John tried to put his hands on Anna's waist but she grabbed his wrists and moved them to his sides, slanting her mouth over his to kiss him deeper. He groaned into the kiss, accepting her control. Falling headlong into it because refusal was as foreign a concept as attempting to speak another language.

So he surrendered. A prisoner of the most desirable enemy anyone could wish. The greatest enemy of rationality and reason. But passion was what Anna craved and John would be loathe to give her anything but exactly what she wanted.

The confines of her flat proved more advantageous than the dimensions of John's mother's house, the privacy rating high on the plans John had for the remainder of their evening. Or their early morning if the clock ticking consistently in the corner was any indication. But none of that mattered. Not when Anna's fingers slid over his buttons and tugged the intricacy of his knotted bowtie to bid him follow her into her room.

The weight of the days, of all of the days, lifted temporarily. They discarded their worries and concerns with their clothing and just as haphazardly but with enough care to give themselves time to use the tease to their mutual advantage. Anna's fingers trailing over John's skin as she opened his buttons. Or John's hands leaving Anna's white dress hanging from her shoulders while he dragged her skirt high enough to roll her hose down her legs.

They did not speak. Speaking might have ruined the moment. Or allowed the other to anticipate their next movement. If John spoke he might have given away his desires when he helped Anna lay back on the bed to better remove her knickers. If Anna spoke, she might have given away how much she wanted him to continue when her fingers furrowed through John's hair to bring his mouth between her legs.

John's hands shifted Anna's skirt aside, the slit running up to her hip served its purpose to expose everything below her waist. Even in the darkness, lit in his mind with soft light from the blocked glow coming from Anna's entryway, John's hands smoothed over skin his eyes could barely track. Skin that beckoned him forward with the flex of her fingers at the base of his skull.

He placed his lips anywhere he could reach. On any stretch of skin that left Anna whimpering and begging. Anywhere to leave her trembling about him as his hands drew her to the edge of the bed.

With her high heeled shoes still on, his jacket long-since abandoned in her hallway, and his shoes toed off with his socks to give himself better leverage on his unsteady knees, John slipped a shoulder under Anna's leg and finally left his kisses where her nails bid him go. Finally succumbed to the desire to leave her crying out for him. Finally answered the coil of desperation in himself to drag his tongue through her damp folds to taste the promise he made to her earlier in the evening.

There was no rush, despite what the dig of Anna's nails at the back of his skull might suggest. There was no hurry to John's movements as he luxuriated in the wetness he encouraged with every lick and sip from her. And when she did clutch around him, the scrape of her heel at his back dragging hard enough through his shirt to leave him wondering if she left it in tatters, John only pressed forward. Only continued the assignment between fingers and tongue until she rose again.

The anxieties of the case, of finding her covered in shards of glass, of seeing her in the dress that left enough to his imagination while dancing that he stockpiled fantasies, came out in John's work. In his rush to find those parts of her that forced Anna to tense and quiver and cry out. Or revealed themselves in the torturously exaggerated way he coaxed more from Anna than she might have otherwise surrendered. But it all led to the clamp of her thighs about his ears as she screeched out a second ending from the labor of his lips and tongue and fingers.

Dragging himself back in reluctant retreat, leaving kisses dotting the insides of Anna's thighs as he went, John admired the sheen on Anna's skin that showed over her exposed hips and the squarish section of her chest revealed by the cut of the dress she wore. Her hair, still intricately knotted and curled, caught the light to peek like gold through the blue and silver of the room offset by the occasional sparkle of her dress. It captivated John so much that he bucked when Anna's legs locked around his knees to bring him almost knocking into the bed.

His hands caught before he tumbled onto her, sinking into the duvet, and left his mouth perilously close to Anna's. Even with her eyes closed, her delicate fingers tracing carefully over his sleeves and up John's arms, Anna found his cheeks and brought their mouths together. And with the inhale that expanded her chest to almost touch his, John wondered if she kissed him or simply sucked his soul like air from his lungs to re-inflate her own.

