by Nhys Glover
Chapter Five
Max
The days passed by in a glorious haze. He saw Eilish every evening and spent all weekend with her, as well. If the whispers around town had started, then he didn’t care. They did nothing more than spend time together, often with the predatory Bedford as their chaperone.
He still didn’t know what to make of the man; working-class background, certainly, but not subservient. He reminded him of the Union leaders he’d come across at different times, especially since the beginning of the coal strike. And it was apparent that Bedford shared sympathies with the coal miners and knew something of their plight. However, he spoke with an American accent and seemed to be a self-made man, if his clothes and his accommodation at Claridges meant anything.
Eilish had her own room as part of a suite she shared with Bedford, so he had discovered. It made him uncomfortable to know they shared such close quarters. But, from all that he had been told, it appeared that London was home to neither of them and they were staying here for a specific purpose – the duty that Eilish had alluded to on their first night.
What that duty was, he was still no closer to knowing. That she was different to any woman he had ever met went without saying. And it wasn’t just because she aroused feelings in him he hadn’t thought possible. It was more that something about her didn’t fit. She would say the strangest things, like that first night when she’d talked about the coming war. Maybe it was the way she spoke, as if she knew what was going to happen – not as some possible event in the future, but as a fact that could not be disputed or avoided.
When they had taken a picnic basket down onto the Thames Embankment on Sunday, Luke had come along too. Max hadn’t wanted the man there, but politeness had dictated that he ask him to join them when he was inviting Eilish out for the day.
They had shared a blanket on the grassy slope of the embankment and listened to the brass band entertaining the crowds on the unusually sunny, spring afternoon. A discussion of popular culture had led Eilish and Luke into a heated debate about the influence the arts had on the thoughts of the common man.
‘Look at propaganda,’ Eilish had said heatedly, ‘portraying Germans as monsters eating children. It only serves to spur on the animosity.’
‘You saw that train carriage. Are you saying monsters didn’t commit that atrocity? They didn’t eat ‘em but they sure slaughtered ‘em.’
‘But that was another war.’
‘Same people.’
‘No, not the same. Those that followed Hitler were simply looking for a way to survive, initially. The Reparations crippled the country…’
‘Who is Hitler and what is this train you refer to?’ Max had interrupted the flow long enough to get his question in.
Both Luke and Eilish had turned to him, as if realising he was there for the first time. Their faces betrayed their confusion and guilt, as if they’d been caught talking out of school.
‘Do not worry about it. Luke and I disagree like this quite often. It was rude of us to exclude you.’
‘But I am interested. It is as if you are aware of events of which I am ignorant.’
Luke and Eilish had exchanged looks, as if trying to decide what to tell him. For not the first time, he’d felt as if they were spinning him a tale, just as Agnes had done before their marriage. However, this tale was not to dupe him in anyway. It was as if they were covering up a state secret. Eilish’s next comment seemed to solidify that view.
‘You know I told you that there were things about me I would need to tell you? To explain about Hitler and the train we alluded to would require me sharing that information with you. When that day comes… well, let me say that after that we may need to go our separate ways.’
‘I do not understand. Are you suggesting you are involved in something illegal or contrary to the good of the British Empire?’
‘No, no of course not. And as I said that first night, you could make guesses about the nature of our situation until the cows came home and you would not come close. Leave it, Max, just for now. There is time yet, and I do not want to spoil these days we have.’
He had reluctantly given in and the conversation had turned on to more familiar ground. However, Max was still left with a sense of disquiet, as if the three of them sat squarely in the eye of a storm. Any moment now the peace and tranquillity they shared would be blown away, and what would be left, he didn’t have a hope of predicting.
During the following week, he found that he was postponing or cancelling appointments with clients, so he could take Eilish to lunch or to Covent Garden. Luke came with them less and less often and then he disappeared completely. Eilish said he had gone to Southampton, but gave away no more information than that. Max found he didn’t care. With Luke away, he had Eilish to himself.
