Chapter Text
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Heathcliff had moved so swiftly through the darkness that she had not heard him until he was on top of her, his hand over her mouth. She was alarmed but grateful for it, for she had yelped in surprise when she’d felt his weight on her back. She doubted Joseph and Zilla would’ve heard her, though. The slapping and grunting from below was far too loud.
A moment passed, and with it, her vision. She felt the warm, heavy weight of his fingers settle over her eyes, holding her face in his two hands easily. His body pressed against hers, and she felt her stomach press hard against the floor of the loft.
Catherine struggled to keep her breathing even. She blamed it on Heathcliff pressing her into the floor, her lungs unable to take a deep breath, although she knew that was not the reason why. It was all too much. It was entirely too much. The sounds from down below, Heathcliff’s warm weight on her body, pushing her deep into the floor. His hands across her face. His breath at her ear. His silence.
The tickle she had felt in her abdomen, spying on Joseph and Zilla, was unfurling itself lower and lower in her body. A pulsing, thrumming chord slung between her hips. A hunger.
She was paralyzed by it, and if Heathcliff hadn’t been rendering her body immobile, she was not sure she’d be capable of moving. She was in a trance, deprived of sight and the ability to speak, forced to listen to the carnal sounds of lovemaking, to feel Heathcliff.
The heat of his bare chest seared through the thin fabric of her nightgown. She was being burned alive, boiled from the inside out. Powerless to stop it. With Heathcliff atop her and a fire in her pelvis, licking up her ribs, she was ablaze.
She wiggled underneath him, attempting to find a more comfortable position, a way to relieve the tension. As if she could put any space between herself and Heathcliff. She could not. He held her firm, and she heard him grunt softly in her ear when she shifted her hips. A sharp exhale of breath against her ear. Hot, damp. Kindling to the flames that roared inside her. Could he feel her, burning underneath him?
“Do not move.” His lips tickled her ear, and her hackles rose, his voice sending a shiver down her spine.
Catherine could feel him. A firmness, pressing against the back of her thigh. It was impossible to ignore, and impossible for him to conceal as they hovered above Zilla and Joseph. If they moved, the loft would surely creak, and they would be discovered. Catherine was not sure which was a worse torture- to be discovered by Joseph and Zilla, or to be subject to a single minute more of this, pinned with Heathcliff above her and Joseph and Zilla underneath her.
Heathcliff shifted above her, clearing his throat just barely, trying to take some of his weight off of her. He knew that she felt it.
She wanted to look at him. She needed to look him in the eyes. She wanted to see it, to confirm that he hungered for her the way that she did for him. She wanted to look him in the eye, to see the flames that burned in her reflected in his gaze.
She turned her head slowly, just an inch, all that she was able to with Heathcliff holding her face so firmly. She turned her head toward where she knew he was, where she’d heard his voice and felt his breath. Catherine could sense him just there, over her shoulder, and tilted her head slowly until she felt her temple rest against his forehead, his nose press against her cheek. She was not sure what she was doing, only that she could not think. She could not think with Heathcliff so close to her, with the sounds floating up from below, sounds of harder, faster, please, yes, and sounds that were not words at all, cries, moans, whimpers that were pulled from the deepest parts of the body. Catherine was terrified, but she knew that she wanted more.
Heathcliff pressed his nose into her cheek, mashing his face against hers so hard it nearly hurt. His breath, she realized, was coming as hard and shallow as hers was. Parting her lips under his hand, she poked her tongue out, running it against his fingers, against the tender inside of his knuckles. He inhaled sharply, grasping her jaw harder in an instant, holding it shut. As if in protest, she rolled her hips back, what little she was able.
“Stop, Cathy.” His words were whispered harshly through clenched teeth. She did not want to stop. She did not know what she wanted or how to get it, only that she could not remain in this state, burning and aching.
The moans from downstairs escalated even louder than before, and just when Catherine was sure that she would die, they ceased. The barn fell quiet, and Catherine, still unable to see, strained her ears, listening to the clinking metal of the bridle being put away, Zilla’s giggles, the rustling of fabric pulled back into place, footsteps as they faded into the night.
The silence that crashed down on them was suffocating, and Catherine’s body jerked reflexively, beginning to panic. What on earth was she doing? What had infected her body? Her mind?
