Anna opened her eyes, frowning at the blankets rumpled and ruffled in front of her. She lifted her head, noting the clothes missing from the floor, and pushed hair from her face to try and take better stock of the room. As she frowned at her surroundings, still blinking sleep from her eyes and the fog from her brain, she heard sounds coming from her bathroom.

Pushing out of bed, snagging the dressing gown hanging from the back of her chair, Anna pushed into her hall and knocked on the door. It opened quickly and she gasped a little at the sight of John, wearing only a towel, with his face smothered in shaving cream. "Did I wake you?"

"No." She shook her head and pointed at him, "How'd you find that in my bathroom? I don't have any."

"I've got a travel bag that I keep with me at all times." John pointed to it on the small counter. "I've worked a lot of shifts where it was a day or two before I could manage to get myself home and I needed a way to shave."

"Did someone complain?"

He snorted, "You've not seen me with the five o'clock shadow."

"Not as yet." She rubbed her hand over her arm, "I'd imagine I'd know a bit more about what that would feel like."

John swallowed, "Is that a request, Ms. Smith?"

"You're already shaving."

He looked down at the razor and then held it out toward her. "I'm willing to see how delicate your hands are."

"I'm usually wielding a scalpel."

"I'm sure you can manage." John nodded at the razor, "Unless you're not up to the challenge."

"When you put it that way." Anna took the razor and nodded at the tub. "You might want to sit. I'm too short to do this when you're standing."

"As the lady commands."

John sat on the edge of the tub, holding the edges with his hands, and Anna grabbed the cloth from next to the sink. She ran it under hot water from the faucet and squeezed it out before wrapping the razor in it. When she counted to thirty, she released the blade and secured it with her pointer finger along the back of the blade.

"You'll have to be still. My usual subjects are already stiff with rigor when I do this to them."

"You shave the dead?"

"If I've got to examine a wound." Anna tilted his chin with the fingers of her other hand. "I'd say this is us crossing the Rubicon."

"I thought we did that when I crossed over your doorstep."

"Perhaps." Anna drew the blade in a stripe down John's cheek and wiped the blade on the cloth before taking another turn. "It was lovely, in case you were curious about how I felt."

"I was sure you would not've made those noises if you felt otherwise." John grinned and then dropped his smile so Anna could pull down his cheek with the blade. "I do worry about your neighbors."

"They're all deaf." Anna assured him, carefully pulling across his cheekbone to take the topmost section of foam from his face.

"Really?"

"Really." She gave a little laugh, "Not one of them is under the age of seventy."

"Must make for interesting interactions."

"You wouldn't believe the stories they tell." Anna swiped again and cleaned the blade. "Or what they'll insist they've seen."

"I wouldn't doubt them." John followed the directions of her fingers on his chin so she could finish with his left cheek. "I do worry about your reputation, if that's not being too prudish."

"It's polite." Anna frowned at a particularly difficult section and maneuvered around it to ensure she shaved him close. "But I already told you, this building is mine and therefore I'd have to evict myself if I insisted on a code of conduct."

"You never worry about your neighbors?"

"I don't live in Russia, Mr. Bates, and I'm not afraid of what anyone in government has to say about my sex life." Anna paused, "Not that I had one before or am insisting I have one now but… all the same."

She moved to his other cheek as he spoke. "What about your job?"

"I already work a night shift as a mortician." Anna shook her head, tilting his up as she managed his neck and under his chin in a few swipes. "There's not much they need to worry about the children seeing."

"Would any of them care about an unmarried woman inviting a divorced man into her flat in the early hours?"

"If it were night, maybe, but since it's day they could assume any number of things." Anna snorted, "Could you imagine me as a Madame?"

"You'd be the prettiest prostitute I've ever seen."

Anna sobered, "I've had to cut into more than a few of them and it's rather a tragic sight."

"Anyone who has to sell themselves for money is tragic already." John kept his chin tipped upward as anna finished with his neck and chin, checking over it before moving to his other cheek. "I wonder if anyone chooses the life because they believe it's a viable option or if all of them are in desperate straights."

