Chapter 29

Ana PoV

Bastille had me on my ass three times before I finally bested him. I had been out of practice. Since meeting Christian, my workout regimen took a deep dive in frequency. Granted, he kept me plenty in shape with our bedroom activities, it wasn't the same as the vigorous martial arts training I was used to. That was all about to change. Just the look on Christian's face as I sparred with Bastille was enough to make me want to keep working out all night. And then watching the two of them duke it out, I half wanted to tear Christian's clothes off and have him right there on the mat. Something told me though, that we'd both be far too exhausted at the end to even think about a romp in the sheets.

"Okay, that's enough," Bastille panted. "Ow, dammit Grey, Uncle!" I giggled as Bastille batted Christian away. "Now, I'd like to see what you two have got. You've worn me out. First time in a long time."

"Wanna take me on, loverboy?" I teased. I stood in front of him and gave him an "I dare you to challenge me" look.

"You know it!" he agreed. Wide grins spread across both our faces, and soon we found ourselves in a dance. Our steps countered each other's as we sized up the other's capabilities, strengths and weaknesses. I knew he was far more dominantly right handed, and used that arm to project the majority of his strength. I was more ambidextrous and could attack equally well from either side.

But what he lacked in left side strength and agility, he gained in his ability to be quick on his feet. I was quick too, quick enough at least. Christian managed to knock me off my feet with a low spinning kick that hit my ankles. I recovered quickly and rolled over my shoulder to get back on my feet. He came at me again with the same tactic, so I was able to predict his movements and jump his leg like a skip-it and then knock him over by sending my knee into his chest. With sparring, we had to be gentler than if we were actually fighting someone, but still, a knee to the chest, even lightly can take the wind out of someone.

I gave him a second to catch his breath before he hopped up on his feet again. "Well played Miss Steele," he stated.

"I'm just getting warmed up, Mister Grey," I taunted back. We sparred back and forth for a good twenty minutes, neither of us gaining any ground against the other. Either he was holding back, or we were well matched. Judging by the look of exhaustion on his face and the looks of determination he kept shooting me, he wasn't holding back at all.

"Alright, you two," Bastille called out. Christian and I were locked on the floor with my legs wrapped around his neck, and his around mine. Neither of us were tapping out, and soon we'd both be passing out of lack of oxygen. "Give it a rest, you tied!" the trainer yelled. We didn't budge. "Oh for the love of god. On my count of three, let go of each other." I could tell he was rolling his eyes at us, but I didn't care. "One… two… three…" I could feel Christian's grip loosening around my neck, so I did the same and soon we were apart, gasping for air on the mat.

"I'm done," he croaked. "Completely exhausted."

"Ditto," I managed to whisper.

"I'll leave you two to it then. Tomorrow, no sparring, just cardio and strength training, alright? You have more than enough adequate equipment for that here, and I know you both know how to use it all. Do you need me for that?" Claude asked.

I shook my head at him, assuming Christian was doing the same. "Alright then, I'm out. Ana, I'm told you have a hot tub somewhere in the house. I suggest you both go for a nice long soak and then rub yourselves down with arnica cream. You'll have some bumps and bruises. I know I will." I giggled softly but groaned as soon as I realized how sore my abs already were. "Yeah, exactly what I thought. I'll check in tomorrow to see how you're both doing."

Christian and I laid there on the floor of my workout room for an indeterminable amount of time. "Tub?" he queried.

"Tub," I agreed.

Minutes later, we finally peeled ourselves off the floor and quite literally crawled up the stairs to our bedroom. I shed my clothes as I crept across the floor, reached up to open the balcony door and then slithered along the deck, up the wooden steps and into the hot tub head first. When I resurfaced, Christian was sliding in as well. We didn't say anything, just sat on opposite corners and held our heads above the water by hanging them over the edge. "Why did we do that?" he asked.

"I have no idea," I breathed. "I think we just learned how stubborn and relentless we can both truly be."

"Yeah, I mean I already knew this, but you really are a force to be reckoned with," he told me.

"So are you, dear," I replied. "Neither of us were gaining any ground. And I know I wasn't holding back at all."

"Neither was I. And might I add, watching you fight with Bastille was such a turn-on, and I wanted you so badly, but now I'm wrecked. There's no way I have enough energy to show you how sexy I found it."

"Likewise," I agreed. "I don't even know how we're going to accomplish a bout of cardio and lifting tomorrow. My body is going to remain soup for the rest of the night."

