Sévère stared down at his shiny patent leather boots, his sharply pressed trousers, his impeccably crisp cuffs. He flexed his fingers, commanding them to not compact into fists. As he did so, he followed a rather chaotic discussion of several different personae inside his head. So far he’d failed to exert the least degree of control over what was being said.
His internal ramblings proved to be extraordinarily ridiculous, and, if the situation hadn’t been so serious, he’d probably have laughed at himself. Or perhaps he would have got drunk. But as neither humour nor drink were forthcoming, his mind went on and on:
I have never seen her naked. Not from the waist up. What if her breasts sag down to her navel as soon as she takes off her corset? She’s had a hundred men. Or more? Oh God. Certainly more. What if she’s all worn out? Don’t be ridiculous! She’s young. Besides, women can give birth to six, seven, eight children and still look like women. Somewhat. But what if… Surely, she will compare me to all the men she’s had. How could she not?
Inside of Sévère’s mind, carnage ruled. Men with overlarge phalluses mounted his soon-to-be wife. She moaned and screamed with pleasure. Then he came limping along. And she laughed and laughed.
He shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. His gaze strayed down along the aisle. Again.
The aisle was empty.
Still.
He pulled at a gold chain and the watch slipped out of his waistcoat pocket, and dangled back and forth. Back and forth. It felt heavier than usual. He flicked his wrist and caught the small instrument. He opened it. Eleven o’clock. Sharp. She should be here now. They had agreed on eleven o’clock, hadn’t they?
The aisle was still empty.
Why was she not here?
She’d had second thoughts. Yes, that must be it. She must have lied to him when she’d insisted on buying her wedding dress with her own money. She’d outright refused his pleas to let him pay for the gown. Why would a woman do that to her future husband if not to demean him or to lie to him? She must have planned her escape days ago. No woman in her right mind would wish to part with her meagre funds just to…
No. Her funds must have been sufficient. When they’d visited the bank the previous day, and he retreated a few steps to give her privacy to deposit her money, the accountant had thrown him a nervous glance as if to say, ‘All this?’
This made no sense whatsoever.
He snapped his watch shut, dropped it back into his waistcoat pocket and turned to the witnesses. They didn’t seem to share his worries. His assistant and his housekeeper stood there quite relaxed, waiting. The one rocking on his heels, the other with her hands folded behind her back. Both smiled pleasantly, perhaps stupidly. The priest smoothed nonexistent hair over his skull. Behind him, a fly buzzed around Jesus’s crotch.
This is ridiculous.
His hand hurt. Which one. Ah, the left. He looked down at it and was surprised to find something pale, claw-like. He could barely loosen his grip around the head of his cane. That was when he realised he was about to panic.
He cleared his throat. Why the panic? Because it’s my wedding, dammit. Why did I even… Ah, it was my own stupid idea. My own. No one to blame but myself.
A creak yanked him from his thoughts. He looked up and saw Mary, no, Olivia, stepping through the large double-winged door. The first thing he noticed was that she was alone. He had two witnesses, a priest, and even Jesus protecting his back. Not that he needed protection. But she walked alone, and that wasn’t right. There should have been her father there, leading her to the groom.
Get a grip on yourself, man! This is not a happily-ever-after wedding.
And yet.
Seeing her walk alone made him feel uncomfortable.
The second thing he noticed was that, despite her solitude, she held her head high and her back straight. A queen walking to her own beheading.
How do I bed a prostitute without giving her the feeling she’s doing her duty?
He almost laughed. Wives were supposed to fulfil their duties to their husbands. Whores were supposed to fulfil their duties to their clients.
Where was the difference?
What a twisted situation.
The third thing he noticed was that, today, she shone. An otherworldly creature. Her gown was made of white silk with white beads or pearls forming delicate patterns. Sunlight and dew on a butterfly cocoon. Her hair was elaborately braided and pinned, white pearls on black hair. Her gaze was directed at the altar, not straying left or right. He didn’t even know if, to her, he existed. All of a sudden, he felt old. Old and incapable.
What was I thinking, offering her this? Ha! Offer! I blackmailed her into it. Marry me, or die a whore.
He blinked, and told himself to stop it already.
