A/N: One shot which begins the morning after the final chapter of `On The Other Side Of Despair'. M-rated.
Ruth wakes suddenly, not sure what it is has shocked her out of her blissful dreaming state. The dream quickly disappears – something about she and Harry attempting to make love in a row boat on a choppy sea, and their discussion about who should go on top. She becomes aware of another body close to her own, regular puffs of expelled air lifting the lock of her hair which has fallen over her cheek. She reaches out with her hand and touches his cheek, this man whom only last night she'd accidentally called `my husband'. He's not her husband, although he is in every way except legally. She brushes his cheek with her fingers, and gazes at him while he awakes, this man she has loved for so long.
Her Harry.
She has no clear memory of what her life had been like before she'd begun loving him. Life Before Harry is like another country, with another language spoken, one Ruth has long ago forgotten. How did she ever wake in the morning without longing to see him? How did she get to sleep at night without imagining him beside her in bed, his hand resting on her hip? How did she get through the days before she had Harry to gaze at across the grid, or to fantasise about in her private moments? How had she tolerated having sex with men who'd fumbled under her clothing with clumsy fingers, and then plunged into her before she was ready? How had she managed living through a week without tasting Harry's magical spaghetti bolognese? (and other delights he had to offer.)
His first response to seeing her face is to smile, and Harry's smile is engaging in every way. Ruth reaches across to kiss him, and he murmurs a `good morning', and kisses her back, a hungry kiss, a kiss of a man who is no doubt already aroused.
"I was in the middle of this lovely dream where we were rolling around naked in a field full of flowers," he says, his voice lazy from sleep.
"Why is it we always dream of sex, Harry? It's not as though we don't have enough of it while we're awake."
Ruth edges her body closer to him until she feels his hardness against her thigh. He presses himself against her, and wraps his arms around her, pulling her as close to his body as he can. Harry growls as he buries his face in her neck, and sucks on her skin.
"You'll leave a mark," she complains, lifting her shoulder to limit his access to her neck.
"It's never bothered you before, Ruth," he says, pushing his hands under her pyjama top, lifting it over her head. His hands back on her body find her breasts bare, her nipples already erect.
"We have company," she breathes, barely able to put words together. Her breath comes in short gasps, as his fingers circle her nipples, and then attack in unison, both nipples massaged at the same time as he slides his knee between her legs for her to grind herself against his thigh …... something she hadn't known she'd enjoy until he'd suggested it back when they'd lived together the first time.
"Let's give them something to discuss while they're driving home, then."
Ruth's orgasm hits her quickly, and she grasps his sides as she comes, her breath laboured. As her body spasms, he slides the fingers of one hand down to the elastic waistband of her pyjama bottoms. He pulls them down, and off her body with practised skill. Ruth is barely aware of his fingers inside her until he removes them in order to shuck off his own sleepwear.
When she again opens her eyes, he is lying over her, and her legs are apart, her knees bent to make room for his wide body.
"Wait," she says, wanting to slow them down. Harry enjoys sex of all kinds, but in the mornings he likes it either very slow, or very fast. This is shaping up to be a fast morning. "I want to enjoy this with you," she adds.
"Sorry, I'm just eager," he says, smiling at her, and he reaches down to kiss her. His kiss is slow and deep, his tongue seeking hers. He attempts to clear his mind of thoughts of sinking himself into her, this woman who brings out the passionate and devoted lover in him.
Ruth relaxes into the kiss, and soon she is adjusting her pelvis to meet him. She wants him now, just as much as he wants her. She reaches down and grasps his penis, and guides him into her. He groans at the touch of her fingers on his flesh. The next few minutes become a blur of sensations, as he thrusts deeper and deeper inside her, his face buried in her neck, where he grabs the flesh of her shoulder in his teeth, and breaths heavily against her. This is a primal act they are engaging in this morning, and Ruth is aware the sounds they emit are those of raw carnality. She can't help herself as she cries out his name as she comes again. His groan as he follows her is deep and drawn out, an animal sound.
It is not the longest session of love-making they have ever had, but it may well be the loudest. As they settle themselves beside one another under the duvet, Harry kisses her lips softly and gently, a kiss of love and gratitude.
"Do you think that would have woken them?" he says.
Ruth looks across at her almost-husband …... after all, he had almost asked her to marry him the night before …... and she wrinkles her nose at him.