Toward the end of the second week he had known her, Max accompanied Eilish back to Claridges after dinner at the club. Luke was still away. When she invited him up, every alarm bell inside him activated. He wanted to be alone with her more than anything else, but he was still a married man and she was still an innocent, young woman. The old Max would have been a perfectly safe companion, no matter how private their situation. The new Max was not such a certain bet.
Even so, despite his misgivings, he soon found himself accompanying her up to her suite and seated beside the fire with a glass of whisky in his hands. She sat opposite sipping a sherry, as she stared into the languid flames. He was struck anew by how beautiful he found her.
He knew that many people would consider her too plump for beauty, but he found her lush shape infinitely appealing. There had been sleepless nights when he spent hour after tortured hour imagining what lay beneath the layers of her women’s clothing. They were ungentlemanly thoughts, but he could not label them dirty or evil as his parents might have. No thought he could hold about Eilish could be anything but loving and natural. More than ever, he was sure that he had found his other half. No matter what his legal status, he now knew that he belonged to no one but her.
‘What would you think if H G Wells was right and that there really was a way to travel through time… back to Ancient Athens or forward to… whatever?’ Her voice was soft and held a faraway lilt, as if she was lost in her dreams. In moments like this, her slight Irish accent was more apparent and it soothed him with its melody.
‘I would enjoy visiting Ancient Athens and Rome, but I believe I would stand out rather like a sore thumb. And, as there are no historical records of men dressed in outlandish costumes standing out like sore thumbs, I must assume that the likelihood of being able to time travel is small.’
‘You would not dress as you are now. You would wear the costume of the era and speak their language. History is filled with mention of strangers from strange lands. Who is to say their land was not the future?’
‘This subject fascinates you, doesn’t it?’ He felt urged by some powerful force to leave his place and sit on the floor at her feet. He followed that urging and moved so he could rest his head on her knee. The silky softness of her blood-red evening gown sent his senses into overdrive. When she reached down and stroked his hair, he felt as if he had died and gone to Heaven. And until he heard the contented masculine sound, he wasn’t even aware he’d sighed.
‘Yes, it fascinates me. It has for a very long time. It offers the only hope for our world.’
He found it difficult to focus on her words because his full attention was on the hypnotic affect her stroking hand was having on him. Such a simple act of affection was unknown to him. Not entirely, he had to admit. There had been nannies when he was young who would stroke his head when he was sick or in pain. However, none did it from love. And such a touch never came from his mother; her only physical contact was a slap.
He pushed thoughts of his mother away and focused on Eilish and what she was saying now. ‘When I was a little girl my mother died and, as I had never known my father, I was left alone. They put me into homes, orphanages you would call them. That is where I learn
ed how hard life could be. And as I grew older, it only got harder.
‘Sometimes I think back to that time and I wonder how I survived, how I learned to be happy. Because I believe happiness is a learned behaviour and I’d had no experience with it after the age of five.
‘Then, when I grew up, the idea of travelling through time became like a Holy Grail to me. I thought, if I could travel through time, I could be happy. I could find what I have been searching for all my life.’ Her voice petered out and for a moment, the only sound was the crackle of the fire in the shadowy room.
‘For me, the Holy Grail was education,’ he found himself sharing. ‘I thought – if I could be top of my class at Eton, if I could get First Class Honours at Cambridge, the world would be my oyster. I would be a learned man and have the power to change the world into something better.’
‘And you have,’ whispered Eilish gently.
‘Not enough, not nearly enough. And it has never brought me what I most desired. It never made me happy. You make me happy, Eilish. Only you.’
He felt her lean down and place a gentle kiss on his brow. As if in a dream, he sat up so that he could meet her eye. He needed to see the affection he felt for her mirrored back at him. The room was dark. Only the fire lit the space with its red and gold flickering flames. The air was warm and heavy with wood smoke and violets.
‘Travelling through time has made me happy, only because it has led me to you,’ she whispered, almost too softly for him to hear. And before he could process her words, she was leaning down and letting her lips graze his. The little mewling sound she made electrified him.
