Chapter Text
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The new Viscountess Bridgerton wakes on the morning after her wedding with aching thighs and very, very cold feet.
The former is not surprising. The latter, quickly explained.
Kate blinks the sleep out of her eyes and lifts up onto her elbows, finding herself wrapped in only the most miniscule corner of the sheets, both of her legs entirely bare from the shins down. She turns onto her side, clutching the soft cotton tightly so it doesn’t escape altogether, and promptly snorts a very un-viscountess-like laugh at the sight that greets her.
Her new husband is stretched out in the middle of the mattress, fast asleep and in full possession of the rest of the sheets, most of the space, and what she rather suspects is her pillow.
“Thief,” she murmurs fondly, the chill on her skin momentarily warmed away by how handsome he looks in the morning, all rumpled and peaceful in their mess of a bed.
She pillows her cheek on her hand, indulging herself in the sight of him. The hazy morning light is pouring in through the open drapes, kissing sunshine over his bare skin, in all the same places she pressed her own lips last night — the line of his jaw, the slope of his nose, the soft, delicate skin of his eyelids. She has a vague, champagne-soaked memory of him dismissing the servants before they could so much as turn down the sheets last night, nevermind close the curtains, and she can’t bring herself to be sorry for it now, even if the light is as much to blame for waking her as the chill.
He looked good in the dark, moving above her in the candlelight, but splayed out like this, haloed by sunshine, he’s almost a god.
It’s fitting, she supposes.
He’s quite the centre of her universe, after all.
Biting back a smile, she trails her hand up his arm, pausing over the faint indent her fingernails left behind last night, when she dug in her grip and begged him for more — more of his weight on hers, more of his mouth on her neck, more of anything he would give her, a mindless, directionless chant of more, please, more, more.
She smiles wryly at the memory, and at the change a few hours can bring — this morning all she wants is more of the bedsheets.
“Anthony?” She tugs gently at the coverlet, trying to steal some back for herself. “Wake up…”
Naturally the vexing man doesn’t oblige her request, only snuffles slightly in his sleep, burrowing his face even deeper into her pillow with a soft, contented little hum. It’s an appallingly lovely sort of sound, the sweetness of it threatening to distract her all over again.
“You are not charming,” she lies, still pulling at the covers. “I am not charmed.”
Even as her tugs turn more violent, Anthony doesn’t give up an inch, only grumbles something nonsensical and rolls closer to her, flinging one heavy arm around her waist. She freezes at that, shaking off the last vestiges of sleep as habit pushes her to panic — did they remember to lock the door? Is anyone looking for them? — until she suddenly remembers that it wouldn’t matter if the door was wide open and the entirety of the Aubrey Hall staff were peering through it at this very moment; Anthony is perfectly permitted to put his arm around her waist whenever he likes now.
Because they’re married.
Anthony Bridgerton is her husband.
She claps her hand over her mouth to stifle the sudden, hysterical urge to laugh.
And then she sits up slightly, checking that the bedroom door is, in fact, firmly closed. Just because she is allowed to lie here in bed with him now, doesn’t mean she actually wants any witnesses. Every detail of this morning — the glitter of sunlight in the grey at his temples, the chaotic tumble of their clothing on the floor, even the rumpled, stolen sheets tucked beneath his chin — is hers alone. And in this room, in this bed, so is he.
He, most of all.
Duty lives elsewhere in this house, in his study and at the head of the table, and in all the other places where she’ll have to learn to share him. But his title is not welcome in here. Only his name.
“Anthony,” she whispers again, just because she can.
Awake, her new husband is always in motion, always fiddling with his watch or his cuffs or his ring, his sharp eyes never seeming to settle on any one thing for longer than a few moments. Right now he’s utterly still, save for his gentle breathing, and the hint of a smile that keeps pulling at his lips.
It’s vain, perhaps, but she wonders if he’s dreaming of her.
The sweetness of that thought makes her hesitate ever so slightly.
