A/N: sorry for the delay again. I'm taking a little longer to update but rest assured, as long as there's interest in my story, I'll keep writing!
"Please, touch me."
Stunned, Georg simply stared at his wife through the darkness of the taxi, hardly daring to believe what she seemed to be hinting at. Surely his first assumptions were mistaken - she wouldn't know the first thing about the merits of role play in the marriage bed. But when he noticed the furious blush creeping into her cheeks, felt the dainty shift of her hand as it moved from his knee up onto his thigh, it left very little room for doubt... She was pretending. Just like he'd described to her over dinner.
The master of the house and his governess...
A violent shiver of anticipation ran down his spine at the thought. He'd told her about his sordid little daydreams so flippantly, without any hint of shame or regret - but not once had it occurred to him that she might want to explore such fantasies too.
He swallowed hard.
"If we're going to do this," he growled dangerously, his deep baritone low in his throat against the soft shell of her ear, "we're going to do it properly."
His sultry tones dared her to think twice about the game she intended to play, and wild flames of fear and anticipation leapt in Maria's chest at the promise behind his words. She didn't quite know what she'd gotten herself into, but she didn't have time to contemplate it, because Georg was already barking orders in rapid French at the bewildered taxi driver, who nodded in the affirmative before stepping firmly on the gas.
Neither of them spoke another word throughout the last leg of their journey, the air unbearably thick with anticipation - and Maria's mouth went dry whenever she dared to steal a glance in her husband's direction from the corner of her eye. His hard gaze was fixed straight ahead over the driver's shoulder watching the road, his posture was rigid with tension, and his jaw was locked tight with impatience. She'd seen that look before, she realised - during the summer in fact - on the face of her employer whenever he was deeply frustrated.
"Rapidement!" He barked again at the driver - and the disgruntled Frenchman merely muttered something under his breath in his mother tongue before turning back to the city traffic. Maria wanted to say something - anything - to soothe her husband's sudden impatience, but she realised all too soon that it was no longer her husband sitting next to her. Georg von Trapp - loving partner and father - seemed to have disappeared entirely, replaced instead by a stoic and imposing duplicate. Yes, it was undeniably Captain Von Trapp - hero of the Austro-Hungarian Navy and authoritarian employer to one troublesome governess - who now occupied the space beside her.
"Fraulein..." he suddenly clipped under his breath, and she startled out of her reverie to find him scrutinising her with such raw and open hunger that her insides entirely burst into flames, "when we get back you will come to see me at precisely 11.30pm sharp. Is that understood?"
She could only nod mutely, entirely dumbfounded and undeniably stimulated by this new game of theirs. Of course, his words were an exact mimic of the way he used to summon her to his study after hours back in the summer to discuss the children's development. And while they were no longer in Aigen, many miles away from the villa in fact - Maria was beginning to realise that pretending encompassed not just who they were, but the scenario and setting they found themselves in as well.
The master of the house and his governess...
"Good," he praised with a tight nod, "There's something I think we need to-" his eyes moved approvingly down the length of her body and back up again, "-discuss..."
A shudder ran across the length of her body.
"Y-yes sir.."
When they finally reached the hotel, Georg - or rather, Captain Von Trapp - had her out of the taxi and into the elevator almost as quickly as he'd managed to pay the driver. He barely touched her, moving no closer than propriety would allow - and to her utter surprise Maria realised she felt self-conscious in his company, almost as though it was four months earlier and she was the blushing governess in the presence of an unattainable man who stirred feelings within her that she didn't fully understand.
By the time the door to their suite was closed behind them, Maria's body was positively humming with anticipation.
"Do you still have that blue dress..?" Georg murmured, his eyes dark and his face a stoic mask when he turned to face her, "the one you wore the night of the puppet show?"
"Y-yes.. " Maria's voice was raw in her throat, "I made sure it was packed."
"Put it on."
It was a command - she knew that well enough by now. And she obeyed wordlessly, finding the dress and scurrying into the bathroom not only to change, but also to catch her breath. Of course, she knew exactly why he wanted to see her in that particular dress - she wasn't so innocent that she didn't understand the meaning behind it all. He had desired her that night, had watched her from the sofa with only her guitar to shield him, and he'd let his need for her show plainly in his eyes.
That had perhaps been the start of it all, that moment when their gazes had locked and he'd let his guard down. She'd seen a part of him that night that had until then remained hidden, and it had somehow caught hold of a little piece of her soul. Tonight he was wearing a dark suit and tie - he looked every bit the formidable master of the household. And with her in the memorable swathe of blue material, it would be as though they'd stepped back through time to that fateful night, to that moment when everything between them had changed.
Georg settled into the armchair in the corner of the room, one leg crossed casually over the other - though in truth, he felt far from relaxed. His heart was in his throat. This particular turn of events had been entirely unprecedented and unforeseen! His wife was in the bathroom, changing into a dress that would, by its very nature, transform her into the virginal governess she'd once been. And here he was, sat waiting for her - his despicable body already responding to the thought of an illicit liaison with a girl who was meant to be under his protection. But that was the beauty of fantasy - he didn't have to feel guilty for wanting her this way when none of it was real.
He was torn from his stimulating thoughts when the bathroom door opened suddenly, to reveal Maria in the floating blue fabric, looking every bit as guileless and beautiful as he'd remembered her on the night of the puppet show - and immediately his breath caught. The atmosphere in the room shifted instantly, leaving nothing but agonising anticipation and the sounds of their ragged breathing in its wake.
