A/N: So, this is to be read between chapters 12 and 13 of The Silent Land, it turns out I can't stop won't stop with these missing (smutty) scenes. Thank you to the beautiful glass of chocolate milk who prompted me to do this. I so enjoyed writing it and I hope you enjoy reading it. The poem and title are from 'When I Shall Sleep' by Emily Bronte. Thank you to the gorgeous mrstater for the polish up.
No promised heaven these wild desires
Could all, or half, fulful;
No threatened hell, with quenchless fires,
Subdue this quenchless will!
"Oh God, Mary," he replied, his voice deep and tremulous. "It was not a mistake."
She felt the hard press of his lips against hers and for a moment she couldn't move, her hands slipping away from his back and moving around to reach up to his chest, her fingers fanning apart, as for a moment she thought she might push him away. The sensation that passed through her body was difficult to quantify but the closest she could come in that moment, as she let her mouth part against his, was that a great relief was washing through her, filtering through in degrees until she had the strength to break apart from him. Mary pulled back but Matthew held her fast against him and when she looked into his eyes a dull ache began in her chest as she recognized that expression, that hunger, and it frightened her. The past revisited on them in this moment, this single still moment, here in this room of all places. She believed him; she trusted him and Mary felt returned, resurrected to a place she thought she would never occupy again, to a pure and complete moment of peace. Almost. A chill traversed her spine and something of that peace was lost, a hairline fracture in the glass through which she watched this moment, almost as if she were outside of it.
"You would not take it back, if you could?"
"No," Matthew replied, his voice hoarse. "I would do it again."
And he was ashamed to say it, ashamed to think it, but the words came easily because they were the truth. It had been wrong and the guilt had so consumed him that he felt it had eaten away at his very soul, that it had chewed and stripped through his flesh until it reached the other side, and at the other side there was nothing, nothing but Mary, and what they had done, and still he did not regret it. They could not be saved, from themselves, from each other, it had been inevitable and now he felt the edges of his mind growing black once more, tightening and drawing inwards until all he could feel was Mary in his arms and the hopeless pull of a desire that would not die. He had left her behind on the station platform that day and he had said goodbye because it was the only way, it was what they had chosen, they had their chance and it was lost and somehow what they shared that stifling afternoon did not change that. He said goodbye and it was the end of everything, of her, of him, of their future, or else he could not have left, he could not have faced returning to France where only the promise of death, of pain lay ahead of him.
Except that death had not welcomed him. He had been missed, set aside – spared. He had been spared when he had been so prepared to die. As he used a broken spade and then his hands to dig a grave to bury what remained of one of his men, Matthew could not imagine in that moment that it had not been a dream, a cruel trick of the mind, designed to retain a part of him that wasn't sullied or malignant with war, to keep something aside that would still be his when he returned. Yet when he had returned, Lavinia had been waiting for him and he was numb, there was nothing tangible of the memory, there was no Mary and he felt as if he were leaving again, dangerously apart from the world even as his fiancée tugged at his hand. And he let her, he let her pull him back, so he could stay a little longer, to keep a little more of him intact before hell beckoned him once more. Mary must have her life, the new life that his farewell had provided her and Lavinia – Lavinia, she was all that was good and all he did not deserve, if there was any good in him he thought that she would hold it, retain it in her hands like water, then it would be released. It would seep almost imperceptibly through her fingers and when it fell it would disappear, there would be no blood to stain the earth when he was gone.
He could blame the war, the insanity, the sickness of it all. He could claim it had infiltrated his brain like a cancer but he could not justify what he had done, to Lavinia, to Mary, to himself. A torturous arousal curled inside his stomach and stretched in his chest beneath where her hands rested, their mouths barely touching, a tingle spreading across his bottom lip until he felt the overwhelming urge to lick it. His head throbbed and he felt light headed as he allowed himself to be consumed by the sensation of having her so close to him, so close after so very long.
"I thought I would never touch you again."
"Oh, Matthew," Mary said, closing her eyes, a breathless flutter in her throat.
"I'm so sorry," he said and his hands moved to close around her hips, his fingers digging in and sending a jolt across her stomach that made her gasp.
His lips hovered by her ear, his cheek pressed to hers and his warm breath tickled her cheek, sending a flush across her face.
"Do you think that's enough?" she asked, her heart drumming in her breast as she found she could not bear to look at his face. "Sorry?"
"No. I know that it is nowhere near enough." And he trembled slightly with the desire to take her face in his hands and kiss her again. "But it's all I have."
"Stop," Mary said and she prised his fingers from where they lay on her waist, drawing back so that she could see the darkening in his eyes. She could not do this. She was so very tired and she pressed her lips tightly together, shaking her head slightly as their fingers remained tentatively linked. "This can't be."