"I think most of the residents of the south coast of the country heard us, so yes …... I think Malcolm and Jude might be awake."
They hold one another in post coital heaven, neither wanting to be the first to move. Eventually, Ruth pulls out of Harry's embrace and slides her legs over the edge of the bed.
"Don't go," he mumbles, "I was enjoying that."
"Well, perhaps you'd like to slide over to my side and lie in the wet patch. I'm having a shower."
"Ru-uth …... how can you say that?"
"Feel free to join me if you like," she calls over her shoulder, as she steps into the shower in their en suite.
Ruth is standing under the steady stream of water, allowing the water to shock her body into reality. She is about to grasp the shower gel when a male hand grabs it, and she feels Harry's naked body pressing against her back.
"Let me lather you," he says, squeezing some gel into the palm of one hand.
"Harry, you know what happens -"
"Yes, I do."
He begins spreading gel over her shoulders and upper arms, and down her arms to her fingers, where he slides his own fingers between hers. This same hand then glides down her spine to her buttocks, and the other massages one of her breasts. In less than a minute, Ruth's legs have turned to jelly, and she leans against Harry's body, her back resting against his wide chest. In a series of quick movements, Harry leads her to the shower wall, and rests her back against it. He notices her eyes are closed, and her mouth is slightly open. Sensing another opportunity, he reaches in and places his mouth on hers, sliding his tongue between her lips, and gliding it in and out, while one hand, still slippery from the gel, reaches between her legs, parting them a little. He thrusts two fingers inside her, matching their movement with the movement of his tongue. Ruth's orgasm is almost immediate, and her whole body shudders with it. He puts both his arms around her, and holds her while she shakes, and then slumps in his arms.
They've done this before. They are so good at this. Ruth's mind has almost shut down, but not quite. She prefers sex when Harry is moving inside her. It is more intimate, and somehow more satisfying. But Harry stimulating her to climax in the shower would have to run a very close second. He is so very, very good at it, and he knows it. She opens her eyes, and looks at him, his face smiling, his eyes displaying his open adoration of her.
"I got what I wanted," he whispers, his mouth close to her ear, "so this was your turn."
"But, Harry," Ruth's speech is slurred, her mind not quite able to form words.
"I know you like this, Ruth. I know you like what we've just done."
"What about you?" she manages to blurt out.
"I enjoyed your body while we were still in bed, and my climax was …... it was ….."
"Good?"
"Superlative. The best ever."
Very slowly, Ruth slides her arms around Harry's neck, and kisses his mouth softly and slowly. She then rests her head against his shoulder as he still holds her. They stay that way for some time. It is Harry who eventually turns off the shower, and begins drying them both with a fluffy towel.
"Do you want to climb back into bed, Ruth? The wet patch is probably dry by now."
She nods and smiles up at him. He notices the round red love bite forming on her neck, and feels a disturbing degree of satisfaction that he has left such a mark on this woman ….. his woman. Steady on, Harry, enough of the Neanderthal self-talk. He helps her crawl under the duvet, a fresh towel wrapped around her. She falls asleep almost immediately.
Harry is sitting at the dining room table drinking his first cup of coffee for the morning when Malcolm joins him.
"Good morning for it," Malcolm says, as he sits down opposite Harry.
"Good morning for what?" Harry replies, putting on his best spook face.
"Whatever takes your fancy."
Malcolm, seeing Harry's coffee, goes into the kitchen and pours a mug for himself from the coffee pot on the hotplate, and then returns to the table.
"You heard us, didn't you?" Harry says.
Malcolm sips his coffee and stares out the window at the sea in the distance. He momentarily envies his friends with their home-away-from-London, and their easy way with one another. "Only the profoundly deaf could have failed to hear you."
"Christ! Whatever you do, don't let Ruth know that you heard us."
"I wouldn't dream of it, Harry. Not after …..."
"Of course."
They are both thinking of the time five years earlier when Malcolm had put his foot (and his mouth) in it, and told Ruth that he was happy with what was going on between she and Harry ... and that had spelled the end of them for some time.
"I envy you," Malcolm says after a long – but not altogether awkward – silence.
"Why?"
"From what I – we – heard, you sounded very …... uninhibited."
Harry was already aware that Malcolm was finding their conversation excruciating. Harry doesn't much care if the whole world had heard he and Ruth. He is proud of how they are together.
