Thank you again for the very positive response. Sorry about yesterday's technical problems too. Here it starts to get a little bit smutty.
There was a slight pause. The disbelief, from both of them, was palpable.
"I'm sorry?" he asked, the incredulity sounding in his voice. Evidently, he could not quite believe what he had just heard.
Her heart was hammering, so loudly she was surprised he couldn't hear it. She swallowed, hard. Why had she said that out loud? She had never said it before. She did not know what had made her, and she certainly did not know what made her go on, in spite of her racing pulse and flared cheeks.
"I want to know what it's like," she pressed on, she kept speaking in spite of everything, she could not stop herself, "Please, Paul. I need to know."
He looked at her quite seriously, knowing that she was in earnest now. She was desperately earnest.
"What's changed?" he asked her.
"I didn't know, before," she told him, "I thought you were only joking. I didn't know you meant it."
"You thought that all of this time I was-...what? Winding you up? Making fun of you?"
She looked at her lap, nodding silently.
"I didn't mind," she told him after a moment.
"Oh, Ann," he leant towards her, his hands resting on her face, touching her skin gently with the pads of his fingers, "I can't believe that's what you thought."
"Look at it from my point of view," she told him, "It's not so unlikely."
Their eyes met. She had been watching his mouth, closer to hers than she thought it had ever been, but now she looked up and her eyes met his straight away. Their breathing seemed to match one another, to fall into the same step of time. He closed his eyes for a second. This is it, she thought wildly, he's going to kiss me-... But it did not come. She waited and it did not arrive. In fact, he pulled back a fraction.
"What about Martin?"
She let out the quietest sigh.
"One of us had to mention him," he told her gravely, leaning back.
Her hands fell into her lap rather helplessly.
"Weren't you thinking about Martin," she asked him levelly, "All of the times you were supposedly seriously propositioning me?"
"I was," he admitted, " And at the same time I wasn't. But now that you seem to be accepting me, at last, I don't know-... I want to know what you're thinking."
There was a silence.
"I know that what he doesn't know won't hurt him," she told him, "And he never need know, need he?"
"Never," he agreed.
"And I need to know," she told him again, "In this moment, now, I need to know what being with you is like, Paul. You can't say what you've said to me now, and expect me not to be curious. Not when I was from the start."
"I don't expect you not to be," he told her gently, "But Ann-... How drunk are you?" he asked plainly.
"Not as much as I was when I left your house," she told him, "Sober enough to know that this is what I want."
He was silent.
"Paul," she told him slowly, when he still did not say anything, "You know, I could just move my leg over you and consummate this irritating longing right now?"
His mouth fell agape. She smiled, biting her lip to stop herself from grinning. She reached her hand out, resting it on his chest. His heart was racing too, she noted with no small degree of satisfaction. She felt his hand move, resting on her waist. There was something in his touch that was uncharacteristically shy; she smiled again, thinking what a shock she must have given him.
"Come on," she told him gently, whispering almost, coaxing him, "You've wanted me all this time, and I've wanted you. And now you can have me."
She heard him let out a soft groan as he leant forwards to kiss her. And then it was her turn to moan quietly. He was a very good kisser. Of course he was.
His arms were around her, holding her as their lips locked together, their tongues exploring one another's mouth, as her lay her gently back on the settee and lay down over her.
"Oh, Paul," she murmured quietly as his mouth moved down to her neck, "Paul," she sighed contentedly.
He pulled away a little.
"I've waited so long to hear you say my name like that," he told her.
"Have you?" she asked.
"Yes."
His hands in her hair had made it come down and it spilled over her shoulders and into his hands. He buried his face in it, leaning in to nuzzle and kiss her ear, pressing their bodies close together as he did so. She could not help but shiver.
"Ann," he murmured, his breath hot in her ear, "I want you."
She shivered again, in fact by now she was just outright shaking. It was the most erotic thing she had ever heard, and his hands moving downwards, cupping her breasts over her dress and bra did not help.
He sat up with surprising ease, pulling her with him. She followed limply. His hands were undoing the buttons on the front of her dress as their lips met again.
"Ann," he asked her between kisses, "Let me take you to bed?"
She shook her head.
"Here, Paul," she told him, her head falling back as his mouth moved lower, down the valley between her breasts, "Here, now. I don't think I can walk."
He looked up at her face.
"My God, you're beautiful," he murmured.
He slipped her dress off her shoulders, then lifted the whole thing over her head. Her fingers fumbled with the buttons of his shirt as he reached forward to touch her breast through the lace and silk of her bra. She only just managed to pull the thing off both his shoulders before she felt him reach around her back and undo the clasp in one smooth motion. He watched, a look of wonderment on his face as it fell away. He kissed both of her breasts, cupping them fully in his hands, kneading them firmly.
"Paul," she moaned, her head rolling back again.
She put her legs around his waist.
"Please."
"Ann," he told her gently, easing her to lie down again, "Be patient. If I'm only ever going to do this once, and I fully accept that this might be the case, I'm going to do this properly. I'm going to have you completely naked, I'm going to make you come-..."
"Paul," his name escaped her lips in a sob as he lay on top of her, pressing his body against his, she did not care that she was begging him, "Please."
He sat up again, taking some of his weight off her.
"Alright," he told her, "Alright."
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