"I have spent six years telling myself that," he replied and Matthew found he couldn't let go of her hands even as he felt her seek to increase the space between them.
"Then what has changed?" Her brow creased and pain fell across her face in a shadow. "You can't kiss me and apologize and think it can all be mended, because it can't, Matthew! We are too broken!" She closed her eyes, tilting her face to one side away from him.
"Nothing has changed." His fingers tightened over hers and he moistened his lips. "And that is the point. Nothing ever changed for me."
"But you married Lavinia, Matthew, after what we did." Her heart seemed to contract painfully with each beat. "And you let me marry Richard."
It was Matthew's turn to close his eyes and the image was visited upon him, it swept through his body and turned him cold, churning inside his stomach and pushing further into every crevice until he was overcome by the thought and it sickened him. It burnt inside his throat as he imagined her in that white lace dress, the dress he had seen her wearing in photographs since the event. Mary so upright and poised but with an expression that looked beyond the camera, beyond the lens, as if rendered numb by the unreality of it, Richard at her side, her arm in his but her body ever so slightly inclined away. Mother had not thought, of course she hadn't, she had sent him the photograph along with one of herself and Robert at the wedding, and he had pulled the curtain across his bunk and lain very still for a moment. Then he had thrown the picture into the fire and watched whilst it grew brittle and black in the licking flames. Matthew had thought of the baby, his child, growing inside her as another man was touching her and he had wanted to vomit.
"What were you thinking?" he asked, his voice breaking. "In that moment, as you walked down the aisle."
"That I knew you wouldn't come," Mary replied.
Matthew released her right hand and reached to rest his fingertips against her cheek, so they shivered against her skin and the memory of his touch caused her to flinch even as she turned her face into it. She had clung to her father's arm and out of the corner of her eye she saw him glance at her, her grip tightening as they neared the altar. The ceiling of the church was high and the aisle wide but Mary had felt as if she were suffocating, as if every pair of eyes was watching the breath leaving her body as she was crushed. Everything was too tight, the dress, the corset, her heart. There was only one thought, Matthew, and she felt a pernicious numbness cascade through her, until she was hardly breathing as her father handed her to Richard.
"You have never come when I needed you," she said and his jaw tensed and tightened, he blinked and looked away for a moment and Mary did not want to hurt him but she needed him to know, to know something of what she had been through.
"Oh, Mary," his voice shook and he let go of her hand, his fingers slipping from her face as he passed his hand over his mouth, his face white. "I don't think that's fair. You said yourself that the situation was impossible, is impossible."
"So what are we doing here now?" she demanded, her voice higher than she intended, her hands open and tense at her sides, already a tingling guilt at what she had said crossing her brow.
"I once told you I could never hate you." And he found he had to know, he had to apply pressure to the wound, to deepen the pain, to be punished by her. "But did you despise me?"
He wanted her to say, yes. Yes, I hated you for what you did. He wanted her to punish him.
"How could I?" she whispered in reply. "When you gave me Teddy."
Matthew swallowed and his teeth were clenched so hard, the angle of his jaw stung. Mary fought the desire to cover her face with her hands and was looking directly into his eyes when he composed himself enough to look back at her.
"And how could I ever regret that?" he asked.
They fell together and the softness of his lips penetrated and dispelled every other thought. It was as if pulling apart would physically sever a connection that neither could survive without and this time Mary did not contemplate pulling away, pushing him from her. She wanted him closer, she wanted him to transport her back to that day, to everything they did that was wrong but which they couldn't and wouldn't change. She didn't think of Richard, of touching his cheek and telling him, later, spurning his advances and accepting his tolerant acquiescence, for he could be remarkably accommodating when he thought he was on the road to getting his own way. Mary's thoughts ran uncontrolled around her mind without substance, the one thing she could think of, the only thing she could feel was Matthew and his hands pressed into her back causing her to arch further against him as they swayed in the middle of the room. He shifted his foot and trod on a train, neither of them hearing the snap of a flimsy tin roof as the toy was kicked aside. They stumbled towards the day bed that ran in front of the window and Mary pushed him down onto it.
"The door," he hissed as she made to straddle his lap.
Whilst she crossed the room to turn the key in the lock, Matthew reached behind him and tugged the heavy velvet curtain across the window so that the room took on a deeper darkness than the clouded afternoon had previously cast. She moved back towards him and he felt that his heart had slowed, every sense seemed to be pulling him to her and he was unable to stay perched on the edge of the eiderdown as he surged up to meet her. Mary wrapped her arms around his neck and if the act of locking the door could have broken her from this madness she felt that she wouldn't have let it. They were not entirely mad and they knew all too well what they were doing, they knew enough to let it consume them, to let everything and everyone else burn to nothing as heat pulsated through the fabric of their clothes. Mary fumbled with the buttons on his shirt and slid her hands inside so they were pressed against the firm muscles of his chest, her mind span at the memory and she could almost smell the grass, the soaring heat of that day as he dipped his head and kissed her neck, his tongue lingering on her skin.