"That occurs naturally with the right woman, Malcolm. With other people we were not so free and easy to be …... expressive …... but together …..." Harry is suddenly aware that he is having a discussion about sex with Malcolm Wynn-Jones, one of the kindest, most loyal, and yet agonisingly and self-consciously shy men in the land. He shakes his head and smiles.
As is their way, neither speak for a few minutes, during which they each ponder where they should best take this peculiar and burgeoning conversation. Neither has ever mentioned sex to the other, except in the most obscure and polite of ways, and never in relation to themselves.
"So," Harry says at last, "you and Jude are …... aren't you?"
Malcolm's expression is a mask, but his skin is turning redder by the second.
"Jude thinks I'm repressed."
Now, why ever would she think that? "Repressed is preferable to being a randy sex-fiend."
"She thinks it …... quaint …... that I require the right atmosphere in order to …..."
"Perform?"
Malcolm nods, and then coughs, probably unnecessarily. "I'm nowhere near as …... free as you and Ruth obviously are."
"We had over a year of practising before we got together again this time. It doesn't happen straight away."
"What was your first time like …... with Ruth?" Malcolm is squirming in his chair. "Sorry, Harry …... I shouldn't be asking you personal questions about you and Ruth."
"Who else are you going to ask? I don't mind, and I'm sure Ruth won't mind …... although I have no intention of sharing this conversation with her. Our first time was when she came back from Cyprus, after Jude had gone to get her. It was lovely …... really, it was …... but we'd had quite a long time during which to fantasise about one another, so by the time we did it for real, it was …... natural for both of us."
"And you love one another so profoundly. That has to help."
"It does, yes, but patience is important. Patience and communication. We're still learning things about one another, and no doubt that journey of discovery will last a lifetime."
Another long silence.
"If it's not working well for you yet, it doesn't mean it's a disaster."
"No, Harry, I know."
Another silence.
"There was Sarah …..." Harry has no idea where he's headed with that statement. "It was …... good?"
"Yes, remarkably." Malcolm again coughs, and takes another sip of his coffee. "But she and I were quite alike. We were both bookish, quiet, shy. We …... clicked on all levels."
"And now you're trying to make a go of it with someone who is your polar opposite."
"That's true …... and it's …... difficult."
Around mid afternoon, Malcolm and Harry decide to take a long walk along the beach. There are places where they will have to clamber over rocks, so Ruth and Jude decide to pass on the offer to accompany them. Ruth has other plans. She has plans for Jude.
"This area is called a kitchen, Jude," Ruth says, leading her into her own kitchen. (Although, in truth, it has become more Harry's creative domain than her own.)
"Yes, I recognise that thing."
"The cooker. That's where Harry and I …... cook."
"Harry cooks?"
"He's quite a good cook. Now he has the time, he does most of the cooking."
"You want me to cook?"
"The question needs to be, do you want to learn to cook?"
Jude steps close to the cooker, and runs her fingers along the edge of the fascia. "You know, I wanted to learn to cook when I was a child, but my mother wouldn't allow me in the kitchen. She'd shoo me away whenever I went near it. Then one day when Mother was at Croquet or Bridge, or whatever it was she did when she wasn't home, I decided to make some custard. I set the milk to boil, and then wandered off and forgot about it. I ruined the saucepan, and the wall behind the cooker. I've been afraid of kitchens ever since."
"Cooking is quite logical," Ruth assures her. "It's basic chemistry."
"I failed chemistry at school, but I got an A in deportment."
"How about I teach you how to make scrambled eggs?"
"Is it difficult?"
"No, it's one of the easiest things to make. It's a basic nutritious meal."
Forty five minutes and fifteen eggs later, Ruth and Jude sit at the dining table eating their scrambled eggs.
"Mmm, that was delicious," Jude exclaims, having devoured her serving in only a few minutes, while Ruth was taking her time. "I'm sorry that I ruined all those eggs. Who knew there was an art to cracking an egg?"
"I think egg yolk is meant to be good for slate tiles …..."
"I always believed good food had to have an unpronounceable name, and be covered in a sauce made from ingredients sourced from the base of the Matterhorn." Jude wipes her mouth with a paper napkin. "I could make that at home, couldn't I?"
"Of course you could. You could even make it for Malcolm. I'm sure he'd like that."
"Do you think so?"
