Anna opened her eyes, faint gray light coming in through the windows now opened to the outside air. She blinked, confused as to what might have woken her, and then smiled. The gentle stroke of her hair had her turning her head to see John propped on his arm while the fingers of his other hand trailed in her hair. He matched her grin and continued running his fingers through her hair.

"Good morning."

"Good morning." Anna shifted again to bring herself closer to him but keep his fingers moving through her hair. "How early is it?"

"Early enough that we could move from here now and no one would know you were ever in my room."

"I don't think that's true at all." Anna snorted, trailing a finger down his chest. "Mary definitely noticed that I never left last night."

"She won't say anything."

"Can you be so sure?"

John nodded, "More than the fact that I keep tabs on her son, I've also learned a few things about Mrs. Mary Crawley that make it difficult for her to hold anything over me."

"I've got nothing on her."

"What I've got over her now covers for you." John caught Anna's fingers and kissed them. "I believe I failed you last night."

Anna pushed herself to sit up, leaning over him as John remained in position. "And how would you possibly figure that?"

"Well," John's fingers finished at the end of her hair and started running up her arm. "I promised that I would love you until you couldn't move and I'd wring every drop of pleasure from you."

Anna frowned, "Didn't you?"

"I could still move when we finished." John sighed, scowling at the hint of sun coming through the windows. "Unfortunately I can't fulfill on that promise now."

"Then we'll have something to look forward to when we honeymoon." Anna shivered as John's fingers traced nonsensical lines over her abdomen. "I'm sure you've already planned everything involved in that."

"I did think that you'd enjoy if we went to Amritsar to see the Golden Temple there." John sighed, "Or we could go back to England and I could take you on a tour of the lands you're going to own."

"I won't own them." Anna made a face at him, giggling when he tickled at her side before sighing as his fingers darted toward her now exposed clit.

"Everything that's mine will be yours." John pressed on her to open Anna's legs and turn her so her back was against the headboard while he rolled to put his shoulders between her thighs. "And it'll be my pleasure to give you yours for the rest of our lives."

Anna's fingers clung to the back of his scalp and dug into the covers of the bed to give herself a hold against the rush of pleasure he sent through her. John's fingers tapped against her clit and spread the skin there to press and rub until his tongue joined the fray. As it did so Anna let out a gasping cry that drove her fingers to tighten their grip until her nails dug crescent moons into his skin. A motion she thought would send him back but only drove his tongue to taunt her further.

So distracting was his tongue that Anna kicked out in surprise when John's fingers pried open her folds to better explore her. They slid back and forth, spreading the damp from the evening to mix with the results of his current efforts. One finger dragged along her from one end and the other scissored back to meet it before reversing the motion and leaving Anna to dig her heels into John's back as he maneuvered under her legs to more firmly grip at her ass with one hand to keep her in place.

His tongue stroked along her slit to end with a sucking motion at her clit until Anna could no longer form coherent sentences. Each stroke differed in depth, intensity, and spread as John moved between flat, broad strokes and his more careful pointed ones. With his fingers ensuring that no part of her was left untouched, Anna could only moan and whimper for release as the twisting, tightness from the night before and all his other seductive forays in dark hallways gathered to bring her out of herself.

When John rolled his tongue along her clit and delved into her with two fingers, Anna burst. Her shout echoed around the room and carried out the windows but she could not find the energy to monitor her volume. All she could do was twitch helplessly under the guidance of John's soothing murmurs and gentle strokes.

His kisses at the insides of her thighs brought her back as she quivered around him. Anna's eyes, even half-lidded as they were, met his and he smiled before kissing at her navel. "You are beautiful."

"You're only saying that because I've just bruised you." Anna's fingers attempted their own soothing ministrations but flailed as John licked back over her slit again. "John?"

"Did you know that there are instruction manuals in this country that tell a man how to properly see to a woman's pleasure?" His voice muffled as he nipped along the inside of one thigh, his fingers shifting inside her so Anna could finally understand they had never left when her muscles released him. "To ensure she's sated and satisfied?"