Terrified of scaring her off or breaking the strange spell that had spun itself around them, he drew himself up so he could get closer to her. He let his fingers stroke the soft warmth of her cheek. Like a cat, she closed her eyes and leaned into his touch, almost purring. Then, before he could think better of it, he let his instincts have their way and he leaned in to claim her mouth.
Nothing could have prepared him for that kiss. It was so different from anything he had experienced before. Her lips were soft and giving, and instead of pulling away in disgust, they opened under his, offering more of herself to him.
When her tongue stroked at his closed lips, it was he who almost drew back in shock. However, it felt so good he invited more and found his own mouth opening to give access to her gentle exploration. When her tongue entered his mouth, his arousal kicked hard against the restraints of his clothes and he sought to shift it into a more comfortable position without breaking their contact. Embarrassed that she might guess what was happening to his body, he tried to keep her focus on their joined mouths.
The kiss seemed to go on forever. He followed her lead and sent his tongue to explore and invade her soft, moist mouth. She let him, and he could hear her breath become gasps and realised that his was doing the same. He drew away from her mouth and began to rain soft, ardent kisses across her cheek and down her neck. Little gasping sobs greeted his every touch and she arched against him asking for more.
Her soft, silky hair touched the side of his face and he could smell the sweet scent of violets in it. This was what he had been dreaming of, imagining for so long, and now that it was here – it was so much better than he could have envisaged. She was so much more than he could have envisaged.
He had kissed a few experienced women in his past and Eilish wasn’t one of them. Her every reaction was tentative and genuine, as if she was experiencing these intimacies for the first time. And yet, for all her inexperience, she seemed to have no inhibitions, no shame about anything they did. And because she had none, neither did he. Their kisses, their caresses were as natural as sunshine on water or flames devouring wood.
‘Damn,’ she grumbled after the kiss had gone on forever. ‘I cannot breathe.’
He drew away in concern.
‘No, no, don’t stop. It is not you. It is these damn stays. Even though I do not lace them tightly, the whale bone, or whatever it is, digs into my ribs and cuts off my oxygen supply.’
She was panting. And it was the strangest explanation he had ever heard. But by now, he was used to her strange way of phrasing things.
He drew her to her feet so she was no longer doubled over, and she breathed a sigh of relief as she reached up to stroke at his hair and ears. ‘I need you to know who I am before… before we…’ she said as she leaned in to kiss his cheek, drawing him in close so he could feel her warm body pressed against his hard length.
In that moment, she could have told him anything about herself and it wouldn’t have mattered. All he cared about was her warm, giving body pressed in painful bliss against his own.
‘No… no, it is not fair. You need to know…’ she drew away from him and when he went to follow her, she shook her head, holding up her hands to keep him at bay.
‘Did you not hear what I told you before? I said that I found happiness only when I travelled through time to find you.’
His mind would not focus on her words. All he could think about was that she was holding herself back from him. Keeping him from what he needed most in the world.
‘Max, listen to me. I do not come from here. Neither does Luke. We are time travellers from the future. We come from 2337, four hundred years into your future.’
He laughed then, thinking her joking and tried to go to her, tried to pull her back into his arms where she belonged.
‘I am not joking, Max. I have been travelling through time since it was discovered seventy years ago in my time line and I have enjoyed the adventure of it. Enjoyed the novelty of it – wearing these strange clothes, seeing things I had only ever read about. But I was never happy. It never gave me happiness, until now. ‘
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Eilish. Come here, please. I need to hold you…’
‘I need to hold you too, but not until you know what it is that you hold. Max, I have lived for hundreds of years. I am an old, old woman. You have to know…’
He swore loudly and spun away from her. ‘If you do not want me to touch you, then I won’t. You do not have to make up outlandish tales to keep me from your bed. I have been there with my wife; I have no desire to go there with you.’
