A/N Thank you for the reviews, you're all excellent people.

The below is very, very M rated, scenes of sexual nature. Reader discretion advised etc etc.

Edith walked them backwards to the bed, trying to keep as much of her body fitted to his as possible, a moving lock and key. Inevitably, the process was a clumsy one and they landed on the mattress in a ball of flailing limbs. In the melee, Anthony elbowed her in the stomach.

She exclaimed at the contact, let out a sharp exhale of breath.

Anthony recoiled back, an expression of horror on his face, "Oh God, I'm sorry! Are you, are you all right?" He put his hand to the approximate location he'd hit, that soft furrow of flesh between the rise of her stomach and the jut of hipbone. Gently, so gently, far too gently, he ran his fingers along the skin, barely pink from the contact. Her muscles kicked beneath his touch and Edith moaned and bought her hand over his and pushed his palm down flat. Sensation rippled outwards, as if he'd broken the surface of an inland lake on a quiet morning. It pooled in the strangest places - the tip of her toes, the underside of her knees and then in the more obvious ones too between her legs and at her breasts.

"Edith?" It was a question and she didn't want it to be. There were only answers now.

"I'm fine. I'm fine. Just -." Instead of trying to convince him with words, she took his lips in a desperate open mouthed kiss and pulled his weight down on top of her.

He moved away and took her nipple in his mouth. She fisted her hands into the sheets, and panted - breathless, mindless - as he sucked with absolute abandon. Unbidden, her hips arched into his erection and his groan of response vibrated through her flesh.

She'd pictured this. His magnificent face tending to her sensitive breasts.

His hand went to her other nipple and teased. She needed a little more than that. And she wanted more. Usually, she'd let her partner try and figure it out, terrified that she'd scare them off.

"Could you - please -" Her voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. A needy woman, wanton and pleading. Her breasts quivered. She didn't think anything ever really quivered, save for jelly, perhaps a blancmange, but here were her breasts doing a credible imitation of both. She gasped the words again, "Could you -"

Anthony looked up, drug-eyed and smiling, "What? Anything. I'll do anything."

She beamed and laughed, she couldn't help it, how was it possible she'd got this lucky? To want this man as much as she did, and have him want her back.

"A little squeeze?"

All at once he wasn't smiling, instead he was concerned, "you're sure?"

"Yes. Yes. Yes." Three syllables of absolute certainty.

Tentatively, he took one nipple between thumb and forefinger and did as she asked. The pinch was met by a corresponding pulse between her legs. He repeated his success on her other breast, "That's – fuck!"

Anthony knew she wasn't a great one for swearing, she saved up her bad words so that she could deploy them for maximum effect. This one emerged without thought, because she knew, instinctively, it was the only word that would do.

He smiled right up to his dimple at her reaction. His broad chest was rising and falling with every heavy breath. It wasn't chiseled but he was sturdier than she expected, his strength and solidity was hidden by all his ill-fitting shirts and thick jumpers. A violent reminder of his accident, a thick slice of mounded white skin, snaked down from beneath his right arm, finishing with a flicked curve over his abdomen. She wanted to kiss it, to trace the tip of her tongue along its length, to make it something erotic to him, to make it something, anything other than a permanent reminder of the horribly tragic event for which he blamed himself. Sweat glistened in the shallow pools above his pronounced collarbone, she wanted to kiss him there too. She wanted to kiss him everywhere.

"You are so handsome."

"Rot." He looked away, as if there was some item of great preoccupation on the headboard above were she lay.

"No." She shook her head and was suddenly eager to be naked, to press every part of her, against every part of him. She scrambled, "Can you? Please."

He took her meaning and relieved her of the silk trousers, pulling them down and off, tossing them carelessly onto the floor. Eons seemed to pass as he looked at what he'd revealed. Slender legs and soft downy thighs. She hoped he'd take her knickers off, and that she wouldn't have to ask. But there was a measure of intensity on his face she'd never seen before, she was afraid he'd changed his mind. Just as he was starting to drive her out of hers.

He glanced at her breasts, his tongue flicking out at his bottom lip. Then he looked away with a frown. He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Defeat cloaked him. It was just like earlier when he retreated back to the bloody chair, she'd wanted to pull it out from under him and cast it into the fire. Every time he came close to her he seemed to retreat, like an early explorer afraid to fall off the end of the map.

She pushed up onto her elbows, "what is it?"

He hunched and ran his hand through his hair, "the thing is Edith. It's been a considerable time since I did this. Or anything remotely approaching this."

Casting caution to the wind, she scurried across the expanse of bed which seemed to have opened between them. She slipped her hands around his waist and pressed her breasts into his back, hoping he could feel her hard nipples against his skin. She kissed another scar she hadn't noticed before, just below his shoulder blade, before she kissed his neck, "Anthony, I don't -"

"Let me finish would you?"

She sat back on her heels, a little deflated, worried his insecurities would halt the evening after all. But there was a tug on her wrist and he pulled her flush with him again.

