"None of your alibis, Madam Librarian," Harold said sternly. "I'm going to have to teach you a lesson."
"Is that so?" she asked with a defiant smirk.
For a moment, Harold was too captivated to reply – with her pink cheeks and tousled hair, Marian looked delicious enough to eat.
The librarian's smile widened, as if she was well aware of the effect she was having on him. "Well, what's it going to be, Professor Hill?" she challenged.
As he gazed at his unrepentant wife, Harold was suddenly struck with the perfect idea. With a naughty grin, he leaned closer to her and said in his low, velvety voice, "I am going to bring you inside… take you upstairs… remove your clothing… and kiss you wherever a snowball hit me."
XXX
The moment Marian coyly indicated her acceptance of his planned course of action, Harold swept her up in his arms and ushered her inside. The warmth and light of the front hall provided a welcome respite from the bitter chill of the winter air and, after pausing to remove their wet coats and drape them near the radiator, Harold captured his wife in another embrace and bathed her forehead and nose and cheeks and the tips of her ears with kisses until they were no longer pink with cold.
Marian laughed and nestled closer to him. "I don't recall hitting you with a snowball in any of those places."
"I did mention I'd make an exception for certain areas, Madam Librarian," Harold reminded her with a wink. "And I won't have you catching frostbite."
She gave him a sly smile. "A rather unorthodox preventative measure, don't you think, Professor Hill?"
He grinned. "You're right. I think what you need is to be taken to bed for the rest of the night."
As Marian let out a scandalized but gleeful laugh, Harold swept her into his arms and carried her upstairs.
XXX
But when they crossed the threshold of their bedroom and broke their embrace in order to attend to the more mundane but necessary details of preparing for bed, Harold's mirth suddenly and inexplicably died away. The light was dimmer and the air was chillier here, and he shivered when the soaked fabric of his trousers brushed against his ankles and lower legs as he bent over to untie the laces of his shoes.
Marian, too, seemed to have grown oddly reticent. When Harold placed her on their bed and began to unlace her boots, she didn't gaze up at him with her usual invitation and longing – she averted her eyes as shyly as if she were a maid on her wedding night.
Instead of excusing himself to disrobe, as he normally would have, Harold climbed right into bed next to his wife and wrapped his arms around her. "I love you, Marian," he said solemnly.
She smiled – though her eyes still didn't meet his. "I love you too, Harold."
"I would never do anything to make you uncomfortable, darling," he whispered, his lips brushing her ear in the gentlest of kisses. "About our snowball fight earlier… what I said… and what you answered… if you have any reservations, all you have to do is say the word."
Marian finally looked at him and, though the excitement in her expression was tempered with apprehension, she steadily replied, "I trust you, Harold."
Harold should have been thrilled, but he felt a strange sense of trepidation. Immediately muzzling that odd sensation, he gazed at his wife with a self-assured grin. "Nice and slow," he promised.
Marian gave him a shaky smile in return. "Nice and slow," she echoed.
Reaching for the fastenings on the front of her blouse, Harold deftly undid them, slipping a sleeve down her arm until her left shoulder was exposed. Leaning down, he brushed his lips against her smooth skin. "That's the first spot a snowball landed."
She let out a nervous giggle. "Indeed."
Easing Marian into a sitting position, Harold removed her blouse and, starting with her right arm and working his way to her left, gently kissed from her shoulders to her wrists. "A snowball or two hit me there," he said in his low, velvety voice.
Marian nodded, and her eyes fluttered shut as his fingers found the laces of her corset. Once Harold had removed all her undergarments, he trailed his mouth along her naked back. "Several snowballs landed here… "
"Indeed," she said again – only this time, she had relaxed into his arms and her breath was coming in panting gasps.
Turning his attention to the clothing below Marian's waist, Harold began to remove her skirt, drawers and stockings – pausing every so often to kiss his way along her upper body. By now, he was no longer explaining himself, and she was unhesitatingly enjoying his caresses. But Harold continued to move at what was for him a glacially slow pace. It wouldn't do to frighten his beloved.
The problem with going nice and slow was that sometimes, it gave a man too much time to think. As Harold undressed his wife, teasing and tickling her with his lips and murmuring heated words against her bare flesh, he had plenty of time to think about just what was in store for them this evening.
Since the act had to do with lovemaking it was a skill Harold had made sure to learn, and he learned it well. But if truth be told, he had never much enjoyed doing it. And it certainly wasn't something he offered to just anyone. In the course of a con, Harold would sooner have made love to a woman than go to town on her – as Benjamin Franklin famously said, if a man covered certain parts of an old and a young woman with a basket, there wasn't much difference in the way they looked. And in any case, it was easy enough to close one's eyes and imagine what one liked while doing the deed. While Harold could still close his eyes, there was nothing he could do to get around the taste of a woman. Somehow, he found it far more intimate than lovemaking, to know a woman's most secret areas in this way. The scent and feel of it wasn't something a man could easily forget as he boarded the train to the next destination, and anything that made a woman harder to leave behind – especially a woman to whom he had been genuinely attracted – was a liability for Harold.
