I'm still working hard on Rumor Has It and I actually am pretty close to posting a new chapter, but because of the different nature of that fic I haven't gotten to write any Harold/Marian fluff in a while, and I rather missed it... so this was the result. Sheer, mindless fluff, not exactly plot-driven, but I still wanted to challenge myself and get outside my comfort zone, as the rating should make evident. :)
Special thanks to Blizzard Nemo for giving me nothing to do today but write, haha.
xxx
Sometimes it was impossible for Harold Hill to tell whether his wife was consciously attempting to seduce him or not.
Certainly, in the two months since they had been wed, Marian had become a lot more at ease in the bedroom than she'd been on their honeymoon. Not only did she have no qualms with taking the lead or behaving provocatively when the situation called for it, but it had taken a lot less reassurance than Harold had feared it would to teach her that there was nothing wrong with expressing her desires and telling him what she wanted.
But then there were all those little unconscious seductions that had driven Harold wild for her even well before their courtship, though they'd come to mean so much more since he'd fallen in love with her – little things like the subtle sway of her hips when she walked, or the way that she bit her lower lip when she was concentrating, or even the graceful press of her fingers upon the piano keys – innocent gestures that could make him hot for her at a moment's notice. Of course, before they'd been married, Marian hadn't known the way that she affected him with the little things that she did, but he had since informed her in great detail of this phenomenon, which left the maddening question: did she now do those things on purpose to arouse him?
As Harold sat in the parlor with her this February evening, poring meticulously over the sheet music of a new song that he had selected for the band, he was in near agony trying to keep his mind off his desire for his little librarian, simply because he'd caught a vision of her licking her fingertips once or twice in order to turn the pages of her book. He knew that it was somewhat absurd for him to still be so worked up by this. After all, they'd made love just about every day in the past two months when it had been possible – very often more than once – and anyway, it wasn't as if they wouldn't have their chance when they went to bed tonight and his work was finished. Certainly, he shouldn't have been feeling such utter lustful desperation for her right now, driven to distraction like some youth who'd never touched a woman in his life...
Then he caught sight of Marian pushing her spectacles back on her nose, and he became aware that his trousers were no longer quite so comfortable.
No, he reproved himself as he drew in a deep breath. The music comes first, or you'll never remember to go over it in the morning.
He paged furiously through the score, trying to convince himself that he was actually accomplishing something and not just emptying his mind.
"Harold?" he heard from the other room, forcing him to look up. His wife's sweet voice saying his name was just about his favorite sound in the world – well, with the exception of her voice moaning his name – damn it, why did he keep thinking like that?
"Yes, dear?" he responded, hoping that she wouldn't notice that his voice was more than slightly unsteady at the moment.
Smiling, Marian stretched her arms before plucking a couple of pins from her golden hair, causing a loose curl to fall against her neck. "Just so you know where I'll be, I think I'm going to take a bath now."
"All right – hopefully I'll be done soon." He forced himself to look down as soon as he finished speaking, knowing for a fact that the sight of her backside swaying as she walked away would be enough to make him run right after her. He kept his eyes on the music until the soft sounds of her footsteps had crossed the parlor and ascended the stairs.
Well, at least now he wouldn't have the constant, tantalizing sight of his beloved to keep him from his work – although now, he thought with an inward groan, there was the problem of trying not to picture her in the bath. That had been a fantasy that he had dwelled on quite a few times in the days before their marriage, and now that he'd experienced the delights of bathing with her on several occasions, the image was much, much more vivid.
While Harold had once assumed that his lusts might grow tamer once they had been wed – after all, his experiences with past relationships had proven that temptations generally disappeared once they were yielded to – he had found that, amazingly, the experience of making love with Marian only made his need for her more and more powerful. He knew that he could never really have enough of her, that there was something precious and new, yet wonderfully familiar, to be found every day and every night, both in the realms of the physical and the emotional. The idea that the former con man had ever disparaged marriage as some sort of passionless trap now seemed patently absurd to him. If he sometimes got a little behind on his work because he was too busy making love to his beautiful wife, well, that was a price that he'd pay a million times over.
