Adventures of Tess

Continuing misadventures of plucky amateur sleuth, and professional submissive, Tess.

Disclaimer: Any resemblance to any persons who actually exist is purely coincidental.

-X

Tess closed the final file and gave a happy sigh. Finally the weekend.

Flicking off the lamp on Mark's desk and pulling on her coat using the light from Simon's office, she paused and watched him for a moment, concern on her face.

Simon's idea to start a detective agency had been inspired, but he worked harder than any of them.

Of course she and Mark didn't need the money. Tess knew Simon wasn't destitute, he had an army pension, but at the same time he needed the income that the business would provide.

Tess snorted to herself. In due course, once their books climbed out of the red.

She would ask him to escort her home. Then they would persuade him to stay for the weekend, instead of going back to his grubby little flat.

He was still leaner than he should be, and she suspected that he avoided staying with them due to ongoing nightmares.

No. He would come home with them. It was time he started to heal instead of just distracting himself with work.

A movement behind the hazy glass of the main door caught her attention, and her breath.

A silhouette with the unmistakable outline of a gun held in someone's hand.

Tess started to call for Simon but it was too late, the door was opening. Instead she ducked down in the dark behind the desk.

-X

Simon ran a hand through his thick, already dishevelled hair and sighed. He hated math.

He had cracked the case. He knew who had been stealing from the Post Office petty cash, and now was just tying up loose ends, but it was painstaking work.

And boring.

He rubbed his eyes and refocused.

Obviously the majority of the work they pulled in would be petty thievery and stolen belongings that were actually just mislaid.

He didn't expect to be chasing down bank robbers, or busting drug gangs.

But what he wouldn't do for a bit of excitement.

Simon reached for an eraser and it was at that moment he realised that he wasn't alone.

"Keep your hands on the desk," a sultry voice demanded and Simon looked up at the gun, and the shapely women with dark red hair curling over her shoulder who was holding it steady. Pointing right at his heart.

"Hello Anna," he said.

-X

Tess held her breath as she eased the bottom drawer of Mark's desk open. Praying that it wouldn't squeak.

Then she hesitatingly lifted the heavy gun, having to grip it in two hands.

She looked over the desk again, peering into the office, just as Simon went still and a voice said.

"Keep your hands on the desk."

He looked up, his eyes calm and cold.

"Hello Anna."

Tess stood and started to ease around the desk. She was shaking and terrified of making a sound.

Could she shoot someone?

"Come to finish the job?" Simon asked calmly.

"I did not try to kill you," the woman stated and Simon snorted in disbelief.

"And my name is not Anna."

Simon just watched her.

"I am Anya. Anya Zhalovska."

"And you're telling me this why?"

"I need your help."

This time Simon laughed.

Tess jumped as arms came silently around her. One hand covering her mouth, the other the gun.

She relaxed back and looked at Mark, who jerked his head towards the door.

Tess shook her head in reply and Mark glared at her. She glared back and felt more than heard the quiet sigh.

Then he slowly and carefully released the gun's safety, before raising an eyebrow at her.

Tess shrugged and moved behind him. She didn't know anything about guns.

Mark held the gun steady and moved silently out of the shadows. Simon's cry of "Mark. No!" made Tess jump again.

She peered around Mark and saw the woman, who was beautiful, smile a little and lower her gun.

Tess slipped around Mark, took the gun and passed it carefully to Simon who reached around the desk and urgently pulled her back behind him.

"Stay away from her. She's lethal with or without a gun." He opened the small pistol he now held and frowned. "It's not loaded?"

"I told you I did not wish you dead. I never wished you dead, Seemon."

Simon's head jerked back up and his eyes narrowed.

"Simon," Tess said slowly and kindly. "Sigh -- Mon."

"Simon," the woman repeated carefully, and then gave Tess the sweetest smile. "Simon. I thank you," she paused, like a question.

"Tess," Tess said and went to shake hands, gasping when Simon yanked her back again.

"What did I just tell you?"

Anya rolled her eyes, "May I sit?" before easing with grace into a chair.

"How do you know my name?" Simon demanded. Watching as Anya pulled a cigarette from a silver case and looked at him expectantly.

"Don't," he warned Mark, who shook his head and kept the gun ready. Simon ungallantly threw Anya a lighter, rather than get too close.