‘I want you in my bed. God, I want nothing more than that, right now. This desire is killing me. But you have to know…’
He spun back to her and snarled. ‘So I know. Now will you open your legs for me?’
She jerked away as if he’d hit her and he couldn’t believe the crudity and cruelty of his words. He wanted to drag them back. Go back in time like her nonsense story and do it all again. Not say those terrible words.
Her face lost its painful shock and hurt and began to suffuse with fury. ‘You think I am a cock tease, is that it? You think I am making this all up to stop you from doing the deed. Fine, that is fine. ‘
She began to rip at her dress, tearing the bodice down the front, struggling to get the crimson, brocade-and-lace dress off her shoulders. He could hear the tears in her voice as she continued to tear furiously at her clothing. ‘Come on, help me, why don’t you. This is what you want. I get that. Goddamn these bloody clothes. How does anyone get out of them?’
He had never heard a lady swear before and his shock at hearing it was almost as great as his astonishment at the hysterical struggle she was having with her gown. Suddenly, all selfish thoughts were gone and the only thing he cared about was the pain he was causing her. Coming to her side, he drew her into his arms and held her while she continued to struggle like a trapped bird against him.
‘Don’t, don’t… it is nothing… do not do this to yourself. I am sorry; I did not mean it. My words were a reaction only. I did not mean them. Shhh… it is all right now, dearest one, be still…’ His crooning words and gentle touch finally won out and she relaxed in his arms, crying softly.
‘I did this all wrong. I should have waited until Luke was here. I must seem like a lunatic to you. A hysterical, overwrought crazy woman tearing at her own d
amn clothes…’
‘Don’t… don’t…. hush… it does not matter. All that matters is that we are together. That is all that matters.’
She drew back a little and sniffed loudly, wiping at her cheeks. Her gaze lifted to his, and even in the shadowed room, he could see the tears glistening on her thick, sooty lashes. Those eyes seemed huge as they stared into his.
‘If I was not a crazy woman. If what I told you was the truth…’ she shushed him as he tried to interrupt. ‘No, listen. Just think about your answer for a moment. If it were imaginable for someone to travel through time from the future and that someone had been able to extend her life way past anything you currently think is possible, could you love her? If that were true?’
Max pressed his forehead to hers and drew in several deep breaths, trying to clear his mind. He tried to imagine what she said as truth. Could he love her if she were hundreds of years old and came from the future? Of course he could. He could love her if she was a woman poised on the edge of insanity. He could love her if she was set on destroying his whole world. Because, the reality of the situation was, that there was no choice in it anymore. He could love her because he already did.
The revelation was not profound. It had been playing at the edge of his consciousness since he made the decision to divorce his wife. Each day had just brought that idea into higher definition. Now, there was no doubt, no ‘what if’s or ‘what might be’s. There was just this: He loved her, whoever and whatever she was, wherever she was from or wherever she would go back to. Even if he had to share her with the moody Luke or anyone or anything else, he would do so. She was everything.
He didn’t know how long they stood there, him thinking, her waiting patiently for his answer. When he finally drew back to look her in the eye, he could feel the tension in her body. So tight. So close to shattering.
‘If you were an ancient time traveller from the future, I would still love you. I am past the point where I can put any conditions on how I feel about you. I need you. Not to spread your legs for me… I do not know where that crass statement came from. I need you standing here beside me, my companion and life mate. And I will do anything to have you by my side. I had decided to divorce Agnes that first day. It is now only a matter of time and opportunity. The rumours are already rife. I will even let her divorce me on the grounds of infidelity, though the irony of that will not be lost on my brother.’
Eilish reached up and put her fingertips on his lips. ‘Come to bed, Max, and help me out of these awful clothes. I imagine some would see them as sexy, the whole bustier and stockings thing, but not me. I just want to be skin to skin with you. ‘
She led him by the hand into her bedroom where the large, four-poster bed draped in gold velvet, awaited. Turning her back, she offered him what was left of the buttons she had been unable to tear loose. With fingers more nimble than he could have imagined, Max made quick work of the dress. Then, when she had stepped out of it, he slid off her other undergarments until he came to the corset. The bow at the top was easy to undo, and finally he worked the laces loose so that soon the torture device released completely and fell away.
