"Putting clean sheets on the bed," she told him, seeming deliberately to avoid his gaze, as she worked. Dumping the bedspread and all in a corner, she gave the pile a kick. "Never liked the damn thing anyway," she muttered, and Remington thought he heard a hint of tears in her voice.
When she started past him to the linen closet in the bath, Remington tried to stop her with a hand on her arm. "I'm sorry, Laura," he said softly.
She shook him off, lifting confused, angry eyes to his. "Why?" she asked, and he wondered what she was asking. Why was he sorry? "Why didn't you ever tell me?" she demanded.
He sighed. "Because it's a part of my past that I'm not particularly proud of," he replied honestly. "I was afraid that you'd be so- disgusted by the knowledge that I'd-- that you would--" his voice trailed off.
"Stop loving you?" Laura finished for him.
He nodded, and cautiously placed his hands on her shoulders. "I give you my word, Laura. I haven't done anything like that in ten years. Antony threatened to tell you about it or I wouldn't have-"
He stopped, seeing the disbelief in her eyes. "So much for honesty," she ground out, starting to turn away.
But Remington refused to release her. "Alright. Maybe the bastard was right. Maybe I DID want it. But he knew exactly which buttons to push, Laura. Don't you see? He KNEW you were due back today, knew that if he got me into a compromising situation, he'd stand a chance of getting you, as well. And it worked. You fell right into his arms."
Laura squirmed uncomfortably beneath his gaze. "I didn't…mean to let it… go so… far," she admitted slowly. "I just wanted to teach you a lesson. Thought I could maybe give him a blowjob and then stop, but something happened. Somewhere I just- stopped thinking."
"Was that true?" he asked. "About the calculus professor?"
She nodded. "Every word. We only saw each other a few times. He was too worried about losing his job because he was seeing a student."
"He should have been," Remington told her. "You see? There are things that we've BOTH kept from each other about our pasts. Why didn't you tell me about that?"
"I guess I thought you'd think- less of me, I suppose."
He lifted her chin with gentle fingers. "Couldn't happen. I love you. Only you. Even if you confessed to having fucked the entire football team, it wouldn't change the way I feel about you."
Laura wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in the thick hair of his chest. "I love you, too. I knew there were things in your past that you were reluctant to discuss, but I never thought that- You never seemed the type," she finished lamely.
"I did it to survive, Laura," he told her. "When I hit Brixton, I was a frightened kid, with practically no money, no place to stay. But I thought I knew it all. Thought I could hustle a few pence from some one and find a night's lodging somewhere. It wasn't that easy. After a week, I was sleeping in doorways, eating scraps tossed out by the local restaurants. That's when I met Nick."
"Nick," Laura mused, looking up at him. "I don't think I've ever heard that name before. Not when you were speaking of a real person, anyway."
"He was a few years older than I was, knew the streets well. Always seemed to have money, nice clothes, and a place to stay out of the cold. Someone suggested I ask him to help me get on my feet. Of course, most of the people I talked to about warned me away from him, said I'd be making a big mistake."
"But you didn't listen."
"No. As I said, I thought knew it all. Knew what was best for me."
"So you went to this- Nick."
"I won't go into the details, but he told me that he got money to make people happy. Said that I'd be able to get a lot of money, since the people he dealt with liked young boys." He closed his eyes as the memories rushed in, memories that he'd tried for twenty years to keep buried. Laura seemed to sense his distress, because her arms tightened around him.
"You don't have to-"
"I want to," he insisted. "It's past time I shed some light on all this. He set me up with one of his clients- a middle aged man who I later found out was part of one of England's finest families. He took me to a nice hotel, told the desk clerk I was his nephew and then locked the door to the room once we were inside and stripped down. He ordered me to-" He hesitated, then felt Laura's lips on his chest. "To suck him off. I'd never done anything like that, and balked- until he pulled out a wad of bills as big as his fist, told me that if I did everything he asked, it was mine. Enough money to buy food to eat, clothes, a warm place to sleep for a long time." He drew a shuddering breath. "So I did as he asked. Spent most of the night in that hotel room. When I got back to Nick, he took over half of the money as his 'cut' for helping me out, then proceeded to give me pointers on how to get more money out of his clients."