It was not the same. They were changed. The years had changed them and when she ran her fingers down the right side of Matthew's ribcage she could feel the roughness of the skin there, the thickened scar tissue. This was happening and if a lesson had been learnt it was willfully discarded, thrown into the fire and she did not care if they burnt too, if they grew black and fell apart inside, just as long as this could last a little longer. Six years of pain, of desperate need combining to cause her to grip his skin so hard she heard him gasp. Mary undid his belt and pulled his trousers halfway down before he stumbled slightly, his hands slipping underneath her blouse and tracing down her back with a feather light touch. Taking advantage of their loss of balance Mary pushed him back onto the bed, it creaked slightly as he sunk down onto it and he looked up at her standing over him, her cheeks flushed and he felt as if every part of her had covered him, the distance between them in this moment unbearable. Matthew pulled his trousers off and flung them aside, reaching out and grabbing her hips, pulling her down on top of him so she was straddling his lap, her skirt bunched around her waist and for a moment the intimacy of their position was too much and he let his head rest against her chest, so he could hear the thrill of her heart beneath his ear.
"I won't regret this either," he said and his voice rumbled deeply through her. Pulling her tightly against him Matthew tilted his head back to meet her lips, letting her tongue find his.
"Matthew," Mary moaned breathlessly as he guided her blouse over her head, the fabric fluttering between their faces, her arms falling around his back as they rocked together and he kissed the skin between her neck and collarbone so she trembled.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and felt the warmth of his face on her chest. How often had she imagined this? More often than she dared to admit even to herself. They had seen each other so rarely and always in a room full of others. Matthew was right; they had made polite conversation, all the while avoiding that which surged between them, not allowing their expressions to linger over each other any longer than was necessary. Then Teddy would run into the room, and Mary could almost feel the breath catch in Matthew's throat, she could see his eyes glaze over and the tension that gripped his jaw. It would seem in those moments that everyone must know, that they all must see and Mary's fingers would press together at her sides as if waiting for someone, her mother, her father, Isobel, to turn around and for realization to dawn across their faces. It didn't happen. They did not know.
Matthew's hands were underneath her skirt, his fingers digging into her thighs, rubbing against the skin between her corset and suspenders and yet any formality of dress did not seem to matter as she took his face in her hands and kissed him, their teeth and tongues clashing as their desperation mounted so that every restrained moment, every diverted look exploded between them, the truth of all they had wished to do mounting and climbing to a crescendo. Mary raked her hands through his hair and gasped as she felt him begin to tug at the laces of her bodice, his fingers pulling and working it apart, his mouth open breathlessly against her neck as she ground her pelvis into his. She could feel him through his undershorts and she pulsed with desire, for every part of him close against her, for all they had done and all they had been to be rekindled. It was so easy. It was so easy to pull him against her and imagine that nothing could ever be wrong in this.
She had not worn a corset that day, one of many barriers the crippling heat had encouraged her to forego, her skin so easily exposed under his touch. Matthew groaned as his fingertips finally broke through so he could lean back to slip it from her shoulders. He had torn her blouse underneath the trees and for some reason he found himself wondering now how she had returned to her room unseen with the buttons ripped. He would be more careful this time and he paused in his attentions to ease the chemise over her head. The pause caused Mary to draw back a little and she looked into his eyes and then she smiled and touched his cheek. A breath shuddered from his lips and he eased her up from his lap so she was standing over him, he pulled down her skirt and undid the clasps on her suspenders and then with one rough movement pulled the corset completely away from her body, his tongue passing across his bottom lip as she stepped out of her bloomers and he pulled her back on top of him. He could wait no longer. He could not bear an inch of distance between their skin and he kissed her with a depth that seemed impossible as she wrapped her legs around his back.
Mary's fingers dug into the ridges beneath his shoulder blades and he wrapped his arm around her waist whilst with his other hand he pulled frantically at his undershorts, raising himself and her up from the bed enough to pull them down and kick them over his feet. She barely noticed the movement he was making beneath her, so focused was she on the heat, on his hand holding onto her hip as they tipped slightly to one side then the other, on the promise of what was to come as she ached with anticipation, her hands clawing across his back. She moaned his name into his mouth until their connection was finally deepened and it was everything she remembered and she buried her head over his shoulder, her face in his hair as he pulled her so intimately close. They rocked together and Matthew pressed his lips to the gap between her breasts. He loved her, how he loved her.
