"Maybe I should do you in the dining room," Maxwell said, rubbing a finger against his temple. He couldn't lie to himself and wonder what had gotten into him. He knew enough to know what had gotten into him and her name was Fran Fine. "What must she think of me," he added. He leaned over his desk, inhaling and exhaling slowly. He had become quite practiced at keeping his hormones under control around her, so whenever she caught him off guard, it always took him some time to reclaim that self-control that he prided himself upon when it came to the woman who fuelled his more carnal desires, especially of late.

It's not enough that when I look at my desk, I think of what I wanted to do to her, on it, he recalled, wondering if they would have given into their desires right then if Niles hadn't walked in at the moment he had moved on top of her. The very least I need is those sorts of thoughts when I sit at the dining room table as well, he thought.

He sighed, his mind shifting back to earlier that day and how it had felt, kissing her. Then, that dress that had put him over the edge and took his mind back to the hospital bed, and the feeling of having her beneath him, and he desperately wanted to feel those sensations again. He smiled, remembering how she had felt beneath his hands, the way that her breast had fit into his hand as he caressed her through her clothes and he wanted more than the taste of her lips, wanted to know how far he could push his own boundaries before common sense had kicked in. Before he managed to test their boundaries, CC had pushed the curtain aside, interrupting them. Caught in the moment, he had silently both cursed and blessed his business partner's sudden appearance at the bedside.

All that he had intended to do today was compliment her on the job she had done on the kitchen, as any other friend would do, but, as usual, it had all spun out of control with a knowing smile from her, because she seemed to know exactly what she was doing when he walked in. Only Sylvia walking in had stopped him from lifting her up onto the new kitchen table, sliding his hand up that short skirt of hers, and having his way with her right then and there.

He stood up from the desk and headed out of the office. He knew that he wasn't going to get any more work done. He was too distracted now, filled with carnal fantasies rushing through his head of all the things he wanted to do to Miss Fine.

He checked the front door alarm and headed back towards the kitchen, turning off the lights as he went. He paused as he walked through the dining room, blushing when he thought again of his Freudian Slip earlier. She just inspired that side of him that he usually kept repressed. He walked a little faster, coming to a halt when he walked through the kitchen door to find Miss Fine sitting at the table, wearing slippers and one of her fluffy bathrobes similar to what she had been wearing earlier. There was a tub of ice cream open on the table in front of her. "Miss Fine, I didn't realise that you were still up," he greeted her.

"Couldn't sleep," Fran replied, digging her spoon into the tub and bringing a cornel of ice cream to her mouth. "You want some?" she offered, pushing the tub towards him. She barely glanced at him as she ate.

"No, thank you. I'm not that hungry," he said, wondering what was on her mind that she couldn't look at him. "I was just locking up before I headed to bed."

Fran nodded and pulled the tub back towards her for another spoonful. "I already checked these doors when I first came in, so you're right to go on ahead," she told him.

"Oh, that's good. Is everything okay Miss Fine. You seem a little lacklustre tonight," Maxwell said, moving a little closer to her, not trusting himself yet to reach out and touch her shoulder even in an innocent way when images danced in his mind of what she had been hiding under a robe earlier. "Come on, you can tell me if something is bothering you. We're friends after all," he added, knowing that his feelings towards her were not exactly friendly, as he thought of how she had been dressed earlier that day, and how she had felt in his hands. A friend wouldn't be wondering what she was wearing under that robe, a voice in his head reprimanded him.

Fran looked up and gave him a small smile. "I'll be okay. It's just man trouble," she told him. She ate anther spoonful and replaced the lid on the tub. "What else is new, right?"

"Is there anything that I can do to help you? I do hate seeing you like this," Maxwell asked her, taking the tub of ice cream from her and putting it into the freezer, finding the cold air that hit his face when he opened the door helped him to regain the focus that shifted when she had said 'guy trouble'. Why do I feel like I've taken a hit? It isn't like she's had time to start seeing anyone new since we got back from London, and I've kept her busy with the kitchen so she hasn't had time to focus her energy on finding someone else.

Fran smirked at him. "I think you've already done enough, but thanks for the offer all the same," she said. She rose from the table. "I think I'll turn in. Goodnight Mr Sheffield," she added.

Maxwell reached out to stop her from leaving, placing a hand on her upper arm. "Miss Fine, what have I done to make you act like this all of a sudden?" he asked her, keeping his tone soft.

Fran pulled her arm out of his reach. "Please, stop," she said. "I don't think that I can have you touching me right now, knowing what we almost had and knowing that you pulled away from me when we were in here earlier, just like you always do," she said, wrapping her arms around herself tightly. "It hurts at the moment to know all that. I don't want to think about it anymore for tonight. I just want to sleep, if I can."