Whatever her desire, John gave over to it. Part of him wondered if he would always be helpless to her. To the daring of a woman who took him in the frigid chill on the second level of a bus where anyone could see. Or taunted him with each invitation before shamelessly seducing him with his mother only feet away.

But the part of him that admitted he would always be helpless to her did not mind. Did not mind as she literally stole his breath. Did not care that her fingers left his shirt hanging over and her hand gaped his trousers. And did not care that her grip almost bordered on the painful when she found him already hard enough to seek a solution to his own pleasure.

The kiss finally broke and John blinked away the black dots on his eyes that he knew were no shadows in the dimness of the room. It gave him barely a second before Anna forced his waistcoat, shirt, and trousers away. They struggled to expose him fully to her but when John attempted to help Anna remove her dress she only shook her head. Even her hair was out of his reach as Anna smoothly lifted herself along him, her knees tightening on his to leave John in an awkwardly leaned position, and her hands gripped just above his elbows.

"You enjoyed this dress and I wouldn't want to take away the fun." Her voice, a whisper as if speaking at a higher volume might destroy the moment she already risked through speech, left the hairs on John's neck standing as his legs shook slightly. "But I think you've appreciate this position already."

John did not have time to question her as Anna's teeth nipped at his earlobe, leaving her expression up to his imagination. "What did you think when you saw the back of the dress, John?"

"That I wanted to hold you close. To put my hand along your shoulder blade and risk how far I could venture toward the curve of your ass." John's voice escaped him before he could censor his words but the curve of Anna's smile pressed to his skin in response. He barely licked his lips to continue but the hoarseness of his voice betrayed him. "To see how it would flex under me."

"Then why waste the moment?" Anna shifted back, her legs loosening, and she put a hand on John's chest to press him backward. His feet caught on the floor, walking backward until he knocked against the wall where Anna held him still. "I'd hate to deny you."

"You don't-"

Anna put a finger over his lips. "Don't think I didn't choose this dress on purpose, John. I wanted to entice you."

"Any particular reason?"

"Because I happen to like you and I like what we do together when we're like this." Anna's lips pulled back over her teeth, giving John an almost animalistic leer as she dragged her tongue over each dip. "And I'd like to think you do too."

"Very much." John nodded and Anna's hands traced down his arms to place his fingers at her hips.

"Then show me." The heels clicked on the floor as Anna put her lips near John's ear again. "Take me here John."

In less than a second John pivoted. Biting back a second of pain from his complaining knee, relying heavily on the adrenaline of the moment to leave it no more than a dull throb, John had Anna against the wall. The thud of her body hitting it sent the air from her lungs and left her chest rising falling against the bodice of the dress. A bodice John knew was the only thing stopping his access to her breasts.

But he did not move the dress out of the way. Instead he traced kisses and nips along the collar of it. He trekked his way over her exposed skin, adoring along the column of Anna's throat until her fingers dug into his hair again and the hint of a scrape alerted him to the rise of her leg to his hip. The heel of her shoe nicked at his skin but John fed on that pain as he seized Anna's mouth when she surged up to meet him. To try and control her through the kiss as she so thoroughly owned him through hers.

His hand ran over her leg, to hold her close as he shunted his hips into hers and met the silky material of her skirt on his aroused skin. Grunting into the kiss, John only groaned and broke their kiss as his hand continued its travel up Anna's thigh to move her skit to her hip. When he caught it with his other hand, pinning it to her hip, John spun Anna in place until his body pressed hers to the wall as his chest formed perfectly into the arch of her back.

The press of his erection to the crease of her ass quickened her breathing and John forced himself to slow in response. Instead he slotted his leg between hers to open her enough to slide his arousal between her wet folds. With one hand holding the skirt of her dress out of the way, John used the other to meet the fruitless clutching of Anna's hand and interlaced their fingers before stretching her reach above her head.

"Is this what you want?" John leaned forward, gracing his lips over her cheek.