When his libido had grown powerful enough to inhibit his productivity during those physically frustrating months of their courtship, it had been easy enough to simply indulge himself and go on with a clearer mind, but no actual tryst with his wife would be nearly so brief, nor would he ever want it to be, so he generally tried to make sure that he finished his band business before joining her for the night. The only problem with that was that he'd have to get through his work with the thought of his wife writhing against him still at the forefront of his mind before he could make that possibility a reality...
At the very least, it was an incentive, and Harold finished analyzing the score with remarkable speed – if not the greatest attention to detail.
xxx
When the music professor made it to the bedroom at last, his gorgeous wife was sitting at her dressing table while still clad in only a pale pink bathrobe, idly running a comb through her hair. At times like these, he was struck by the pure, genuine beauty that she possessed – she needed no ornamentation, no fancy clothing or ostentatious hairstyles, to leave him breathless and lovestruck. He was certain beyond a reasonable doubt that Marian Paroo Hill was, in fact, the most beautiful, kind, charming woman in the world, and it seemed impossible that the forces of destiny had seen fit that she should love him.
After all the time he'd spent ruminating about it downstairs, his instincts urged him to grab her by the hips and press her to the bed to sate his desire immediately – but he didn't want things to be over too quickly, nor did he ever wish to be rough or unromantic with her. Besides, despite all of his fantasizing, Harold had not even begun to stir her arousal yet, or to see if she was even up for intimacy tonight, though he predicted that he was going to have a very unpleasant time falling asleep if she was not.
Coming up behind Marian, he wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her cheek, and he was glad for the mirror that allowed him to see that she was smiling in response to his advances. He buried his face in her neck and inhaled deeply, luxuriating in the scent of her soap and perfume and the indefinable aroma of her skin.
"You smell wonderful, Madam Librarian," he murmured.
Marian sighed and leaned into his embrace as she brought her hands up to cover his. "Good thing you finished up with that music, considering that you couldn't stop staring at me the entire time," she whispered. "I'd hate to go to bed without you..."
"You noticed that?" A pleased grin spread across his handsome face as he realized how that could be true. "So, you were looking at me as well, then?"
"Here and there," Marian responded coyly, gazing sidelong at him. "It intrigues me to wonder what you're thinking about when you watch me like that..."
It wasn't difficult to respond, considering that his thoughts in the current moment were much the same. "That you're beautiful... that I love you... that I want you."
Her expression melted into the sweet, dreamy gaze that he loved so much. "I was thinking something similar." She looked down a little, giggling as though at a private joke, before she met his eyes in the mirror and spoke again. "Though, I'm sure your thoughts are a good deal wilder than mine."
A little startled, the music professor stopped nibbling his wife's neck to stare at his own reflection, dumbfounded. Was she merely teasing him about his appetites – or was that a request for him to share one of his fantasies with her? His heart slamming in his chest, Harold made the split-second decision to take an enormous risk with his next remark. "I could give you something wild to think about."
Their bodies were pressed so closely together that he could feel his wife's breathing quicken before he even heard it, could feel her pulse increase in the places where they were pressed skin to skin. "What do you have in mind, Professor?"
As he watched Marian's expression in the mirror, her large, long-lashed eyes widening with growing desire, Harold was struck with a wicked idea – so wicked that he wasn't certain if he might not appall her virtuous sensibilities with it. Yet he was already worked into such a frenzy of need for her that it seemed impossible not to make the suggestion.
"I want you to watch," he growled in her ear before taking her earlobe between his teeth.
"Watch?" Her full lips were slightly parted, and he could see her eyes following his hands as they tugged her robe open and cupped her breasts, his thumbs slowly tracing and teasing her nipples until they grew firm beneath his ministrations. Harold was pleased to see that she did not seem at all opposed to his idea, although he could not be sure that she comprehended the extent of his plan, either. She seemed to be catching on pretty quickly, at any rate, for even as his caresses caused her to fidget and sigh and whimper against him, she continued to watch his fingers with incredulous eyes.
Helping her to her feet and whirling her around to face him, he pulled her in for a heated, passionate kiss that she returned with gusto, lips and tongues moving together in a vague imitation of the motions that their bodies would soon enact. Harold could barely contain the urgency of his desire for her, and though he urged himself to slow down, the temptation to tug her bathrobe from around her and have her entirely naked before him was too great. As he pulled her back toward the bed, the pale pink fabric falling at her feet, he was thrilled to see that, thanks to the mirror, he could see her body both in front and behind – how had he never thought of this use for mirrors before?