Eventually, we dragged our pruny selves out of the tub and into the bathroom to apply arnica cream to each other. Then with whatever miniscule amounts of strength we had left, we poured ourselves into the bed. Christian lazily draped one arm over the small of my back and we were both passed out within minutes.

In the morning, I realized neither of us had set any alarms as our phones began going off nonstop. "Dammit," I heard Christian mutter. He reached over me, groaning in pain as he did so and answered my phone. "She's not coming in today. She's not well," he stated. Then his phone began ringing and he said the same thing, only adding a crude "just deal with it," to the end.

I groaned as he gathered me in his arms. Not because it hurt for him to touch me but because I was so comfortable where I was. "I just need to hold you, baby," he whispered. "Part of last night felt like a real fight for me. Like we were taking our frustrations with each other out on each other. Is that what it was?"

"Um, well, that wasn't my intention, but I can see how it may have turned into that… especially at the end," I replied.

"I love you Ana. Always, even when you make me worry or angry or upset; I always love you."

"I'll always love you too, Christian. Even when you get in the way of me getting things taken care of, particularly when they involve weapons. You'll always be my one and only."

"Hungry for breakfast?" he asked. I nodded into his chest. "I'll call Mrs. Jones and have her bring something up. I've not enough strength to go down the stairs right now."

"Agreed. Breakfast in bed sounds delectable." I half fell back asleep while he made the call, but a few minutes later, Mrs. Jones knocked tentatively before peeking in.

"Everybody decent?" she asked.

"Yes, Gail," Christian replied. "We're just too sore after our work out last night to get up and come to the kitchen."

"Yes, that happens sometimes," Gail replied, understanding in her eyes. She padded over and placed a tray on our bed that had two silver platters with covers on them. "I'll be right back with the coffee and juice. Didn't have enough space on the tray for that."

We uncovered the plates and were rewarded with the delectable smells of pancakes, bacon, eggs, hashbrowns, and grits. All of my favorite breakfast foods. "This smells amazing," Christian mused.

"Agreed." In the middle of the tray was a little caddy that held saucers of butter, syrup, peanut butter and applesauce. The woman knew how I liked my pancakes. Bless her. "I have a random question for you," I said to Christian.

"Fire away, hot cakes," he teased.

"Is there a reason that no one calls you Chris? I mean, not even Elliot or your parents. No one does. Is it just that you prefer your full name?"

"I'm not sure, no one has. I guess there's no reason. Why, do you want to start calling me Chris?"

"Not necessarily, I was just thinking that since everyone calls me Ana, as it's short for Anastasia, I just wondered why you don't have a shortened name."

He shrugged. "No reason. Feel free to call me Chris though, if you want, babe. I kinda like it coming out of your delectable mouth." He speared a bite of pancake on his fork and held it out for me. I leaned over and took it, moaning appreciatively as the flavors of the butter, syrup and buttermilk cake melded over my tongue.

At that moment, Gail reappeared with a two mugs of steaming coffee, all the fixin's, and two glasses of orange juice in tow. "Gail, you're fired," I told her, deadpan.

"I'm… what?" Christian gaped at me as if I just told him the world was ending.

"I'm firing you from this job as I'm going to need you to be head chef at my next restaurant. I doubt you can do both. These eggs are perfection, and the pancakes are out of this world. You need to stop all this housekeeping nonsense and become a head chef."

"Oh, I thought you were serious," Christian said. He visibly relaxed. "You're definitely not fired, Gail. Ana isn't my wife yet anyway, so she hasn't the authority." Gail giggled as she set down the tray of beverages on my night stand and thanked me for my kind offer.

"Maybe one day," she mused as she stepped out of the room.

"Maybe one day can be today, Gail. Just think about it."

"You're opening a new restaurant today?" Christian asked, confused.

"Well, no. I simply meant that she shouldn't live her life saying 'maybe one day' to everything she wants to do. If she wants to make it happen, she can simply just do it. Especially when she has people like you and me in her corner, and not to mention Taylor. We'd all support her in any way we can."

Christian PoV

"Taylor told me he wants to ask her to marry him," I whispered to Ana.

"Really? Oh that's wonderful! When is he planning to do it?"

"He wasn't sure yet. But he asked me as if I have any actual say in whether or not he marries the woman. As his boss, I can tell him when to take his vacations, but I can't tell him who he can marry, even if the other party is also an employee of mine."

"What did you tell him?" she asked.

