Anna grinned to herself, eyes still shut, at the feel of John's fingers teasing over her stomach. "I do hope you intend to do more than drive me mad if you're going to wake me up early on a Saturday, Mr. Bates."

"That depends," He kissed behind her ear as his fingers circled her navel before teasing just above her nerve bundle. "Do you have to go in for any meetings this morning?"

"No," She shook her head into the pillow, "I attended the last meeting yesterday so I'm free all weekend."

"Good," His lips started a path that sucked from her ear to where her neck met her shoulder. "Because I'm going to leave some marks in places where people might ask questions."

"Hm," Anna hummed, shifting her right leg over his to allow his fingers to creep lower. "Is that a promise?"

"It's a guarantee." John pulled hard on a path of skin at her shoulder while his fingers manipulated her folds. "I plan to use the early hours of this morning to ravish you in this bed."

"Then I'm your willing participant." Anna sighed when he finally worked a finger inside her, using gentle movements to leave her shifting toward his hand and rubbing her ass against his growing erection at the same time.

"And I'm warning you that I'll be taking my time." John growled toward her ear, nipping there when her hand latched over his wrist to try and push him faster. "I don't usually get the time to do this."

"And whose fault is that Mr. Bates?" Anna tried to tease but her lungs constricted with John adding another finger. "You're the one with all the phone calls and meetings."

"I'm trying to bring industry to a town."

"And I'm preparing for another school year where I'll educate the people you'll be hiring from the town." She dug her fingers into the flesh of his ass when he ran his erection over her.

"I guess we'll just have to accept that we're professionals with lives then." John paused and Anna almost clawed at his skin. "Unless it's too much for you."

"What'll be too much for me is if you stop."

John did not answer with words, Instead he used his thumb and her hand to drive Anna over the edge with his fingers stroking the inside of her. She shrieked into her pillow as John removed his hand from her. He stayed achingly close, the heat from his erection intensifying her own orgasm, and contented himself kissing her neck and shoulder until she recovered.

Anna turned her head, taking his mouth while her hand cupped over his cheek to guide her motions. His hands wrapped gently over her wrists and shifted them so he could move right behind her. When Anna caught of a glimpse of her ass cradled in the crux of his thighs she shivered in anticipation.

He paused, mouth a breath from hers. "Is this alright Anna?"

"I think I'm very much looking forward to what you're planning to do to me."

"Planning to do to you?"

"You've got me at a bit of a disadvantage here and I'm sure you can tell what it's doing to me." Anna taunted with a grind of her ass against him.

"It's what you do to me that's important here." John jerked his hips, sending his arousal sliding against Anna and her eyes fluttered closed at the feel of him. "And I'd like to take the time this morning to glory in that a bit, if it's all the same to you and you're alright with it."

"I'm more than alright with it."

"Then I'll continue shall I?"

"I'd rather you did."

John kissed her again, breaking only to trace his lips over her neck. His hands glided up her arms, massaging and working over the skin there. Anna spread her legs wider at the nudge of his knee against hers and settled into the mattress to enjoy the sensation of John just waiting for her.

One of his hands splayed in the mattress by her hips while his mouth ran over her shoulders and back. He traced her spine with tiny licks and laved kisses at the rise of her hips and the top swell of her ass. But Anna cried out when his hands took her breasts into consideration.

He molded there, kneading over the sensitive flesh before surprising her when he bit down near her ass. And surprised her again when he drew his pulsing erection back just to position his mouth over her folds. The hand formerly in the mattress only left an imprint there as it turned its attentions back to her nerves.

Between the dedicated work of his tongue and fingers Anna trembled into her second climax of the morning. This time John did not wait for her to come all the way back down. Instead he took position behind her and gripped her hips enough to drive himself deep inside her.

That motion brought Anna back to reality and her hands crumpled the sheets around her. John angled to plunge as deeply inside her as he could and the angle scraped along her most sensitive inner muscles. She writhed under him and tried to drive her hips back to meet his thrusts.

The rise, so familiar this morning, started again and Anna rushed a hand toward her center to help bring herself over. John's hand caught hers but instead of stopping her he interlaced their fingers and worked in tandem with her. All she could tell, over the blood rushing in her ears, was that her moans matched John's grunts.

He broke first this time, groaning out her name before draping himself over her. His body stuttered through the end, fingers flailing slightly to help her join him, and soon Anna's arms gave out with the peak. They collapsed together on the bed as their heaving breaths echoed about the room.