"As someone who's enjoyed sex, I can say there's an appeal to trying out a few different suitors. However," Anna held John's chin carefully to manage his cheek. "The idea that someone's paying for it destroys the joy in my eyes. Makes it about someone trying to guess the level of desire and pleasure the paying party expects instead of both sides finding it for themselves."

"Not much mutual pleasure when money's involved."

"Not much." Anna shook her head, taking the cloth to rinse and reheat before applying it to the razor. "Most of them are treated abominably because people believe that because you paid for a service you own them."

"They're not slaves."

"Explain that to the men who already feel low about themselves because they're paying for sex and then need to feel strong again by asserting dominance." Anna sighed, "They know they're not the only men those women've had and they want to prove how manly they are because they already feel emasculated."

"Strong men don't need to hurt women to prove they're strong." John's jaw tightened and Anna paused so she did not cut over his cheek. "Weak men hurt women. They're trying to prove something. A strong man doesn't need to prove anything to anyone. He's already proved it to himself."

"Spoken like a strong man." Anna pulled the razor over his cheek again, wiping it clean. "I imagine you were one of those men that women feel safe around."

"I'd like to think so." John flicked his eyes toward Anna, "You feel safe around me or else I wouldn't be here."

"I'm holding the razor."

"Now. You weren't holding a razor when you invited me into your flat last night." John closed his mouth as Anna moved to his chin and the area above his lip.

"Have you ever thought about a mustache?" She dragged the razor carefully over his skin. "I could see you with one. Maybe even a whole beard."

"I don't think I could manage it well."

"Perhaps you could." Anna finished and rinsed the cloth one last time before handing it to him so he could hold it over his face. "You were remarkably still."

"I spent a great deal of time practicing it as a child." He finished toweling his face. "My mother spent a lot of time waiting for me to finish in confessionals."

"Naughty child?"

"Tempestuous and curious." John tossed the cloth back toward the sink and Anna set the razor there. "Although I do claim a bit of naughtiness on occasion."

"Like agreeing to fornicate with a woman who's not your wife?"

"Well," John shrugged, "She did invite me in so nicely."

"That I did." Anna nodded at the tub, "Were you planning anything else in here before you left?"

"I had hoped for a bath." John cringed, "If that's not too presumptuous."

"No." Anna leaned around him to fiddle with the knobs and the stopper so water rushed into the claw-footed tub. "I happen to very much like baths."

"Oh…" John's mouth stayed formed around the sound as Anna bit her lip to keep from grinning at the flush of red hurrying over his cheeks. "Did you want to… I can wait and then…"

"Mr. Bates," Anna put her hands between his and his body on the edge of the tub, her lips close to his as she whispered. "I'd like us to share one… If you're amenable to that idea."

"As in most cases with ideas that concern you," John lifted himself enough to bring their lips together. "I'd be an idiot to say no."

"Good." Anna drew back, leaving her dressing gown hanging from a hook on the back of the door and slipping around John to enter the water. "It's perfectly warm and we've got the time."

"You're sure?"

"I know my schedule well." She put her hands on either side of the tub and nodded at him. "I do hope you were serious about joining me. And, if you please, not wearing my towel. It'll be a terror to dry otherwise."

John removed the towel, hanging it from the rack and turned the knobs to stop the water. "And where do you want me?"

"In as many places as I can have you." Anna pointed, "But there is fine."

"You're settling," John tsked his teeth at her. "Bad form Doctor."

"We must all make concessions where we can." Anna maneuvered, standing up in the tub, "And I changed my mind."

"So soon?" John held out his arms. "Do you not want to share?"

"I do. I just need you here," Anna motioned behind her. "It'll be a better fit."

John stepped into the water behind Anna and sat slowly, sighing as his leg stretched the full length of the tub. "I've not had a bath I can actually fit in without some part of me sticking out in so long."