Eilish breathed in deeply and turned around to face him in her bloomers, lace decorated camisole and stockings. Her bounty was apparent and so was the agonising tension in his extremities.
‘Thank god for that. Now we start on you. I hope it will not take quite so much effort to get you naked.’
He felt his face growing hot with shyness and she giggled.
‘I love it when you do that.’
‘What?’
‘Blush. Most of us do not blush, because it requires an intensity of emotion few feel. When you blush, it tells me you feel strongly about what is happening. I like it.’
‘Men are not supposed to blush. It is a womanish thing to do.’
‘Says what rulebook? If you plan on remaining with me, you will have to be willing to throw away a great many of your current rulebooks. You will have to start questioning everything you now believe to be true or real or possible. Can you do that, Max?’
‘I will question, but do not always expect me to accept your answers. I am no one’s lap dog.’
‘I would expect nothing else. And last of all, you will find me less inhibited than most virgins in this time would be. That is because ours is a liberal society where sexuality is not considered a sin or wrong. We just do not indulge in it much, as these clones… sorry these bodies are barren. I have lived a very long time and I have never felt the urge to mate until I met you. However, I do know quite a depth of theory, so please do not misinterpret my forward behaviour for experience.’
He tried to digest what she was saying, but his own limited experience and lack of theoretical knowledge had him struggling to imagine what she might mean. Agnes had pulled away from his kisses and when consummation became a necessity, she lay stiff and still in his bed; her eyes squeezed shut. His fumbling attempts to position his half-erect staff and drive it into her dry core had been the most humiliating moment in his life. The idea of repeating that humiliation with Eilish now made him draw back in dread.
Eilish noticed his resistance. ‘Sorry. Would you rather not? I will understand because, to be honest, I am terrified I will get it wrong or make you think I’m some brazen hussy…’
That was all he needed to hear. She was as worried as he. With determination, he used his lips to silence her concerns and then started removing his jacket, cravat, collar and shirt. After that, Eilish got involved and began to undress him – and it was the most exciting thing he’d ever experienced; even more thrilling than removing her clothes. Finally, they both stood in their last layers of apparel and, by the electric lamps on either side of the bed, they began to study each other more closely.
‘For an older man in a sedentary profession I expected you to have less muscle-mass, but you are lean and muscular. Your shoulders are broader than I would have expected, too.’
He laughed a deep, rumbling belly laugh at her frank observation. ‘Thank you, I think. And I will reciprocate by saying that your lush, rounded, hourglass figure is everything I hoped for. Now, unless you want to comment on that other part of me that you must surely know about in theory, come to bed and let us see if we can put some of your theory into practice, for both our benefits.’
She threw her arms around his neck and smothered him with little kisses. When he tried to capture her mouth with his own to deepen the kisses, she slipped away from him. Mischief burned in the depth of her big, round eyes.
‘Stop playing vixen, my patience is worn very thin!’ he demanded, using both his hands to hold her head still so that he could taste her lips and invade the moist heat of her mouth with his tongue. It took no more than that and the arousal that had burned through them both not long before was again white hot and desperate.
Eilish backed up until they were at the bed and then she let herself drop back, taking Max’s full weight with her. Her hands were everywhere at once, stroking, kneading, skimming across his burning skin like a hot knife over butter. Wherever she touched him, he came alive and his senses threatened him with overload. He could taste her salty warmth; he could smell her feminine musk and he could hear her little whimpering noises and moans, as they told him what he did was right.
After the kisses had begun to stray to other parts of her body, she became desperate to remove the last vestiges of clothing that lay between them. With shaking, hasty hands, they removed the fabric until they were skin to skin and his hard length lay pressed tight against her soft belly.