Maxwell considered his next words carefully, aware of how they might sound. "I didn't pull away from you," he reminded her. "Your mother came in, interrupting us and I lost my focus."

Fran blushed at the memory, mentally cursing her mother again for her poor timing. "If she hadn't have come in right then, what would you have done?" she asked him. She looked him in the eye, waiting for him to respond. "What would you have done? Would you have pulled away from me again?"

"Miss Fine," Maxwell began.

"It's Fran, Max. I think after you copped a feel in the hospital bed, we should probably be on first name basis, at least while we're alone," Fran told him.

Maxwell bit his lip, remembering the feel of her, the way that she had responded to what he was doing. He admitted to himself the rightness of how it had felt, and how she had responded, lifting a leg over his hip to draw them closer together. "Right, Fran, I don't know what I would have done," he admitted. "I know that what I wanted to do."

"What did you want to do?" Fran asked. She stepped closer to him. "Tell me, Max, what was going through that head of yours, right in the moment. I'll tell you what I was thinking if you tell me what you were," she offered him, a sly smile lifting her lips.

Maxwell hesitated. Then he grinned at the idea of getting into that unfathomable mind of hers for even a moment. "I wanted to make good on my offer, to have my way with you, right then and there on the kitchen table," he said. "And you?"

"The kitchen table, huh? I thought you wanted to do me in the dining room?" Fran taunted him to ease herself away from how he had spoken. He had never been so forthright with her and it was starting to turn her on.

"Come on, tell me what you were thinking," Maxwell said, trying to get her attention off of his earlier Freudian slip. He stepped closer to her so that their bodies were almost pressed against each other.

"I wondered if you were ever going to try and slip a hand up my skirt. I mean, hell, I wore it for that reason," she said to him. "Do you remember what I was wearing under that dressing gown?"

"I'm not likely to forget it," Maxwell admitted. "I noticed that you're once again in similar attire," he added, placing a light hand on the belt of her gown, near where she had knotted it in place.

"I guess you'll just have to wonder if I'm wearing the same thing under it," Fran teased him, pulling his hand away from her belt. She held onto it for a few seconds before releasing it. "Well, goodnight," she said.

"Fran, wait," Maxwell said, reaching for her. He took her arm in his hand and pulled her to him.

"Well, you've caught me. What are you going to do with me now?" Fran asked him.

"Oh, I have a few ideas," Maxwell admitted, leaning down and capturing her lips with his and kissing her deeply.

Fran responded immediately, wrapping her arms around his neck. She felt his hands on her hips and moving slightly to run along her hips. Their lips still moving against each other, she moved her hands to his and pushed them to the knot in her robe's belt. Then she released them and began to pull at the buttons of his shirt while he unknotted the belt of her robe and pushed it aside to reveal what she was wearing under it: a thin, mid thigh, cotton night dress held up by thin spaghetti straps. He stopped kissing her to look her up and down. "Oh, Miss Very Fine," he said, repeating his words from earlier that day.

Fran smiled, undoing his belt and beginning to work on the button to his pants. "Maxwell, please, don't stop," she said.

"Don't stop what?" Maxwell asked, bringing one of his hands up to the side of her breast and caressing it softly. Then, as he kissed her neck, he moved his fingers towards her hardening nipple. It was taking everything in his self-control to stop himself from pushing the low neckline of her night dress aside and taking it in his mouth. He looked at her face, and realised that he had never seen such arousal in her face before and he knew, at that moment, she had never seemed as beautiful. "Fran, you're being very quiet. Tell me, what you want me to not stop doing," he repeated as he moved his other hand up to Fran's other breast and giving it the same treatment that he had the other one.

"Everything," she said, kissing him again as she released the button of his pants. "Don't stop touching me, please."

Maxwell paused again and stepped back as his common sense kicked in. "Fran, wait, we can't do this here," he told her breathing heavily in an attempt to regain some control over himself.

Fran shook her head, thinking that she should have known better than to start something with him. He always does this, just when I think we're getting somewhere he hits the breaks and we go two steps backwards, she thought. She reached for the belt of her robe when he reached out to stop her hands. "Why do I even bother with you?" she asked him, feeling her frustration rising. "The moment that we start something, you look for a way out of it. Do you want me? Do you want to be with me?"

He pulled her towards him, pressing himself against her to demonstrate how much he wanted to be with her. "Of course I do. You weren't listening to me," he told her, looking her in the eye, chiding her gently. "Think about what I said Fran." He kissed her softly on the corner of her mouth.