But she’s so cold.
“I want you to remember,” she murmurs gently, stroking her hand over his forearm, “that you brought this on yourself...”
Anthony stirs slightly, his eyes fluttering open in the split second before she shoves both of her freezing cold feet beneath the blankets and right up against his shins.
“What the—” He jolts fully awake with a bitten off curse, his eyes flying wide as he instinctively scrambles back towards his side of the bed. “Kate?” He blinks at her, clutching his heart. Right through the jumble of sheets he’s still holding onto. “What on earth—”
“Oh, I am sorry,” she says solicitously. “Did I wake you?”
“Did you—” He blows out an incredulous breath, half laughter, half outrage. “You know you did!”
“Oh.” She smiles. “Good.”
“What…?” He trails off, his shocked laughter sharpening into a hiss as she stretches her cold feet out towards him once more. “Christ, woman, your feet are like ice!”
She lifts her brow, piercing him with a stare. “And whose fault is that?”
“Fault? Why would it—” He cuts himself off, seeming to notice for the first time just how little of the blankets are covering her. And how much are covering him. “Ah.”
He has the good grace to look a little embarrassed.
“My sincerest apologies.” He immediately shuffles closer, drawing her under the covers with him. There’s something rather appealing about the formality of his apology, paired with the brush of his chest hair against her breasts as he pulls her into his arms. “I—ah, am not accustomed to sharing space, it would seem.”
“And here I thought the nobility were supposed to have impeccable manners,” she teases, just for the sheer joy of it. “Although I understand most couples of the Ton have separate rooms, so they do not have this problem…”
“Do not even think about it,” he warns, a delicious sort of bite in his tone as he wags a warning finger in her face. “This is your room, Kate.”
She laughs and nips at his finger, delighted by how easy he is to rile in the morning. Or any time, really.
“Do you know,” he grumbles, shocking her laughter into a gasp as he shifts his hips to bring their bodies completely flush, “when I imagined waking up beside my loving wife for the very first time, this is not how I thought it would go.”
“And did you know,” she counters, curling one of her legs through his to press the bottom of her freezing cold foot against the back of his calf, “that your head is currently resting on my pillow?”
For a split second they simply stare at each other, their feigned outrage trapped between them like a held breath. And then a choked, high-pitched sort of noise catches in Anthony’s throat, the sound perilously close to a giggle.
It’s rather hard to keep scowling at him after that.
She collapses into laughter a split second before he does, allowing him to roll onto his back and take her with him, her head landing in the crook of his shoulder as he winds his arm around her.
“Here,” he says, dropping a kiss to her hair, “Use me instead.”
She nestles in closer, accepting the makeshift pillow of his body with a soft, delighted little laugh. His own laughter is a slow, steady rumble beneath her cheek, slowly quieting as hers does, until all that’s left is the warmth of it, caught beneath the blankets with them.
She can’t remember ever feeling this way. Such guilt-free idleness. Eating, bathing, making love to him again, it’ll all happen eventually. Later. There’s no hurry for any of it right now. Nowhere to go or be, nothing in the world more important than lying here in his arms and feeling the sunshine on her face.
Every day, she thinks, suddenly quite close to weeping. I get to wake up beside him every day.
“Kate?” Anthony asks warily, as though he caught the tiny hitch in her breathing that she barely even noticed herself.
“I’m all right,” she tells him, lifting up slightly to show him her smile. “Just happy.”
He kisses her then, dry morning mouth and all, and she can’t bring herself to care. Just like their lazy cuddling, there’s an idle, aimless sort of feeling to it. It isn’t leading anywhere. Isn’t starting anything. It’s simply a kiss for the sake of a kiss. She smiles against his mouth and accepts it, losing herself to the sensation of his mouth moving over hers, his arm anchoring her against him.