"Really?" Anna fit herself between his legs. "And why's that?"

"It may surprise you to know, Doctor, but I still live with my mother."

"Do you?"

John shrugged, "It proved more convenient than trying to find a flat after my divorce and since my mother's getting older I wanted to be there to take care of her in case she needed any help."

"I'm sure she enjoys your company."

"It's one of the reasons why I should never, if given the opportunity, invite you back to mine." John winced, "It'd make for awkward conversation."

"Your mother would love me."

"Of that," John kissed her cheek, "I've no doubt. But as it stands, we've only known one another a few days now and there's not much I could tell her about you."

"I felt we learned a great deal about one another the first day we had tea."

"We did." John reached around Anna, she swallowing hard to suppress a rise when the tempting beginnings of his arousal slid along her back, for the soap and a flannel. "But my mother despises war stories."

"Too many of her own?"

"My father died," John settled behind Anna again and she heard the vigorous scrub of the flannel against the bar of soap that clinked in the dish a moment later. "In the Second Boer War. She raised me by herself, in London, until I joined the Army the moment I could."

"Hence her need for you to be silent all the time?" Anna tried to turn but John's hands massaged over her shoulders with the flannel and worked down her arms, keeping her in place. "Busy woman?"

"She stitched and sowed and mended and crocheted and knitted everything and anything. We lived in Poplar and I took work, when I could lift a brick, as one of the boys on the docks." John laughed a bit, "She always worried that I'd wander onto a boat one day and join the Navy."

"I could see you as a Navy man." Anna turned to face him, lifting her arms from the water as John wrapped around to soap at her waist and tease his way up. "All those lovely insignias on your shoulders."

"They're called epaulettes and I much preferred being in the thick of things." John shuddered, "I couldn't imagine dying as I slowly lost air in the dark of a sinking ship. It terrifies me."

Anna put her hand over his, stopping his fingers continuing to brush over her breasts. "Why?"

"Doesn't it frighten you?"

"Not like that." Anna shifted, sending water lapping toward the sides. "Why?"

John let his hands drop, "I knew a boy, when I was young, who wanted to race across the river in a barrel. We were all young and stupid and so we helped him into it and then sealed the barrel. We didn't realize it had a leak and so we sent it off." He swallowed, his eyes going far away as Anna raised a hand to smooth over his cheek. "When we got to the other side the barrel was nowhere to be seen."

"He sunk?"

"He… He suffocated in the barrel." John coughed, swallowing as he blinked hard. "I was the strongest swimmer so I dived down and found the barrel. I broke it open with a hammer we stole and pulled out friend up. The local GP came but…"

"It was too late?"

John nodded. "I promised my mother, after that day, I'd never join the Navy. I didn't want to die without air, clawing at my throat for it."

"Sorry." Anna covered his hand with hers, squeezing a moment. "I shouldn't have asked. That was-"

"No," John pulled her hand back, forcing her to look at him. "I don't mind telling you. I find… I don't know, I find that I don't mind telling you a great many things about me that I've not told anyone before."

"Must be my inherent charm." Anna tried to laugh it away but John shook his head and her smile faded. "I spent time, when I was a nurse, consoling the dying. One of the men was delirious from morphine and called me his 'angel of light'. It became my call sign when I worked for Naval Intelligence."

"Something I don't think you were supposed to tell me."

"No, I wasn't." Anna shrugged, "But I worked well as one of their interrogators. An American I worked with, he said I had a skill of spinning the truth from people. They just wanted to confess to me and I let them."

"Is that what I'm doing, confessing to you?"

"We've all got weights on our chests, John." Anna put her hand over his heart, meeting his gaze. "Perhaps you just need someone to help you lift the burdens you carry. Ones you've carried for far too long."

"Possibly." John held up the flannel. "May I finish?"

"I don't know," Anna pursed her lips, struggling to appear stern. "Should I let an Army man take advantage of a Navy woman like myself?"