He moved inside her and he savoured every moment, the press of his fingertips around her hips, the sensation of her breast against his cheek and her hands, her hands in his hair, around his neck and then on his back, the sweet sensation of her nails stinging his skin. Matthew felt as if he were soaring, being propelled to the surface after so long with the crushing weight of a black ocean above him, forcing all the breath from his lungs until now, now he was breathing from the very bottom of his chest, from the very centre of his soul and he inhaled her as she set fire to all he thought he knew. He was breathing, just as he thought he could take no more, he was alive and she was with him. Mary, the first woman he had ever loved, who he had made love to, the only woman who had broken his heart. She had broken it and he had tried, how he had tried to separate himself from her, release stitch by stitch the place she occupied and yet he couldn't, not then, not in the years since and certainly not now. It all remained held in place, fused to every part of him, running through every element of his life, buried deeply in every scar. Mary, who was all he knew of love and everything he knew of loss.
Matthew looked up into her eyes and they shone with unshed tears and he knew she was not sad because he felt the same, he felt relieved and released, that finally, finally, they could be all they wanted to be again, even just for this moment. She was right, they had not spoken about it, they had never uttered a word, lest it open and expose a wound that ran so deeply they would never be able to stem the flow of blood. It would pour out like water, drive forwards with the ferocity of a fire no earthly element could quench and it would drown them all. Perhaps this was why the words had never been uttered before, because they knew, they knew that deep down the result of such a conversation could only be this. They were entwined together and he felt the connection so deeply that he had to stop for a moment, to regain some hold, a tentative grip on the reality of what was happening.
"Let me look at you," Matthew said, his voice hoarse.
Mary's hands rested against his chest and she leaned back slightly, her eyes fluttering closed for a moment as Matthew moaned, every movement, every shift of her hips, arousing him to the point of delirium. He let his eyes wander as his fingers shivered over her creamy skin; she trembled under his touch as his hands followed the curve of her waist before reaching up to trail over the swell of her breasts and down over her flat stomach. He thought about what he had missed, all the years disintegrating to nothing because he was touching her again and yet there was so much he hadn't been there to share, so many times when she had needed him to hold her. They could not have that time back and a sharp pain stung the back of his throat even as he appreciated the depth of what he could now feel.
She passed her thumb along his bottom lip, her gaze sinking into the blue of his eyes and she saw everything there, everything she had needed to see in all the moments he had been far from her, for all that time she thought he was dead. He had never been far enough, so conspicuous in his absence, his fingers on her face, in her hair, his hand in hers and he had filled her dreams, night after night over those long months. She had dreamt of him pushing her back into the tree, deep inside her, her knees pressed against his sides and his hands supporting her as the world closed in around them. She had woken beside Richard, the perspiration on her brow growing cold at the sight of him sleeping there when Matthew was gone, gone in all ways but one and she had lain in the dark, every object in the room distorted out of recognition, every monstrous shape pressing in towards her. She listened to Richard breathing and the sound was deafening. She had turned her back to him, lain close to the edge of the bed where the dappled sunlight of that day seemed very far away, until she felt the ripple of movement beneath her hand, the sharp point of a tiny foot or elbow protruding for a moment as the baby shifted position, and then he was close once more.
Mary rolled against him and a long breath juddered from Matthew's lips as he closed his eyes, releasing her hips and stretching back so he was supporting his upper body on his arms, her legs unfolding from his waist so she was kneeling over him. He moved backwards on the narrow bed so the top of his head brushed the curtains and he could smell the heavy suffocating fabric almost as if it were enveloping his face, covering his nose and mouth so he felt as if he were hardly breathing. She gave him a little push in the chest and he lay back and watched her hands as she grabbed hold of his wrists and leaned down to kiss him once more. Matthew felt his whole body jerk towards her as he allowed a complete wave of pleasure to pass through him, it did not wash over him, it did not slip across the surface, it ground into his bones, it pushed into every dark depth of desire that he had harboured over the long empty years.
She thought she might cry out and she bit her lip to prevent herself, releasing one of his wrists and grabbing a handful of the curtain hanging behind them to pull herself up, to deepen their position, and she moaned as a muffled cry rumbled in his throat. The next thing she knew he was holding her hips and pulling her deeper, further until she did scream. Matthew tugged her forwards and rose up to meet her as their hips ground together with greater speed and he covered her mouth with his so that any cries were consumed by their kiss. The next moment crashed and collided between them as they simultaneously shattered and Matthew tasted blood as she bit his lip, their mouths open and gasping against each other as the room plunged into darkness around them and they collapsed into each other's arms. The fire engulfed them and they gave themselves up to its power, let it lick around the edges of their souls before combusting into a terrible inferno that surrounded them as they lay there, in the centre, alight and alive.
.