She could turn it into something more in a heartbeat, she knows. She could reach her hand between them and palm her hand over him until he’s hard and straining and desperate. She could clamber on top of him and pin his hips with her thighs, letting her hair hang between them, brushing the tips against his chest.
For weeks — months really — all she wanted was this. Him. The wait was enforced. Unwilling. Unbearable, it turned out, in those last few days when she snuck into his home before they left London.
There’s something freeing about thinking, later, now. Just because she can.
She breaks the kiss, returning her head to the pillow of his chest and sighing out a soft, happy little noise that makes him smile.
She can’t see his face, of course, but she knows he’s smiling. It changes his breathing beneath her. Makes it softer. Easier.
“Did you sleep well?” she asks, tracing an idle circle of a clock over his bare chest. “It feels rather late.”
“I did,” he says. It sounds like a revelation. “And you? Pillow and blanket theft aside, of course.”
“Yes.” She stretches against him through a yawn, enjoying the slight groan that slips from his lips at the movement. “I was out like a light, actually.”
“I noticed,” he agrees, toying idly with her loose hair. “You were talking in your sleep again.”
“Was I?” she asks, lifting up slightly to look up at him. “And how fares your language lessons? Could you understand me this time?”
“Perfectly, although I did not need the lessons to do so.”
“No?”
“All you said was my name.”
“Oh.” She hums a laugh. “Well that is hardly surprising.”
“I was surprised,” he says, unaccountably serious.
“Well you should not be.” She lifts up her hand, trailing her fingertips down the side of his face before cupping his jaw. “You are the language I dream in, Anthony.”
Something rare and vulnerable flickers across his expression, pulling at something inside her chest until it aches. He turns his head slightly, pressing a deep, firm kiss over the intricate design at the centre of her palm. Then collects her hand in his, curving it into a fist and kissing her again, on her knuckles this time, right over the new wedding ring he slipped onto her finger yesterday.
Something about the look in his eyes makes her think, Oh. Later is now.
“Can I have you again?” he whispers, the question a kiss of breath over her lips. “Are you sore?”
“Yes.” She presses her thighs together, easing the restless ache already building there. “Yes.”
“Yes, you are sore or—”
“Both.” She’s already moving, feeling the sheets fall away as she clambers over him. “But it is a good pain.”
His hands land on her hips, anchoring her above him. “Kate—”
“I promise.” She leans down, silencing his next protest with a kiss. “It will hurt more not to have you.”
That quiet, whispered sentence seems to unlock something in him. He moves them with one single, rough intake of breath, rolling her off him and onto her side, gathering her up against his front, her body caged in the shelter of his. She strains to turn back towards him, succeeding only in writhing uselessly against him, accidentally grinding herself back into the cradle of his hips. He hisses in a breath, clamping one hand on her hip as if to still her, but only encouraging her movements instead, rocking her back into him over and over, until his hand eventually dips between her legs.
“Anthony—” She cranes her neck, turning back to look at him, and he captures her lips in a kiss, his free hand slipping around her neck to hold her against him, his arm resting gently around her throat.
It should feel restricting, perhaps, to be held so effectively, but the frustration coursing through her isn’t a bad kind, and when he whispers, “Like this, Kate. Let me have you this way,” she doesn’t have it in her to do anything but press back against him and say, “Yes. Please.”
She gives up her efforts to face him, imagining the look on his face instead, the flutter of his eyelashes against his cheeks as he licks a path up the side of her neck, the tight line of his jaw when she grinds herself back against him.
She’s barely on her side at all now, half her body sprawling back over his as he holds her against him, his hips moving against her as his hand strokes relentlessly between her legs.
“Now, Anthony,” she orders, parting her thighs wider and feeling him settle, hot and heavy, against her. “Please.”
“You’re not ready,” is his only reply, the words punctuated by a nip to her earlobe.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” she grumbles, moving restlessly against him.
He huffs a hot breath of laughter against her neck. “Arguing with me already?”