And when one got right to the heart of the matter, there was something unsettlingly vulnerable about having one's head in a woman's lap. Harold always preferred to be on the top in any situation, and lovemaking was no exception. But here a man was on display, being watched and judged on his ability to perform. He usually gloried in the attention of an audience, but this was one of those rare instances where he would have preferred to work unobserved. Although Harold prided himself on his abilities in this arena as much as he did anywhere else, he had been gazed upon before with mocking eyes – and often by women who knew so little about good lovemaking that their opinions on the subject were absurd. Fortunately, this wasn't something a lot of women expected of him – especially innocent women.
Harold's lips, which were now meandering across his wife's abdomen, paused in their ministrations. Marian was an innocent woman, and innocent women didn't always take to the act. Physical intimacy was still quite new to her; she might be repulsed, which would set things back considerably. It was extremely important to Harold that Marian never be anything but delighted with their lovemaking; he meant to take things slowly with her, to gradually introduce her to the myriad pleasures that a man and a woman could share in the bedroom. They had only been married a week, and as yet Harold hadn't even attempted to show his wife the novelty of a position other than missionary. But now, thanks to his earlier recklessness, Marian was softly gasping in his embrace, sweetly ignorant of just what he had in mind as he trailed his mouth lower and lower down her naked body.
Despite his uncertainty, Harold felt duty-bound to continue. Once he had committed himself to a course of action, he was never a man to back down. Yet for a few uneasy moments he found himself hovering over his wife's navel, contemplating whether or not it would be wise to go any further at this early juncture in their relationship. Perhaps he should simply make love to her…
Come on, Hill! his mind taunted. Are you a man, or aren't you?
At one time, that would have been more than enough to goad him onward. But – as Harold firmly reminded that unpleasant voice – his pleasure wasn't the only thing that mattered anymore. And he truly was in a quandary about what would be best not only for Marian, but their fledgling relationship as well.
As Harold weighed his options, Marian reached down and, gently winding her fingers in his hair, confessed in soft whispers the depth of her longing for him. His thoughts scattering, Harold glanced up at his wife and saw that her eyes were still closed and her face was rapt with delight. His heart constricted at this unconscious demonstration of affection, and as Marian continued to caress him and murmur ardent words of adoration, Harold remembered just how much he wanted her – how much he wanted this. Driven solely by desire, he moved his lips to his wife's milk-white thighs and pressed heated kisses against them.
Just as he suspected might happen, Harold heard Marian's breath catch in her throat, and she lifted her head to look at him with avid, curious eyes. He paused once again. Before now, Harold had only ever kissed her above her hips; they had crossed another threshold. A moment of electric silence passed between husband and wife as they gazed at each other, contemplating this new territory.
"Just making sure I'm covering all the bases, Madam Librarian," Harold told her. "You did hit me with a lot of snowballs." He meant to say this in his low, velvety voice, but as he spoke his throat suddenly went dry, and what began as a devil-may-care flirtation ended in a hoarse and somewhat shaky rasp. Inwardly, he cursed himself for being so jittery. He was supposed to be the smooth and self-possessed husband, not a nervous teen awkwardly attempting to make love for the first time.
As ever, Harold's consternation had the unexpected but fortuitous effect of putting Marian at ease. "Your dedication to thoroughness is commendable, Professor Hill," she said with a smile, displaying the self-assured poise he couldn't seem to muster.
Bolstered by his wife's encouragement, Harold's usual confidence returned. With an impish grin, he resumed kissing her thighs. But instead of moving upward, he headed even further down her legs, smiling again when he heard Marian's soft "Tut!" of disappointment. But as he bathed her shapely calves and slim ankles in languid kisses, she resumed sighing in delight.
After bestowing a few teasing nibbles on her delicate toes, and chuckling at the charming giggles his attentions elicited, Harold started to work his way back up his wife's alluring legs. By the time he had reached the top of her thighs, Marian had curled her hands in his hair and was writhing against him, desperate for his touch. And Harold was just as desperate in his desire for her. He was so close now; the tantalizing scent of her arousal urged him forward. Yet he was still maddeningly deliberate in his pacing, approaching his destination slowly, even as Marian's moans took on a pleading note and she spread her legs wider to welcome him. And then finally – finally! – Harold was tasting her, learning the shape of her with his mouth and tongue, savoring the feel of her silky wetness and the way her thighs quivered against him as he deftly and lovingly coaxed her to climax.