"I certainly haven't done it since the accident." He swallowed, "so that's at least seven years. And before that, I'm not exactly sure, two maybe three years. So you see, you might be the first woman in a decade." He shook his and whispered, almost to himself, "A decade. Blimey." He laughed, but patently found nothing about the situation funny, "And I don't want you to get your hopes up because I wasn't some expert at it before then, even with two working hands and two working arms. Just ask Maud -"

"Maud's a lesbian!"

"Fair point." He turned to face her, again sneaking a look at her breasts as if she hadn't willingly, keenly exposed them for his - and her - enjoyment, "I want this to be good for you." He put his hand on her cheek, ran his thumb down to catch on her bottom lip, "Edith, I want this to be so good for you."

"It will be."

"Your faith is hopelessly, gloriously misplaced."

She rolled her eyes, still telling her how to think even in this, "It will be, Anthony." She kissed him hard on the mouth and then whispered, "I'm turned on. You turn me on." She blushed, but this was no time for an embarrassment induced retreat, she had to be strong, "And I'm wet for you. Hopelessly, gloriously wet."

His eyes flashed, she watched his Adam's Apple rise up in his throat and drop back. A thrill chased down her spine. There was something to be said for the power of plain speaking.

He cleared his throat, "show me?"

"Excuse me?"

He urged her back, so she was lying on the bed again, him sitting beside her, "show me what you like?"

Arousal screamed in her ears.

But he couldn't mean she should - she couldn't - certainly not in front of him - but he wouldn't want that - would he?

His fingers slipped beneath her underwear and unbidden she lifted her hips to allow him to pull them off and cast them to the floor. The triangle between her legs was an object of curiosity for several moments and then he took a knee in his hand and urged her legs apart before looking at her there too. If he hadn't believed her assertions he'd have visual proof of it now.

"Show me, Edith." He urged, his voice deeper somehow, both demanding and uncertain, "Touch yourself."

He did. He wanted her to do that.

Her heartbeat throbbed across her body, drummed in her toes and at the pulse at her neck. Her hands were unmoved, settled resolutely by her sides, encased in concrete blocks she hadn't noticed until just this moment.

Why couldn't she be some sex kitten? Masturbating on demand for her partner without any hint of discomfort, flashing a coquettish smile. She squeezed her eyes shut and wished herself a braver woman.

Warmth wrapped around her nipple and pulled, first one, then the other. She gasped and opened her eyes to find pools of blue staring back at her. He troubled her breast with his teeth and then replaced his mouth with his hand. Glancing fingertips back and forth and then, another squeeze.

His breath was warm around the shell of her ear, "You turn me on too. Please show me Edith. I promise I'm not laughing at you, or judging you. I want to know what works." He looked at her then, smiling wickedly, perhaps the first time he'd seemed entirely relaxed since he'd stepped into her bedroom, "and the prospect of the image excites me, I won't lie."

He threaded his fingers within hers and gave her hand a gentle squeeze. A simple gesture which reassured her. This was not a man who lied easily and he would not lie to her. He lifted her hand and kissed the back of it, a Regency moment amidst a very twenty-first scene. He murmured against her skin, "trust me."

Then he took the tips of her index and middle fingers into his mouth and swirled them in moisture.

"God, Anthony." She nearly came then and there, ironic given his desire for a demonstration which he presumably hoped would last longer than half a second, "are you sure it's been a decade?" That seemed like the technique of a practiced seducer.

"Oh, I'm quite, quite sure." He bit the tip of her index finger and rested her hand across her stomach, as if furnishing her with the weapon to slay her own desire, or perhaps to stoke it. With a deep breath she shifted, parted her legs, explored her delicate folds and touched herself with very fingers he'd had in his mouth only a moment before. She heard the exhale of his breath, and the bed waxed and waned, presumably as he shifted to get a better view.

There was no earthly way she could keep her eyes open, a curious conflagration of shame and shyness and arousal conspired to force them closed. She concentrated instead on her fingers. She imagined his sight trained on her body and his mouth at her nipples, flesh against flesh. Her hips began to move in counterpoint to her fingers and she bit her bottom lip.

His voice wafted into the fog of arousal, "not direct contact then, but slightly off to the side. Small circles."

Never before in her life had she considered the semantics of her technique. But he was; he was making a study of her, methodical and detailed. Determined to succeed, ready for the moment he took control of her pleasure. His fingers instead. Perhaps his lips. His tongue. She whimpered at the thought.

"What are you thinking about?"

The words twisted around her knees, flirted with the bottom of her thighs. Her eyes fluttered open, he knelt on the floor at the foot of the bed. It would be impossible to get a more direct view of her most intimate parts than the one he had at that very moment. Which was the whole point of the exercise, of course, but she gasped and blushed a beetroot red anyway.

"Ah, don't stop Edith, don't stop." The words were a breathless, whispered plea. He uttered them again, "don't stop."

Somehow she drew the strength to push the mortification away and started up again.

"Tell me what you're thinking about, please."

The answer emerged on an intake of breath as the orgasm built beneath her fingers, "You."

"Don't lie." He urged.

She was in no fit state to argue, but she tried, a series of short sentences skipping and stuttering on gasps and half moans, "I'm not - not lying - not. Your fingers. Your lips. Tongue."