‘Dear God in Heaven, how could anyone call this bad,’ he mumbled against her neck between fevered kisses. He didn’t know how much longer he could last. The pressure was building to the point where he was sure he would explode, but he had learned as a teenager to control his urges, so he would not commit the sin of self-abuse.
‘Eilish I cannot maintain control…’
She opened her eyes and looked down at his throbbing
member. Her small hands came together and wrapped themselves firmly around his length and he couldn’t hold back the gasp of pleasure that touch elicited.
‘Then don’t hold back. Come for me, Max. Let me see what it will be like when you take me,’ she said as she moved her hands firmly up and down his length. The unexpectedness of her actions and the pure pleasure of it had him crying out, as wave after wave of wild sensation washed over and through him.
Nothing had prepared him for this, not even the wet dreams he half-remembered waking from as a boy in puberty. This was pure sensation, pure unfettered joy, and he rode it as Eilish’s untutored hands rode him.
When he lay atop her, the sticky evidence of his shame between them, he shut his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see her disgust. When her hands began to stroke his back, he took courage and peeked at her sweat-soaked face. She smiled at him.
‘I think I will quite enjoy you doing that to me,’ she said cheekily, turning to drop a kiss on his temple. ‘But can you ease off a bit. You are making it as hard to breath as those damn stays.’
He used his arms to lift the weight of his body off hers and felt again the embarrassment of the sticky evidence of his release. ‘I have made a mess of you.’
‘Sex, so they say, is a very messy activity. That is half the fun. But you can clean up with the flannel in the bathroom. I do like having my own bathroom.’
He scrambled off her and went for the wet flannel. He washed himself and then brought the cleaned flannel back to wash her. Finally, he lay down at her side, strangely at peace.
‘Max,’ she said tentatively. ‘Would you touch me as I touched you? I have found in the last few weeks that being touched there feels good.’
‘Who has touched you – Bedford?‘ His demand was rough, as feelings of rage and possessiveness tore at him like a wild dog.
‘No one. Me. I did it. When I was thinking of you.’
‘You indulged in self-abuse?’ Max spluttered in shock. He didn’t know how he felt about such an idea. At first, it seemed wrong, as it was wrong for him to do such a thing to himself. But then the very idea of her fingers going between her legs to that forbidden place had his staff rising again.
‘I abuse no one, especially not myself. I pleasure myself. Surely, if you can do it, I can.’
‘I do not do it.’
‘Good heavens, why not?’
‘Because it is self-abuse and a sin. ‘
‘That is another rule you are going to have to throw out, dear boy. Giving yourself, or another, pleasure is not a sin. But if you would rather do it for me, that would be good too.’ Her tone was cheeky and he couldn’t hold back the chuckle that accompanied hers.
‘Very well, to save you from the sin of self-abuse,’ he let his hands slide down her smooth, rounded stomach until his fingers grazed her midnight thatch of maiden hair. His arousal was pulsing like a wild thing already and Eilish reached over and stroked it like a cat.
‘You seem big to me. Six inches is said to be average. You seem more than that and a lot thicker than I expected. Having never seen a penis before, I cannot be sure.’
‘Merciful heaven, I see what you mean. You are going to leave me permanently red of face, woman. Alternatively, I am going to become immune to your embarrassing ways and never blush again. That feels so …’ he couldn’t find a word for it, so he just groaned. Then he decided it was time his outrageous lady did a bit more groaning.
Not sure what he was doing, he let his fingers drift down between her cleft and was delighted by her little gasp and squirm. She was wet and hot and his arousal screamed at him to let him share the experience. But he fought the urge and pressed lower with his fingertips to where he knew his member wanted to go. Eilish’s breath was coming faster now and she opened her legs so he had no impediment to his exploration. Just looking at her laying there with her legs spread wide and his hand clamped over her moist core was pushing him hard. As he sank his middle finger deep into her, she bucked. At first, he worried he had hurt her. Then, when she put her hand over his to hold him in place, he got the idea that he was doing anything but hurting her.