She came to a halt next to him, still looking straight ahead, and wrapped her gloved fingers around his elbow. He’d forgotten to offer it to her, so now he jutted it out a little too much to compensate for his previous lack of attention.
She tugged at his arm, and he bent toward her.
‘You are nervous,’ she whispered into his ear. ‘It was your idea. However, you may run if you wish. I promise, I won’t weep.’
He pressed his lips together and cleared his throat. It was all he could do to muffle the snort that was threatening to rip through his nervousness. He sucked in air, exhaled it, and smiled at her. ‘Thank you, my dear. Should we run together?’
‘A very romantic offer,’ she whispered into his ear. ‘But this is a business transaction. Treat it as such.’
‘I should have courted you.’
‘What for?’ she asked, puzzled.
The priest announced the beginning of said business transaction with a pointed, ‘Erhem!’ then rattled down his speech. Sévère didn’t hear much of it. It must have been what the man usually said on such occasions. At some point, Sévère said his vows and Olivia said hers.
Then, everyone looked at him expectantly. He wondered what they wanted from him.
Stripling wiggled his fingers.
The ring! Where was the bloody ring?
Ah! In his waistcoat pocket. He pulled it out and almost dropped it, then attempted to slip it onto her gloved finger. He cleared his throat yet again, and pulled off her glove, finger by finger.
A flicker of sunlight caught on the golden band.
Sévère inhaled, exhaled, grew calmer. Sign the papers, he told himself. Don’t forget to sign the goddamn papers.
The priest said something and when Sévère didn’t react, the stout man repeated, a little louder this time, ‘You may now kiss your wife.’
Sévère knew he’d forgotten something essential. He looked down at Olivia and Olivia looked up at him. She took a step forward, rose on her toes, and pecked him on the cheek.
Pecked him!
‘I’ll be damned,’ he murmured, and grabbed her waist with his right hand — he didn’t dare let go of his cane, else his body might fail him entirely — and yanked her against his chest. The position forced her to tip her head upward.
There might have been coldness in her eyes, something that told him that she was used to being taken, that she couldn’t care less.
As if.
Well, then, he thought. Here I come.
He softened his grip and ran his hand up along the silk which so deliciously hugged her body, trailed his fingers up to her neck, and rested his palm against her face, drawing circles on her temples with his thumb until her eyelids fluttered a little. He leant in and softly kissed her forehead, her nose, and the corner of her mouth.
He felt her stiffen under his ministrations, so he whispered against her lips, ‘Later, perhaps?’
And that was when she stepped on his toes, grabbed his cravat, and parted his lips with hers in a no-nonsense kiss.
‘Erhem!’ the priest said again and Olivia let go of Sévère and answered, ‘Erhem.’ Sévère couldn’t not say ‘Erhem!’ now, and so he did.
The priest’s throat reddened over his whatever-this-collar-was-called-again, they signed the papers, and walked down the aisle together.
Sévère’s new brougham awaited them.
‘Are your shoes comfortable?’ he asked Olivia.
‘Quite.’
He shrugged off his coat and dropped it over her shoulders, tucked her hand tighter into the bend of his elbow, turned on his heel, and marched her away from the four-wheeler, away from church and witnesses and priest. ‘I’ve had enough of this circus. Let us have pastries and coffee. And perhaps a brandy.’
‘Are you abducting the bride?’
‘Precisely.’
❧
‘Allow me,’ he said.
She dropped her hands and straightened her back. In the vanity, her eyes were watching him. ‘You are nervous,’ she said. ‘Still. But why? Neither of us is a virgin.’
‘I’ve never done this before. Tell me if I hurt you.’ His fingers gingerly extracted the first pin from her hair. A strand was caught in the small metal loop and he struggled to remove it without causing her pain.
‘Only ninety-nine left.’ Her voice wobbled. A twitchy smile slipped off her mouth.
‘You are nervous,’ he copied her. ‘Why? Neither of us is a virgin.’
‘I’ve never been nervous. Before.’
‘Neither have I.’
‘I’ve never been married,’ she said.
‘Perhaps that’s it? Neither of us has ever been married, let alone to each other. We are justified in being nervous together.’ He managed to extract a second pin.