"Basically just that," I replied. "He's free to make his own choices, and that I was happy for him, and knew Gail would be thrilled. I offered to let him use any of my properties for the ceremony, reception or honeymoon. I think they'll go to Aspen for that."

"Or I have a place in Santorini," she offered.

"Santorini? Really? Well, no offense to Taylor, but we'll take that one for our own wedding, thank you very much." She rolled her eyes and giggled at me, but didn't respond. I knew it was far too soon to be seriously talking about getting married, but it was the only thing I could ever think of. That and being buried deep inside her. My very favorite place to be.

After eating and a shower, and perhaps another long soak in the tub, I'd be up for a romp. I hoped she would be as well. I dug into my meal with fervor, downing each item like it was my first meal in days. All but the grits; I'd never had grits, but it looked like a bowl of mashed potatoes gone horribly wrong. Ana, however, was eating hers like they were the greatest thing since sliced bread. She had a rather refined palate, so I decided to go ahead and give them a try.

One spoonful and I spat them back out. "Blech, how can you stand that?"

"Did you put butter and sugar on it?" she asked, eying my dish. At my blank expression, she reached over, poured a bit of sugar on top of the mush and mixed in two pads of butter. "There, now try it again." I eyed her skeptically before she rolled her eyes, picked up the spoon and half-shoved it into my mouth. Oh that tasted much better. I downed the rest of the dish of grits, and pushed the now empty tray away from us.

She handed me a cup of coffee, sweetened to perfection, just the way I liked it. "You pay very close attention to how I like my coffee," I told her.

"Well, you're kind of OCD about it," she replied. "Exactly a teaspoon of stevia crystals, one ounce of half and half, one ounce of French Vanilla creamer, stir stick, no spoon. Kind of predictable, dear."

We spent the rest of the morning in bed, checking our emails and responding to the various calls and texts we received since waking. Nothing was going to explode at GEH, SD, or at Mammaw's without us. Finally, we got up and headed into the shower, where Ana surprised the hell out of me by getting on her knees and "fucking me with her mouth," as she put it. It was sexy as hell.

Once I came, I pulled out of her mouth, lifted her up and pressed her against the shower wall, just high enough for me to ravage her sex with my mouth. "Oh god, Chris! How do you have the strength to lift me like this?" she panted.

"You'd be surprised what one can do when they're turned on," I replied, pulling away slightly.

"Less talking, more licking," she commanded.

"Yes ma'am."

Ana came hard and all over my face. It was glorious. Good thing we were in the shower and able to rinse of the evidence of our little tryst. However, making Ana come made me hard again and I was ready for round two. Ana sunk her teeth into her bottom lip as she eyed my erect manhood. And rather than letting me have her in the shower again, she turned off the water, dried off meticulously and sauntered out of the room. She never leaves me hangin' like that. What gives? I thought.

I grabbed a towel, dried off quickly and followed after her, still hard as a rock. What I saw in the bedroom would have made me insta-hard if I wasn't already. As a result, it made me impossibly more turned on. She was standing at the foot of the bed, with her arms tied to the sheer drapes that hung down from the canopy. Somehow she'd managed to wrap her wrists on either side of them and restrain herself. She was facing away from me, leaning towards the bed, bent down, and had her ass on display. "Come and get it, baby," she whispered, seductively. I was across the room and inside her to the hilt within the next three seconds. "FUCK!" she roared.

"Do you have any idea how sexy you look trussed up like this?" I asked, whispering into her hair.

"Yes, that's why I did it," she replied. "I want you to take me, Chris. Really take me. Like the day when the paps were here."

"You want it rough, hard, and fast?" I asked.

"Fuck yes, Chris. Please, fuck me as hard as you can," she begged.

"Your wish is my command," I replied. I planted my feet behind hers, got a good grip on her hips and began ramming into her with all my power. Her screams of ecstasy got louder and louder the more I pounded on. I could feel her muscles tighten around me, signaling her impeding release. Thank god, my own wasn't far behind.

We came together, Ana milking my dick for all the cum in the world. "Jesus, fuck, Ana!" I yelled, spilling into her. She was babbling incoherently, possibly praying to God in Tongues for all I knew. As soon as we came down from our mountain top, I released her from the draperies and rubbed her skin soothingly. We still had the arnica cream handy, so I rubbed a generous amount all over her delectable body. I had to concentrate on it being for her, and not a means to get myself hard again. After our workout, the shower fun, and that incredible sex, neither of us had the energy for round three. Yet.