Anna turned to face John and traced his profile. He grinned at her, catching her fingers to kiss over them before tucking her close to his heart. She settled there, smiling to herself, and let her hand ease back and forth over his chest.

"Will it always be like this?" She whispered, tilting her head back to see John's face.

"You mean the two of u going at it like rabbits whenever we're close to one another?" John smirked and caught Anna's hand as she went to swat at him. "Or do you mean life-altering and earth-shattering when we go at it like rabbits?"

"Sometimes I think you're worse than my students." Anna pushed herself off his chest to sit up. "And I mean both, since you put it like that."

"Worried I won't be able to keep up with you?" John put an arm behind his head, using the other to trail his fingers down her arm. "Or are you worried it'll fade?"

"We did have a rather hurried start." She grinned, "I don't know about you but I've never slept with someone I only met the day before."

"Technically it was two days before and we'd spent all of those days together." John traced over her fingers with his. "We had the equivalent of ten or fifteen dates in a twenty-four hour period and even did domestic things I don't think many couples who've been married twenty years do with one another."

"Now you're just having me on."

"Anna," John sat up, holding her shoulders, "If you're worried about my commitment level then there's something I could do to make sure you don't worry about that."

"And what's that?"

"Well," John leaned over the side of the bed, digging around in the clothes piled there, "I was going to bring it up last night at dinner but when you were rubbing your foot over my leg and then took me in the back of your car I thought it wasn't the right time."

He righted himself and held a box out toward her. "There are people'll who say we don't know another well and maybe we don't but I don't care what they say because I know you better than I know myself." John opened the box and Anna covered her mouth at the sight of the ring, "You're more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, yours and mine, are the same."

"You know how I love Wuthering Heights."

"Something I'll never understand." John removed the ring and took Anna's hand, "I'd like to put this here but I can't until you answer a very important question."

"Then maybe you should ask that very important question so I can answer it." Anna grinned, "Because I want this on my finger before I have my way with you again."

John laughed, "Then here it is, Anna May Smith, will you do me the honor and glorious pleasure of being my wife?"

"What else could I ever say but yes?" Anna slid her finger through the ring and then turned her hands to cup John's face so she could pull him in for a kiss. "And that nothing would make me happier?"

"Those are good enough for me." John moved his hand to the back of Anna's neck and held her in place a moment while they kissed. He broke it, smiling, "What about that promise to have your way with me again?"

Anna took his hands and climbed off the bed, leading her to the master bathroom. With a flick of her hand she turned the water on in the shower and allowed it to steam while she looped her arms over John's neck. They swayed for a brief moment until their lips met again.

His hand slipped on the glass door and they laughed away from one another, Anna dragging John into the shower with her. He yelped slightly when the scalding water caught him in the side and Anna hurried to adjust the nozzle before moving toward John again. He scowled at the showerhead and pointed at it.

"One day we'll be on city water and we won't have to worry about the Fires of Mount Doom quickly followed by an attack of the Frost Giants while we shower."

"Are we moving somewhere, Mr. Bates?" Anna trilled, running her hands down his body to follow the water drops in their paths.

"We might one day." John's hand lodged in her hair, working as best he could to trail through the wetness. "If you want to move from this house."

"It's a lovely house."

"Yes it is. But," He backed her toward the wall, "I'd rather a slightly larger shower that doesn't have me working at breakneck speed to beat an old water heater."

Anna clicked her tongue against her teeth at him, "You've no sense of adventure. This is life in the boonies, John."

"Where I'm from we called it the back country."

"I'm sure they did." Anna pretended to care before running her lips over his jaw. "In Australia they call it the bush."

"And Australia is the only word I know in the English language where there are three 'A's all pronounced differently." John tried to respond but stuttered and slapped his hand against the wall to support himself when Anna's fingers wrapped around him.

"What to know another fun fact?" Anna let her kisses work over his chest while her hands caressed and fondled over him to the point where John gasped out his breaths. "There are only three words in the English language where 'W' follows 'D'."

"I knew that." He groaned when Anna kissed over his hip and then bit near the bone. "It's 'dwarf', 'dwindle' and… And…"

"Dwell." Anna sank to her knees and licked a stripe of water from him. "Like what I plan to do here."

She wrapped her mouth over him and sucked at him. John's hoarse cry only spurred her fingers to slip around and dig into the skin of his ass. And when he grunted while thrusting his hips forward she simply used her teeth to drag the length of him. Anna's other hand squeezed and slid over his erection before playing over his sack, finger the weight in her palm.