"I do."
"I certainly need something …..."
"Is there trouble in Paradise?"
Jude sits back in her chair, and looks at Ruth, wanting to confide in her, while at the same time, not wanting to be seen as heading towards another failed relationship. Ruth puts down her fork, and gives Jude her full attention.
"I was about to say that it's Malcolm, but I think it might have something to do with me." Jude waits, staring out the window, searching for a place to begin. "I'm really fond of Malcolm, and he of me," she begins, "and we work well together – very well - but …... in the bedroom, we're …... a bit of a disaster."
"You just need time, Jude. Not everyone who falls into bed has sparks fly."
"You and Harry did."
"Yes, but we'd already developed a trust and intimacy in our working relationship, and we'd worked together for years before we made it anywhere near the bedroom. I think we're also very lucky that we're incredibly compatible …... in the …..."
"In the sack."
"Yes. But Jude, not everyone is. Malcolm is …... sensitive, and he hasn't had many women in his life. You're something entirely different for him, and it may take time for him to gain his confidence. Has he told you about Sarah?"
"Yes. I think part of him is still in love with her, and an absent ex-lover makes for very stiff competition."
Ruth is silent for a moment, aware that Jude Trinder, normally brash and confident, is struggling to handle her relationship with Malcolm.
"Jude," she begins carefully, "perhaps you're trying to force it. Maybe you need to give yourselves more time to get to know one another, and to trust one another. Your working relationship when you were both with MI-5 was a long time ago. You have to learn about who you are now. Not every relationship follows the same trajectory and time-line. Just enjoy one another, and see where that takes you."
"Thank you, Ruth. That's good advice."
"And talk to Malcolm. You may have to reassure him, to give him time. Have no expectations. That will make it easier on both of you."
Jude nods, seeming more relaxed. "Thanks. I'll do that."
"And keep an open mind. You and Malcolm may not actually have to be lovers in order for you to be intimate with one another."
By the time the four of them sit down to dinner – prepared by Ruth, with Jude's assistance – talk of sexual compatibility or otherwise has been forgotten.
"Harry tells me you're with us, Ruth," Malcolm says over coffee. They are still sitting at the table overlooking the garden, and Harry is pouring them each an after-dinner drink.
"I haven't said that, Malcolm, but I suppose I am interested. I imagine the four of us will work well together."
"I think so, too. All you have to do is the same thing you did at MI-5, and you'll be interacting with Harry mostly, and occasionally me."
"Good. Harry and I interact rather effectively."
The words are out of her mouth before she'd had a chance to think them through. She looks up to see Malcolm, embarrassment clear on his face, concentrating on his cup of coffee, and Jude grinning broadly. A quick glance at Harry sees him with one eyebrow raised, about to speak. Ruth shakes her head at him.
"All I was about to say, Ruth," he says, putting a glass of brandy in front of she and Jude, "was that when we worked together, we were like a well-oiled machine."
At the words, `well-oiled machine', Jude cracks up, covering her mouth to stifle her laughing. Her actions break the mild tension which has been between the four of them since the morning, and they all join Jude in her hilarity. Malcolm takes a while to relax into the moment, taking care that Ruth is not offended. When he sees Ruth wiping tears from the corner of her eyes, he chuckles along with them. Harry has sat down next to Ruth, and is holding her with an arm around her shoulders while she laughs against his shoulder.
"I think we all needed that," Jude says at last. "Especially after this morning." She looks up at Ruth, realising what she has just said.
"This morning?" Ruth asks her, the beginnings a blush on her cheeks.
The resulting silence is palpable.
"This morning, Ruth," Harry says, "you know, when we -"
"Harry! Enough. You're embarrassing our guests."
"I'm not embarrassed," Jude chimes in.
"Nor me," says Malcolm, "but I am being hugely entertained. I haven't laughed so much since Colin deliberately spilled coffee down the front of Tom's trousers."
Ruth again begins laughing, remembering the shocked look on Tom Quinn's face when unassuming Colin Wells had got his own back. "I still miss Colin," she says after a while.
"I miss him every day," Malcolm adds soberly.
Harry, still lightly holding Ruth, kisses her hair. "Now you've brought the mood down, we can wrap ourselves around these drinks."
And they do, the night again lightening up when Jude does impressions of her ex-husband, complete to tossing one leg over the other, adjusting her invisible cufflinks, and pursing her lips in an expression of disapproval.