“Always,” she says, arching her neck back to kiss any part of him she can reach, her lips landing somewhere near his jaw. She pushes back against him one more time, rolling off him and back onto her side, his body following hers like they’re connected by some invisible tie. “Don’t make me beg, Anthony.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Every second that you are not inside me hurts.”
That seems to convince him. He shudders in surrender, his hand slipping out from between her legs to curl around her waist, pulling her back against him. His hand is slick against her skin, painting her own arousal along her stomach, up to the curve of her breast. It should be appalling, perhaps, but she can’t find a lick of shame inside her, not even when he presents his hand to her lips, letting her suck his fingers into her mouth, tasting herself on her fingertips.
He moves his hand back between her legs, circling once, twice, again, until she’s writhing against him, mindless for anything he’ll give her. When he lifts her leg back over his, pressing inside with a slow, gentle rock of his hips, she turns her face into the stolen pillow he laid her down on, inhaling the scent of his hair as she whimpers his name.
They move together, rocking slowly in the warm morning light, and she begins to understand why he was so insistent on this position. The ache in her thighs from last night is a quiet, barely noticeable thing like this, and the depth he can reach inside her is just enough to drive her mindless, without causing any pain. There’s a security to being held so securely in his arms, surrounded by his heat and his scent and his quiet, whispered words of praise.
He whispers a litany of worship as he gathers her even closer, banding a hand around her breasts, and burying his head in her neck, his breath hot on her skin. “I’ll never get enough of you.”
She lifts her head, turning to kiss him in response, her answer licked against his mouth as she moves back against him. “Good.”
He laughs quietly, the sound a gentle rumble against her back when she’s pressed against him. Something about that quiet, lovely sound drives her closer to her release, like her body is finding its joy from his. As if he can sense it, Anthony dips his hand back between her legs, his thumb brushing slow, gentle circles, in time with the steady, certain roll of his hips. It’s too much — the insistent press of him between her legs, paired with the gentle, barely there circles of his thumb — when he brings his mouth to neck, sucking a long, slow, open mouthed kiss against the soft skin there, she shudders against him, bliss rushing over her like a gentle, inescapable tide, pulling her into the warmth of its undertow.
She vaguely registers him shuddering behind her, pulling him free from her body with only seconds to spare, his own release painting itself across her bare back.
Like that first night, he freezes a little in the aftermath, as though afraid he’s offended her. She scoffs a little at the thought, flopping herself down onto her belly on their bed and turning her head to look back at him.
“I’ll fetch a cloth,” he promises, still looking a little troubled. “Stay right there.”
“Anthony?” she calls after him as he backs away across the bed.
“Yes?” he answers immediately.
“Ring for some breakfast while you’re at it, would you? I’m famished.”
He pauses, sitting stock still at the edge of their bed as he takes in the sight of her sprawled across the sheets on her front, the mess of their lovemaking no doubt on full display across her back.
“I adore you, you know,” he says, quite matter of factly.
She grins lazily up at him. “I know. Now—food.”
“Yes, Lady Bridgerton. Right away.”
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His smile is disturbing the servants.
It should bother him, perhaps, that his happiness is clearly so rare that his own staff don’t know what to do with it. But he got married yesterday, and so everything is funny today, and he bears their confusion with good grace instead of self-reflection, and carries on smiling.
He smiles at the maid who brings their breakfast.
At the footman who clears the tray.
At his valet when he tells him no thank you, he doesn’t want to dress just yet.
At the maid who was helping Kate with her bath, just before he shoos her out of the dressing room and shuts the door directly in her face.
“That was rude,” Kate admonishes, scowling at him over the rim of her bath.
She’s never prettier than when she’s cross with him.
He’s not sure what it says about him that he thinks that.
“Really?” he counters, inhaling a deep breath of fresh, steam-scented air as he crosses the small room towards her. “I should think it was a kindness, giving her an hour off while I take up her duties.”
