A/N: A continuation of Chapter Fifty-Three. As you do. Rating is for suggestive themes.
"Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore
Alone upon the threshold of my door…"
––Elizabeth Barrett Browning
"We are no longer afraid," he told her. In the darkness of his chamber, his voice resounded with a conviction he had never heard emanate from himself before.
As if urged on by his newfound boldness, Raven took hold of Sarah's hand, which lay perched atop his chest. Her hand was cool to the touch, not having completely recovered from their brisk walk home from Duncan and Flockhart's, beneath his warmer one. They exchanged no words to one another on their way back to No. 52, but they kept apace, walking closer to the other without the prying eyes and raised eyebrows of daytime pedestrians to keep them in check.
Sarah's hand felt small yet unexpectedly strong in his, and he felt he could draw strength from her seemingly endless supply. Before he was aware of it, his thumb began a gently brushing her skin, skimming small circles over the back of her hand.
Sarah's voice came again, even quieter than when she first called him by his Christian name. It was a question not unfamiliar to him, for he had asked it on his own often enough in the past. "Did you love her?" She did not need to clarify whom she meant.
The reply was long coming from him, not because he did not know the answer. "I thought I did," he said slowly. His mind chose the next words with care so that she might understand his meaning. On this matter, he would not deny her his honesty, even if he was still forming it himself. "I know now it was but a young man's fancy. One that I seem to have outgrown in my time here at Queen Street."
At this, Sarah lifted her head from his shoulder. She rested on an elbow to study his face. He gazed at her in return, his eyes roaming her features freely in the wan light afforded by her candle. He admired how her honey-coloured hair, unleashed from her cap, loosely framed her face. He resisted the urge to coil the golden tendrils around his finger. He was drawn lastly to her mouth, the thoughts of which were frequent visitors in his mind ever since their near encounter with the Weasel and Gargantua on Leith Street. And tonight, when she reached up to kiss him, the thought of her lips occupied every cell of his body.
"May I… kiss you, Sarah?" he asked, his head still full of the memory of her pressed against him in the dark storeroom.
She smiled shyly, perhaps recalling how brazenly she pulled him to her earlier, but nodded.
He lifted his hand from where it covered hers, and with the side of his finger, he tilted her chin, bringing their faces close so that their noses touched. He needed only move his head in the slightest fraction to bring their lips together once more. His heart thundered in his chest, and he suspected she could feel it, wild, under her hand.
Her mouth parted for him then, a wordless invitation. His tongue dipped between the seam of her lips where, after momentary trepidation, hers met his. A sensation of delight spread to his toes as the kiss deepened. His arms wrapped around her instinctively, while she clutched at the front of his nightshirt, attempting to draw him closer still. He felt the heat emanating from her body next to him.
Raven felt Sarah's restless hands begin to move, and he shifted his grasp of her lower, allowing her greater access. They glided down and up his arms again and along his shoulders, coming to rest at his nape, leaving gooseflesh along their wake. A hand stroked his face, fingers gingerly tracing the side of his face, a thumb running through his beard, and finally, caressing the remnants of the scar on his cheek. He leaned into her touch, savouring it. He wondered if she remembered that such was the place where she had first touched him, skin on skin.
She ceased her attention on his lips for a moment to drop a light kiss on his cheek before giving him a look that told him, yes, she remembered. His skin tingled where her lips made contact. Were he not a medical man, he would stand behind the claim that a kiss from Sarah possessed healing properties that snake-oil salesmen might make a fortune to able to bottle. Perhaps he would, still. Raven found her mouth again, a surge of affection suddenly enveloping him.
He embraced her, grasping at the curve of her waist intermittently as he roved his palms on her back, following the line of her vertebrae, and fully aware of the single, thin layer of muslin that separated them. He trailed kisses on the side of her mouth, along her jawline, and down her neck.
"Thomas," she pronounced, breathless.
It was the first time he had ever heard his given name upon a woman's lips uttered in rapture. Evie was not the only one who possessed secrets, for he never revealed his true name to her. He did not dwell on this, however, for the intemperate, primeval part of him whispered imaginings of what his name might sound like when coaxed from deeper throes. It made him want to be worthy enough to find out.