"What?" Anna pressed her head against the headboard, her neck arching with another lap of John's tongue before he suckled her folds.

"Because, to the wisest of the men in ancient tradition, ensuring a woman reaches her peak is more important than ensuring a man does."

"No-" Anna tried to argue but John's fingers inside her found a spot that sent her twitching and writhing about him until he added a third finger and brought her to moan.

"It's true. They say," John let his teeth graze over her skin before running his tongue back toward where soft sucking sounds came from his fingers delving deeper and deeper. "That a man is as easy to understand as a drum and does not need much to help him find release. A man's pleasure is as basic as breathing. But a woman's… She's far more complex."

John let his tongue glide through her folds, sucking back toward his fingers and then lapping at the taste of her. Anna clenched her entire body. Her internal walls succumbed to the attentions of his fingers and strangled them as he sucked her clit back into his mouth. When he bit down, just hard enough to allow her to feel the indentations on his teeth, Anna shrieked.

The force of whatever sensations rocked through her now surpassed her earlier rise without exception. Colors danced behind her eyes and she struggled to force air into her collapsing lungs. Lungs she could no longer expand as her chest constricted to match the tightening of all her muscles her body over.

Her hands shook and Anna could only find breath as John kissed up her chest toward her breasts. His mouth latching at her nipple drove Anna to breathe in with shock before sighing in pleasure. Pleasure John used to send her over the edge a third time when he met the unconscious buck of her hips with his thumb pressing on her nerves and his fingers still buried deep inside of her.

Anna collapsed onto the bed, nothing but a boneless mass as John leaned over her. He brought his fingers to his mouth and Anna noted the glisten there. A glisten that John soon replaced with his own as he sucked his fingers into his mouth to taste her again.

The sound he made, a deep humming in his throat, had Anna almost leaping into his unsuspecting arms as her own wrapped around his neck and shoulders. She tried to wrap a leg about his hip and urge herself closer to him but while John took her mouth with gusto, he would not take her body. Instead he turned them so his back hit the mattress and Anna sprawled over his chest.

She licked the taste of them, combine in his mouth, from her lips and went to speak but John put a finger over her mouth. "It'll be better for you this way."

"What way?"

"A way I think you'll enjoy as much as I will." John carefully maneuvered Anna's legs on either side of his hips and helped her rest back just enough so that John's arousal rested in the perfect crease of her ass. "It'll give you more control and ease the soreness."

"You know," Anna leaned forward onto her forearms, holding herself steady on John's chest, "You did fulfill on your promise."

"Did I?" John tried to smirk at her but he took his turn to gasp out as Anna used her carefully planned leverage to first rub against him until he thickened and heated on the skin of her ass and then slip over him enough to run her folds around him.

"You promised to leave me coaxed, seduced, and played until there was no more pleasure to wring from me." Anna ground down on him, biting at her lip in response to the tight cords of John's neck that stuck out for her to kiss and nip and lick until his fingers carded in her hair and his hand sought to control her at the hip. "And then you would take me as slowly as you physically could to let us fall over the edge together again."

"I did." John allowed through gritted teeth when Anna rolled against him to run the head of his erection against her clit.

"You served the first parts of your promise." Anna forced herself to focus past the delightful haze of his scorching arousal riding where she still wept so she could lower her mouth to his ear and whisper. "I think it's time for the last part."

"Please." Anna stopped, their eyes meeting again as John forced his open to stare at her. "Please join us."

With John's plea, almost begging for her attention, Anna lifted enough to position them and sank down. The stretch of him inside her, even from the night before and the diligent work of his fingers already, brushed each piece of her until Anna could not think. Her fingers dug into the skin of his chest and she gasped for air as she sought to fill herself to the brim. And when their hips joined, her body as close to his as she could be, Anna held herself there.

John's fingers kneaded the flesh of her thighs and then her ass, trying to guide Anna to move but her legs were gelatin. She closed her eyes, hauling in air to fill her lungs, and rocked forward. His shorter nails still left their bruising marks on her skin to steer Anna in her gyrations.

