"I just really like having sex with him." She paused for a moment, the thought of Rio consuming her. Again. Still. "Yeah."

She turned walked away from the office where Dean sat in disbelief. It wasn't a conversation she had been expecting, so there wasn't much of a chance that he had been prepared for that bomb.

It wasn't a lie. God did she really like having sex with Rio. But the admission was a diversion. For Dean, for her. Although perhaps not the best diversion in her case. It was better than giving serious consideration to Dean's questions though.

She'd been on edge since leaving Rio's apartment.

Divorce papers. A dead body.

Rio's stare as he ran his finger along her hair.

It was all too much not enough at the same time.

Sitting on the corner of the bed she glanced at her nightstand drawer. That bastard. She still felt the pull of that tension, his face so close to hers that the urge to kiss him was inevitable. It bothered her how much she wanted him. She had told herself that it was over. It needed to be over.

Her phone rang, Blocked Number lighting up on the screen. It only rang twice before she answered.

She couldn't help herself.

xxxxx

She had some kind of nerve breaking into his apartment.

The window had still been open so he knew she had used the fire escape. What he wasn't sure of was how she knew which apartment was his. Had she gotten lucky on the first try or was he going to hear from a neighbor that some crazy lady had tried to break in?

He pulled up the security footage from the cameras he had placed around the building. He watched her walk through the hall, exasperated as she looked at doors. Must not have been luck.

Then she turned a corner. Her purse dropped to the floor followed by her coat. His eyebrow rose as she pulled off her shirt, kicked off her boots. He watched in black white as she wrapped a painter's sheet around herself, adjusting her cleavage. He smiled to himself, admiring her creativity along with her assets.

Her figure trailed off view from one camera feed, walking into frame in another. He fixed his eyes on her hand clutching the sheet to her, the slopes of her breasts above, as she spoke with his neighbor's girlfriend.

She had to know how sexy she looked standing there, he thought. Her radiating sex appeal distracting from the fact that there was paint splattered across the sheet wrapped around her. She distracted him more than he should let her regardless of what she was - or wasn't - wearing at any given time.

She was back in the hallway, the sheet dropped as she got dressed. As he watched her his mind brought him back to her bed, the two of them tangled in her blue bedsheets. The feel of her skin, of her body, was etched in his memory.

Pissed as he was to find her at his place, annoyed that she was trying to pull one over on him, he wanted her. Seeing her in his space, standing next to his bed, had put ideas in his head. But he remembered the way she had dismissed him, told him that all of it was over, a cold edge had crept in. So he had made a point to touch her hair, to get a breath away from her, before asking her to leave. He knew she hadn't expected it, had thought that he was going to kiss her.

But now he was the one suffering, sitting there alone with nothing but her on his mind.

Dragging the timestamp bar back a few minutes, he picked up his phone scrolled through his recent call log.

"Meet me at my apartment in half an hour," he told her.

There was a brief pause on the other end of the line followed by an "okay".

"You can use the front door this time, yeah?"

xxxxx

She rocked back on her heels as she waited for him to answer the door. She wasn't sure why she was here: She didn't know what he wanted she didn't know what she was doing. This wasn't the way to assert herself, running at his beck call. She hadn't questioned him on the phone. She had freshened up was out the door, driving back to his building.

In the hallway she had passed his neighbor's girlfriend who jokingly told her not to get locked out again. She felt a small thrill at the thought of becoming a regular fixture here. Quickly she tried to push the thought down.

The door opened she slipped through it, turning her head to keep an eye on him as she walked into the apartment. He shut the door faced her.

Feeling bold she asked, "What am I doing here, Christopher," trying out his name again.

He prowled toward her slowly. She almost took a step back, but then he licked his lips.

"We're not playing 20 Questions again," he told her.

His arm snaked around her waist he drew her in. There was no hesitation, no mistaking his intentions this time. He kissed her hungrily, ready to devour her. She met him with fervor, head tilting as she wrapped her arms around his neck pressed in closer.