‘It’s growing dark outside,’ she said.
‘Are you in a hurry?’
She inhaled as deeply as her stays would allow. ‘I want to know how it ends.’
‘Do you read books like that, too? From back to front?’
She shook her head, pulling a pin from between his fingers.
‘Did you always know how it would end when you received a client?’ he asked.
‘I usually did, yes.’
‘I am not your client.’
Fifth pin! He almost blurted out his triumph. Were there really a whole of ninety-five left?
He began to count but stopped when she said, ‘You are my employer.’
‘It was you who asked to be bedded, not I.’
‘True. Maybe that’s why I’m nervous. I’ve never asked for this before. I don’t know what to expect. Let me do this.’ She raised her hands and impatiently picked one pin after the other, not caring about pain and ripped-out hair.
He watched until he couldn’t take it any longer. ‘Olivia, stop!’ He covered her hands with his, pried her stubborn fingers off, and continued pulling her hairpins. One by one. ‘Lean back,’ he said softly.
She sank against the backrest.
He felt her eyes on him and wondered how he appeared to her with his clumsy fingers that would surely need another hour or so to free her hair of pins and needles. His age. His odd gait. Did they bother her?
He wondered if a man had ever served her this way — undoing her hair without making demands. His eyes strayed to her slender neck, her shoulders, the delicate sweep of her clavicles pressing against her dress.
He looked up at her reflection in the glass and saw that her gaze had softened.
‘I am nervous,’ he said quietly. ‘Because you are young, and I am older. Because you are healthy and strong, and I am weakening. Because your social status is so much lower than mine. You’ve been coerced into taking my offer if you want anything better in life than what you’ve had. This should make me bold, but I am not. I’m afraid of breaking you, although you are the one who’s laid hands on me. I’ve fancied myself experienced. Until now. I’ve fancied myself a man who could easily show any woman the pleasures of the marriage bed. “Look, this is how you do it. And here is how you touch me and this is how I touch you. You like it, don’t you.”’
He smiled a bitter smile. ‘I know precisely what to do with a woman whom I’ve paid to give me pleasure. I might even know what to do with a woman who knows little of such matters. But I am at a loss for what to do with a woman who knows too much, and asks me to please her.’
‘I intimidate you?’
‘It’s odd, isn’t it.’
She nodded, and looked down at her hands. ‘One hundred strokes,’ she whispered.
‘Excuse me?’
‘One hundred strokes.’ She held out the brush to him.
‘Shouldn’t I unbraid it first?’
Her hand sank back to her lap. ‘Yes.’
His fingers wove through her braids and undid them. One by one. Her heavy hair spilt onto her shoulders, the straight black now in waves. He thought of a raven’s wing ruffled by the wind.
He began to brush her hair, combing with his fingers, then running the bristles through the strands. ‘Is this how you make it so beautiful? With one hundred strokes?’
‘Yes. Twice a day.’ Her voice was low, the timbre of it drew his eyes to her reflection. He felt a pull inside his chest, and the wish to lay his lips on hers.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘I need to sit for a moment,’ he lied. He felt surprisingly bad about the lie. But wasn’t he supposed to lie tonight? She’d asked that of him. Didn’t he lie with ease? Usually?
She rose and took his hand, led him to the bed and sat him down. Without a word, she slipped off his shoes and pushed them beneath the bed.
‘Olivia,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Are you certain you want this? We can simply sign a paper that states we consummated the marriage.’
‘As long as you are certain you can lie well, I am certain I want this to happen. Can you, Sévère? Lie well?’
‘Have I ever treated you without respect?’
‘Yes, at the beginning you did. But that does not matter now. What I’m asking of you is to pretend you love me. I ask you to make love to me as a husband does to his beloved wife on their first night together.’
‘You owe me your honesty, Olivia.’
‘If I lied to you, I wouldn’t be so complicated.’
Frowning, he dipped his head.
‘You have my honesty, Sévère.’
He gazed down at her slender fingers that rested on his knees. ‘Then I will make love to you as a husband does to his beloved wife on their first night together.’
She reached out to unbutton his waistcoat. He caught her hands and said, ‘There are only three buttons on my garments, but hundreds on yours. Allow me to undo yours first.’
