Author's Note: So, here we are in territory far away from Mr. Hardy. He didn't exactly go in much for, shall we say, the earthier details of Tess's adventures. Let's assume this is because he was a respectable gentlemen and commend him for it. On the other hand, if anyone is due for a an enjoyment of earthier pleasures, it's our Tess. She's walked a long, hard road and she deserves some giggles. So, here is the beginning of Tess's giggles. The reason this story is rated M for Mature? This chapter and the next. If you'd either prefer to keep to Mr. Hardy's elusiveness regarding the matter, or if descriptions of physical intimacies make you squeamish, skip chapters 13 and 14 and go on to the end. If you agree with me that certain things need addressing, then I hope these chapters are, um, sufficient.

My jaw dropped, my eyes shut themselves fast, and I covered my face with my hands- not that Alec's nakedness was at all displeasing, I just suddenly felt humiliation for my brazen entrance, shamed at how little thought I'd actually put into my little plan.

"Tess, I-"

"No, please don't speak to me, Alec! I am the silliest, rudest thing ever, and I'm so sorry. I didn't think- I just wanted to be wherever you were and now I just feel like a fool. Which I am."

I heard rustling noises, but could not stop covering my face with my hands, my face burning beneath my fingers which had suddenly gone cold. I could hear and feel him approaching me, and I began to curl up against the headboard, making myself as small as possible, pulling my knees to my chest.

"Tess! Stop wriggling about or you'll hit your head! This is already entirely too much like some silly French play for my liking, we don't need you contracting a head injury into the bargain. It's all right- I put on a robe, you can move your hands."

I shook my head, feeling more absurd with every passing moment, reminding myself of a child who is convinced that if they can't see anyone, no one can see them. I felt the bed shift as Alec sat upon it, and his hands closed over my wrists.

"Tess, please- I can't talk to you unless you look at me."

I allowed him to lower my hands, but kept my head down.

"Tess, I promise, your being here is more than welcome- it was just unexpected. And how were you to know that I sleep in the altogether? Most men would be wearing clothing of some sort, you weren't to know. Could have happened to anyone."

"I feel stupid…"

"We've established both that that is your impression and that I insist you are not. Let us discuss something new- you want to sleep here tonight? Is there something wrong with your room?"

I shook my head.

"Nothing wrong with your room, then. You didn't see a mouse or a rat or an intimidating shadow, no long-dead relatives paying visits or anything that might frighten a young lady from her bed?"

I suddenly raised my head- "No, but should I? Is this place haunted?"

He smirked. "Not usually. But what ghost wouldn't want to haunt my Tess? I am alive and I long to haunt your every step and movement. Seems only sensible."

I chuckled and shook my head.

"You say the strangest things sometimes, Alec."

"Aha- so, we've established that, of the two of us, I am the more preposterous. No more talk of you being anything of the sort! Still, I ask- what brought you here?"

I started to lower my head again, but he took my chin, gently insisting that I keep looking into his face.

"I couldn't think of a reason to stay there, when you're here."

He pulled me to him, and I happily laid my head against his shoulder as his arms went around my shoulders, holding me to him. He kissed the top of my head and sighed.

"My Tess, whatever shall I do with you?"

"Anything you want…" I said it in a small voice, and it was one those thoughts you don't realize are true until they are said aloud.

Alec went very still, and the air seemed to be holding its breath- the sensation in the room had changed at my words. I had inadvertently set my skin aflame, a strange and heavy feeling began to snarl within my stomach, and my muscles all but twitched with something akin to anticipation; I had to remember to draw breath.

"Tess, we are venturing into uncharted waters, and they could be dangerous. I hate to keep asking you to clarify things as if you don't know your own mind, but I need to know that you know what all you're saying, what it makes me think. And how terrified I am that I will misunderstand you in some way, and that I'll lose the little control I have."

He drew back from me, moving his head to peer at my face. I returned his gaze, a dim shadow of my earlier defiance and certainty returning, causing me to raise my head.

"Do you know what you're saying, Tess? Do you know how I might hear it? I don't want to seem coarse for being direct, but I must be. Do you mean that you want to sleep in my bed, or do you want to share my bed with me?" I began to nod, and he continued. "And by sharing a bed, do you desire to merely sleep, or do you… I need you to tell me exactly what it is you want, so that I will not do anything else, and will not think you mean anything else."

Words, words- always the words, trying to find them, trying to use them, seeking to ensure that they meant what I thought they did.

"I hardly know- that is, Alec…" I looked down at the blanket, as if the answers were there, knowing they weren't, but not feeling able to meet his gaze while I said the next part. "I don't know exactly. I know that I want your arms around me, I want more kissing, and touching. I feel like there are more things past that, but I don't know what they are. Will you teach me?"