Marian laughed and blushed when she realized just what her husband was looking at, but she did not seem abashed in the least. Indeed, she seemed to be rather reveling in his admiration, and she allowed her hips to sway seductively as she stepped closer to him. Definitely on purpose this time, Harold determined as his trousers tightened almost painfully.
Besides the removal of his clothing, there was a certain practical concern that needed to be dealt with before proceeding full steam ahead – Harold needed to figure out where on the bed they ought to position themselves in order to make full use of the vanity mirror. Sitting down on the corner of the foot of the bed, he deemed that this seemed to be a pretty good place, and he certainly didn't have the patience to spend any more time investigating. He was tempted to simply unbutton his trousers and pull her to the bed immediately to ravish her, but that would rather defeat the purpose of wanting her to see everything, so he reluctantly started the irritating process of undoing all of the buttons on his dress shirt.
Thankfully, his wife was quite obviously just as eager for him to be naked as he was, and she quickly took over, settling herself on his thigh and divesting him of his clothing with practiced ease – a process that still took significantly longer than merely removing a bathrobe, but that was much more enjoyable when carried out by her. Marian seemed pleased to be the one to undress him, and Harold saw no problem with giving her this moment of control before he reclaimed his dominance and carried out his plan. But then she pulled down his trousers and his drawers, and matters were now in her hands, both figuratively and quite literally.
All at once, her hands were all over him, and he cried out in a strangled voice, rocking his hips in response to her caresses. As much as he'd wanted to be in charge tonight, he'd have to be crazy to stop her... absolutely insane, he thought as she slid to her knees and gazed enticingly up at him, her gorgeous lips taking him in without preamble and making him wail out her name.
Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, Harold was still aware that he'd had very different plans in mind, but his brain was thoroughly addled by the overwhelming pleasure that his wife was bestowing upon him – it had been just over a month since she'd first learned how to make love to him this way, and her familiarity with how to please him had already grown remarkable... one of the many, many benefits of being with her and only her. Gasping and groaning, he buried his fingers in her hair, aroused beyond belief by the view that he was getting and the way that Marian kept her eyes trained on his as she moved with him. And the sheer sensation of it, every slight motion of her hot, wet mouth sending lightning bolts of exquisite rapture up his spine... When he looked up as his back arched involuntarily in ecstasy, he was rewarded with a different but also very pleasing view from the mirror – and then he remembered. The mirror.
"M – Marian."
Logically interpreting his vocalization as a plea for more, Marian moaned softly and increased her pace, and Harold couldn't help letting out a howl and thrusting into her mouth, even as he knew that he had to put a stop to things before things put a stop to him. When he managed to regain control over some vestige of his faculties, he took a more direct approach and gently extricated himself from her embrace before pushing back lightly on her shoulders. The librarian frowned, looking a little hurt, and Harold immediately felt a pang of regret – the last thing he wanted to do was to wound her burgeoning confidence with such acts by making her think that he was unsatisfied by her.
Quickly shaking his head, Harold tugged her to her feet and pulled her onto the bed with him. "That was incredible, sweetheart, but not now. Maybe later," he panted, well aware that he sounded anything but in control. "I promised I was going to make love to you, and you're going to watch."
Hesitantly, she smiled again, letting her palms rest on his bare chest. "I do like the idea of that," she admitted, her fingernails tracing little abstract patterns all over his torso. "But, um, how?"
"Like this." Rolling back on the bed and onto his side, he pulled his wife with him until they were spooning together in front of the mirror. Eager to give her a little preview of just what she would be able to see, he insinuated his hand between her thighs and slipped a finger into her wetness with ease, and she gasped not just at the sensation, but at the sight.
"See what I mean?" Harold whispered into her ear. Without hesitating, Marian nodded, pressing her hips against his hand with a whimper. Both of them were already so aroused that he lacked the willpower to draw out the prelude any longer, and Harold hastily removed his hand so that he could sink into her at long last – both of them watching the mirror in awe as he did so.