He allowed her free reign of him, following at her whim. When she sought a new position or a slightly altered approach, he only took control enough to show her how to perform the desired function before resting back to enjoy it. All the while her fingers continued to run over his chest to try and retrace the patterns she assumed he burned into her skin earlier.

Taking control of her rocking motions, Anna forced herself to twist and gyrate until her thighs burned with the effort. And they burned again, in a new way, when she set to bobbing up and down with fervor until the frenetic pace overcame her. The final sheathing, thrusting herself down onto John as hard as she could, stole what little air remained in Anna's lungs as she came with a high-pitched cry. One John echoed in a deeper, more guttural sound as he took control.

His hips snapped into hers, the sticky slap of skin meeting skin echoing about the room in an ever-growing cacophony of noise. Anna lost herself in the frenzied pace he set, holding tightly to him until he finally finished inside her. They sagged together, the aftershocks urging them to buck their hips until they settled to final stutters. Stutters that left Anna trembling and shaking on John's chest while their hearts synchronized.

Golden beams painted the far wall and Anna groaned into John's skin. He stroked through her hair, echoing the motions that woke her at the beginning, and kissed by her temple before he whispered to her. "We'd better be about our business."

"I know." Anna pushed herself enough to rest her chin on her hands, still supported on his chest so John looked over his nose and chin at her. "Will I still have much to do when I'm Lady John Wuthering?"

"More." John snatched a hand, kissing it before turning them so Anna slid to the mattress. "You'll still have the school, if you want it, and you'll also have to help me host parties and balls and events and-"

Anna pressed her lips to his, silencing him and then sinking into the kiss when their fingers mimicked one another to sink into one another's hair. She pulled away first, grinning at his confusion and the instinct of his lips to continue moving. "Then I'd better get to my duties since I'm not yet needed to help you plan your events."

"You're always needed."

"But I've other people who, for the moment, need me more." Anna pushed herself onto her hands and knees. "Although I would love to spend all day here with you."

"You would?"

"Don't go looking for more compliments to stoke your vanity or I'll never get your ego through the door." Anna eased off the bed, moving slowly as her body tried to comprehend vertical motion. Hands held her hips and John guided her toward the water basin. "Thank you."

"I did say you wouldn't have the energy to move."

"You did." Anna rested her hands on the vanity and sighed as John took the cloth to her body. "Are you trying to wash me or arouse me?"

"Can I not do both?" John kissed the back of her thigh, running the cloth up her legs to wipe away the evidence of their evening and morning. "I'd much rather do both if I can."

"Perhaps another time." Anna glanced toward the large clock, ticking away in the corner and groaned. "When we have time."

"There's something you'll learn as Lady of the house." John finished with a final kiss to her navel before taking the cloth to himself. "There is never enough time."

"Then we'll have to make some in the future." Anna eased toward her dress and frowned at it. "In future I'll need something more appropriate than skulking back to my home in last night's dress."

"In future, you'll be sleeping in here and you won't need to skulk anywhere." John turned to face her but stopped. "Have I said something wrong?"

"Why would you think that?"

"Your face, just now." John hemmed and hawed with his hands. "When I suggested… I didn't mean to assume…"

"John." Anna grabbed his hands, her underclothes sticking to the damp parts of her body, helped not at all by the heat and humidity already striking with full force. "I thought it one of the most romantic offers I've ever received."

"Really?"

"Yes." Anna brushed hair back from his forehead, her fingers delicately tracing over his face. "And while I'd enjoy us traveling to Amritsar or England I think, for now, we'd best stay close to our friends here."

"Are you nervous about something?"

"I know that I've made no more friends from your class in this decision to accept your proposal. I'd wager I made far more enemies, your cousin included, and for now I think we need to weigh the social cost of us gallivanting off as if you were showing the world what you think of their rules."

"They are ridiculous."

"But they are the ways of the world, John, and they need to be respected." Anna took his hands in hers, marveling at how they dwarfed her. "At least until we know how to skirt them before shirking them completely."