‘Hooks,’ she replied, as she sat on the bed, offering her back to him. ‘Forty-five, I believe.’
He began to slip small metal hooks through small metal eyelets and peeled the gown off her shoulders, arms, waist. Silk pooled around her hips.
‘And lace,’ she whispered. ‘And twenty-two eyelets. Whale bone. Silk. The word silk needs to be spoken softly, a brush of warm breath against skin, don’t you think?’
‘Hmmm. Lace needs to be whispered, too.’ His hands trailed over her back and pulled at the narrow silk ribbon, loosening it at every eyelet. He watched her inhale deeply, and wondered how she’d been able to breathe in this constricting garment.
She stood and her gown fell to the floor as she peeled off her stays. Her breasts sprung free. Only the faintest sheen of silk covered them, her stomach, the dip of her navel and the swell of her hips. The black triangle between her legs.
She stepped out of her wedding gown, dropped her stays onto the floor, and put her foot up on the bed.
‘Thigh, too, needs to be spoken softly.’ He unclipped the garter, slipped a finger beneath the silk and pushed down the stocking. How can there be enough silk in this world to clothe all the beautiful women?
She offered the other leg and he repeated the procedure, leant closer, brought his lips against her skin, and whispered silk and lace and thigh. He smiled and told her that she was right, these words needed to be sent softly across skin. Her skin.
She raked her fingers through his hair and gently pulled him back. ‘May I?’ she asked and touched his waistcoat.
He signalled yes and so she slipped silver buttons through silk buttonholes. ‘Four buttons,’ she said, pushed the garment off his shoulders, and flung it aside. It flew through the room and landed next to a chair.
‘You need target practice, dear.’
A smile flickered past her lips as she touched his shirt. ‘Twelve buttons. Plus two at each sleeve.’
When he lifted his hands to untie his cravat, she pulled them away.
She took her time with shirt, cravat, and collar — starched, fine cotton, supple silk. She lay his skin bare until only the glow of the fire clothed his chest. The cold air drew his nipples to hard nubs. She licked her finger and touched one, then the other.
‘I wonder…’ she said and ran her fingers along his crotch. ‘Ah, four buttons. I guessed as much.’
He huffed.
She unbuttoned his trousers. He lifted himself off the mattress, and she pulled them down his legs. His drawers were slipped off, too. His socks and sock garters.
His breath stopped when she placed her hands on his bare thighs. Worried she might be repelled by the appearance of his weaker left leg, he followed her gaze. Right thigh, left thigh.
Did she compare them? Surely she must?
Her hands travelled up, brushing past the nest of dark blond curls. Up her fingers went, up his stomach, his chest. The line of hair on his breastbone. Up to his collarbones, his throat, jaw, the side of his head. She buried her hands in his hair.
‘I want to kiss you,’ she said and he remembered to breathe. His lungs ached when she bent closer and stopped a mere inch before his face. He felt her warm breath on him, smelled coffee, brandy, pastries, and the sweet scents of her hair and skin.
He leant closer, halted a hairbreadth short of her mouth. Her lids were lowered, pupils wide open. He smiled and touched his lips to hers. As she opened herself to his imploring tongue he felt an urge to fall into her and lose himself.
Then he remembered that she was a prostitute. He drew back and looked at her, wishing he could dissect her reactions to him, her heart, her mind, so as to know and be certain that she was sincere.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘It’s chilly. The fire is dying. I’ll put more coals onto it.’
She scooted back and lifted a blanket. ‘This wonderful item has been invented to keep out the cold. Come. I’m warm enough for both of us.’
He hesitated for a moment, then slipped under the offered blanket, careful to leave a gap between himself and her.
She bent to the nightstand and blew out the candles. Then she tapped her fingertips onto his left leg and asked, ‘Are you comfortable?’
‘Yes, thank you, I am quite comfortable. As you will have noticed when I led you down the aisle and abducted you only moments later, I’m far from being disabled. But I think I might be growing blind. It’s rather dark. Why did you blow out the candles? Am I not handsome enough?’
She hesitated. ‘You are handsome. But I don’t want you to see me.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t trust my face, my expression. I don’t know what to do with it now that…’
‘Now that you don’t have to pretend you are the bawdiest little thing in London? Ouch! Why did you punch me?’
