XLVII #3
He laughed and moved the rest of the wrapper for her, then pulled the blanket back so he could cover her with it later, if she got cold.
And then, with her laid out diagonally across the berth, the curves and hollows of her scooping and rising under his hand like gentle terrain, he set to worshipping her with his mouth and fingers.
There was the bump that rose where her neck blended into her back.
The faint ripples that broke the soft skin in a long line, all the way down.
The flesh already returning to smooth over her ribs after twelve weeks of privation.
The way her breasts peeked out the sides in half-moon shapes, pressed against the mattress.
And best of all, the trusting, dreamy look on her face as she lay before him, utterly vulnerable and exposed while he was still fully clothed, unable even to set her hands on him in mutual endearments.
Indeed, he rather liked this view of her, and the sweet surrender of her letting him do as he pleased without even the prospect of interrupting her enjoyment of his caresses to reply in kind.
It was when his hands and his kisses reached the lavish, muscular rise of her bottom that he began to rush.
She had been lying with her arms folded under her cheek, her face turned towards him with her eyes closed, faint sighs at the root of each exhale.
Now he could see, when he bothered looking at her face, that her eyes were rolling behind their lids, she was swallowing frequently, and her breathing had deepened to little moans.
He framed his hands about each cheek and sank his fingers experimentally into her until her flesh rounded tightly in his grip, then let her body spring back into shape.
That was a fascination he could indulge in for hours.
But then, his thumbs dipped lower, finding each other in the centre of her, and his fascination turned to something more compulsive.
There was, by the natural shape of her curves and the joining of her legs, something of a triangle. Just there, framed perfectly — as if a man were too dense to find it himself without help — was…
He slid forward until he lay alongside her, his mouth at her shoulder again. “Elizabeth… would you mind if I…”
She stirred dreamily. “Hmm?”
“I want you like this.”
She opened her eyes. “How does that…?”
“We can find out.”
A slow smile spread over her face. He kissed her once, and by the time he returned to her back, he already had his fall down.
This time, he did not recline beside her, but braced between her legs.
He caught her hips, raised them up a little off the mattress until her knees came under her, and found her already glossy and flushed.
That triangle stood out more plainly now — a skirting where the round muscles dropped away and the point dipped to guide him.
He traced the shape once with his fingers, and that was all the patience that remained to him.
She arched back into him when he slid forward, her chest now coming off the berth.
That was as good an invitation as any, and he reached round to cup her breasts as he pressed himself deeper.
And deeper. More, until there was no more of him to give, and then he still felt he could have gone on and on.
How, how had he never attempted this before?
“Are you comfortable?” he whispered.
She answered by pushing backwards, and laughing wickedly when he groaned.
His composure was worthless after that. He pulled her shoulders up to him and fell on her neck with his mouth, keeping her steady with his hands cupping her breasts as he lost himself in her.
He found he was, after all, capable of savagery, but only the most reverent sort, as she met him again and again, raw and carnal and deeply, sublimely exhilarating.
His legs were shaking long before he had spent himself, but he clung to her, asking her to lean forward again so he could find the strength to finish, and he let himself go.
He might have to explain himself tomorrow for the animal cry that tore from him and echoed through the cabin walls, but just now, he was dizzy, delirious, and utterly dismantled.
He collapsed on her, his cheek on her shoulder, and in some foggy recess of his brain, he felt her quaking.
“Cold?” he murmured, reaching to drag the blanket over them both.
She shifted a little, and he moved off her so she could turn her head.
It was a moment’s work, disentangling from her hair, her legs, the slick ruin he had made of them both, but by the time she was on her side, her cheek pillowed on his arm and her eyes on him, he decided that she had been laughing, not shivering.
He tugged the blanket a little higher on her shoulder. “What amuses you this time?”
“You. You had me entirely fooled, you know.”
“Oh? How so?”
“I used to think you so dignified, you could not even bend over without breaking that iron rod down your spine. I find out, months later, that I have married something of a sensualist.”
“I was dignified. I was entirely respectable, the model of restraint and disciplined proclivities. Whatever your complaint is, I assure you, it is entirely your fault.”
“That is a charge I accept proudly.”