Mortification threatened to drown her, and she whimpered into Heathcliff’s hand. Slowly, he pulled his face back from hers, his hands following.
Catherine wished she would die. She wished she would evaporate straight into the floorboards. She kept her head straight, not looking at Heathcliff. She could not. Her shame was too great. The desire that pulsed through her was still far too strong.
“Let me go,” She cried, her voice pitching as she thrashed her body. She was a wild, savage thing, an animal caged. She would chew her own leg off to free herself of this. To save herself from this madness.
“Cathy,” Heathcliff shifted his weight off of her, but when she slid out from under him, skittering to get her knees underneath her to be able to stand, he grabbed her shoulder, flipping her onto her back and pinning her.
“Let me up, Heathcliff!” Her eyes watered and she squirmed under him, beating at his chest.
His face hovered over hers, his nose brushing hers, his palm planted next to her head. She screwed her eyes shut rather than look at his face. Whereas before, she was desperate to meet his eyes, to see if desire burned in him as it did in her, now, she was terrified that the rawness of it would be too much to bear.
“Open your eyes, Cathy,” His voice was soft above her, patient. She kept them closed, sucking air in through her teeth, willing her heart to slow down, clawing for any sense of composure that she could.
She waited an unknown number of heavy, bloated seconds before finally peeling her eyes open. Looking at him for the first time that night.
Catherine gasped at what she saw, her lips parting. Heathcliff’s gaze was open, clear, an ocean of desire swirling in his eyes. Desire, temptation, lust, love. For her. The power of it, the depths of his dark, molten eyes made her skin buzz. The fire in her belly blazed on, pulsing between Heathcliff’s torso and the floor.
He held her gaze, unflinching, blanketing every one of her senses in Heathcliff. Heathcliff. Heathcliff.
She was certain that he could feel her heart slamming against her skin where their chests were pressed together, but abruptly, his weight was gone from her. She missed it instantly.
Heathcliff had sat back on his heels, peeling himself off of her. Bare-chested, she could see his muscles ripple as he heaved in breaths. Lower, she could see the bulge of him.
He had never taken his eyes off of her, but he made no further movements. He was letting her go, she realized. He was giving her the opportunity to flee. The opportunity that, just seconds ago, she had been so desperate for. Would have done anything for.
Catherine could not move. Her body was so heavy with want, with desire. She was disoriented, abuzz. Swallowing, she sat up, blinking, her hands planted on the floor just behind her, supporting her weight. She met Heathcliff’s eyes. They did not move. They did not speak.
And then something in Catherine cracked, and nothing in her was strong enough to hold herself back. She surged forward across the floor, her legs tangling in her nightdress, her hands threading through the hair at the base of Heathcliff’s neck as she dragged his face to hers, their mouths crashing together so hard that her teeth clacked.
He met her fervor, prowling forward when he’d only just pulled back. Before she knew it, Catherine’s back was to the floor again and he was over her. She could do nothing but kiss him, their tongues twining. His mouth was hot on hers, desperate, wanting. His own passion gave her permission to give into her own savagery. She did not need to mind herself with Heathcliff. Their intensities were but one.
When he rolled her hips down against her, their pelvises fitting together, she moaned into his mouth. Suddenly, the embarrassing sounds that Joseph and Zilla had been making were coming out of her own mouth. She didn’t know she was capable of making such a sound, but she was powerless to stop it. He rolled his hips again and she felt the length of him, pressing against her center through the layers of their clothes.
“Cathy,” Heathcliff’s voice was tight, restrained. She could feel the muscle in his jaw flutter where her hand rested. She knew what he meant. He meant to stop her, to give her the opportunity to leave. To slow them down before they self-destruct.
“Please” Cathy cried into his mouth, her babbling senseless. “I want- I want-“
She did not know what she wanted. She could not take the swell of desperation inside of her and put it into words, but Heathcliff seemed to understand.
She felt his hands come to her hips, his thumbs against her hip bones. Gripping her, hard, stilling her as he ground her hips down against her again.
And then, his hands were skating up her abdomen, slowly, as if waiting for her to stop him.