Going purely by instinct, he drew his finger out and then thrust it in again, deeper this time, mimicking his body’s actions. She writhed beneath his hand and he let her ride his finger until she seemed to want more. Suddenly, he had an idea. He removed his hand and moved down the bed, tickled by her obvious disappointment. If he could kiss her mouth and gain such pleasure from it, what would it be like to kiss this secret place?
Avoiding her desperate attempts to stop him, he buried his face in her tight curls and breathed in her scent. It was the most powerful aphrodisiac he had ever experienced, and when he kissed her with his tongue sliding into her deep cleft, he chuckled with pleasure as she bucked again beneath him and then held his head in place as he used his tongue to explore every crevice and mound he could reach. She was almost crying by the time he had satisfied his curiosity and was content that what he had done to her was driving her beyond sanity.
‘Max, please… I need… I…’ He cupped her core with his hand again and as she ground her pelvis against his hand, he understood that she was getting close to that agonising point he knew so well. But how to push her over? His fingers accidentally found the little lump his tongue had discovered earlier and he stroked it gently. She cried out as if in agony and he drew back in panic. When she calmed, she reached for him with desperate hands.
‘Do it, please. I need you…’
And all thoughts of the humiliation of his marriage bed were forgotten as she guided him to her entrance and very slowly, with agonising care, he slid into her until he reached the barrier he knew was her maiden head. As she sensed him hesitate, she jerked her hips up and impaled herself fully on him, and once breached he sank deep into her hot, liquid well to the hilt.
‘Did I hurt you?’ he croaked, feeling his control shredding like tissue. Concentrating hard, he noted her wordless shake of head, as her hips arched up off the bed so that she could get him even deeper into her. With a long, slow slide, he drew himself back and then plunged into her core again, and her fingernails dug into his back as she began to cry.
Memories of Agnes resurfaced and he made to draw away. She clung to him desperately and he realised again that this was nothing like Agnes. He began to sense what they both needed in that moment. He took the weight of his upper body on his arms and began to drive into her like a piston on one of those new automobiles.
Over and over, he thrust into her, until he lost all sense of where he ended and she began. They moved as one being, a fierce and fiery animal that had only one purpose, and that driving, pulsing purpose came nearer and nearer until, finally letting go of all restraints, he flew, as flames pushed him higher and higher, and then dropped suddenly away, so he crashed down into the ecstasy of the petite mort – the little death.
As he collapsed onto her wet body, he felt the tiny ripples of her inner muscles squeeze him dry. When he had strength enough in his arms, he levered himself off her so that she could breathe. Even so, she fought him when he tried to draw out of her.
‘Please, not yet. It feels so good to have you inside me. It is as if there has always been a space there, deep inside, that I never knew existed. But now it has been filled and I do not want to feel its emptiness again.’ He kissed her damp hair and did her bidding. Then, when he knew he could stay no longer, he withdrew and lay at her side, resting his head on her shoulder.
‘That was worth waiting forty years for,’ he mumbled against the damp strands of her raven-black curls.
‘Forty years? Try waiting three hundred years. And yes, I agree, well worth it.’
He kissed her shoulder. ‘May I stay the remainder of the night? I will try to get out early so as not to attract too much attention in my evening clothes. However, I do not know if I have the energy to move just yet, or for the foreseeable future. I have not slept well of late.’
‘Mmm… neither have I. Turn ov
er and spoon me and let us go to sleep. We will worry about tomorrow, tomorrow.’
‘Spoon you?’
She chuckled and held up her hands, so he could see the position she wanted. And so he spooned her, pressing his chest against her back, and bending his legs up to meet hers. It was an amazingly comfortable and nurturing position. He felt as if he shielded her from harm with his body.
Where she gained the knowledge she had, he did not know. Even so, one thing he knew for certain, knowledgeable in theory she may have been, but she had spoken truly concerning her virginity. He felt immeasurable pride to have been her first. And, if he had anything to say about it, he would also be her last.