"How long-?" Laura asked softly.
"Over two years. Then one day Nick left, said that he'd gotten an offer from a client for a more permanent arrangement. He was moving uptown, to flat that his 'sponsor' was going to pay for. I tried to get clients on my own, got a few, but after awhile I started noticing women instead- and realized that I preferred being with them. But I still needed money- so I went back to picking pockets. The money wasn't as good, but I managed to find a place to stay and put all of that behind me." He gave her a half grin. "Or tried to, anyway. I was almost ready to go back to it when Daniel found me."
"Did Daniel know about this?"
"If he did, we never discussed it. I'm sure he heard the rumors from people he spoke to in Brixton when he first found me. And he was very careful when we met to make sure I knew that he wasn't after anything like that. And I put up a good act, telling him I wasn't that kind of boy. I hope he never knew."
"What happened ten years ago?" Laura asked.
"Felicia and I were in Rome, we'd just pulled off a daring heist- a set of twelve gems. We'd already stolen the other eleven- just needed to twelfth to present them to our buyer. A few friends had helped us out with the plan, and afterward, we celebrated, drank champagne and wine, and I forget what all. We'd run out of one bottle, they'd open another."
"How did that lead to--?"
"The gems were originally owned by the Roman Emperor Caligula. He had supposedly given them out to his favorites during orgies- and then taken them back when he'd had those people killed. Wonderful man. Anyway, we started joking about the orgies, talking about what we'd have to do to earn each gem, and one thing led to another, and before any of us knew it, we were all stark naked and fucking our brains out."
"And Tony found out about that?"
"Hmm. From Felicia. After I'd made her promise to never tell another soul," Remington said. "I should have known she couldn't be trusted."
"And since then you haven't- not even once? No thoughts about-"
"I never said I never thought about it, Laura. But the only time I've ever really thought about it was with you, when I'd wish I could- but then I would stop and gather myself together and put that aside."
She smiled up at him. "Well, I guess we DO owe something to Tony, after all, then. Made both of our most private fantasies come true."
He looked down at her, uncertain. "I beg your pardon? Ah, let me guess: You wanted to be made love to by two men at the same time."
"That was just a side bar," she insisted. "No, I'd wondered how I could bring up letting you- but I hadn't been able to figure out how to get to the bottom of the situation."
Remington groaned softly at her terrible pun. "You know what I'd like to do right now?" he asked, placing his forehead against hers and looking down at the juncture of their bodies.
"Now?" she asked. "I still haven't made the bed."
"Later," he said. "I want a shower. And I hope you'll take one with me. I think we both need to feel clean again."
Laura smiled at him and then turned, pulling him with her to the bathroom, then into the shower where she turned on the water. "No more secrets," she told him. "From now, open and honest. There AREN'T anymore secrets that someone else could use like this are there?"
He shook his head. "I just worry what Antony might do in retaliation," he fretted. "I have a terrible feeling that he might make good on his threat about the tabloids."
Laura took the soap and lathered her hands before running them over his chest, and down his legs, returning to his already stiff cock. "I think we can handle Tony if need be," she said. "Right now, I think we need to think about something else." Her hands caressed him, sliding over his skin.
"Mmmm," he moaned. When he would have taken her in his arms, Laura turned him toward the wall to smooth lather on his back and hips. When her hands touched the crack of his ass, he braced himself on the cool tile of the wall. "Oooh." Teeth clenched, he said, "Don't, Laura."
He could hear the seductive smile. "Don't what?" she asked, then slipped a soap slicked finger into him. "This? Don't you like that?"