She did not stop him. She let his hands roam up further, over her breasts, his fingertips brushing over her nipples, the tight buds pebbling under his touch. As his hands kneaded her over her dress, his mouth dragged across her jaw, his tongue licking behind the shell of her.
Heathcliff was discovering new places in the body she had existed in all her life. He was dousing her in oil and setting her alight. And it felt so good to burn.
Catherine’s eyes were screwed shut, and she writhed underneath him, banging her head back against the floor in wild desperation. She felt one of his hands slide up her neck, her face, cupping her jaw and driving upward. Her head tilted back against the floor obediently, and she melted under his control as he directed her body where he wanted her, tilting her chin up to expose her neck.
His hand on her breast stilled, and he dragged open-mouth kisses across her throat, sucking at the tender flesh. Her own hands roamed, pressing into the muscles on his back, her palms flat against his hot, slick skin. Catherine was no longer thinking about what to do next. She no longer needed to think at all.
When she felt Heathcliff’s hand move from her breast down lower, toward the tender place between her legs, she froze momentarily, alarmed. She was suddenly afraid. It was too much, every part of her was too sensitive. She was afraid of what her own body was capable of; she was afraid of the feelings that Heathcliff could pluck from her.
“It’s alright, Cath,” Heathcliff murmured against her cheek, kissing her eyelids. His hand had stilled, his thumb brushing soothingly against her hip bone as she attempted to breathe. She knew, without question, that if she rolled away from him, if she stopped him right then, he would let her.
He was on top of her, but he was letting her control them.
“Do you want me to stop?” His voice was quiet, patient with her. She shook her head frantically against the floor. If he stopped right then, she would explode. She kept her eyes shut. She just needed a breath.
After a moment, she nodded, bringing her hands up to his cheeks to pull his mouth back to hers again, giving him permission to move his hand. She needed him closer. She wanted him deeper.
She felt the cool air of the night on her bare legs as he drew up the fabric of her skirt, high enough to reach under her dress. His hand brushed against her inner thigh, kneading the soft flesh gently as he circled his way higher.
When he pressed two fingers against her center over her underclothes, she cried out so loudly that she caught herself off guard, Heathcliff swallowing her whimper. She felt him smile against her mouth.
His fingers rubbed her, up and down, curling against her slightly, beckoning to the fire that raged within her. It was pressure exactly where she needed it, and she rolled her hips, trying to seek out as much friction as she could where she lay. The way he touched her was torturously slow.
There was moisture between her legs, so much arousal that she was certain Heathcliff could feel it through the fabric, feel the way the fabric stuck to her. She did not care.
His other hand slipped down under her skirt to the back of her thigh, lifting her knee up, spreading her open. When he let go of her leg, she let her knee fall open even further, and when his hand snaked up to her stomach and pressed back downward, his fingers meeting her naked core, Catherine saw stars.
Heathcliff’s fingers slipped through her, thick, stroking through her wet heat. Her abdomen fluttered, her muscles contracting almost painfully as he made tight, quick circles against the tight bundle of nerves, and she fisted her hands in his hair, needing something to hold onto. Something to anchor her to this earth, to hold her together so she did not burst into a million pieces.
“Cathy,” His fingers stilled, and she whimpered, canting her hips up, desperate for him to continue.
“You have to be quiet.” She nodded frantically, desperately. She’d do anything if he would only just keep going.
She’d been making an unholy number of noises, not in control of her own body in the slightest. Heathcliff was playing her body like an instrument, drawing forth whimpers and keens, a song of passion, of damnation, as Catherine lost her innocence right there on the floor of the loft. Fleetingly, she wondered how Zilla had been able to be so quiet earlier, compared to the sounds Catherine was making. But then Heathcliff’s fingers were moving again, and all thoughts left her brain.
His fingers roved lower, and when he dipped a single finger inside of her, she bit down on his lip. Her heart crashed against her ribcage at the sensation of him inside of her, probing out all of her soft places, exploring the deepest parts of her body, her soul. His finger crooked inside of her, and she arched up off the floor entirely, her shoulders driving into the wood, her chest driving up against him. He added another finger, slowly, and Catherine drowned in the feeling of her muscles stretching around him, of being full.
She wanted more. She panted against his cheek as he sucked and nipped at the skin of her neck while his hand worshipped between her legs. She wanted this to last forever. She was not sure she could survive her desire for much longer.