"I'm the son of a Marine, I'll remind you, and there's nothing I've got against the Navy except that I wouldn't join them."

"Then please proceed." Anna turned back around, leaning on John's chest as he moved to her legs. "This is the best care I've ever received."

"I intended to make it better than the sponge baths they worked on me when they finally liberated us from the Japanese." John shuddered again. "I swore myself blue that nurse tried to strip the skin from my bones with her sponge."

"Brutal, was she?"

"The worst."

"Then," Anna turned on her knees, maneuvering John's legs to straddle them as she faced him and took the flannel. "If you don't mind, I'd like to show you the benefits of true care."

"As a former nurse, I'll trust your opinion."

"I should hope so."

Anna took the flannel and set it over the side of the tub. Her hands lathered in the soap and she set to massaging his scalp with her fingers until his eyes fluttered closed. The rise and fall of his chest set the rhythm for her motions as she moved to his ears and over his face with a gentle massage. And when she reached for the flannel again, Anna half-wondered if John had fallen asleep in the tub.

But he shifted when she dotted kisses over his neck, the flannel traveling lower over his chest until she brushed at his waking arousal. When she wrapped the flannel around him, John jerked hard enough in the tub to send water over the sides. His eyes went wide and he looked at Anna as she maneuvered herself closer to him.

"I believe there was talk of a round three."

"Are you sure?" John's head practically spun as he investigated the bathroom. "Here? Now?"

"It may surprise you, or not, that I've actually had a bit of practice with this particular maneuver before." Anna brought their hips together, trapping his erection between them and angling her hips to run herself along his length so her folds brushed him. "And the water just makes it more fun."

"Exactly where did you learn how to do this?"

"In Italy." Anna held her hands behind John's neck, continuing her slow slide along his length to wet him with her instead of the water. "There was this resistance fighter there who helped me get some information. We had to hide in a little hut in the Alps as he helped me cross into Switzerland and there was a terrible storm."

"You put the time to good use."

"I had two days to learn some very interesting things from the world's second-best lovers." Anna lifted onto her knees and risked a look down to position herself before sinking slowly onto John. "The French are the first but I did work with a few of them who told me some of the raunchiest stories I think I've ever heard."

"I wouldn't be surprised."

"They also taught me a maneuver I never had the chance to try." Anna held herself in place and leaned forward to whisper in John's ear. "Do you know what 'sixty-nine' means?"

"Anna!"

Anna brought them together in a rush and John's head went back almost far enough to hit the back of the tub as more water sloshed onto the bathroom floor. "I thought so. Imagine what that would be like."

"With you or in general?" John ground out, his hands trying to decide between holding Anna's hips and gripping the sides of the tub as she gyrated on him.

"Either… or both." Anna rolled her hips into his, sliding back to bring them together again as John's hips bucked into her. "I'd rather you try it with me."

"We barely know one another." John's fingers finally held like claws at her hips to grind deeply inside her. "How could I say that about you?"

"Because we're entering a new age." Anna dug one of her hands into John's shoulder to give her the leverage she needed while her other hand snaked between them to flick and press at her clit. "An age where women and man can use one another for pleasure and be pleased in return."

"You think anyone's going to let us enter that kind of new age?" John dipped his head to blow air over her breasts. "Where men and women are equal?"

"That'll never happen." Anna huffed, finding the spot that struck her just right and moving her hips just so to hit that spot inside her as well. "Men'd be unmanageable then."

"Because we're manageable now?"

Anna grinned at him, moving faster. "I'm managing you."

"Minx." John took one of Anna's breasts in his mouth as a hand shifted to her ass to grip her tightly to him and slip even deeper inside her.

"Tease."

They continued moving until John came in a rush. His head landed on her shoulder and he managed a few breaths before the hand formerly holding at her hip joined her fingers at her clit. Anna gasped and huffed as the final stutters of John's body and his fingers brought her over the edge with him.

She slipped back, dunking herself in the water a moment before emerging to brush her hair back. "You're better than any Frenchman I ever had."

