He looked up from the long list of orders in front of him when the knock sounded. The butler entered, taking away the speedily diminishing stump of wax that had been a slim, long candle a couple of hours ago when he had started his evening's work. Replaced with a fresh one and re-lit, the room increased somewhat in brightness. At his distracted nod of dismissal, the butler closed the door behind him, leaving John Thornton alone with hours of paperwork and a very overwrought, distracted mind.
After a few more minutes of trying to exercise that self-discipline and finish the sums of Marlborough Mills' accounts, his head was throbbing. He loosened the silk black cravat and rolled up the sleeves of his crisp white shirt. Was it stifling in his office or was it just him? It certainly didn't help that everytime his eyes glazed over and his clean, masculine handwriting blurred in his vision, Margaret Hale's face loomed in his mind.
Her large, reproachful blue eyes... those plump, full lips... that porcelain white throat... He cleared his throat and stood to open the window a crack. However, the freezing Milton October air whistled in immediately, and he shut it again. His trousers were a little too tight for him to pace, so he sat back down at his desk, thoughts chaotic and focused a little too intensely for comfort.
How many times had he been barely an inch away from pressing that woman, that frustrating, headstrong, irresistable woman to the wall and nuzzling her neck, kissing and licking her shoulders...
With a moan, John Thornton leaned back in his chair and reached down with one hand, unbuttoning his trousers. Taking his painfully stiff member out, he imagined Margaret, chest heaving, crushed between his body and the wall.
With expert touches, he teased himself. He was, after all, a man in his prime who had been single all his life; a man who had a man's needs.
He closed his eyes as he imagined her smell - it was always a pleasant mixture that tugged at his senses; one of lavender and a musty smell - books? Ah no, that was it; lavender and ink.
A beautiful flush on her pale face, she tries to lean away but her body presses itself closer. "Please, Mr. Thornton, I - " she stutters, closing her eyes in surrender as he pins her arms to the wall behind her with his hands.
"You, Miss Hale?" He asks lazily, concentrating on showering the tops of her breasts, peeking out of her bodice, with light kisses.
"I - " She presses her head back and the pose makes her chest move outward towards his welcoming lips. "I need... you..."
Her sigh turns into a gasp as he bites her neck gently then kisses the spot. One hand releases its iron grip on her wrist and moves down, under her skirt, and feels its way to her centre of need.
She grabs a fistful of his dark hair and moans, lifting a leg to wrap around his waist, so wanton yet so pure...
Her soft brown hair is coming loose from its bun from rubbing up between his body and the wall, both of their breathing shallow, his hand is caressing her to ecstasy... and the look on her face; the look on her face is so uninhibited, so surrendering, so helpless...
Three sharp raps on the door jerked him out of his state of bliss. The dark, stuffy room came slowly into focus. He was sweaty and the room unbearably hot. In a trance, he hurriedly buttoned his trousers and reached up to the window behind him and propped it open.
Sitting back at his desk, breathless and out-of-sorts, he shuffled some papers around until he could trust his voice not to waver.
"Come in," he said, trying and failing to add a brisk irritability to the hoarsely-delivered words.
After excuses were made to the clerk who had come to collect the papers he should have completed an hour ago, he was once again alone in his office.
Running a hand through his disheveled hair, his thoughts turned to Margaret, but this time with longing and self-loathing. Her opinion of him was probably completely unsalvagable - and he knew he didn't deserve anything better than that. He should have taken her rejection in his stride, and not acted the part of the man who had moved on. Because God knew he was nowhere near moving on.
Standing up wearily, he turned to the window, letting the cold air bite into him, hoping the wind would clear his mind. All he got, however, was a hint of lavender and ink in the air.