‘You once said you fancied my ruthlessness, so…’
They both fell quiet.
Could it be? he wondered. Is it possible that she doesn’t know what to do with herself, here in her own bed with him in it?
The silence seemed to wedge itself in, forming a wall between them.
‘You don’t know what to do with yourself,’ he ventured.
‘Yes. I mean, no. How would I know what women do on their wedding night?’
She sounded sincere, and yet, he found it hard to believe that a prostitute… He told himself to stop seeing her as a prostitute. He hadn’t paid her for this. She wanted this, for whatever reason.
Doubt nagged at him.
‘Well, how would I know?’ he said. ‘Would you do it like all other women do it? Do you think they do it all in the same fashion?’
‘I’m sure that whatever they do, it’s proper.’
‘And certainly very un-outrageous.’
‘Why do people even get married?’ she asked half-heartedly.
He decided to push all doubt aside. He would deal with it tomorrow morning. ‘I don’t care about other people’s reasons for marrying. May I touch you, Olivia?’
‘Yes, Gavriel.’
He was shocked by how softly his name rolled off her tongue, slipped past her lips. He wished to hear her say it again. Often. His fingertips found her throat, slid up along her jawline and into her hair. Sighing, he bent closer, inhaled the scents of rose and lavender and soap and Olivia.
‘The other reason for the darkness is that…’
‘Hm?’ he hummed into her hair.
‘I don’t want to see you. No, shhh. Don’t speak now. When I find arousal in your face, I’m afraid you’ll look like a client.’
Sévère froze at her words. This was most certainly honesty he’d heard. And it scared him. He pushed himself up and reached across her to the night stand. A rustling, a match was struck, light flared.
‘You will see me and I will see you. Arousal and all,’ he said.
‘I can’t do it like this.’
‘Then you don’t. It’s your wedding night. You do as you please.’
‘It’s your wedding night, too,’ she reminded him.
‘It was your condition, not mine. I never asked you to share my bed.’
‘You did.’
‘Ah. Yes. I did.’ Lines formed between his eyebrows.
‘I know which games a client wishes to play the moment he enters my room. When I look into his eyes, I know at once why he came, what he needs, and if he plans to hurt me. And then I adapt. A simple reflex. To tell me to refrain from doing so, is as if I tell you not to blink when I poke you in the eye. Prostitutes who never acquire this reflex are the ones who find themselves at the bottom of the Thames, sooner or later.’
‘What do you see in my face?’ he asked.
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘You don’t know?’
‘I do know,’ she replied. ‘But it scares me. You scare me. You…look at me. I can’t describe it any better. You look at me. Me. As though you want to know what’s going on behind my eyes. You are very good at this, Sévère. At creating the illusion you care about me. You look at me, and you refrain from rubbing yourself on me, from grabbing my legs and spreading them to push yourself in. I find that disturbing. It is as though, tonight, not your arousal comes first, but mine. Not your pleasure, but mine. As an experienced whore I wonder what’s wrong with you, are you incapable? Which game could it possibly be that you’re playing? But I’m not a whore tonight and I’m at a loss as to what role I’m to play.’
A tear rolled off her cheek, and she stared down at the darkened spot where the teardrop had surrendered to the sheet, wondering why the bloody hell she was weeping.
Shocked, he placed his fingertip onto the small, wet spot. He swallowed, and tried to collect himself. He tried to think like an attorney at court whose every word counted.
‘That is the point,’ he said softly. ‘You’re not playing a role tonight. If I douse the candle, I will not know whether or not you enjoy me. When I do this…’ He brushed a strand of her hair from her face. ‘…your lids quiver and sink a little lower, but your shoulders tense. What does it mean? I don’t know. It’s as if two Olivias are here with me. If I douse the candle, how could I tell the two apart?’
‘Which one of the two do you want?’ There was mischief in her eyes, as though she was testing him.
‘The one who doesn’t believe she has to serve me. The one who punched my ribs a moment ago.’ He smiled at her and poked her stomach. ‘Is she here?’
‘She is. She never appears when a client is around. The other one is there, too. She’s a seasoned warrior and an excellent liar. You won’t get rid of her. You’ll have to get used to both.’