He had demonstrated, once or twice before, that it was possible to take her from behind, but the obvious disadvantage to such positions was that they could not see each other. The mirror certainly removed that obstacle, as well the ever-present handicap of being unable to see oneself, producing the strangely voyeuristic effect of allowing them to observe their own coupling in its entirety. Harold had never done anything like this before, and he was somewhat taken aback by the intensity of it. He watched his innocent wife's reactions with extreme caution, afraid that she would grow uncomfortable with the situation once she realized what it would really be like. To his relief and amazement, the expression of unbridled pleasure on her lovely face indicated that she was enjoying this novelty as much as he was, and before long he forgot his apprehensions and made love to her as passionately as he had been aching to do all evening.
It didn't take long at all before Marian found ecstasy in his arms, and as the mirror revealed to him the full extent of the quivering and clenching of her thighs as she tightened around him, he was lost as well, riding out the waves of his building release with a few final, decisive thrusts before collapsing onto his back and rolling her with him, their heavy breaths mingling together. Harold felt that it would have been somehow wrong if they could not gaze directly into each other's eyes in the afterglow of their lovemaking, and it was with a certain relief that he met those endearing hazel eyes with his own again without the mirror as their intermediary.
"That was... creative," she informed him with an impish smirk and a raise of her eyebrows.
Even after experiencing firsthand the evidence of her enjoyment, even as he lay half out of his mind with post-coital bliss, Harold still couldn't help worrying that he'd gone too far, too soon. After all, it had only been two months ago when Marian couldn't even bear to look at his arousal for more than a moment or two without nearly panicking from embarrassment, and though she'd gotten past that stage rather quickly, it didn't mean that she would necessarily be ready to witness what he had shown her tonight – a sight that had been slightly shocking even to him.
"You are all right, aren't you?" he asked, pulling her against his chest. "That is, you didn't find that – vulgar?"
Marian's eyes widened in surprise at his inquiry. "I've never thought anything that we've done was vulgar. Where would you get an idea like that?"
"Well, it's just that – watching everything – I didn't really think through how you might feel about that. It's not necessarily a beautiful sight, objectively speaking."
His wife shook her head dismissively. "Why be objective? It's us. Goodness, Harold, I would have told you if I wanted to stop!"
There was something amazing about watching Marian's comfort level with their erotic relationship continue to grow – encouraging, as well, to know that he must have been doing something very right on his part. As much experience as Harold had had with women, the sensual side of a loving marriage was immensely different from a mere love affair. It was a unique challenge to him, not just to love Marian emotionally, not just to pleasure her physically, but some mystifying combination of the two where each element strengthened the other – that was the kind of marriage that could make them true equals, and it seemed that somehow, they were achieving it.
Unable to express in words exactly what he was feeling and why, the music professor simply kissed his dear little librarian and pulled her up with him to the head of the bed so they could lay together more comfortably.
"It's not that I don't trust your judgement, darling. I suppose I just worry because I know how innocent you still are, and how uncomfortable that you used to feel about all this, and I don't want to push anything on you."
"You are sweet to take so much care with me," she assured him, kissing his lips lightly. "But I would never allow myself to be pushed into anything, so I don't see how you could worry."
Harold grinned in response. "You make a good point, my dear. I would be remiss to forget what an indomitable little thing you are."
"Precisely." As if to prove her point further, Marian pushed him down and climbed astride him, her hands pinning his arms to the bed. "For instance, I believe I had a particular plan in mind earlier, before I was so rudely interrupted..."
"You didn't think it was so rude a few minutes ago!" Harold protested teasingly. Then he remembered what she was talking about, and he no longer felt inclined to protest, no matter how teasingly. "Not that I would attempt to dissuade you," he added in haste.
His lovely librarian simply gave him a smug smile, evidently enjoying the immense power she was holding over him at the moment. "That's good, Professor Hill, because I will not be dissuaded." Starting with a gentle kiss upon his lips, she trailed little kisses down his throat and chest and stomach, and then lower... He followed her down with his hands, letting them tangle in her golden tresses as she resumed her earlier attentions in earnest, and his head fell back on the pillow as he abandoned himself to the pleasure with which she was so generously lavishing him.
Being married to a woman who was both very passionate and very stubborn was really quite a wonderful combination at times, he thought.