With his good leg and the help of the hand railing, John mounted the stairs to the cloistered attic rooms two at a time. Thoughts of that night — their night — ripened in his mind. He'd not known what to make of her wide-eyed gaze, whether it was a question, a challenge, a plea, or a pledge.
Unpinning her ruffle and then her apron, her hands shook a little as she flitted down the row of buttons. There were five. He counted as she methodically pulled them. It was the answer to a question he had pondered over for so long that it seemed an old friend. The cream of her corset was a stark contrast to the black of her livery.
Anna must have undressed them both, for he could only half fumble with his buttons faced as he was with an expanse of skin the color of buttermilk. She was lovelier than he had imagined, all shapely thigh and hip, skin pale and painted through with the blue vine-work of blood vessels.
In the darker months of his stay the memories of that one night were what reminded him he was still alive. Thoughts of her fierce boldness sustained his will to carry on when nothing else could. Anna May, his poem of a wife, with hair the rich gold of sun-warmed hay, and a smile as wide as the sea. Anna had practically dragged him to bed. Never had he imagined that she would be the one having her way with him, not their first time together, but she balked at his nerves and took charge. He tried to be chivalrous, and she was having none of it, had pushed him onto his back, made him hers. He'd not been ready for her heat or how tightly her body ringed him. He had not been ready for how slick she was, how enthusiastically she met his thrusts with her own. Splayed beneath her, hypnotized and mute at the sight of breasts that swung as she rode him, he had not been ready at all, had toppled under her in a beautiful fall. He craned his neck to pull a nipple into his mouth and felt her contract tight around him. He'd tried to slow her, to push her off of him as he felt a fiery swelling. She tugged him to her lips and devoured him, breathless and alive with need and want, insistent. "Let me feel you. I need to feel you. Please."
Her eyes flickered dark in the candlelight, holding his gaze, daring him, as her muscles bunched and coiled tight around his swollen sex. It occurred to him that she meant she wanted to feel him come and it made him judder and buck against her. He'd been terrified of hurting her — and supposed he always would be — but she gasped and pulled him tight to her.
She raked her teeth low over his throat. "Please."
A sheepish sense of pride flooded him as he recalled the moment, for even if he hadn't managed to last very long their first time together, the look she gave him when he'd flipped them over had stayed with him. She'd gasped raggedly as he buried himself inside of her. He found his balance and his end on one knee, wrapped in her arms and legs, worried that she hadn't finished. He said as much after Anna finally let him pull free of her heated embrace.
"Something tells me that you'll make sure I'm taken care of," she said, smiling.
She'd been right. A short time later, she was chasing her own pleasure in the palm of his hand. The room was silent save for the sounds of the fireplace, their ragged breath and the quickening, wet slide of flesh on flesh. He chased the tension in her body, wanting to push her over the edge and with a soft whine, she stiffened, gasped his name and gripped him in strong undulating waves. Cradling her and kissing her as she floated back to earth and slumped boneless against him had been the happiest moment of his life. The mind was an interesting thing, for in his recollection, there was nothing of the despair and worry they were both fighting through at the time. Just her body pressed to his body.
He folded his change of clothing into a stack of towels, along with a razor, his Macassar bottle and a small bar of soap. And then he tried reciting the alphabet backwards to make himself presentable enough to venture out of his room. It took three attempts.