The photographs. Do they match your memory?" Welch leaned forward to tap the top one - a shot of a tall man with a receding hairline and a magnificent smile that gleamed whitely up into Christian's face. The man was in a green park with sculpted shrubbery, holding up scissors and theatrically cutting the ceremonial ribbon of some sort of event, a group of workers applauding proudly in blue-collar ranks behind him.

Christian frowned, struggling. The man he'd known was always in the dark, face always in shadow, all made up of noises instead - of breathing, of beating, of fucking - never a visual presence.

Could it be that such a man looked like that in the light?

"Mr. Grey?" Welch urged, his finger tapping against the photograph once more.

It was him. It had to be him. He was from Detroit. He was from Christian's past. The time and place was right. It made sense. And Christian knew, better than anybody, that a pretty face could be as heinous as any other. "Yes. It's him."

"How would you like us to proceed?"

"I'd like to meet the fucker."

A/N: I'm not even going to give excuses for why this update took forever, I'm just going to give a huge thanks to all of you who are still reading. You guys are fantastic. Please review!