"Yes." Anna breathed, turning just enough to almost bring their mouths together. "This is what I want."

"I wouldn't dare deny you." John thrust forward and almost bit through his lip to stop himself crying out. Especially when Anna's other hand dug into his neck.

Her grip only slackened slightly as John pulled back but Anna's nails dug familiar grooves into his skin as he increased the pace. The push-pull of swift, shallow strokes that left Anna whimpering for more and deep, slow drives forced sJohn to focus on something other than the pinpricks of pain she left over his skin. Instead he tightened his grip on her hip, pressed his fingers into the spaces between hers, and placed his forehead on her exposed shoulder to provide as many points of contact as possible to guide him. Guide him to Anna's rise and climax before he released in her aftermath.

Sagging back, barely holding himself steady, John stumbled away from Anna's hold. Her slackened grip left her hands running over his skin as his did hers before John stumbled to the edge of the bed. The threat of tripping over the clothing in his wake only remedied when John kicked the offending articles away in his attempt to breathe normally again.

But the sight of Anna, her back now against the wall, almost had John ready again. Ready from watching her breasts rise and fall, encased as they were in her dress. Ready from the way her lips curled into the smile of the stated but excited. Ready as she slipped from her shoes and crossed the distance between them to take John's former position when she kneeled between his legs as he sat on the bed.

Her fingers graced over his legs, enticing him to join her as the hints of hunger in her eyes grew with the dilation of her pupils in the dark and due to her desire. And John could not refuse her. Especially not when whatever weak excuses he might have attempted fell on his own deaf ears when Anna's careful fingers wrapped around his already half-hard erection.

"I hope you're not finished yet." Anna leaned forward, tracing a trail up John's chest as one hand held firmly at his thigh and the other continued its teasing strokes over John's arousal. "Because I'm not."

"I'd hate-" John gritted his teeth as Anna dragged his lower lip through her teeth. "I'd hate to stop you."

"I was so hoping you'd say that." Anna slipped forward just enough to kiss John quickly before pulling back to leave him wanting more.

"Temptress."

"I'd hope so." Anna slid back, her hand gripping harder and moving faster. "Otherwise it wouldn't be as much fun."

John forced his fingers to hold the comforter on the bed, trying to pace his breathing as Anna's kisses zigzagged their way down his chest before she experimented with gentle kisses and intrigued licks at his quickening erection. Even scrunching his eyes closed and attempting to recite any alphabet he could think of proved little more than momentary distraction and no decent relief as Anna's speed increased. And when she took him in her mouth, playing with him as if intrigued by the benefits of a full investigation, John barely held himself still.

His toes curled against the floor and John's chest rose and fell at the speed of a racehorse while Anna's tongue curled and dragged over him, no hurry to her motions and no obvious end goal but to wind him up until John either gave in or simply died in ecstasy in her bedroom. With absolutely focus, and barely a hint of a smile or teasing expression, Anna continued her work. Even when John's half-hearted whimpers begged for mercy, she brushed him off to pursue her goal.

But Anna did conceded when John's hands forsook their loosening grip on the duvet and held her shoulders. The moment she released him, offering the half-second of reprieve, John hauled her back to give himself the space to breathe. His body twitched and quivered, the bowstring strung and ready, as John attempted to find enough air to fill his starved lungs. And when that proved fruitless, John stood and bent over to kiss Anna.

The twining of her body wrapping around him left the material of her dress rubbing against John's arousal. It forced them apart, John holding Anna literally at arm's length to stop himself making a teenaged mistake and ruining all Anna's hard work. A movement he thought might change the tenor of their interaction but, when he met Anna's eyes, John only noted the smile of satisfaction.

"Now what?" He finally managed, breaking eye contact to try and control himself enough to not break the moment.

"Dealer's choice."

"Then I'd hate for your dress to go to waste."

Anna narrowed her eyes, her lips pursuing slightly. "How so?"