I forced my eyes to look into his face, and had to do so through a wave of fear. I'd never felt so much as if I were laying everything on line, everything I could possibly lose, handing it all over to another person and asking them to accept all of it. Had it been anyone I loved any less, I would surely have never done so, but even with one I trusted and loved as much as Alec, there was still some sort of uncertainty.

His eyes held mine, his breathing was uneven, and his eyes were deepening pools of desire and something like trepidation.

"I can think of nothing in heaven, on earth, or hell below that I have longed for more than those words."

My fear rushed out in a sigh, and I once more let myself trust in Alec, in our love, and in how right and good everything was so far as the two of us were concerned. It was the last moment of any doubt, and I bid it farewell without a backward glance.

Alec's next few sentences were punctuated by frequent pauses as he grasped for the right words. "There are many things a man and woman might do together- carnal things, beautiful things, things which can bring both untold pleasures. If you want them, I will teach, I will show. But I will not do anything you don't want to do. If I do anything that makes you uncomfortable, or if it is too much will you promise to stop me?"

"If it is something you do, how could I not like it? My worry is that you will find me insufficient. I want to give you the pleasure you speak of, but I don't know anything-"

He put a hand to my lips and stopped my words. Did the hand tremble as he did so? Did I only imagine that what was said next bore such weight and truth that the words caused the slightest tremor in his voice?

"Everything you do, my Tess, is pleasurable to me. Everything you do will be perfect, because you are doing it. Nothing you do or feel or say will ever detract from the perfection you own inherently, and the love that I have for you will only ever grow because of it. Do you understand?"

I wanted to cry, I wanted to sing, I wanted to soar into the sky, borne aloft by the happiness and joy his words brought me. Instead, I brushed the collar of his robe aside, and touched my lips to the nearest part of him exposed by that action, trying to memorize the sensation of his warm, soft skin. He inhaled sharply, his arms tightened almost painfully around me. I felt a rush of power, feeling him respond to my touch. I pushed the robe further down, exposing more skin to touch, to kiss. I grazed nails across his back and simultaneously pressed teeth gently to his shoulder and the result was an exclamation as he moved against me.

Almost before I even knew it was happening, I was lain back against the pillows and Alec was above me. His full weight was distributed somehow, so I knew he was trying not to crush me. I couldn't concentrate though as his lips were against mine, his tongue filling my mouth. There was a hunger there, a need finally being met, and it both made my heart ache and my flesh sing. He had one arm around me, underneath me, the other hand was winding in my hair, cradling my head, pressing me against him closer and tighter, as if I had a thought to cease the kissing that both fed and increased an unnamable hunger.

My arms were around him, touching, feeling the skin of his back, his neck, his sides, finding his hips. I felt the urge to wrap my legs around him, it seemed the only thing to do- only my nightgown prevented me doing so. I stopped touching him long enough to pull the satin up, up, up, over my knees, so I could wend my legs around him, pull him closer, and hold him there.

He broke the kiss, and I nearly whimpered. He stopped moving, and that was when I realized that both of us had been in motion, our hips responding in a way I hadn't known I'd know, a rhythm whose cessation caused an actual ache somewhere inside of me. I began to move once more, and he raised his head to look at me. His hand disentangled from my hair and he raised himself above me, balanced on his elbows. I lifted my head, kissed his neck in an effort to resume what had been happening half an instant before, and he stopped me.

"Alec- did I already do something wrong? Is something not right, I promise to do whatever it was differently, only don't stop kissing me, please."

"No! No, Tess, everything was… Too good. I don't want this to end too quickly. I want to draw it out, make it last as long as possible. At the rate we were going, it would be so fast. I long to do something- will you be a bit patient with me?"

"As you wish. What shall I do?"

"Nothing. I want you just lie there and let me pay attention to you, to…" He moved to the side, and I instantly missed the weight of him upon me. I turned my face to him, and smiled. He smiled and gave me that look of adoration mingled with wonder that made me think I did not deserve such reverence. He trailed fingers across my brow and I closed my eyes in response, focusing on how soothing and arousing such a simple touch could be. I felt him kiss my eyelids, then nose. He slowly kissed my face again and again, never stopping with the gentle caress. His hand went lower, to my throat, and his lips followed, eliciting such delight, I almost purred in response. One particular spot, where my neck met my shoulder, responded to his lips with an intensity I would not have thought possible. I gasped and he paused.

"No, no- more, do it again…"

His lips again brushed the spot, and I was instantly back to where I'd been before- all the skin of my body seemed to awaken, the hum, to cry for attention. He kissed the spot as his hand found its counterpart on the other side of me and my body rose up in response, arching against the air. He moved his mouth to where his hand had been, found the exact spot on the other side of my neck, and instead of a kiss pressed his teeth, oh so gently, against it.