They all fall into bed just after one in the morning, and next day, after discussing the business at hand with the secret arm of Trinder Services, Malcolm and Jude leave for London just after 5 pm.
"So, did you discover anything?" Harry asks Ruth as they settle together on the sofa, the TV on, but only for background noise. Ruth is tucked under his arm, her cheek resting against his shoulder.
"Discover?"
"About our guests. Are they?"
"Harry, you are the one who went on a three hour walk with Malcolm. Didn't you find out anything?"
"We mainly discussed business. For me, it was the perfect opportunity for running by him a few ideas about how we should approach the situation in Leeds with the imams who are inciting dissent in the government schools under the guise of cultural exchange programs. He and I have to work closely on that one, and I'll be needing your analysis. He mentioned his …... relationship with Jude when we were having breakfast together, but …... I'm none the wiser. You?"
Ruth leaned away from him for a moment, and looked at him. "I'm wondering why it matters if they are or if they're not. When the subject came up with Jude – after the cooking lesson I gave her – I suggested she just let go of the need to have sex with Malcolm, and that they work on their communication. We're lucky, Harry. We had to learn to communicate with one another at work. National security depended on how open and honest we were with one another. That's spilled over into our personal relationship, and into the bedroom as well -"
"And the shower."
"Definitely the shower." Ruth smiles at him, lightly touching his lips with her fingertips. Harry purses his lips against her fingers in a kiss.
"Did you find out why she can't cook?"
"Something to do with her mother, I think."
"It's always the mothers who get the bad rap. Why couldn't her father teach her to cook?"
"Did you ever try to teach your children to cook?"
"Of course not. That's what I'm saying, Ruth. Why should it be the mothers who have to teach their kids everything?"
"You feel strongly about that, don't you?"
"I do. I feel strongly about a lot of things."
"Tell me, Sir Harry. Tell me some of the things you feel strongly about."
"I feel strongly about the quality of single malt I drink. I feel strongly about good food. I feel strongly about good company, and getting plenty of rest …..."
By this time, Harry has hold of Ruth's hand, and is kissing her fingers one-by-one. He pulls one of her fingers into his mouth, and rolls his tongue around it. He then takes her hand and holds it against his chest.
"Most of all …... more than anything which exists in the physical world, or any other world …... most of all I feel strongly about you. You are my everything."
"Go on."
Harry leans his face into her neck, and begins planting slow kisses on her skin. Enjoying his attention just a little too much, Ruth pulls away from him, and holds his face between her hands.
"Do you want to know what it is I feel strongly about?"
Harry nods.
"Right now, I feel strongly about this sofa. I feel strongly about the fact that during the time we have lived in this house we have made love in all three upstairs rooms -"
"Don't forget the bathroom ..."
"As well as the bathroom. We have made love in the kitchen -"
"It was delightful, too," he says.
"Yes it was, and we have also made love in the dining room."
"That was uncomfortable."
"For me especially."
"The table is too high."
"Perhaps when dining tables are made, the optimum height for making love on it is not an important factor in their design," Ruth notes.
Harry smiles, nodding …... he remembers that night …... after dinner, curtains open to invite moonlight to spill over the table, several bottles of wine between them, his desire, her desire, hands under clothing, wandering, caressing, thrilling, Ruth's fingers gliding down the front of his trousers, his fingers under her skirt, inside her …...
Ruth continues. "We haven't yet made love here, in our sitting room, and I suspect our sofa is feeling left out."
Harry leans closer to her, and captures her mouth in his. As his kiss deepens, one of his hands slips under her shirt, and his fingers dance over the skin of her stomach. Ruth feels a shudder pass thorough her. Harry's seduction techniques never fail to arouse her interest. He lifts his head, and gazes into her eyes.
"We mustn't offend the sofa, then, Ruth. Shall we?"
"We shall."
A/N: I hope you enjoyed this …... even the painful conversation between Harry & Malcolm. I attempted to keep it IC, even though I believe neither man would have welcomed such a conversation.
I decided to write this to answer Ruth's curiosity about whether Jude and Malcolm had `done it'. As much as I wanted a defined answer to that question, I found myself leaving it ambiguous. I think it's better that way.
And there is yet another sequel to this sequel, set pre-Christmas 2012, set 4 months after this story. Up soon.