Not wanting to take his hands or mouth off of her he slowly, carefully, walked her through the loft. Her legs hit the frame of his bed he took the opportunity to start undressing her, pulling her shirt over her head. And then there was nothing slow about it, hands frantic as clothing was discarded to give way to bare skin.

Her gold necklace Rio were the only things on her as she lay on his bed.

He was danger, excitement. He was the opposite of what her life had been. And despite it all, there was a comfort there, a safety in letting herself loose, giving herself over to her desires. She didn't know him, not really. His full name, whether Christopher was even truly his name or another alias. Whether he was going to find something else to hold over her, if he would ever consider her debt paid off. But somehow when it came to this thing between them, exploring each other, she didn't have any worries. And it was a relief to put herself in his hands, figuratively literally. Here, here he had earned her trust.

She gripped his shoulder with one hand, the other balled in his sheets. And it all melted away: All of the bullshit with Dean, the debt, everything, gone. It was just Rio, the way their bodies joined, nothing else. His staggered breath in her ear was like a meditation, coaxing her toward peace, relaxation, hell - maybe even enlightenment with the way her mind cleared. Each stroke of his cock brought her closer to the brink.

Then she was tumbling over it, the orgasm rippling through her.

"Elizabeth," he said, his voice steeped in passion. Her nails dug into his skin as she moaned, an acknowledgment a response to the way his body moved with her.

xxxxx

She slipped back under the covers, drawing the sheet up with one hand. Turning toward him she found him looking at her with a smirk.

"What?" she asked.

"Was thinking of doing some redecorating," he said, letting out a laugh.

"I'm not following," she told him, unsure what was so funny about home decor.

"Thinking of hiring a painter. You know any?"

She shook her head. "No." The confusion was evident in her voice.

His hand found hers at the hem of the sheet. "Oh, because I thought you might know the guy who works in the building. You borrowed his drop cloth earlier, yeah?"

She could feel the heat in her cheeks, her mind churning.

"How do you -"

His smirk turned into a full grin as she stared at him. "Security footage, sweetheart."

The heat in her face increased at the thought of there being video of her ruse.

"How much did you -"

"All of it," he told her. He tugged the sheet down enough to reveal her cleavage. His eyes roamed over her before meeting her gaze again.

She recognized the hunger in them a smile cracked across her face. She shrugged told him, "I had to get creative."

His mouth was on her neck then. "It was," his teeth raked against her skin, "inspiring."

She had gathered a few times now that he found her inspiring, but it was something else to hear it. It was satisfying knowing that she had this affect on him, even when she wasn't trying.

"How many times did you watch it?" she asked.

His lips were on her collarbone, his hand pulling the sheet down further. Vaguely she wondered if the window was still open as the slightly chilled air of the room washed over her newly exposed skin. Her nipples hardened, from the air or from his touch she wasn't certain.

"Twice," he confessed.

"Such restraint," she said.

His lips trailed down to the soft flesh of her breast. "Needed you here," he told her.

"Mm, how did you know that would work out the way you wanted it to?"

His breath was sharp against her, sending a shiver down her body. He thought of the way her lips had parted as their faces drew closer, no doubt in his mind that if he had closed that gap she would have sunk into him.

"Because if I had asked you to stay instead of leave, you would have."

And she didn't want to admit it, but at least it put them on a level playing field. It didn't give him the upper hand. So she didn't deny it. Instead she took his chin in her hand, dragging his face up to hers.

"I would have stayed," she confirmed.

This time he closed the distance between them, his mouth hovering over hers for just a moment before he kissed her.

In the back of his mind he considered that it might come back to bite him in the ass, this power she held over him, her knowing how much she got to him. Her tongue circled his slowly to hell with it, he thought. Since she already knew he might as well enjoy himself; they might as well enjoy themselves.