"Oh, God, Laura. Stop teasing me. Stop-" He gasped as she reached around with her other hand to grasp his throbbing penis.
"You don't really want me to stop, do you, Rem?" she asked, pushing her finger as far as it would go.
"Dammit, woman, you're determined to drive me crazy," he muttered, maintaining his brace on the wall as she used her finger and hands. "Push," he said, and brought a hand down to wrap around her, pulling her closer. "Forward," he moaned. "More. Oh, god, Laura, I'm going to cum! I love you!" he panted as his cock released its load onto the wall before him. "I- Love - YOU!!!"
He turned around, pulling Laura's head up to his, pushing his tongue past her lips to tangle with hers. He held her face in his hands, looking down at her. "Thank you."
"Anytime, Mr. Steele," she said, falling back on an old joke. His hand reached behind her for the soap and he began washing her as she had him, giving extra gentle attention to her still tender and red ass. He knelt, kissing it, pulling her close, his hands on her breasts.
"I'm sorry if I hurt you," he murmured above the shower's noise.
"You didn't," she assured him, gasping as his hands moved down to her cunt. He turned her around, and pressed his lips into the dark curling pubic hair. His tongue flicked out, just touching her clit. He felt her hands tighten on his shoulders. "Remington, don't," she said. "Not after-"
"I want to erase him from your body," he told her, and moved lower, feeling the warm water rushing over him as Laura spread her legs to give him better access. She moaned as his tongue dipped into her vagina, and for a moment, Remington thought her legs might collapse. "Steady on," he said, and pushed his tongue deeper, adding a finger as well.
"Ohmigod," Laura whimpered. "Should I ask where you learned to do that so well?"
His grin was filled with passionate teasing. "A Countess friend of Daniel's," he told her. "I was never certain, but I've always thought he asked her to- show me the ropes, as it were."
"She was a- very good teacher," Laura managed to say, her hands burying themselves in his dark hair. "Ohhh." She was grinding her hips into his face now, wanting more of him inside her.
Remington stood up, and lifted Laura up, impaling her on his cock, her back on the cool tile precisely where he had spilled his own seed moments before. "I never want to lose you, Laura. Ever," he told her as he pounded in and out of her cunt, his hands grasping her hips. "I love you."
Laura pressed her lips to his, kissing him deeply, her arms tightly around his neck. He felt her start to tense before she pulled her head back and cried out. "I'm cumming, Remy!" she told him.
"Wait for me, love," he responded, his hips moving faster. "Wait- AHHHH!"
They slid down into the tub together, sated and exhausted. Remington reached over and turned off the water. Laura rested her head on his chest. "Why don't we call into the office tomorrow? Take a long weekend."
"You just got back from Connecticut," he reminded her. "Two weeks. Mildred and I have managed, but-"
Laura clenched her vaginal muscles around his cock, and he gasped softly. "But I'd MUCH rather go over to Catalina and find a nice little hotel room, Rem. Spend the entire weekend making up for the last two weeks?" she suggested, tightening her muscles again.
"You're going to be the death of me, woman," Remington said. "All right. You're the boss, after all. We'll call Mildred later and tell her. Right now, I think I'm going to fix something for dinner while you make the bed."
"Sounds good to me," Laura agreed, letting him wrap her in a towel, and watching as he wrapped another around his waist. She took the fresh linen from the closet and as he started from the room, she said, "You've got ten minutes to find something," she told him. "And then I'm going to come get you."
"Really, Laura, ten minutes? That's hardly enough time-"
She dropped the sheets and turned to him, sliding her arms around his neck. "Plenty of time for what I have in mind for dinner," she assured him.
"In that case," Remington said, slipping the fastening of her towel loose so that it fell onto the floor, "maybe I'll just stay here."
"Now you're talking," Laura told him, removing his towel as well to pull him toward the bed.
"But- the sheets," he said.
"I'll make it later," she promised, pulling him down on top of her…