“Oh, is that what you are doing?” She hums a laugh, watching him approach with lazy, half-closed eyes.
Her face is flushed with the warmth of the water, her hair piled up on top of her head, a few loose strands sticking to her damp neck. She’s got her arms propped up along the edge of the bath, the hand nearest to him dropped lazily over the side, drawing his eye to the intricate patterns of her mehndi.
If she turned her wrist, he could find his initials again, just like he did yesterday — hidden in plain sight, right over her pulse.
“Do you need to keep it dry?” he asks, nodding to her hand as he drops down to sit beside the tub.
“No, only for the first day or so,” she says, dragging her fingertips across the surface of the bathwater as if to prove the point. She lifts her foot out of the water, showing him the undamaged pattern there. “See? It’s all right now.”
He tries to be a gentleman, really he does, but he can’t help his eyes drifting to watch the ripples she makes in the water. And he can’t help lingering on the shape of her beneath those tiny waves. There’s nothing to cloud the bathwater yet, no milky swirl of soap to hide her from him, the shape of her body perfectly visible beneath the water.
“You are staring, my lord,” she says, flicking her finger to splash his face.
He smiles and shakes the water off, dragging his gaze away from the curve of her waist to meet her eyes. “Do you mind?”
“Would you think less of me if I said no?”
He sucks in a sharp breath, shifting slightly to cross his legs beneath his banyan. “Not in the slightest, love.”
She doesn’t miss the movement, the little minx. Smirking, she lifts up slightly, bringing the swell of her breasts out of the water. Together they watch her nipples pebble in the steam-filled air, goosebumps breaking out over her skin in a pattern that he suspects has more to do with his attention than any chill.
“Don’t tease me, Kate,” he warns, trailing his fingertip over the top of the water. “Unless you want me to climb in there with you.”
She grins, ducking back down until only her collarbones are visible above the rippling water. “I wouldn’t be averse to the idea.”
He doesn’t need telling twice, jumping to his feet with an enthusiasm that has her filling the small room with her laughter.
“Wait—Make yourself useful first.” She nods to the small table at the foot of the bath. “Fetch the soap.”
“As my lady commands.” He wanders over, examining the pile of freshly unwrapped cakes her maid was arranging before he unceremoniously sent her from the room. “Do you have a favourite?”
He’s not facing her, but he can hear the smile in her voice when she says, teasingly, “Can you not guess?”
He jerks his head back to look at her — glorious woman, stretched out in the crystal clear water like a goddess, her thighs brushing together as she shifts under the heat of his gaze — and his jaw unhinges as the realisation washes over him. “The lilies? That is your soap?”
Her only answer is an enigmatic smile and a soft, humming laugh when he begins examining the soaps like a man possessed. They all smell clean and sweet — one is rose, he thinks, and there’s another that vaguely reminds him of some other flower he can’t quite place, and then … “This one,” he says, his eyes damn near rolling back into his head as he inhales the familiar, soft scent that’s haunted him for months.
“When I die,” he murmurs, turning back to look at her, “tell them to bathe my body with this before they lay me out.”
It’s only when he sees tears flood her eyes that he realises what an odd, appalling thing that was to say.
For a long moment she doesn’t answer him, just watches him with such quiet, careful understanding that he forgets to be sorry for saying it.
“You shall have to leave written instruction,” she says at last, dashing beneath her eye. “Because I intend to die at the same moment you do. In your arms in that bed next door, when we are both tremendously old and grey.”
It’s a pretty picture, in a morbid sort of way. And for the first time in his life, he thinks he might even believe it will come to pass.
“Now get in the bath,” she says firmly, beckoning him with an impatient wave of her hand. “We have a great deal of living to do before we die.”
He smiles at her blunt, stubborn instruction, his wayward thoughts successfully halted. He sheds his banyan on the way back towards the bath, bringing the soap back up to his nose as he goes. It isn’t quite the scent as he knows it, its sweetness untouched by the warmth of her skin. She is the missing element, the alchemy that transforms this ordinary, everyday scent into a siren call for his soul.