She lit her cigarette, let out a breath and tossed the lighter gently back to him. "I always knew who you were," she admitted.

"No."

"But yes," she shrugged. "You have rodents."

Simon looked confused, but Mark spoke up. "Do you mean moles?"

"Yes. That."

"Where did you meet?" Tess asked, her manner completely friendly. She didn't miss Anya's grateful glance towards her.

Simon shook his head, but his mouth dropped when she said, "Poland in 56."

"What were you doing in Poland?" Mark asked Simon, who just shook his head again.

"They were trying to find out if it was worth supporting a conflict," Anya said.

"Good God. Stop talking," Simon protested.

"I take it this is some of your hush hush spy stuff," Tess grinned.

"Hush hush?" Anya queried.

"I mean that he's not supposed to talk about it."

"Oh yes. You are right. It is still a secret, of course."

"What were you doing in Poland?" Tess asked Anya. Ignoring Simon who groaned with his head in his hands.

"My job was to find out who might try to encourage trouble, and prevent it," Anya told her.

Mark was grinning by this point.

"And of course, seduce British spy's to get information," Anya added with a smirk, before blowing smoke in Mark's direction.

"Excuse me. I seduced you," Simon protested.

"No."

"What do you mean. No?"

"No. I let you seduce me. That is not the same thing."

"I love your accent," Tess told her, and received another smile.

"It is difficult. The English."

"No, your English is amazing, and I love that coat. Where did-"

"ENOUGH," Simon bellowed. They all held their breath as he rubbed his hands over his face before looking at Anya again. "Last time I saw you, you were blonde."

"Was not true."

"And you set me up."

"No, I saved you," some of Anya's calm demeanour started to crack.

Simon straightened and paced, "That's a bloody bad joke. Your husband's goons nearly beat me to death."

"You're married?" Tess felt her heart sink. She had high hopes for Anya. Anyone who could make Simon curse was fun in her book.

"Not now," Anya said. "And was not real. I was m-, I mean I married with a false name." She looked at Simon. Tess had the distinct impression that Anya was holding on by a thread.

"Simon, please," she blinked when he turned away. "Lucas' men took you to his hunting lodge, in the mountains."

"Yes, to bloody kill me!"

"But I knew you could get free and get to the border. If they hadn't taken you out of the town for a good reason, the secret police were on their way. If they had arrested you, you could not have got free from them. You would have been tortured."

"Are you telling me that Dabrowski's hench men were a better bet than the KGB?"

"Was safer. Yes. You killed one. Hurt two badly and escaped into the snow. No one expected you to have survived, so they did not look for you, and they could never be sure that you were the British agent."

Simon just stared at her.

"I had to help you," Anya insisted, blinking tears out of her eyes.

"Why?"

"Because I love you," she cracked when Simon gave a cold laugh and turned away again.

However, Tess now had hope.

"How did you survive, Simon?"

"Czech resistance found me. What the hell are you doing?" he yelled at Mark, who placed the gun on Simon's desk and crouched down offering Anya his handkerchief.

"Simon, if she wanted us dead we already would be," he growled back. Voice softening, "Here you go, sweetheart."

"My thanks," Anya sniffed into the hanky.

"Did you tip the Czech resistance off?" Mark asked her. Anya took a moment to process the question then nodded once.

Mark patted her knee, then stood and leaned against Simon's desk. "You said you need our help?"

Anya sniffed and looked up again, "You?"

Mark smiled as Tess moved around the desk into his arms. "We are all friends. You get all three of us."

Anya took a deep shuddering breath, "I thank you."

Simon moved cautiously to lean next to Tess and Mark. "I'm not saying I trust you, but why did you come to me?"

"I need to die," Anya said her eyes eloquent on Simon's. "I can only trust you."

-X

Three hours later, Tess brought Anya a vodka tonic (extremely light on the tonic!) and sat next to her on the couch. Resting a hand on Anya's knee and rubbing a little in comfort, as she sipped her own drink.

Simon glowered at her, but Tess ignored him. Mark was right. If Anya had wanted to hurt them she would have done so already. And her story, told while they had eaten, had moved Tess to tears of sympathy.

Anya had been just eighteen when her widowed mother had passed, leaving her responsible for her older brother who was child-like and frail. She had worked all hours in a local store, but it was hard and her neighbours charged her to keep an eye on her brother when she was at work.