"I should hope so." John held the sides of the tub and leaned over to kiss her. "I was always better than a Frog."

Anna laughed and left the tub to wrap herself in a towel. She dried her skin with it as John pulled the plug on the tub and retrieved his towel from earlier. He exited the tub a bit more delicately and pointed to the water on the floor.

"We made a bit of a mess in here."

"As expected." Anna dropped her towel and moved it with her foot along the floor. "But it's water and it dries almost as easily as it soaks."

"I thought you didn't want to soak your towels." John argued, dropping his as well and joining her in cleaning the water before hanging both towels on the line above the tub. "Too much washing or something."

"It was worth it." Anna turned to the mirror, brushing her hair back from her face and working the wet length into a simple knot she pinned to her head. "That'll do since I've not time to dry it."

"I thought," John came behind her and Anna's breath caught at the feel of him running along the crease of her ass. "You knew your schedule."

"And we took all of my time for a lie-in." Anna met John's eyes in the mirror. "And I didn't think you could manage again so quickly."

"You're too tempting to just ignore." He held her gaze as he nipped at her neck and slid between her legs to run along her length in a mimic of her earlier motions in the tub. "If you're ready."

"For round four, you mean?"

"It's my intention." John eased Anna's legs a bit more apart, continuing to run along her as his hands held her hips. "But if you'd rather not…"

"If you move, John Bates, I'll personally see to it that you never do this again." Anna's hands dug into the counter as one of John's hands moved to her clit and pressed his palm against it while his fingers delved between her folds and he continued to stroke himself there.

"With you or-"

"With anyone, ever."

"What an enticement." John growled against her ear, adding another finger to spread her wider and kept pressure on her clit. "Almost frightens me."

"It made you harder." Anna keened, pressing back against him. "Stop teasing me. We don't have time."

"You're right." John removed his fingers and Anna whimpered when he drew back. "No time at all."

He thrust forward and Anna went up on her tiptoes. The angle hit exactly where she needed and all she could manage was a moan when John ground into her so manage that tiny bit deeper. Anna gripped the edge of the sink hard enough to make her knuckles white but it gave her the leverage she needed to thrust herself back toward John.

And so it began, the push-pull of it all. The slap and smack of skin coming together until the slippery suck of their sweating bodies meetings had Anna crying out. John's fingers moved over her and she managed a hand to guide his as they sought the places that would make her cry out. Until he abandoned the effort, trusting in her skill, and moved to her breast instead.

"You're tighter from this angle." He managed, breathing hotly against her ear before sucking a deep red patch where her neck met her shoulder. "Impossibly wetter. It's like being wrapped in a scorching wet glove."

"You're deeper." Anna closed her eyes, risking the darkness a moment before meeting John's eyes in the mirror again. "Faster, please."

"It'll be harder."

"I don't care."

John obeyed her commands and with their concentrated efforts, Anna came in a rippling tremor that left her legs quivering. She draped herself over the sink, almost biting through her lip at the perpetuation of her pleasure as John sought his. But a moment later he came in a rush and his forehead landed on her back. His lips placed a series of sloppy kisses there until he managed to stand again.

"I hope I haven't made you late."

"No later than you." Anna took the cloth and soaked it in the sink before wiping herself down to try and clean herself a bit more. "If you're on duty tonight."

"Robert and I've got a bit of a mess to sort out." He kissed her cheek. "I'm afraid we won't repeat this performance in the morning."

"Time will tell." Anna turned to face him and smiled at him. "It made my day to have you here, in case you were wondering."

"It made mine to be here." John kissed her again. "I do hope this affair won't be achingly short."

"You're not short in any regard, Detective." Anna dodged the swat he aimed for her ass. "Best fix your hair. I've left it in rather a mess."

"Yes, wouldn't want anyone to know what they're missing."

"Bad form." Anna went to the door, collecting her dressing gown before meeting John's eyes for a final time.

"Very bad form." He agreed and pulled a comb from his travel kit.