“Now who is staring?” he murmurs when he catches her wide eyes on him.
She shrugs, sending a little ripple over the bathwater. “My husband, my prerogative.”
That word on her lips — husband — quickens the last of his steps. It’s a large tub, but hardly designed for two, and he manages to overflow the water a little in his enthusiasm to get in.
“Careful,” she warns through a laugh, watching water soak into the carpet. “The maids will think I am a clumsy bather.”
“My darling, one of the maids saw me enter this room and slam the door closed behind me.” He settles his body behind hers, ducking forward to kiss her heated cheek. “They all know full well you are not bathing alone this morning.”
“Still…” she grumbles half-heartedly, shifting slightly to get comfortable as she settles herself between his spread thighs.
“Keep moving like that and we won’t be bathing at all,” he warns, clamping a hand on her hip to keep her still.
“Again? Already?” She leans back against him, humming a laugh. “You are insatiable.”
“You are beautiful,” he says, by way of explanation. “And your naked backside is pressed against my lap for the second time this morning. I am only human, Kate.”
She takes pity on him then, stopping her wriggling in favour of taking the soap from his hands and dipping it into the water, working it between her hands to make a lather. The scent of lilies releases into the steamy air in a burst of sweetness, shooting a bolt of desire straight to his groin.
“Wait,” he says, peeling her fingers back from their grip on the soap before she can touch it to her skin. “Allow me?”
She doesn’t object, doesn’t say anything in fact, just swallows hard and lets him take over, leaning her weight back against him as he begins to drag the slick bar up the length of her arm. She barely breathes as he works it gently over the soft skin inside her elbow, then up along the edge of her collarbone, where she tilts her neck to allow him easier access. He ducks forward, sucking a slow, gentle kiss to the skin there, before replacing his lips with the soap, a slow, careful pass that has her breath releasing in a tiny gasp.
When he’s washed away the lather, he moves to her other side, nudging her head with his to encourage her to tilt her chin again, letting him repeat the pattern. He buries his head in the joint of her shoulder, inhaling the intoxicating scent — perfectly formed now, lilies and the warmth of her skin — as he works down her other arm, washing slow, gentle circles on the inside of her elbow, over the pattern of his name at the edge of her wrist.
“You’re sure it won’t wash off?” he says, encouraging her to dip her hand into the water to wash the soap away.
She rolls her fingers, the design flickering in and out of view beneath the milky water. “It may fade a little, that’s all.”
He nods against her, moving his attention to her chest, circling the slowly decreasing circle of soap over her navel, up her sides, along the soft, gentle curve beneath her breasts. She lets out the quietest, tiniest sigh as he circles her breasts, spreading the slick soap with one hand, his other hand repeating the motion with nothing but his fingertips.
“Anthony…”
“Shh,” he whispers against her neck, “I’m busy.”
It takes everything in him not to roll his hips, not to stand up and carry her next door, both of them dripping and drenched in the bathwater. He can almost see the mark on their bedsheets, the water-stained outline of her body pressed into the white cotton, the damp path of his footsteps marked into the floor.
His hand shaking with the effort of his restraint, he moves the soap to her legs, running his hand over one trembling thigh and then the other, feeling her shudder as he curves his fingers underwater at her knee, pressing the soap into the soft skin inside her thigh before washing it away.
“Enough,” she says, closing her hand over his before he can move down her calf. “My turn.”
“But—”
“My turn.” She takes the soap from his nerveless fingers, rolling it between her hands until the lather froths over her fingertips.
It’s absurd, appalling really, to find that so fucking attractive.
She leans her body back into his, working the soap up one of his arms, humming in satisfaction as the lather covers the fine hairs on his forearm. She continues her path blindly, reaching over her shoulder towards his, clumsily finding his collarbone, then his neck. By the time she repeats the torture on his other arm, he’s almost painfully hard at her back, trying to hold himself away from her so she doesn’t feel the pressure too insistently.
