Lesson Number Four Part Two
Patrick lay unmoving inside her for a few heartbeats. Shelagh touched the wrinkle next to his mouth with her thumb, let the digit rest on his lips. He kissed the pad of her finger. She moved her hand to the nape of his neck.
"Are you ready?" he asked. His voice was very deep and husky.
"Yes," she said. The word was barely audible, but Patrick smiled, and pressed his mouth against hers. He started to move, doing it very slowly and controlled. His breath, however, came in hot pants, betraying how high-strung he was.
It was a strange sensation, having him inside her. She'd already experienced a little bit of what was to come when he'd explored her with his fingers, but even that couldn't completely prepare her for the strange burning that flickered with every thrust. Was it pain? Was it pleasure? Perhaps it was both. If anything, it was intense and maybe a little overwhelming, having him cradled between her thighs, feeling his warmth and his skin and his hair, smelling his aftershave and the deeply masculine tang of his sweat.
He's heavy, she thought. His weight pressed her into the mattress. The only sounds were the rustling of sheets, their little breaths that sometimes turned into quiet moans.
And these slick, wet little sounds of two bodies meeting, she thought. No one had ever told her there would be these moist sounds. No one had ever told her that sex involved so much wetness. Their bodies were damp with sweat. Beads of it clung to the hollows of her knees, tickled her calves as they dripped down. She had perspired during the other lessons, knew she'd sweat during this one, but the intensity of it still took her by surprise somehow.
Patrick nuzzled her neck. One of his hands was on her thigh, stroking her in long lines from knee to hip. His palm was damp, and that was new; his hands were always so dry from the constant washing his profession required. Did that mean he liked it? She wanted him to enjoy himself. He'd told her there were many ways in which to practice this fourth lesson. She'd have approved of whatever position he'd asked if that meant it was pleasurable to him. God, he was such a darling man, always trying to make her feel comfortable and loved, knowing so much about this intricate, delicate dance of lovemaking.
And I know so little beyond what he has told me…
How could she pleasure him tonight with this fourth lesson? She should've asked more before they'd started. Was she supposed to moan and wriggle and kiss him? Or was she supposed to lie in silence, letting him thrust inside her at a pace he set?
"Are you all right?" Patrick asked. Shelagh realised she'd been lying very still, her hands clenched. She had been holding her breath. She exhaled slowly and nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Patrick stopped moving with what must have been an extraordinary amount of willpower and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "Darling?"
She stroked his neck, used a little pressure so he ducked down and met her lips. She kissed him softly, tasting the wine they'd drunk at the reception, and salt.
"Are you all right?" he asked again. "Does it hurt?"
"No. I just…" She'd been lost in her mind, retreating there because it was a little much all of a sudden. She swallowed thickly. "I just don't know what to do very well," she said, her voice very small. She was suddenly desperately afraid she'd cry. How embarrassing would that be? And still he was inside her, and still her very core sang with need, that strange wet place between her legs thrumming like a taut bowstring.
Patrick touched his nose with hers, rubbing it like a cat might. It was a soft touch, intimate and sweet. She smiled, her lips trembling. "I just want you to like it," she whispered. An audible catch in her voice made it sound as if she'd swallowed a coin.
"Darling Shelagh," Patrick said. "You don't need to worry about that. You'll learn a little more every time we do this. You don't need to know it all. We can discover it all together."
She lay still, mulling those words over in her mind. Patrick must have seen that she was worried still, for he kissed the lines between her brow, and said, "Do you want me to instruct you?"
She nodded. "Yes please."
"All right. I'm going to move again. Try and rock your hips, darling. That way it'll be nicer for the both of us." He set a slow, easy rhythm. She moved her hips like he'd instructed her, doing it sloppily at first. Soon, though, instinct took over, and her hips rocked in perfect counter-rhythm to his. She was, after all, very musically inclined.
"Good," Patrick whispered. He grinned, then groaned at the next thrust. "God, you feel good," he said. She blushed, and kissed him. The burning between her legs was no longer a pain, but a pleasure, definitely pleasure. She realised that the ache that had been nagging in her lower belly wasn't so much pain as emptiness. Patrick filled her for a moment only to pull away and leave her empty again, causing the ache to throb in time with his thrusts. The pressure inside her was building.
"You're doing so well," Patrick panted. It sounded like something he'd say to a woman in labour, and that made her smile, not in the least because the words were familiar but the tone he said them in was wholly inappropriate for the workplace. This gravelly, rasping voice was for her, only for her, because of her.
"Am I?" she asked.
"You're a natural," he said. He pulled out of her completely, leaving her raw and bereft, then pushed into her again, going deeper than he had before. She realised suddenly that his thrusts had been shallow up till now. He could go much further than he had, and the only reason why he hadn't was because she was new to this, and he didn't want to scare her or hurt her. If he wanted to, he could push his shaft into her to the hilt, and fill her completely.