John bucked and moaned and when Anna could taste something more she stood. His mouth met hers with abandoned, almost slamming her back against the tile of the shower. She raked her hand into his sopping hair, noting the water losing its steam, and held fast as John lifted her with determined hands at her thighs.

Moving her legs about his hips, Anna settled for the instant John gave her before driving forward. Anna let her head fall back and relished John's immediate attentions to her neck and then breasts while their skin slapped indiscriminately under the drum of the cooling water. And when he released inside her it was all Anna could do not to immediately follow.

They stumbled from the shower, giggling and dripping. John wrapped Anna in her bathrobe, holding her close to kiss her. She handed him a towel, beginning to dry him herself before he snatched it from her grip. Feigning offense she tried to pout but John kissed it away.

"I know you, Ms. Smith, and you'll just use it was a chance to try and win a round three before we even make it to breakfast."

"I would not."

"But you would," He kissed her, "And I'd be your willing participant."

"I like the sound of that."

John grinned, "Willing participation? Me too."

"No," Anna shook her head, "The thought that you'll soon have to call me 'Mrs. Bates' when you chide at me."

"'Chide at you'?" John laughed, "What century did you fall back to?"

"The one where romantic heroes get the woman they dreamed about and the heroines get the men they dreamed about." Anna pushed some of his wet hair away from his face. "The century where you and I find each other."

"We already did." John turned to kiss her palm.

"Sometimes I think we always will and we always have. That it's a big circle and we're just turning in it over and over again to find one another." Anna went to say something else but heard the doorbell ringing. "Who in all of sanity rings a doorbell before ten a.m. on a Saturday?"

"Someone who doesn't realize you never even use the front door." John looked down at himself, "I'm in no fit state to answer that."

"I'll get it." Anna secured the robe, taking a smaller towel for her hair and drying at it as she walked through her bedroom and turned to the stairs.

The open stairs gave her the view of her sitting room, the dining room, her large windows that looked out on the woods that surrounded her property, and dumped her right in front of the door that only the uninitiated visitors used. The front door she really didn't like.

Leaving the towel in her other hand Anna unlocked the door and pulled it open. If her mouth could have hit the floor it would have in that moment. Standing on the small porch, hand ready to ring the bell again, was Vera.

Vera raised an eyebrow, her little snort of disapproval only raising Anna's hackles. "Guess I shouldn't have expected you to be in much better shape than this in the morning."

"It's a Saturday and it's before ten a.m. but I guess I shouldn't have expected any different from someone so obviously out of touch with social expectations." Anna took a breath, "What are you doing here? No, first, how did you even find my house?"

"That was an unfortunate accident since I came here looking for John." Her eyes brightened and Anna turned to see John, wearing only some sweatpants and a plain shirt, coming down the stairs behind her. "And I seem to've found him."

She tried to enter and Anna blocked her path. "I've not invited you inside."

"Aren't you going to?"

"I don't want to give a vampire like yourself free reign of my home so whatever you've got to say you say from there or you say it through the door. I'm not picky which."

Vera's lips curled and she gave a small snort. "Think you're so clever do you?"

"I think I'm enough to take you any day of the week and twice on Sunday since I'm sure the Devil takes a day off supporting you then."

"What are you doing here, Vera?" John stepped closer, filling the remaining space. "How'd you find me?"

"It's the town's worst kept secret that the industrialist entrepreneur is sleeping with the English and Maths teacher for the summer holidays." Vera gave a bitter laugh, "I guess we all need our hobbies on our holidays, don't we."

"You leave Anna out of this."

"I intend to." Vera handed a clipped stack of papers toward John. "Those are from my solicitor."

"About what?"

"About how we're stopping the work you were planning on starting in a month." She let her malicious grin widen, "I'm sure you know that I still own half of your company."

"No, you owned half of my company." John did not even look up from the papers as he flipped through them. "You ran your portion into the ground and I bought it out from under you."

"And in your haste you left a few finer points of the contracts amiss." Vera tapped on the papers and John looked up. "Those same points we're using to stop you and your plans here."

"What for?"

"To get what's owed me." Vera adjusted her handbag on her shoulder. "I'll see you back in Dublin, Batesy. I'm sure you'll want to be there when my solicitors start dismantling the little operation you had going here."

"You bitch."

Vera only shrugged, "I've been called worse." She smiled at Anna, "You try and enjoy the rest of your morning but I doubt you will."