John reached out and took Anna's hand to guide her to the bed. When she went to lay back he tugged ever-so-slightly to stop her and utilized, once again, the slit in her skirt that allowed John to expose her legs. With her shoes removed there was no worry about adding any marks to his already shaking legs as John carefully arranged Anna on her knees, facing away from him.

Placing his mouth close to her ear, and the hand not occupied with keeping her skirt out of the way drifting between her legs, John whispered to her. "Is this alright or do you want it another way?"

"I said Dealer's Choice."

"All the same." John kissed under Anna's chin, easing his kisses back toward her shoulders as his fingers slipped into her soaking folds. "I'd hate for you to be uncomfortable."

"I'm not." Anna's back tensed a second as her knees shifted farther apart to allow John more room to explore the wet remains of their earlier activities. "I want this. I want you like this."

"Then your wish is my command." John kissed down Anna's exposed back and she leaned forward with the slight pressure he exerted. Pressure that left his fingers between her legs while his body slotted behind hers enough to bring his pulsing erection near where he wanted to be. And it only took the slick removal of his fingers for John to thrust forward and offer no quarter.

The squeak of the bed left little to the imagination if any neighbors happened to hear them but John did not care. All he sought were the same noises Anna allowed to escape when his face buried between her legs. Or when he kissed over her skin between the shallow thrusts he made before driving deep. Anything to leave Anna panting and crying out as she came around him.

It only spurred John faster. Basking in the sounds Anna made and the sensation of her about him as skin slapped together and the wet grip of her vaginal walls around him offered no reprieve even as she fluttered down from her climax. With no other choice, John followed suit and pushed his body to orgasm in the aftermath of Anna's throes so as to continue her pleasure.

They settled, their bodies trembling with residual exhaustion and the attitude of the sexually spent, while barely managing to land on the bed. John's legs twitched and ached from his series of positions while the rest of him glistened almost as brightly as Anna's skin from the sheen of sweat that covered both of them. One barely disturbed as their fingers lingered and flitted over limbs within easy reach. All wrapped in the hanging scent of them in Anna's room as the winking of gray dawn came to her windows.

"Do you feel I failed to keep any promises, Mr. Bates?" Anna's voice brought John from his stupor and he turned to her, maneuvering from his haphazard position on the bed. "I'd hate to think I disappointed."

"Not at all, Ms. Smith. You performed more than admirably. And this dress…" John fingered it, noting Anna laying comfortably against the bed as if the material offered her no restriction. "Performed just as admirably."

"It is a fine piece of material, isn't it?" Anna let her fingers glide over it. "Silk and satin with some fine embroidery. My grandmother made it from parachute silk you know. And cast-offs from the Big House where she worked for most of her life."

"A woman of fine talent."

"She taught me a little of it." Anna laid back. "But I spent my sewing skills putting skin back together on the battlefield, not mending handbags and fine lace."

"I repeat," John reached for Anna's hand, kissing across her knuckles. "A woman of fine talent."

"I do have my uses." Anna sighed back, her head turning to face John. "But I doubt you're just commenting on my actions in the bedroom."

"I am curious where you practiced to such proficiency."

"Jealous?"

"On the contrary. I'm intrigued as to who taught you." John lifted his head, settling it on his palm as his elbow pressed into the bed. "I doubt it was the same man who cornered you in the storage closet today."

"Jack and I never had a relationship like that. Although he did offer and I was tempted." Anna shrugged, "No, he had his own broken heart from our work. Lord Sinderby's son's wife was once… Well, she and Jack were almost engaged. But then he broke it off, feeling they should focus on their work, and he took that to heart enough to meet Atticus and…"

"They say that duty is the death of love."

"I don't believe that." Anna shook her head into the comforter. "I believe they should serve one another and be stronger for it."

"Did Jack agree?"

"He…" Anna sighed, "I'm sure he thinks that what we're doing now is a fault on our parts. That we're endangering the investigation we're running by engaging with one another like this."

"Robert would agree with him." John let his arm fall and his body flop slightly back onto Anna's bed, staring at the vague suggestion of her ceiling. "But I'm more aligned with you. This is what gives it all meaning."