"Good evening, Captain," she murmured, her eyes glued to the floor and her cheeks reddening as she gave a formal bow of her head.
His traitorous body responded instantaniously.
"Good evening.."
Somehow they both understood that what had taken place between them in the taxi was still very much in play, and suddenly it was as though they really were just captain and governess, caught in that raw interlude between formality and intimacy, at a time when their need for one another had been almost too keen to bare.
It didn't matter that they were in Paris, that they were in the honeymoon suite of one of the finest hotels in the city. The tension between them was so palpable that they may as well have been back in his study in Aigen, with its rich mahogany desk and crackling fireplace. The atmosphere seemed to pulse with the unspoken knowledge of it - the heat, the urgency, the secrecy of their need for one another.
The master of the house and his governess...
"You wished to discuss something, sir?"
Still she didn't look at him, and her voice trembled slightly, though she did her best to hide it, he noticed. Knitting his long fingers together in front of him, he pondered his next words carefully, his eyes never leaving her blushing face.
"September is fast approaching fraulein," he stated after a few moments, a worry he knew had plagued them both only a few short weeks ago, "Have you enjoyed your time with us so far?"
"Oh yes sir, I've loved every moment!" She gushed, daring to look at him this time - and he smiled warmly in response to such genuine honesty.
"And what has been your favourite part of the summer?"
She thought for a moment.
"There've been so many things, I could hardly keep count," she eventually replied, wringing her hands nervously in front of her skirts as she moved forlornly to the window, gazing wistfully through the glass, "taking the children to my mountain. Rowing out on the lake. Cook's delicious strudel. The puppet show..." she swallowed hard before adding bravely, "hearing you sing..."
His heart began to gallop on an off-beat behind his ribs - and when he spoke again his voice was a hoarse whisper.
"And are you looking forward to taking your vows?"
"Yes and no... " she breathed, her face shadowing with sadness - and Georg wondered briefly whether she was remembering the anguish of that very personal and confusing time in her life.
"It's the life I believe I was born to live... to find out what is the will of God and to do it wholeheartedly. And yet..." she trailed off hopelessly, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears as she stared resolutely out of the window.
"And yet?"
"I don't know how I shall ever part from you all... "
He felt her sorrow in his very bones.
"I'll miss this too, fraulein..." he confessed on a whisper before he could stop himself - and he didn't miss her sharp intake of breath.
"This.. ?" she bleated - but he said nothing by way of reply and neither did she dare to shift her gaze away from the window. Instead the agonising seconds passed, the silence and the unspoken implications of that single word becoming almost too tense to bear - until she heard the telltale shuffle of fabric as he pulled himself out of the chair and moved closer. He took slow, measured steps, as though he was afraid of startling her - and she surely failed to breathe when finally she felt his strong hands come to rest on the swell of her hips, his masculine scent and sudden proximity drowning her senses.
"Yes.." he rasped, taking a shuddering breath against the shell of her ear, "this..."
The raw vulnerability in his voice made her shiver, reaching through her ears and coiling like poison ivy around her heart, and when he dared to press the lightest of kisses to the back of her neck, her entire world burst into flames.
"For every second of every day," he confessed, brushing his lips featherlight across her satin skin, "I will miss this," a firm hand left her waist and trailed up the front of her body, until he was pressing a protective palm against her breastbone, absorbing the wild beating that he discovered there, "this heart. This soul.."
And somehow, to Maria, it really did feel like he was touching her for the very first time - his lips scorching her skin and his hand at her breast anchoring her against his body. When her eyes fluttered closed against the heady sensations, the room around her seemed to fall away entirely, replaced instead by the vivid sounds and smells and visions of the captain's study, his own private sanctuary. And what had started as a mere game, a new fantasy between husband and wife, now felt so incredibly real that tears laced her eyes and her heart threatened to burst from her chest.
Would it have happened this way, she wondered? Would he have come to her like this during the summer if things between them had turned out differently? And more importantly, would she have given herself to him in return? She liked to think that yes, she would have. Because above all else, she loved him. More than she had ever dared to love anyone. She loved him for all that he was and all that he wasn't, and for everything in between - a deep, intrinsic need burning ferociously in her heart to be with him whatever the cost.
She'd always assumed that men and women who fell into bed with one another out of wedlock were wicked, corrupt, depraved individuals who couldn't control their most basal desires. But never had she considered that such people might be acting purely on irrepressible love. She knew now that it was not a simple case of black and white.
One thing was for certain though: her captain was first and foremost an honourable man, and if he'd offered her any less than she'd longed for under different circumstances, it would not be through choice, but because of the invisible shackles his world had clamped firmly around his wrists. Even if the result would've been a life of secrecy, a forbidden and undeniable love that only the two of them would've ever known about - Maria knew now that she would've done it. She would've followed him into the flames if he'd only asked it of her.
And now here he was - asking. Boldly and unashamedly. And she could no more deny him than she could will her lungs to stop breathing.
"My heart, my soul.." she rasped, covering his strong hand with her own trembling one upon her breast, "my body. They are yours, Captain."
A/N: the next chapter we'll finally get to some more of the good stuff but I hope you still enjoy the non- M updates?Also, what do we all think of the roleplay plot? Cringe, or all kinds of delicious?