Again, I twitched, and the added pressure of his teeth felt so good, so intense, I moaned aloud. The sound was strange in the silent room, and I covered my mouth with my hand, as if to push the embarrassing sound back inside of me, and definitely to muffle any others from following.

"No, Tess- believe me; any sound you make, it's a good thing. Any noise, any word, any sound is the right one."

"But it sounded so… wanton. I don't want you to think me an animal."

"Open your eyes, darling." I did, and his face was there, his hand holding mine, his eyes smiling though his lips set in a sincere way. "I said everything you did would be the perfect thing to do, didn't I?" I nodded and he kissed my hand. "I know you trust me, but you must trust yourself enough to believe me about this. Every noise, every change of breath- it only tells me more and more what you want, what I am doing that is correct. So, no more trying to stifle yourself, agreed?"

I nodded again. He lowered his face and spoke directly against my ear- and even that made the fire stoke higher yet again, served to return me to a place where I was feeling such pleasure I could only await what was also in store. He asked for permission to unlace my nightdress, and I could only nod wordlessly.

He kissed my ear as his hand returned to my throat, touching. He whispered to me, as he touched. He whispered as his hand found the ribbon holding closed the nightdress. He whispered as he began to pull at the ribbon, unwinding it.

And what did he say? Such things! He whispered of my beauty, which only grew the longer he knew me. He whispered of my strength, of body and spirit, which dwarfed everyone he knew, especially his own. He whispered of his thanks for what I was giving him- in letting him touch me, in letting him see me, in letting him even love me. He whispered of his fear that anyone could be as happy as I made him, and how he could scarcely believe that any of this could happen to one as undeserving as him. Of how he hoped to somehow prove himself worthy of all my love.

And then he whispered please. He whispered thank you. He whispered would I let him look at what his hands had uncovered, at the sight of me laid bare in his bed? And I could only whisper back, yes.

He rose, so he was kneeling beside me. And then he did not move and the whispering stopped. Fearing a spell had been broken, fearing the worst, I opened my eyes and beheld his face. His face was saying all that his mouth had previously- his face bore a look of adoration, of wonderment, of rapture- all of it refined by love. He reached a hand, and gingerly drew it down the center of me, starting at my neck. Down, down my chest, between my breasts, to rest on my stomach.

"I know you'll grow tired of hearing it, but every part of you that is uncovered is even more beautiful than the last. I see by your face that you don't believe me, but if even the smallest bit of you proved anything less than ideal, I'd be able to cease talking about it."

With that, he lowered himself, and pressed his face to my stomach. And then he was kissing me, gently, everywhere. He kissed a trail across my stomach, up and over my ribs, my chest. His hands roved from my hips to my back to my shoulders, pulling my nightdress from my arms, leaving me completely uncovered, totally exposed. He laid me back, still so gently. It was then that his hands found their way to my breasts- the lightest of touches, then increasing in intensity until his mouth joined them.

I no longer kept track of my breathing, though part of me heard it growing ever more frantic. I no longer paid heed to the noises I was making, though I know I made them. I could think only of what he was doing, of his tongue moving across and around, over and over, drawing my flesh into his mouth where he sucked and I felt such pleasure it nearly bordered on physical pain. I felt headed toward something monumental, something that would be a release, but I could not see where it could come from. I knew only that the more his tongue, teeth, and hands touched, the more I wanted. My body must have known this as well, from the way it moved toward him, offering always another place for him to touch and lick, begging in a way that bespoke of a deep hunger, begging for attention and fulfillment.

And then his lips followed another trail to a different place- down my body, heading for the dark patch of hair between my legs. Part of me thought it must not be decent, for a man to do what he seemed about to do, but a larger part was only expectant of all the pleasures only Alec could bring me, and watched, astonished, as first his hands and then his lips found purchase there. The flesh cried out, something in the center of me began to come to a boil. And the whispering started again, only this time I was the one giving voice to thoughts, but the only words I found were yes, and please, and now.

In the midst of an ever-building wave of sheer intensity, I found myself opening my eyes to watch him. Though his fingers were moving in places I'd never known I had, though his lips and tongue were questing over some secret part of me that screaming in pleasure at his ministrations, Alec's eyes were on my face. I could not stop looking into their blue, blue depths as I also noticed his face work harder, and he began to draw something from deep inside of me outward, outward, screaming into existence, borne of exultation. I felt myself inhabiting my body in a way more strong and real than I'd have though possible, wondered if anyone could handle such pleasure, and then my entire body clenched like a fist, convulsed around Alec's fingers, curled into a ball, and I screamed his name into the ether, certain I'd died in some sort of fit of euphoria.