Chapter Twenty #4
She didn’t feel the ecstasy he did as he moved in her, or more than a dim burning ache as he did so, or more than the faint beginnings of a keener, shimmering sensation as he continued to.
She felt something that dimmed all bodily pleasure and pain.
Because there was no doubt, he was actually making love to her; Gray was really making physical love to her, he was deep within her and he’d said she was fine, and she could see that it was.
The thrilling joy of that overwhelmed all else.
So that when he came at last to his convulsive release, she was already beyond more ecstasy.
“I did it!” she whispered, when he rolled to her side and held her close. “I did, didn’t I?”
“No, ma’am,” he said on a weak chuckle. “We did. Just like an actress,” he added, kissing her damp hair, “taking all the bows after all my work.”
He was more than content; he’d been startled by the intensity of his pleasure, and was now stunned with gratitude and slow dawning joy.
He waited to lie beside her, hold her, and take time to believe his good luck.
But still, he raised himself on one elbow and looked down into her face, all seriousness now, because tired and sated as he was, the thing should be said to bury it for all time.
“There’s nothing wrong with you, and never was.
Mind, you weren’t easy,” he said on a crooked grin that moved something in her heart.
“Lord, no. I guess all your medical books have a thing or two to say about that. No, it wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t impossible.
But this time, you did the drinking, and I did some distracting, and we did it.
Yeah,” he said, smiling as he saw she did.
“We did it, all right. I had the advantage of being sober, and knowing something might be needed besides desire,” he added, unwilling to remind her of her late husband, but too fair-minded to forget him.
“See,” he said gently, as she watched him with eyes as wide and deep as the night they were adrift in, “sometimes you have just got to get on that wild horse, no matter how scared you are. Because there’s nothing worse than fear.
It can defeat men as well as women. But it didn’t get you,” he said with pride.
“You got on two wild horses tonight and beat them both. Although,” he added with gentle rue, touching a feathery kiss to her cheek, “I suspect you feel more like one’s ridden you just now—even though you sure conquered him, too.
It’ll never be that difficult again, I promise,” he whispered.
“That’s what you think,” she said, so joyful she couldn’t stay serious a heartbeat longer. “It will take far more than two glasses of champagne and a few kisses to get me next time. Yes,” she said breathlessly when he raised his head from her again. “It will take that—exactly right.”
“Hannah,” he said at last, as he gasped with the effort of stopping to get the words out again, “this is all a part of love, but it was never necessary for my love, you know that. Although it sure is good,” he admitted.
“Still, it was pretty rough for you the first time; we have a world of time ahead of us, you sure you want this again now?”
“Now,” she insisted, “and later, and then again.”
“Lord!” he sighed with pleasure and expectation, “the Police Gazette was right about you actresses, you’re wild and wicked and depraved.”
“Of course,” she said smugly, “I just had to learn how to be. Show me again? Please?” she asked, suddenly shy, before he began to, and her words died against his throat, as he showed her how laughter could become something silent and even more pleasurable.
And with all her lack of experience, she showed him what he’d always guessed: that their love would be something more than bodies meeting, and nothing less than beyond all his experience.
Mrs. Prescott woke, as usual, at dawn. She lay in bed, hearing the sparrows squabbling in the hedges outside her window, even though it had been closed against the December night.
Mr. Evans, third floor, front, had begun his morning hacking and coughing in preparation to lighting up his first smoke of the day.
And the milkman’s horse came clopping up the street, she heard him stop in front of Mrs. Henderson’s house on the corner, right on time.
It was the usual morning song, muted by winter, but it woke her as readily as a rooster might.
But then she heard the gladsome sound of two people laughing uproariously: a man and a woman.
Probably drunks coming home with the dawn, she thought with a sniff as she lay in bed, thinking of her morning’s chores.
She could understand if not approve that, she was in New York City, and not far from the theater district, after all.
But she never knew why it was that she then heard them merrily chanting in unison: “We did it, we did it, we did it,” until they stopped as suddenly as if they’d dropped down a well.
Because when she rose and went to the window to see what had happened to them, she saw nothing but the sparrows and the milkman’s horse and wagon, and the morning light, coming up to warm the world.