Then she lost her job, after being unfairly accused of stealing, and did not know what to do.

Until a kindly government official knocked on the door and gave her a way out. They had a safe place for her brother to live, and she could work for them. She was beautiful, she had talent.

Just like that her life was no longer her own.

Anya had smiled sadly when she spoke of her brother. He was an innocent and had, in fact, been very well looked after. But the threat was always there, of what could happen.

After Poland, when she had fallen in love with the agent she had been meant to merely pump for information and dispose of. All while maintain a fake marriage which was just a way for her controllers to keep an eye on her 'husband'.

She had been given leave to visit her brother and then sent on another mission. Then another.

Years until she returned home one day and had just alighted from the train when a young boy ran up to her.

"Are you Natasha? Your brother lives at the gardens (the name she was known by and the nickname for his care home). His nurse is Eva?"

"Yes," she replied. Startled as he thrust an envelope at her.

"Please read it quickly and destroy it." He ran away, not looking back.

Anya had stepped behind a pillar and cried as she read Eva's kind letter. Her brother had passed from a fast fever three months previously. Just two weeks after she had last visited. 'He was only sick two days. Mostly just tired. I stayed with him, until he slept. He was not scared. They did not hurt him. He was happy and safe. Now you are free. Do not come back here.'

Anya had torn the letter into the smallest pieces and scattered it as she walked to the ticket office. Getting on the next train to leave, close to the border and then Paris.

It had soon been clear that she was not yet free, and she needed a better plan. She needed time. Anya reported to her controller and told him that she had fled to Paris for her own safety after seeing another agent at the station.

She asked for a role before she could return to visit her brother, as her controller had made no attempt to give her the sad news, and risk losing her as an asset.

As she had hoped, being in Paris put her close enough to London that they sent her there.

She had kept her head down, awaited orders, and started thinking about Simon. The man she had let go to save his life.

The man she couldn't leave with, because she couldn't abandon her brother to the penalty he would pay on her behalf.

The man, she carefully discovered, who had survived and was in London. Free as she could be, if only she had a way out.

"I'm not in the service anymore. Or the Army. I'm no use to you, you won't get to anyone through me." Simon's voice was loud and accusatory in the room.

"Simon!" Tess was appalled.

"You believe her?"

"Yes I do." Tess stood and held up a hand as Simon started to speak again. "We are all tired, and sleepy from a late dinner, and out of sorts. I think we should go to bed and pick this up in the morning."

Mark agreed and showed Anya to her room. Simon having been relegated to the couch, as Tess would not let him leave.

"Sorry, Tess," he mumbled, as she dumped a blanket and pillow on the couch. "Why do you believe her?" he asked when she just gave him a cross look.

Relenting, Tess cupped his face and kissed him softly. "I can tell when a woman is in love," she told him. Pleased at the hint of hope in his eyes.

-X

Two hours later, Simon was still awake and frustrated. Thoughts circling in his head. Not least of which was who had ratted him out in Poland? And were they still active? Were other agents in danger?

He slowed his breath as he heard a door click open. Soft footsteps that approached and paused by the couch. Someone leaning over him, before the steps moved away.

Simon cracked open an eye and watched Anya move silently into the kitchen.

Without making a sound he moved the blanket aside and rose. His bare feet chilled by the floor as he crept up behind Anya.

She stilled as he came up behind her. Placing the knife she had been using to slice a lemon to one side and holding her hands slightly up and to the sides.

Annoyed that she had sensed him, Simon spun Anya around and pinned her against the counter, holding her wrists behind her back.

"I just wanted water," she confirmed softly.

He growled, gripping her hair in his free hand and holding her still as he plunged into a bruising kiss.

She quivered, but didn't struggle, as he took what he wanted. Took until he was dizzy with need and he pulled back to search her eyes.

"By God," he exclaimed, as she stared at him, lips parted and wet. "It's true. Tess is right. You do love me."

"Yes," it came out on a staggered breath.

"No more missions. No more men. Not like that," Simon told her and Anya's eyes closed in relief, a tear slipping down her cheek. "You're mine now," he added and lifted her.

Anya wrapped her legs around Simon's waist and attacked his neck with her teeth as he walked her back into the spare room.

"Vixen," he muttered, as he tumbled her onto the bed and pounced.