Anna slammed the door in Vera's face, grinding her teeth at the sound of the other woman's laugh to accompany the click of her shoes over the boards as she walked away. Running a hand through her damp hair Anna turned to John. "Is she serious?"

"According to all this she is." John flipped the papers back together. "I need to get these to Murray as soon as I can."

"Murray?"

"My solicitor." John bolted up the stairs and Anna chased after him. "He'll know if she's just pissing in the wind or if she's being serous about this."

"She sounded serious." Anna dropped her towel in the hamper and watched John pull his cases out, throwing clothes inside them. "Can't you just call him?"

"No," John barely shook his head at her, finding all of his things as quickly as he could. "I'll need to meet with Vera's lawyers and solicitors myself or she'll just run rings around them all."

"You're not leaving for another two weeks."

"Plans change." John zipped one bag and then focused on the rest of his things for the other. "This is too big to lose."

"Lose what?"

"The town."

"The town?"

"Yes, the town." He stopped, staring at her, "Do you realize how much money my company's sunk into this? How much we'll be out if she gets her way?"

"Quite a bit I'd imagine."

"We'll lose it all." John opened his hands to the room around them. "Not just everything we want to build here but my business on three continents. That's thousands of jobs, Anna. I can't risk all those livelihoods."

"Why not just wait and see what comes of it?" Anna shrugged, going to John to try and stop his manic packing. "It could be a bluff."

"She's not bluffing. I may not've made the best decision of my life when I married her but I learned to read her." He zipped his other suitcase and hauled them both out of the room with Anna on his tail. "This is for real."

"John, slow down." His bags were already by the back door in the kitchen while he tried to find his incidentals scattered over the sitting room and dining room. "Let's talk about this."

"There's nothing to talk about. I need to go and stop her before she ruins everything."

"We just got engaged, John." Anna grabbed him and forced him to face her. "We were just discussing our future together and now you're making a decision to leap on the next plane to chase down your crazy ex-wife?"

"This is my problem."

"This," Ann held up her left hand so the ring practically vibrated in his face. "This says it's our problem, John."

"Anna," He covered her hands with his. "I've got to fix this before she blows it up in my face. I don't know how long I'll be gone but you've got to stay here. You've got a job that needs you in two weeks."

"You need me."

"I can handle this." John sighed, hanging his head, "I need to handle this."

"Why?"

"Because without this I'm nothing."

Anna frowned, "What about me?"

"You're everything to me but what can I offer you if I lose it all to her?"

"I'd give that woman the shirt of my back if she'd just leave us the hell alone." Anna thrust her finger toward the door. "But you're walking right into her trap. She's trying to reel you in again. She's broken the restraining order and gone and sabotaged you. Call the police instead of hoping on your horse to act the White Knight."

"The police won't be able to help in time." He raked his hands through his hair, "You don't understand because you've never built something from the ground up only to watch as a malicious harpy tries to snatch it all away."

"I do know because I'm watching it now." Anna took a step back, trying to control her emotions. "We're supposed to face these problems together."

"This is my problem."

"I'm not running this ring in the conversation again." Anna removed the ring and held it out to him, "If you're going back to fight her alone then you should take this with you because obviously you don't want me on your side."

"Anna?"

"I'm serious, John." She held the ring up, "If you really meant to give me this ring you'd take me with you or even buggering listen to me when I'm trying to help you solve this problem like a sensible human being instead of a crazy person. Because that's what you are right now and that's what she makes you do, act like someone putting out the fire all over themselves."

John's shoulders dropped, "I can't think of another way."

Anna placed the ring on the island, "Then you'll have to think of something else because I won't be pushed to the sidelines when there's trouble. I'm here for all times, John, not just the good. And if you can't trust that then don't let the door hit your ass on the way out of it."

He sighed, and nodded. "I understand."

"Do you? Because you're not making a decision if you just acted defeated."

"You're right," John faced her, "You deserve someone better and someone who'll turn to you when they need help. You need a better man."

"I don't-" Anna could have clawed at her hair with the groan of frustration that ripped through her. "I don't want another man or a better one, I want you."

"I don't deserve you Anna." John gathered the rest of his things, "I hope you can go back to your life and dream of a better man for you."

"I can't because there aren't any." Anna followed him to the door as he pushed his way through it. "Just let me help you."

"Goodbye Anna." John walked off her back porch and she could not bear to watch him drive away.

She collapsed on the floor of her kitchen, the ring still mocking her with its glint on the island, and sobbed.