Fran opened her mouth to object but then she thought about his words. Then she smiled as she realised there was something that she had missed. "You said that we can't do this, here," she said, repeating his words back to him.

Maxwell nodded.

"You don't want to stop this?" Fran asked, hoping that what she was hearing was what she wanted to hear. She knew that if they were to stop now, the only way that she'd get some sleep is to take matters into her own hands to get a release. She wondered how he would respond to her telling him that.

Maxwell leant in and kissed her, deeply again. "Hell no," he said when they broke apart. "I just want it to be special, with us taking our time to get to know each other's bodies, and possibly in a bed," he added, still running his hands along the side of her torso, grazing the side of her breasts. "Don't you want that too?"

"Of course I do, at some point, but Maxwell, we can have all of that later," Fran said, her hands on his bare chest. "But let's face it, we have been both holding onto these feelings for the last five years. I don't want slow and romantic right now, I just want quick and extremely dirty, a fast release," she admitted, pulling him into another kiss. She felt his hand shift from her side to her hips, and then under the short skirt of her night dress to run over her rear. "I know that I'm not the only one thinking about it," she whispered into his ear as she moved her lower body against the erection he was pressing against her.

Maxwell groaned in agreement with the sentiment. "Oh, I could definitely go for that," he admitted, feeling her smooth skin under his hands. Then, he paused in his actions, pulling his lips from hers and looking at her. There was something missing, not that he minded but he felt that it deserved some commentary all the same. "Miss Fine, I believe that you are missing an essential part of your wardrobe," he told her.

"Nah, I never wear underwear at night," Fran said in response, capturing his lips with hers and moving her tongue inside of his mouth.

"Just when I think I'm going to stop learning things about you," Maxwell murmured after removing himself from her attention. He pulled his hands from beneath her skirt. "I meant what I said though. This isn't the place for this," he added.

"Where did you have in mind then?" Fran asked him.

Maxwell grinned and took her by the hand, leading her through the dining room and on to his office. He locked the door behind them and reached over the desk to pull the cord from the intercom. When he looked back, Fran was leaning against the closed door, a knowing smile on her face.

"You really don't want any interruptions, do you?" she teased him, stepping forward.

Maxwell walked over to her and began to kiss her with the same passion that he had when they were in the kitchen, pushing her so that her back hit the office door softly.

I never thought you had it in you, Fran thought, returning his attention, while she lifted her leg so that it was over his hip. She moaned when she felt his hand move between her legs, sliding up her inner thigh towards her heat. "Max, please," she whispered as she felt his finger move to her clit and start running the tip of his finger over it lightly.

Maxwell smiled, pausing briefly to lift her other leg up so that he was supporting her against the door. "Are you sure you want it like this," he said. Part of him wanted her to stop him, to beg him to take her upstairs and to one of their beds. The other part of him was more than ready to take her, just as she wanted to, hard and fast against the office door.

Fran reached for his pants, smiling wickedly at him as she slipped a hand down into his underwear and started stroking the hardened length she found there. "I think we both know what I want to do," she told him as she pushed his pants down.

Maxwell groaned at the way that she was touching him. He knew that if he didn't stop her soon, it would all be over.

Fran whimpered as she felt him move his finger away from her clit but let out a gasp as she felt him move those same two fingers into her opening, sliding in and out of her. "Max, please, I'm almost there," she told him. "I don't want to get there without you inside of me," she added.

Maxwell pulled his fingers out, and placed both his hands on her hips. He looked her in the eye as he moved inside of her. "Oh, Miss Very Fine," he moaned as he felt her moist centre grasping his shaft as he pushed in and out of her.

Fran tightened her grip on his shoulders as she moved her body in sync with his. "Max," she whispered, biting her lip as she felt the climax build. She dug her nails into his skin as she felt it hit her, suddenly. She let out a low gasp, followed by a whisper of, "Mr Sheffield!"

It was hearing her say his name in that way that was his final undoing. He let out a moan of his own, as he came.

Fran let out another sigh as she felt him withdraw his body from hers. I can't believe that actually happened, she thought as she looked at him. "Wow," she finally said. She reached out to take his face in her hands, and pulling him towards her. "That was amazing," she added.

"Tell me about it," Maxwell said, kissing her softly. He began to pull his clothes back in place.

Fran fastened the belt of her robe at her waist. "What happens now?" she asked him.

Maxwell pulled her to him. "Well, I think, tonight, we go to our own beds."

Fran tipped her head back to look at him. "Excuse me?" she asked him.

"For tonight only. Tomorrow, we'll talk, with each other and the children about the changes to the household," Maxwell promised her, taking her lips in his once again.