"I heartily agree with that plan." John kissed her hands and broke away to help her into her dress so he could tie the laces at the back. "Just as heartily as I await your decision on where we should take our honeymoon."

"Goa."

"Goa?" John made a surprised noise in his throat as he managed trousers, sandals, and his dressing gown. "Do you speak Portuguese?"

"No but I'm confident we could find ourselves a translator if we really thought it necessary." Anna dipped to peer into the mirror enough to set her hair somewhat aright before turning back to John. "Unless you've been."

"Not as yet but I don't deal in trade affairs or the Portuguese." John opened his door and peeked into the hall. "I believe the term used is, 'the coast is clear'."

"Very funny." Anna eased past him and went to argue as John joined her.

"Ah," John held up a finger, "I'll brook no argument."

"I can walk myself the short distance to my home alone."

"And you think I'd let you walk alone like you were a woman I only wanted for the evening and then disposed of in the morning?" John caught Anna's hand, stopping them at the top of the stairs. "You're going to be my wife, Anna. You're not my mistress or a prostitute or anything that bears any shame so I won't have you walk as if you should carry any."

"How very touching." Both of them stiffened as Thomas pulled himself into the corridor, tapping a fag against the metal case he used to carry them. A match struck and gave his face an eerie glow for a moment as the end of the cigarette flared up. He shook the match out so the tendril of smoke wafted up before he crushed the little wooden stick in his hand. "Although I guess you're not the blushing maiden you pretend for the public are you?"

"What are you doing Thomas?" John shifted, shielding Anna with his body.

"I found myself woken by the strangest of noises this morning." He sucked more of the foul air into his lungs before blowing a puff of the smoke toward the ceiling. "A bit of screeching and moans like someone suffering a bad bout of dysentery. Naturally I got up to see if I could help."

"Naturally?" John spit, "It's unnatural for you to help anyone but yourself."

"As it happened, the sources of the noise were your bedroom and I figured my presence wasn't necessary." Thomas flicked a bit of ash from the tip of his fag and used it as a pointer between his fingers when he gestured toward them. "I'm sure you both know all about that. Unless someone else in your house was engaging in copulative activities early in the morning."

"Why are you here Thomas?" John advanced on him, Anna grabbing for his arm.

"Oh no Ms. Smith." Thomas took another drag before dropping it and the remains of the match onto the floor to grind them out with the toe of his shoe. "He's all bluster and no action. His service to Queen and Country drove all his courage from him so you need not worry he'll strain himself bothering with me."

"Answer the question." John punctuated each word with a breath to stop himself seething through his teeth.

"I'm here to wish my cousin a happy engagement and witness the wedding." Thomas shrugged, "What other duties do I bear as your heir?"

"Not for very much longer."

"That greatly depends on Ms. Smith, doesn't it?" Thomas nodded at her. "I know she's carried one bastard but could she find it in her unworthy frame to carry a titled child? Will it even be your child? For all we know she-"

Whatever Thomas wanted to suggest everyone already knew drowned in the gurgling sound he made after the crack John brought to his nose. The surprise of the assault toppled him into the wall so he was helpless against John's second fist as it impacted his jaw and rolled his eyes into his head. He slumped, eyes blinking intermittently as he tried to move.

"John!" Anna's hands flew over her mouth before she tugged on his sleeve. "Is he alright? Did you-"

"I hope he's not alright." John shook out his hand, inspecting the red knuckles and broken skin. "And I didn't kill him if that's your worry."

"I don't…" Anna gaped, "What do we do?"

"Let his man come and take care of him." John snapped his fingers and a timid, gangly man hurrying toward them. "Get him back to his room and get the doctor to see to him. Hopefully I knocked a few teeth loose but otherwise he should be fine in a few hours save the pounding in his head and whatever else I might've have jumbled about."

"Yes your lordship." The man jumped to it as John pivoted to escort Anna down the stairs.

"Don't mind a word he says."

"I…" Anna stopped John at the base of them. "I don't, John. I don't mind what he might say about me because I know he's wrong. But I do mind what he's said about you and how it makes you feel."