In the past, there had been a few lovers with whom Harold had regularly kept company, women with similar views on life that he looked up every so often when he passed through major cities like Chicago and New York. He had delighted in dazzling them with all the new things he had learned in his travels, and they were the kind of women who appreciated such skills as well as enjoyed the opportunity to display their own talents. So those trysts had been a genuine pleasure. But even then, Harold was careful never to give too much; he gave only as good as he got, no more, no less.
Now, for the first time in his life – at least where lovemaking was concerned – Harold knew the pleasure of giving without expecting anything in return. For he was well aware it might be quite some time before the idea of reciprocation even crossed his wholesome wife's mind. Even though it was an idea that made Harold's pulse race faster when it crossed his mind, he was content to give Marian as long as she needed to become comfortable with their physical relationship. There was no real reason to rush things with her; after all, they had a lifetime together to explore passion's many delightful avenues.
Having to exercise such caution was one of the reasons Harold tended to shun affairs with the wide-eyed, wholesome, innocent female, but Marian's innocence was surprisingly refreshing. Despite her rather traumatic history with men, there was no cynicism in her lovemaking – she welcomed his caresses with her entire being, and warmly gave of herself in return. Perhaps that was why, to Harold's amazement and delight, his yearning for Marian had only deepened since their wedding night; the more he was with her, the more he wanted her.
As the clever movements of his lips and tongue brought Marian's moans to a crescendo of ecstasy and she writhed even more furiously against him, Harold felt an intense wave of longing course through his own body. But he ignored it for the time being; there would be plenty of time to satisfy his desires later. That was the wonderful thing about performing this act on a woman – if done properly, it merely whetted her appetite for more. So Harold persevered, and it was only when Marian's ecstatic cries tapered off into low whimpers and then deep, shuddery breaths that he finally lifted his head from her lap. Likewise, Marian raised her own head and opened her eyes. For a few heart-stopping moments, she simply gazed at Harold with an awed but enigmatic expression, and it seemed as though time had ground to a halt as he waited to see what her next move would be.
Giving him that inviting look he could never resist, Marian reached down and tugged on his arms. Harold eagerly and joyfully rose to meet his wife, sighing and then moaning in her arms as they moved together in an embrace that was more passionate and tender than any he had ever known.
XXX
Later, when they were wrapped in each other's arms and snuggled beneath their goose-down quilt, Harold turned to face his wife. He was immensely pleased to see that even now, after they had washed and dressed and prepared for bed, she was still in the same blissful haze as she had been when he first took her in his arms. "A penny for your thoughts, darling," Harold gently offered – though he was unable to contain a sly note of self-satisfaction from entering his voice.
But Marian, who was usually so quick to take him down a peg when he demonstrated such brazen confidence, didn't even notice. "Hmm," she said dreamily, "I was thinking I should throw snowballs at you more often."
At this, Harold began to laugh. Not his usual amused chuckle, but a full, rich belly laugh. He knew it wasn't the kindest of reactions, but he couldn't contain himself. And it felt too wonderful to stop. So he laughed as he hadn't laughed in years, until his stomach hurt and his eyes watered with tears.
As Harold gave full rein to his glee, Marian's cheeks crimsoned and she began to stammer a mortified apology. But she didn't get all that far before Harold caught her in his arms and covered her lovely face with affectionate kisses. "Oh, my dear little librarian," he gasped, still shaking with laughter, "you don't have to go to all that trouble for me to love you that way!"
His amusement was infectious; Marian began to laugh as well – which set Harold off again. At first, they both attempted to bring themselves back under control, and nearly succeeded in doing so on several occasions. But then their eyes would meet, and they'd both lapse back into uncontrollable laughter. Eventually, they surrendered to jollity and simply clung to each other, trembling helplessly with glee.
When their mirth was finally spent, Harold leaned in to brush Marian's ear with his mouth, his voice softening into tender sincerity as he whispered, "Marian… I'll love you any way you want."
At that, Marian looked at him with a coy but pensive expression. "And… how would you like me to love you, Harold?" she asked in a quiet voice.
Once again, Harold felt his heart constrict. For a brief, exhilarating moment, he considered telling her a few of the fantasies he had long held about the two of them. But as he looked into his wife's nervous but trusting eyes, he realized she wasn't ready for that just yet. So Harold simply pulled her close and replied, "Marian, the way you love me now is absolutely perfect." And the beauty of it was that he meant these words, he truly meant them.
Marian smiled, but her expression remained pensive, as if she knew he wasn't being entirely honest. But she didn't press the matter. Instead, she nestled closer to him and, with a contented sigh, closed her eyes.
And Harold knew he had made the right decision. After reaching over to turn off the light on her bedside table, he caressed his wife's honey-blonde locks until his own breathing grew as steady and deep as hers.