Her eyes flew open when he pulled his fingers out of her, drawing his hand out from under her skirt entirely.
“No, please, I-“ He could not leave her like this. She would surely perish; she would burn from the inside. She would die.
“I’ll not take you on the floor, Cath,” Heathcliff said by way of explanation, sitting up and drawing her up with him, cradling her to his chest. She was thankful for that, at least. Catherine did not trust her own legs to support her weight.
He pushed them through the curtain, dropping her onto his bed, pulling her legs until she was flat underneath him. She grinned, reaching for him, skating her tongue along his teeth, along the hot wet of his mouth. As she kissed him, she heard him pulling at the cord at the waistband of his pants, fumbling to undo the tie, shoving them down over his hips.
Suddenly, she was frightened. It was all unknown to her, and it scared her how badly she wanted it, all of it. Uncertainty and arousal crashed in waves against her ribcage.
She lifted her hips, letting Heathcliff drag her underclothes down her legs. She felt the moisture on the fabric stick to her ankle as he removed them completely. He left her nightgown like that, her skirt hiked up to her waist, leaning down to kiss her again. She stopped him, though, pushing against his chest enough to sit herself up, peeling the dress the rest of the way over her head.
And then she was bare.
Catherine was trembling as she lay back down. Before, she avoided meeting his eyes. Now, she could not look away. He was her center of gravity, the only steadiness she could find amid the riotous storm inside of her.
“Cathy,” His voice held only reverence for her as he settled on top of her, skin on skin. Their chests, their bellies, their legs, pressing together.
Heathcliff brought a hand up, brushing his fingertips against her cheek. His touch was so delicate. She felt breakable, a piece of porcelain in his hands. She knew he would not break her.
He reached down to arrange her legs, and she looped her arms around his neck.
“H-Heathcliff, have you ever-“
“No.” He pressed a kiss tenderly to her mouth, returning his hand between her legs, seeking out her opening again.
He slid a finger back inside of her, another. Slowly, he pumped them in and out of her, a rhythm that made her blood boil, that soothed the itch that was so, so deep inside of her.
She met his fingers with her hips, rolling them up hard, desperate to draw him deeper.
“Healthcliff,” She whimpered. Wanting, needing him.
He understood. He fumbled between her legs, and then he was there, hot and hard against her. Catherine drove her head back against the pillow, her eyelids fluttering open again.
She needed to see him.
“It will hurt you, Cath. The first time,” He said carefully, and she nodded, knowing. She took her bottom lip between her teeth and tightened her abdomen as she felt him line himself up and push against her entrance. She braced herself, although for what exactly, she did not know.
He was gentle with her. He was so controlled, his own body trembling over hers as he pushed into her, breaking past her resistance. She still cried out, feeling hot tears slide out of her eyes and into her hair.
Heathcliff kissed them away, his muscles trembling with restraint. He was a bow, quivering above her.
She felt as if she could not possibly take him any deeper, as if her body would split apart, and she panted with the effort. It hurt, burned through her pelvis in a way that was more pain than pleasure.
He held still, giving her time to adjust, to accommodate the size of him inside of her. To become familiar with the pain.
“Relax, Cath,” He said against her cheek, and she did. She tried to loosen her muscles, exhaling into the feeling, opening herself up to him.
He sank even deeper, filling her as she concentrated on filling her lungs with as much air as possible. Inch by tantalizing inch, her body gave way to him, as he pressed and kissed across her cheeks, to her mouth, her temple, her eyelids.
Cathy. Cathy. Cathy. He whispered her name into her skin, again and again and again. A whisper, a call, a prayer.
Gradually, the sharpness of her discomfort ebbed away, and she was left only with the fullness, the strange stretching that was not altogether uncomfortable anymore. Desire pulsed in her, alongside the pain, and as one faded, the other grew.
She tilted her pelvis up experimentally as he began to move his hips again, small, rocking movements, still tending to her with care.
The fire roared inside of her again, and as they found a rhythm, Cathy no longer wanted to be treated with care. She wanted to burn alive.
"Heathcliff."
He was everywhere. He was inside her body and in her mouth and pulsing through her veins and inside her mind.