He slid a hand up to her face, brushed hair away from screening his intended target, and took her lips with his once again. Her hands, too, resumed their exploration and found their way to his hair, her fingernails scraping his scalp, sending tantalising shivers down his spine. Their breaths mingled in a cloud of ragged pants and soft sighs of approval.
It did not help matters when Raven realised he could no longer ignore the direction toward which it felt the four chambers of heart had pumped all the blood in his body. The rigid, pulsing flesh between his legs reminded him that he had not known the touch of a woman in more than a year, but more enthralling, was that the woman next to him was electrifying his very veins.
He wanted nothing more than to be with her, without barriers, their bodies laid bare for the other to touch and kiss and caress. He wanted to feel her under him, quivering and keening, until he heard his name spill from her lips in ecstasy. But the permission she granted him had reached its bodily limit, it seemed. And the later the hour, the greater, too, the fear of being discovered had become.
"Sarah," he managed to sputter, the discomfort too overwhelming for him to feel abashed at his lack of grace. He swallowed. "Forgive me, but I do not think I am wholly prepared for this." Sitting up, he reluctantly extricated his limbs from her, leaving a few inches between them. Almost immediately, the mere inches felt like a chasm, separating him from her warm, lithe body and all the promises it held.
A few moments passed before she realised what had happened. Oh, her mouth formed its shape, her eyes wide. Her girlish innocence made Raven recall what Sarah had said to him the first night they met, that although she had seen men unclothed before, she had only done so in a medical capacity. "I'm sorry, Thomas," she cried. "I did not mean to—"
"No, there is no need to apologise," he assured. He looked at her then, her lips plump and looking thoroughly kissed, her hair wild, and her nightgown askew. Raven fought to keep his mind from lingering on these details. "Believe me, I have thought of little else these past weeks." He paused, wishing immediately to take back his confession for fear it might have scandalised her.
Instead, she let out a hushed, but amused laugh. In the dim light, he saw a blush painted on her cheeks, suggesting that perhaps they were of the same mind.
He leaned forward and caught her lips in a gentle kiss, his passion temporarily subsided, though a steady flame still burned underneath. "What do you do to me, Miss Fisher?" he asked, the awe in his voice unmistakable, a grin half-formed against her mouth.
"The same, I imagine, that you do to me, Mr. Cunningham," declared Sarah, in a low voice that almost made Raven regret all that had transpired that night, for the sole reason that he cannot envision looking upon her in the light of day without considerable amorous restraint. A look of undisguised sadness crossed her face briefly when she drew back and whispered, "I must go, then."
He nodded in agreement, though he was as disinclined to see her leave as he was pleased to see her when she first entered his chamber. He watched her climb out of his bed, transfixed for an instant by the sway of her hips, marvelling at the memory of his hands on that very spot only minutes ago. "'That I shall say good night till it be morrow,'" he recited quietly.
"Shakespeare," Sarah recognised instantly, as he knew she would. The corners of her mouth turned upward. "I thought men like you had no time for fiction."
"Oh, God," he winced, rubbing his face with his hands, as if to hide from her. "I would die a happy man, if those words were never repeated back to me," he admitted with contrition.
Sarah bent down, entering his sphere once more, and took his head between both her hands. She placed a soft, tender kiss on his lips. It was forgiveness and valediction and promise rolled into one, carried out in a single act of sweetness. "Good-night, Thomas."
"Good-night, Sarah."
She picked up her candle, a stub of wax by then, and left the room as noiselessly as she entered it.
For several seconds, Raven remained immobile, caught in the daze of the night's events, but most particularly, its conclusion. Snatches of moments replayed themselves dizzyingly in his mind, and he was certain they would supply his reveries for the days and weeks to come.
He laid his head down on his pillow for the second time. He all but abandoned efforts to make sense of all that had transpired, at least for the night. As if drawn to the warmth left by its previous occupant, his hand drifted to the empty side of the bed, which now seemed too large, when he once thought it too small for his frame. He finally felt himself slip into sleep, ushered on by something new that lingered in the air that had not been there before––the smell of lavender and the promise of more to come.
Boy, did I need a new fandom to fall into. Not sure if anyone will read this, but I really wanted to put this out there.
Thank you for reading. Comments/feedback are greatly appreciated! Cheers x