"How'd you mean?"

"Think about it." John rolled to prop himself on his elbows, his feet dangling off the end of the bed. "We spend all day surrounded by death. It follows us."

"We practically breathe it." Anna agreed, matching John's position on the bed. "But how is that an argument?"

"Without something else, without a reason to live beyond all of that, what do we have? What purpose does solving this case, or any other, serve if it's only the gateway to more like it? To the darkness and horrors we confront in the shadows so the majority of people can continue as if it never happened?"

"None at all."

John nodded, "That' where I'd disagree with Jack and Robert. They've got their distractions, whatever they are, and they're using them to keep themselves focused. Why should we do any differently than they?"

"I'm sure they're not sleeping with others working the case." Anna chided, bumping her shoulder into John's and laughing as he returned the motion.

"No. But Robert's married and Jack… Well I don't know much about him but I assume he was trying to bring trouble to our investigation because he's got an ulterior motive to figure out."

"He's got an investigation that, unfortunately, your investigation might expose." Anna shook her head as John opened his mouth to ask for more information. "That's all I know. The edges and the outlines of it. That's all he'd tell me when he cornered me in a broom cupboard."

"What kinds of edges?"

"All I can figure is that Mr. Pamuk was an integral part of it. Something the Turkish are aware of enough to quash your case from officially investigating. And something having to do with that case of false currency you secreted away."

"Then I'll guess it's got something to do with the Security Service."

"Yours is as good as mine." Anna sighed, leaning her arms forward and folding them to rest her chin on them. "All I've got is the knowledge that we're fighting this battle on so many fronts its exhausting."

"I know." John let his fingers trail in Anna's hair, carefully removing the pins and gathering them into his hand until the curls and waves of Anna's hair fell to her shoulders. "Wouldn't want you so exhausted you sleep with these and shove one through your skull."

"How very dramatic." Anna rolled to the side and slipped off the bed as John conducted his own maneuver to leave the pins on the bedside table. "But very kind of you. So kind, in fact, I might have to give you something in return."

"Might you?" John raised an eyebrow, putting himself back on the bed until his back touched the headboard. "And what would you do?"

"Give you a show."

Before John could gather more details, Anna slipped the dress from her body and let it gather onto her arm before she draped it over a chair. John could only stare as Anna sauntered back to the end of the bed and knelt on the edge. But she did not slink toward him, as he suspected given the devious glint in her eye. Instead she positioned herself to balance carefully on the edge before running her hands down the length of her body.

John's mouth went dry as he watched her. Watched her hands knead and massage her breasts as her eyes fluttered closed. Watched as her fingers glided through her folds to leave herself glistening anew. Watched as Anna's head fell back to leave her hair billowing behind her as she undulated under the work of her hands. Watched as she continued working herself toward the end John almost knew by heart until she came.

The results coated Anna's fingers as she took her position, meeting John's gaze. The flick of her eyes had John realizing his hand wrapped the results of watching Anna. Had John almost tensing with the confession of seeking his pleasure as he watched her take hers.

But Anna's hand wrapped over John's wrist and pulled his hand away to replace it with her wet one. To leave herself running over him before she mounted him and sheathed to the hilt on him. It had them pause a moment until Anna rolled her hips into John's and set the rhythm.

Unlike before there was no hurry. Even with the peek of dawn growing on the horizon, there was only them. Only their rhythm and gyrating pleasure as they sighed and cried out together between kisses and caresses. Between clenched muscles and flexing fingers. Between John's kisses dotting Anna's exposed breasts and neck before meeting her lips. Between Anna's hand snaking between them to leave brief brushes and strokes against herself and John as they sped up.

Eventually they calmed, the bucking of their bodies as thrusts ceased and muscles ceased to cling, they breathed together through the end of their climaxes. Their eyes met as their kisses firmed and centered from their sloppier versions. And they rested their foreheads together and they found a more comfortable position on the bed in the light of early morning.