Her hands stroked everywhere they could reach, his back, his ribs, his stomach, his neck. She wanted to leave no expanse of his skin untouched, and she reached down between their legs, circling him where their bodies joined.
Heathcliff grunted, his hips jerking against hers as he felt her fingers slide between them.
Now it was she who smiled against his mouth as she felt him, his heat, exploring the place where his body entered hers, her fingers roving. It was hot and wet and soft, both of them, and Catherine’s fingers were slick with her own arousal instantly. Her hand tripped across the bundle of nerves that Heathcliff had found earlier, and she yelped in surprise, her hips stuttering.
Clumsily, she tried to mimic his movements, quick circles against her skin, but his hand was there in an instant, closing around her wrist and pulling her hand back up.
He slowed his rhythm, scraping against the walls inside of her, dragging himself through her flames.
She tried to pull her hand away, inexplicably embarrassed at the moisture on her fingers, but he did not let her.
He brought her fingers to his mouth and, as he entered her, she entered him.
He sucked two fingers into his mouth, his tongue laving at her flesh, licking her clean. Cathy watched him do it, her jaw slack, her eyes burning with intensity, breathy moans coming out of her with each exhale.
She did not know she could hold such feelings, such sensitivity in two of her fingers.
He let her hand go, and she slipped it around his torso, needing the contact, wanting to touch him.
His hips increased their rhythm then, a steady cant that made their bodies knock together. The sound of their flesh meeting was feral and dirty and primal. Catherine liked it.
She felt something building inside of her. Deep, deep down, at the heart of her fire. She felt an unspeakable pressure, a tidal wave that could not be stopped, and she dug her nails into Heathcliff’s back as it built. She wanted to pull away from it, to shy away from the big, overwhelming feeling churning inside of her, but she also wanted to go toward it. More, more, more.
Heathcliff adjusted himself on top of her, and then she felt his hand, just where hers had been, at the top of her entrance. His fingers found the bundle of nerves again, and Catherine screwed her eyes shut. This, this was when she would surely die. She ground her teeth together, the pain in her jaw nothing to the arousal that coursed through her, her little keens and yips breaking through her teeth.
She was an animal in heat. A feral, wild, savage creature.
“Do you touch yourself, Cathy?” Heathcliff’s voice was right there, his face just above hers as his fingers worked through her core, as he kept up the rhythm of his hips. Stretching her, filling her with him. Him. Him.
“Do you think of me when you touch yourself?” He asked again and Catherine moaned loudly, despite herself, thrashing her head against the bed. It was too much. She could not answer; she would not answer. She would explode into a blaze of starlight instead.
“Oh God, ohgod,” She cried out, pressing the heels of both hands against her eye sockets, hard, making explosions of color erupt across her vision. As if she could burn any hotter, as if her skin could simmer any hotter than it was.
“Do you do it in the night?” Heathcliff’s tongue now, skating along her sweaty cheek. She could hear the tremor in his own voice, the way he struggled to keep his composure as he pumped his hips in and out of her. Again, again, again.
She did. She’d never known her body in the ways that he seemed to know her inherently, but deep in the night, when she was too bothered for sleeping, she’d slip her fingers through herself. Chasing something, but what, she did not know.
She would roll herself onto her stomach in the dark, line up the heel of her own hand, and rock. And while she tried to think of nothing at all, to think of no one at all, her mind always found him again. Heathcliff, Heathcliff, Heathcliff.
He shifted above her, using one of his hands to pull both of her wrists away from her eyes, away from her face so that he could kiss her.
“Tell me, Cathy,” He spoke into her mouth now, his fingers moving quicker. His voice, a command, stroked a chord somewhere deep inside of her.
The feeling inside of her grew impossibly larger, and she moved her hands up to his face, sliding her fingers through his hair and tightening her hold. She needed something to grasp, something to hold.
His tongue plunged into her mouth then, kissing her, the slick skin of his face pressed to hers, and she nodded, frantic, desperate. Obeying his command. Confessing. She did think of him. Gods, she did.
There was something there, something in his command, the way he told her what to do. She wanted him to do that again.
But she could not even form thoughts any longer as the feeling inside of her swelled and she cried out, partially in fear, as she tipped over the precipice, into the unknown. Her mind blanked out, and her body spasmed, her spine arching, her muscles contracting around Heathcliff inside of her, her muscles rigid and fatigued.