‘Hum. May I ask the seasoned warrior to watch over the other, while I touch you?’
‘You may,’ Olivia whispered, leant toward him, and smiled against the silky hollow where his neck touched his collar bone.
‘I might ask a lot of questions,’ he murmured. ‘But I don’t want you to think I’m interrogating you.’
‘What questions?’
‘May I touch you here, Olivia?’ he whispered and curled his hand around her neck.
‘Yes.’
‘And here? May I touch you here?’ His other hand ran down along her side to rest against her hip. A shiver spread from there all across her back. It warmed his palms and begged him to proceed.
‘You may,’ she said, and reached out to him. ‘If you stop interrogating me.’
‘Let me learn you,’ he whispered and took her hand into his, kissed it, and placed it between the two of them.
‘This?’ he asked again when he touched her face, her throat, her chest. ‘And this?’
She closed her eyes as he caressed her breasts. ‘Kiss me there,’ she said hoarsely.
He bent his head and closed his lips around her nipple, ran his tongue across it. Her flesh pulled into a tight bud, goose bumps raced over her skin. He drew small circles with his tongue until she writhed and giggled beneath him, then traced kisses down to her navel until she tensed.
He pushed himself up to lie next to her. His palm rested on her stomach.
She turned toward him. ‘May I touch you now?’
‘If you wish.’
Her warm caress was a shock of pleasure to his body.
She closed her eyes, her lips quirked, and she learnt his contours in her chosen blindness. Fingertips felt along the ridges of his abdomen, the sharpness of his hipbone, the slight trembling in his left leg, the soft fuzz that covered his skin there.
He held his breath.
Up her hands went, up along the inside of his thigh, skirting his bollocks and his cock. She touched his chest, raked her fingers through the hair that covered his breastbone, and flicked his nipples. He drew in a sharp breath. She leant in and kissed him where her nails had abused the sensitive flesh. Her hands ran around his ribcage, down his spine and found his buttocks. She drove her nails into the soft flesh until he hissed.
She opened her eyes and said, ‘Turn on your stomach.’
‘Not again,’ he huffed, half smiling.
She frowned at him and rolled him over. He allowed her hands to guide him. Her long hair tickled his skin as she bent over him and covered his backside with kisses.
He shut his eyes and revelled in her touch, moaned his delight and suddenly remembered that his role tonight was that of a liar. He wasn’t entirely sure where his lies began and where truth ended.
‘You are torturing me,’ he said gruffly.
‘Oh! You want me to stop?’
He pressed his face into the pillow and grumbled, ‘I don’t want you to stop. Never stop. But, please, allow me to hold you for a moment.’ He turned over and abruptly caught her, held her to him, his face in her hair, his breath heavy. He hoped his embrace did not feel like a prison cell.
‘May I kiss you here?’ he asked and touched her lips with his fingertips.
‘Be gentle,’ she said, and he answered, ‘I am,’ and bent to lay his lips onto hers.
‘There is a war,’ she whispered into his mouth, ‘inside me. The old and the new. Expected and unexpected.’ She bit his lower lip gently, and he moaned against her tongue.
‘I am hungry, trembling here,’ she continued, and led his hand to the juncture of her thighs.
His palm soothed her soft skin, his fingers teased her sex.
She sighed, tilted her hips toward him, and said, ‘If you were to bed a murderess, would you think of evidence, victims, postmortems, and inquests, or would you give yourself to her without a second thought?’
‘Why would I…’
She touched his erection. ‘When I’ve touched a man, I’ve done so only as a prostitute. My mind has always been at work. When you are at court, are you able to put aside your professionalism?’
‘Hardly. I see what you mean. What do you suggest we do now?’
She smiled against his mouth. ‘Try to fit the expected and unexpected together. Perhaps…’
‘Perhaps…’ he interrupted, pushed himself down along her body, and blew against her thighs. ‘…We might try something else?’
He parted her legs. ‘Expected, I assume?’
A wry smile.
He turned his attention to her feet, caressed them, then her ankles, knees, and thighs. He brought his lips to her skin, kissing up along the inside of her thighs and flicking his tongue across her vulva.