“It’s all right,” she says, as if she can sense the honourable path of his thoughts, and doesn’t care for it. She presses back against him with a sigh. “I like knowing how much you want me.”
“Christ, Kate…” He breathes the words into her neck, watching as she moves her hands to his legs, the soap almost slipping from her fingers as she circles his knee.
She seems to spend an inordinate amount of time on that one spot, testing the shape with her fingertips around the cake of soap.
“What?” he says, his voice hoarse, as she repeats the same attention on his other leg.
“Nothing,” she says, moving on to his shin. “I have just never really seen your knees before.”
That odd, sweetly curious comment surprises a laugh out of him. He ducks his head, pressing a kiss to her collarbone. “You are a strange woman, Kathani Sharma.”
She nudges her elbow back into him, tutting softly. “Kathani Bridgerton.”
It’s hardly the first time he has heard it, or thought it, but something about hearing her new name on her lips, whispered through a smile, the soft breath of her laughter on his neck and her warm skin on his and that maddening, perfect scent all over them both … his restraint dissolves like soap in the damned bathwater.
“Up,” he says suddenly, taking the soap from her fingers and blindly dropping it onto the stool beside the bath. “Out.”
“What?”
“There’s not enough space in here for me to do what I want to do to you,” he says, his hands washing the last of the lather from her skin in slow, careful motions, entirely at odds with the urgency in his voice. “So—out.”
“But…” It’s a false, half-hearted sort of argument, purely to torment him, he knows. “What if I was enjoying my bath?”
“You can get back in when we’re done,” he promises mindlessly, catching her breasts in his hands and rolling her nipples until she collapses her head back against him, her breath caught on a whimper.
“The water will be cold,” she whines, somehow still maintaining the thread of their conversation.
“No it won’t,” he says, ducking one hand beneath the water to press his palm between her thighs, hard and firm until she bucks into the touch. “I’ll be so fucking quick.”
It’s hardly the most romantic of propositions, and not the sort of promise a woman would usually welcome, but something about his desperation — or the shock of the curse on his lips — seems to transfer a little of the same wildness to her, making her rock back against him in the water, sending a wave sloshing over the side of the tub.
He stands up, bringing her with him in one motion and lifting her out of the tub to stand beside it. He falters slightly then, all his urgency replaced by the need to stand there stock still and stare at her for one, two, three heartbeats, then another, then a dozen.
She’s an utter vision, stark naked and glistening in the middle of the sun-filled dressing room, her eyes wild on his, her chest heaving with every breath, matching him pant for pant. He quickly knots a towel around his hips and then reaches for his abandoned banyan, throwing it around her shoulders and using the leverage of the sides to pull her into his arms, groaning when her body collides with his.
He’d leave her bare if he could, permanently if he had any say, but somewhere in the back of his lust-addled mind he maintains a shred of honour, and the vague ability to remember that it’s September.
“I don’t want you to get cold,” he says, rubbing the tops of her arms as he walks them backwards towards the chaise in the corner of the room.
“I’m not cold,” she promises, her breath coming short and fast, her bright eyes fixed on his with the sort of hunger he used to dream about seeing there.
She kisses him then, her soft, wet mouth stealing the last of his sanity. A low, useless sort of groan catches in his throat as she licks along his jaw, down the side of his neck, catching the droplets of water from the bath.
“I can taste the soap,” she grumbles, undeterred from her path. “You did not let me wash it off you properly.”
He sits her down on the edge of the chaise, dropping to his knees on the carpet before her. “Let me see if I cleaned it off you enough.”
Clever woman that she is, Kate doesn’t need much more encouragement to open her legs for him, letting him duck his head to taste the skin at the inside of her thighs.
“Perfect,” he announces, lifting up to kiss her hip, her side, her stomach, his hand gently encouraging her to lie back on the chaise.