Catherine’s mouth was no longer moving against his, no longer properly kissing him. She was just holding still, crying out, her mouth open. Her mind was melted butter, she could not form words, could not make her lips move to kiss properly, could not quiet the carnal sounds that were spilling from her.
Heathcliff brought her further over the edge and fell with her. She felt it inside of herself, the warm liquid unfurling in her. The way his muscles spasmed on top of her, and yet he did not stop, canting his hips again and again and again, drawing out the explosion. His body undulating over hers in the middle of their blaze.
She heard him cry out, a sound different from the grunting she had been hearing. It was something more intimate, pulled from a deeper place within him. Catherine wanted to hear it again. She wanted to swallow the sound, to eat it, to carry it in her belly, to let it sink into her veins and pulse there, forever, flowing through the vessels of her heart.
All at once, it had ended, the terrifying, dizzying feeling inside of her ebbing away slowly. She came back to herself in pieces, aware of her body. Heathcliff had settled on top of her, warm and heavy. Their chests were heaving, both of them, and she opened her eyes hesitantly, blinking.
A feeling of embarrassment was creeping in, but he was right there, his eyes meeting hers. It was almost impossible, she was sure, but the devotion she’d seen in his eyes earlier had somehow multiplied tenfold. He was looking at her as if she were something from another world. As if she were a saint. Precious. Holy. A treasure.
He reached between them, and she whimpered as he slid out of her carefully, her entire body an oversensitive, raw, pulsing thing.
She should get up and go back to her room. Where was there to go from here? Would they wake up with the light and forget that this happened? Forget that Heathcliff, her Heathcliff, had existed inside of her? Had dragged against her most secret place?
Catherine’s mind started to spin. She’d never be able to face him in the day. She couldn’t sit at the table with him, look at him, not after the things he had seen, the parts of her, the sounds he had heard her make. The shame of it was too great.
She shifted underneath him, averting her eyes and pushing at his chest, suddenly frantic to go. To escape. As if what they weren’t just doing was intimate enough, something about this, about him looking at her like that, as they lay naked together, was far too much for her. The caged animal feeling returned.
“Don’t, Cathy,” Heathcliff said, an immovable wall atop her, despite the fact that she was pushing in earnest. Her muscles felt heavy and liquid in the aftermath.
“Please, don’t run from me.” He spoke again, his voice softer, almost begging. She realized that it was just as vulnerable for him. That he was as raw and open as she was. That maybe he, too, was embarrassed.
He crawled off of her slowly, and she did not move. She watched him, propped up on her elbows, feeling bashful to look at his naked body, even in the aftermath of what they’d done. He moved about the room, tugging his pants back on. He held a rag in his hand and moved glacially slow, as if he was afraid she’d dart away if he moved too quickly. A startled animal.
She did not move, and he gently, so gently, crouched over her, bringing the rag up to wipe the sticky, cold moisture between her legs. She whimpered, still sensitive despite how careful he was being.
It was mortifying, how wet she was, but Heathcliff did not flinch, did not think anything of it. He discarded the rag somewhere in the darkness and lifted the puddle of her nightgown from where it had been discarded on the floor. Her underclothes. Handing them back to her, letting her sit up and right herself, pulling her nightgown over her head and her underthings up her legs.
For all the times she called him a brute, he was acting as a perfect gentleman.
Heathcliff, bolstered by the fact that she was still in his bed and had not immediately bolted, crawled back over her, hovering over her body instead of resting on top of her. He pressed feather-light kisses to her hairline, her temple, her nose, her mouth. There was nothing urgent about them, there was no pressure in his mouth. They were soft, tender. Sweet, even.
He shifted off of her, lying on his side, slinging a hand around her waist and tugging her into him, fitting his body against her. She let him do it.
As he pulled the blankets up over them, she turned on her side to face him, her head tucked into the crook of his neck, her forehead pressed against his skin. She could feel him everywhere; she could smell him. Their bodies fit together, both of them heavy and pliant and exhausted from their lovemaking. She felt so small against him. Safe against him.
She let her eyes flutter shut.
“Stay with me, Cathy,” Heathcliff’s voice was weighted, sleepy.
Catherine stayed.