They tore at each other's clothes, desperate to get to flesh. Simon taken by surprise when Anya let out a faint cry and shoved him sprawling onto his back.

"What is this? Did Dabrowski's men do this?"

Simon groaned, "Ah, no. I had a bit of trouble in Hong Kong."

Anya studied him with sober eyes and gentle hands. Encouraging him to roll as she also examined the scars on his back. Then she lowered her lips and started to kiss the marks.

"It was bad." It wasn't a question.

"Yes. It was bad."

"How did you get away?" she asked, as she pushed him to his back and started to kiss the marks on the front of his body.

"Mark bought me," Simon told her. Her head lifted, eyes shocked, when he added. "From a slave trader."

"But, he is your friend?"

"He and Tess put their lives at risk to save me. Yes, they are good friends. The very best." He reached up and brushed her hair back. "But I've been used as well. I understand some of what you went through. I'm so sorry, Anya."

She kissed his palm and then returned to his body. Her hand slipping down to cup his balls.

"I don't care. I just want to love you. I don't care about the past."

Simon moaned into her mouth even as he thrust up into her hand. Enjoying the sensation of small cool hands sweeping over his chest and stomach. Then slipping around and teasing his balls again, before gripping his cock.

He thrust again. Letting Anya lead until he was half crazy with lust.

She laughed when he switched their positions, crushing her under his body and further bruising her lips.

"What do you want from me?" he breathed into the kiss.

"Everything," she pleaded in reply.

Simon pinned her wrists and looked into Anya's desperate eyes. "When did someone last take care of you?" he asked. "Properly, I mean."

"Never," Anya blushed. "Only you."

Simon couldn't help the smile that crept across his face. Anya smiled shyly back at him.

"I'll take everything," he told her.

"Yes."

"Don't move."

Anya stayed in position, her legs spread, her hands resting on the pillow above her head, as Simon reached into the bedside cabinet and grabbed a container.

He pushed her legs wider and started to slick her up. Fingers dipping in and out of her body. Anya moaned quietly and writhed as she was spread wider and wider. Biting her lips when finally the tip of his beak shaped hand was forcing her open.

"You have to be quiet," he instructed.

"Your friends?"

"They understand, but for tonight you have to be quiet."

Anya nodded and moaned into her hands as Simon pushed deep into her body. Curling his hand into a fist and moving gently.

Tears ran down Anya's face as Simon bent over and muffled her sobs with his mouth. She reached down to touch her sex and Simon growled a warning. "No. I will do it."

"Please," she begged. "Please. I need."

Simon swiped his free hand through the excess lube, slicking up his fingers and then carefully, but not particularly gently, pushing into her ass.

Anya jack-knifed and came, her cry echoing around the room.

Simon sniggered, gently pulled his hands free and then entered her in a hard demanding thrust. Gripping her hair, kissing and biting her lips, and hammering into her until she came again and he followed. Tensing and groaning, before collapsing on top of her.

He drifted, dazed, until the soft brush of her hand in his hair brought him back.

Simon turned his head and brushed a soft kiss to the damp skin of Anya's neck. Not missing her look of shock, and then sweet smile.

Then he moved quietly to the bathroom and came back with some warm, cloths. Cleaning her gently before pulling up the covers and snuggling her against him.

They were both still shuddering intermittently, from pent up need, but both too polite to mention it. The quivers gradually eased.

"Your friends. Do you think they heard?" Anya asked quietly.

Simon grinned. "I would image so." He could see the concern in Anya's eyes, even in the dull light through the curtains.

"Will they be angry?"

Simon's grin spread. "Tess will be jealous. Unless Mark is taking care of her." He considered a moment. "Which he probably is! Mark won't be jealous, because all he needs is Tess."

"They are like us?"

"Yes."

Reassured, Anya smiled and snuggled against Simon's chest. Feeling safe for the first time since she was a child.

"Anya?"

"Hmmmm."

"I should go back to the couch."

Anya raised her head, a question in her eyes.

"I have nightmares."

Anya was still for a moment and then nodded, her fingers lightly tracing where she knew the marks were on Simon's chest. Then she kissed him before resting her head back against his skin.

"Is okay," she told him kindly. "We take care of each other now."

-X

The following day was a long one.

Mark and Tess had been cooling their heels in the drafty corridors of Whitehall for hours, before Simon finally walked towards them.

With him was a gentleman they had met once before.