The banyan falls open as she sprawls across the velvet, her glistening skin shining in the morning light. He sits back on his haunches, devastated by the sight of her. She’s perfect. Utterly, heart-stoppingly perfect. And as he looks at her, trusting and beautiful and smiling up at him like he’s her favourite thing to see, he has one of those strange, piercing moments of clarity where he knows he’ll remember this precise moment for the rest of his days.
So he tells her so.
“I’ll never be able to sit here without thinking of this,” he tells her, leaning forward to suck a slow, deep kiss just above the swell of her breast. “Of you.” He works his way back down her body, his tongue following the droplets of water he didn’t manage to dry off with his robe. “When you are dressing in your finest gown,” he goes on, circling her navel with his tongue, “with my jewels around your throat, and I’m sat here waiting for you, I’ll remember this moment and I’ll have to send your maid away.” He nudges her legs wider, inhaling the scent of soap and sex, his eyes rolling back in his head. “You are going to make us late for so many parties, Kate.”
“Me?” Her protest whimpers away when he puts his mouth on her, her hips bucking wildly up from the chair.
He slings a hand up over her hip, holding her in place. He means to be slow, careful, still mindful of how sore she might be, after last night and this morning. As much as he wants to sink into her, to feel her legs around his hips and her nails in his back, he holds back, promising himself he’ll only make her feel good, just like this, just once.
But his wife, it seems, is not interested in careful.
The slow, gentle strokes of his tongue don’t seem to satisfy her, leaving her writhing against his mouth, begging for something more. “Please, Anthony—”
“Easy,” he says, brushing his thumb over her as he leans back to look at her. Her face is flushed, her hair wild around her face, and he loves her so much it hurts. “I’ll get you there, Kate. I promise.”
“But—”
“Trust me.”
She whimpers her acquiescence, her protests slowly replaced by sighs as he works her carefully, watching for every hitch of breath, every tremble in her thigh that says what she likes, what she wants.
It’s as much for him as for her, this slow, careful dragging out of the moment. The whole room smells like lilies and her and he thinks he could live and die here, on his knees before her, and call it a good, worthwhile use of a life.
By the time she comes apart on his tongue he’s shaking with her, one hand buried beneath his own towel while his other hand holds her still and low on the chaise.
He sits back on his heels to watch her come back to earth, still half-heartedly stroking himself, his own needs momentarily forgotten in the face of how beautiful she looks — all sated and flushed, her sweat-slicked skin still damp from the bathwater.
When her eyes drop to the parted centre of his towel, she licks her lips, the unconscious little movement scrambling what intellect remains in his brain. She sits up, moving slightly to make space for him between her thighs.
“It’s all right,” he says, shaking his head. “We don’t need to—”
“But—”
“This was for you, not me, Kate.” He stands up, drawing the banyan back up around her shoulders. “Don’t worry, it’ll pass in a moment.”
She pouts a little, frowning as he tightens the knot of his towel. “I don’t like leaving you … unsatisfied.”
“I am more than satisfied, my love.”
“It does not look like it.”
“I’ll take care of myself while you finish your bath.” Her eyes flare with interest, stopping him in his tracks. “You can even watch if you like,” he adds, before he can think better of it.
“I could,” she agrees, her lips parting as her tongue darts out to wet them. “Or I could help...”
“You— you could,” he says, his interest poorly masked. It burns in his voice, turning it rough, hoarse. “If you like…”
“I confess, I’ve wondered what it would be like…” She reaches for him, her nimble fingers slipping the towel off his hips. “To put my mouth on you.”
A ghost of a smile flits over her face. And his knees nearly give out beneath him.
True to his promise, the bathwater is still warm when they clamber back into it to wash off.
It’s over embarrassingly quickly.
“Smugness does not become you,” he grumbles, dipping a cloth into the water.
She grins back at him, delicately touching a finger to the edge of her lips. “Liar.”
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