‘Eeh!’ she squealed, jerked away, and laughed.
‘Did no one ever kiss you there?’
‘No. Yes.’ She laughed again. ‘My cunt has been licked, kissed, ravaged. But with you…here… I find my own reactions, those of body and mind, puzzling.’
‘Unexpected,’ he said with a smirk and brought his mouth down on her.
She grabbed his hair and wrung his neck with her thighs. He growled her name against her flesh.
‘Stop!’ she cried, and yanked his hair so hard his skull was on fire.
‘Am I too heavy? I didn’t bite! Or maybe I did?’ he asked, confused.
‘No, no. I’m…I…’ She hid her face in the crook of her arm, then threw up her hands in frustration. ‘Give me something expected, else I think I might fall.’
A satisfied grin spread across his face. He scooted up and kissed her mouth. ‘I want you to fall, my dear. A sharp drop, and then you’ll fly.’
Gently, he sank two fingers into her sex and rested the heel of his palm against the small and deliciously swollen button just below her pubic bone. Then he began a slow and steady rhythm.
He watched the blush rise to her cheeks, the flutter of heavy eyelids, the heaving of her chest, and how she tried to hide her face in the pillow. The movement made her back arch more, and brought her harder against him. She bucked and he felt her wetness soaking his hand, the heat she emanated.
The candlelight reflected off the small droplets of perspiration on her stomach, just below her navel. He bent to kiss her there.
She shivered and cried out, ‘No! I need you closer. Cover me. Hold me.’
And he gathered her in his arm, the other still stroking her sex. ‘I can’t,’ she whispered. ‘Not like this. Not yet.’
‘Next time, then?’ he asked.
‘No. It’s complicated. Not yet. I want to touch you.’
‘Touch me, Olivia. Touch me wherever you wish.’
She arched into him and curled her arm around his neck. She pulled him into a deep kiss, a mating of tongues and lips, a collision of teeth. She straddled him, received him with a growl.
They froze.
She huffed a deep breath, clung to him, and pulled him deep inside her. ‘Hold me!’
‘I’m holding you.’
‘Kiss me.’
‘I’m…kissing…you,’ he whispered between kisses.
When she began to rise and fall, he felt every fibre of her body, the rolling of her muscles, her hands in his hair. The slide of skin against skin. The small, wet noises. Her ragged breath and his own. A trembling that began in her shoulders, travelled down along her sides, the small of her back, and over her buttocks and thighs.
He felt the tell-tale burning in his cock, and tried to direct his thoughts to a case. Whichever case.
He couldn’t think of one, couldn’t even find a name, date, location. He pushed himself up and held her to him.
‘Olivia, you have to stop for a moment, else I’ll…’
‘Shhhh,’ she breathed into his ear.
‘Olivia?’
‘Hm?’
He took her face into his hands. ‘I look at you.’
‘You do.’ She smiled. ‘Unexpected.’
He kissed her mouth and softly bit her lower lip. ‘You think too poorly of me.’ With that, he sank back onto the mattress and pulled her with him.
Sprawled atop of him, her hair was a curtain of thick black silk, shielding their faces from the soft light. Only the glint of his eyes was visible to her.
‘You can’t see me.’ She began to move against him.
‘I can see you with my hands,’ he replied, and learnt the curves of her hips, the ripple of her spine, the soft down at the nape of her neck.
He pushed back her hair, gathered it, and wrapped it around his wrist.
His eyes held hers as they exhaled with every slow thrust. He sensed how she opened up to him — not only her sex, which already accommodated him, but all of her. Her expression that turned from slightly shut and perhaps a bit bashful, to softening, and then, to open-mouthed and low-lidded, to surprise, and finally into something that looked like fury.
‘Faster!’ she cried. He bucked and she gripped the bed frame so as not to be thrown off.
He was mesmerised by her letting go so freely, by the clenching of her muscles around his cock. By the force with which she rode him. He couldn’t hold on to his own control any longer when she sank onto his chest, shuddering. He grabbed her hips and drove into her with abandon, felt fire rushing down his spine and into his balls. He cried her name, trembled, and took her face into his and kissed her hungrily, whispering against her lips that she was beautiful.