John frowned, "What did he say?"

"Nothing. He didn't-"

"I saw him corner you on the stairs and I know he said something." John put a hand on Anna's arm, the pleading in his eyes so different from the begged words earlier that kept them both in thrall. "What did he say?"

"He intimated that you weren't able to have children and that's why the late Lady Wuthering sought other companions." Anna put her hands to John's face, trying to force him to face her. "It's not true. I know it's not true and so do you. Don't allow him space in your mind to-"

"I always worried it was me." John slumped sideways, falling onto a cushioned bench and letting his arms rest on his legs. "I worried we couldn't bear children because I couldn't have them."

"John." Anna bent before him, kneeling between his legs. "I don't believe that and you shouldn't either."

"What if it's true?" John grasped Anna's hands, holding her eyes with his fear and his heart at its most open and vulnerable. "What if we never have children and I'm the cause?"

"What if I'm the cause?"

"You've already had a child." John shook his head. "It couldn't be you."

"But it could." Anna squeezed his hands back just as tightly, raising them slightly before dropping both of their arms into his lap. "The midwife who delivered James told me there was damage. She worried all the bleeding could mean that there was… That something was wrong inside."

"Anna-"

"No." Anna put her finger on John's lips. "We'll not let our fears stop us anymore than we'll let that pestilential man up there stop us."

She took a breath, "I didn't accept your proposal to allow fear to stop us."

John gave her a smile, moving her finger from his mouth to kiss her hand before cupping along her jaw with his hand. "Do you never doubt?"

"No." Anna shook her head, turning toward his palm to kiss there before biting him hard enough to make his eyes widen. "But I don't doubt the sun'll rise in the East either."

"You are an irreplaceable woman Anna Smith."

"And you're," Anna pulled his hands back to hers and used her leverage to get them both to their feet. "Irreplaceable to me."

They walked hand-in-hand back to her house as the sun rose. Anna opened the door and listened, her mouth twitching up into a smile. "I guess my son isn't back from the fun he's having with his friend somewhere that's not here."

"We all enjoy being somewhere else for a bit." John closed the door behind him, removing his shoes as he entered her home and cringing when she frowned at him. "Should I not?"

"You never have before."

"I just thought…" John went to slip his feet back into the sandals but Anna put her hand on his arm to stop him.

"I want you to feel comfortable here." She slipped her hand down his arm to intertwine their fingers and pull him further into the house.

They padded into her bedroom and Anna sat him on the edge of her smaller bed so she could kiss him. John's hands stroked along her arms and up to tangle into her hair as she removed his dressing gown and found the button holding his trousers around his hips. His swift shift let them drop to his ankles and Anna hurried to remove her clothing to join him.

John wrapped an arm around her waist as if to move them but Anna stopped him with a hand on his chest. Her smile eased the furrows in his brow as she moved to straddle his thighs. Their fingers traced over one another, Anna's finding their way around his rising arousal and his making their familiar way back between her folds.

Looking into one another's eyes, the only sounds exchanged between them the harshness of their labored breathing, they rose toward the edge of glorious climax. Before John could send Anna soaring over the edge she withdrew her hand to catch his wrist. He frowned and Anna kissed it away as she shank down on him.

The stretch was almost second nature now and they found a rhythm together. Her nails scraped over his shoulders to rake red lines over his back as John's fingers left their own bruises over her hips and ass. Their mouths melded and broke like waves until it was just as impossible to breathe as it was to not seek for life-giving air. But they persisted and soon Anna clawed at the back of John's head to bring him closer to the breast he teased with his eager mouth.

Her motions turned erratic, rising and falling with all the energy and effort she could manage from her position until she locked her ankles around his back to hold herself in place to meet his thrusts as she took him deeper. Each drive into her led to an equivalent bob or twist or clutch of her walls about him until neither could fill their lungs. At the moment they rose to the peek together, their mouths met and they swallowed one another's moans of pleasure.

Sweat stuck to them as they clung together in the quiet of the morning.