I could never make love to someone else, she thought. To lie here with spread legs, accepting him into her over and over again, trusting him to pleasure her and not hurt her even though the possibility of pain was always there, was an intense form of vulnerability. She had known this before, but only now she realised the full extent of it.
Patrick's hand travelled over her belly to cup one of her breasts. He wasn't as gentle as he had been before, and cupped her a little haphazardly. She moaned as he rubbed her nipple, moaned louder as he pushed into her. She was liquid fire once more, the pressure higher than she'd imagined it could possibly be.
"Damn, Shelagh," he rasped, his breath ghosting over her collarbones and throat.
"I'm…" she said, but she would be hard-pressed to form a good sentence, let alone find a word that encompassed all she felt, all she was. "Please," she said instead, feeling like a supplicant worshipping another kind of divinity than those commonly found in churches.
Patrick continued to thrust into her, but did it shallowly, allowing him to put a hand between their damp bodies and insert a thumb between her folds, feeling for her bud. His finger slipped over it, causing her to inhale sharply. He found her again, and pressed down.
The pressure inside her broke. She was vaguely aware of saying Patrick's name again and again, the word dripping from between her lips as she shuddered in the throes of ecstasy. Perhaps what made it so good this time was that her walls finally had something to flutter against, something to clench around. Surely this completion lasted longer than the others had? But how could she know? She was outside of time. There was just Patrick's mouth over hers, drinking in her breath as it stuttered out of her lungs.
He was still moving inside her, doing it fluidly.
He's a wave, and he's about to fall into me and then we'll be one, she thought. She clung to him as the pleasure ebbed.
"I love you," she murmured.
Something inside him broke. Maybe those three words were the cause. Maybe it was the way her walls still trembled around him, trying to drag him in deeper. Maybe the ultimate responsibility lay in how she moved her hands over his back, his arse, feeling the muscle move underneath the skin. Whatever it was, he suddenly held her down and drove hard and deep into her, and again, and again.
"Patrick," she gasped.
"God, Shelagh," he rasped. A moment of breathlessness, and then he ground into her, growling against her throat, stickiness pulsing out of him and filling her.
She held him to her with all her strength, not wanting him to pull out of her and roll away. She liked his weight on her, even though he was so very heavy. He was breathing hard. She rubbed circles between his shoulder blades, cupped his skull with the other hand. He moved his face towards her, touched her nose with his.
"Darling," he said, and tried to extract himself from her embrace.
"Don't go," she whispered, but he took hold of her wrists and lay down next to her anyway. She immediately placed her face on his chest. He tucked her under his arm. She slung a leg over him, wincing a little; she was sore.
He dropped kisses on her forehead, on her hair, on her eyelids. "I'm sorry. I lost control near the end," he murmured. He hesitated, then touched her face with a hand, stroking her cheek with his thumb. "Have I hurt you?"
"No. I…" She hesitated, licked her lips. She was quickly becoming cold now that they no longer lay entangled the way they'd previously been. He rubbed her arms and pulled the covers over them. She'd have to wash the sheets.
"What did you want to say?" he asked, desperation and fear colouring his voice.
"I didn't think you could go so deep. I didn't know."
He smiled a little at that. "I can go much deeper. It doesn't always have to be gentle and sweet and shallow, Shelagh. It can be wild and rough." He smoothed the worry lines between her brows. "But not for a while yet. All of that will come in good time."
He reached for the flannels on the nightstand.
"Don't," she said.
"Darling?"
"Not yet. I don't want to wash your seed away." She blushed, and was unsure again. She chewed her lip, and admonished herself for being so silly. There could be no secrets between them. He had seen everything from her, had been with her like no other could ever be. If souls existed – and she firmly believed they did – theirs had touched and seen themselves reflected in the other; they were that similar. "I want to have a child with you, Patrick," she said.
His face broke open into a smile at this confession. "You do?"
"Of course I do."
"A little Shelagh," he said.
"A little Patrick," she said. He touched her lips with his, sucked her bottom lip between his teeth. Their kiss waxed and waned as it had earlier. Soon that strange place inside her woke, and wondered why it was so empty. She smiled inwardly; how could she be hungry for him even though she had been sated so recently?
"Are you tired, my love? Or do you want to have another round of this very special lesson?" Patrick quipped. "It'll have to wait a while, but I'm more than happy to repeat any of our previous lessons in the meantime."
"Patrick," she murmured, and lightly slapped his arm. He grinned before his face grew tender once more.
"Or do you just want me to hold you?" he asked.
She nodded. As she lay listening to his heartbeat, her limbs growing slacker, she realised her lashes were coated together by tears.
It's because I'm so happy, she thought, and smeared them out over his chest, bathing him in her tangible love for him.