He made some noncommittal sound of disbelief - a grunt or a mumble.

What followed was utterly unexpected. There was the brush of hair on her thigh and his shoulders pushing her legs further apart. Just as she opened her eyes to ask him what he was doing, his tongue thrust into the space that was occupied by her fingers and he lapped at her, not once, not twice, but three times. Big, generous motions over precisely the right spot.

She squealed her surprise but it became a moan almost immediately. The coil of tension wound tight in her stomach, she arched her hips, chasing the release.

Then, he stopped.

"No, no, no, no, no!" She was gasping, and a little angry. The words peppered out across her tongue like pellets from a toy gun.

She could see the flock of blonde hair moving away.

Where the hell did he think he was going?! Irritating bloody man.

"Sorry - sorry." He said, "I shouldn't have done that. That was -"

"Don't be an idiot!" She bunched her hands into the sheet, "Oh, God, please, don't be an idiot!" She pleaded, "do it again, exactly like that, keep doing it! Again, again, please!" She'd wanted to be angry and instead she begged, arousal ousting annoyance.

The flash of uncertainty across his features was unmistakeable, the same one from earlier, preceding the same question, "you're sure?"

It was a strange sensation to want to make love to someone and murder them all at the same time.

"Anthony!" She laughed, she shouted, she groaned his name, "Anthony! Now, please!"

And finally - thank God! - he was convinced. There was even a smile before his mouth disappeared from view.

He was a quick study, this man. Perhaps his decision to stop briefly was actually part of some seduction masterplan, because the interruption only served to heighten the experience. She was knocked off course momentarily but when she returned she had to bite her tongue to avoid telling him to stop, so intense was the swell of sensation between her legs.

Her breath quickened and the rush gathered at the base of her spine. She shoved her hands into his hair and pulled him in closer, desperate to further the connection because she knew - she knew, absolutely - that the power of what was building was not simply a physical reaction but an emotional one too. It was the fact that it was Anthony between her legs; the brave, kind, aggravating man. There was a muffled sound of surprise but he didn't let up. Even more than that, her beautiful one-armed lover found a way to push a finger inside her and then a second.

Perhaps it was the fullness that did it, or perhaps it was simply the fact of him, giving her another part of what she wanted; either way, she came, "Yes, yes, Anthony, yes!"

Orgasm shattered through her, racing across her torso and down her limbs, like a flower bursting into the light and chasing the sun.

When she recovered sufficiently to open her heavy-lidded eyes and convinced her neck to turn the weight of her fuzzy head, he was lying beside her, staring at the contentedly at the ceiling.

A bubble of laughter emerged unbidden from her throat.

He turned, "You laughed like that when we first kissed."

"Yes, well." She sounded drugged, her tongue felt too large for her mouth, "I think perhaps that's how I react to unexpected events."

"Being in bed with me?"

"That, I suppose. But also –" She stopped, embarrassed.

"Yes?"

If she'd had the body strength she'd have lifted a shoulder, bluffed at indifference, but she didn't and she'd promised honesty, "I've never – come –" She whispered, ridiculous prudish instincts, "from that."

"Touching yourself?"

"Anthony," She chastised, as much as she could in her soporific state, "you know that's not what made me come."

He smiled at the ceiling and murmured, "I do." She imagined upper class white men in the drawing rooms of 1912 smugly talked about Empire with much the same expression.

"I wish I hadn't told you now, I can practically see your ego inflating."

He shook his head, "Not at all. I'm surprised. And glad." He looked at her and, after half a second of indecision in which his arm hovered in mid-air, reached across the small space between them to brush a damp strand of hair away from her face, "I'm just very glad you enjoyed it."

How wrong she was. His expression was humble, awed. The furthest thing from smug that she could imagine.

In the past she had wanted her boyfriends to orgasm. But only because she knew it meant a quicker end to dull lovemaking. Not so with Anthony Strallan. Undoing this man, turning him entirely inside out the way he'd done for her, seeing him lost in the throes of pleasure; these were needs all their own. And they were her needs, she wanted to be the woman to do it. His satisfaction would be her own.

With a determination she hardly knew she possessed, she forced her body to sit up. He almost looked asleep. With a wicked smile she threw a leg over his hip and rested her weight on his hard cock.

His eyes flew open and his hand went to her naked hip, "Christ!"

"Hello." She kissed the space behind his ear.

"What are you doing?"

"Dancing the Macarena." She whispered as she bit his lobe.

She kissed her way down his chest, tongued a nipple, smiled her delight at his grunt of surprise and laughed when he squeaked as she bit the same flesh.

She arched an eyebrow and said, "turnabout."

She continued her journey down his body. There was more flesh beneath the final arc of his rib cage and she took some of it between her teeth, a quick nip before it sprung back.

He called out in surprise, and, she suspected, with a little pleasure, "ah-ah!"

All those ridiculous novels about people wanting to devour one another - to taste one another - she understood them now. Her mouth positively watered.

It all led to one inevitable conclusion. She pulled his boxers off.

"What are you doing?" Leaning up was difficult for a man with one working arm, and a poorly functioning shoulder to boot. Moving took longer. There had to be an ungainly pivot of the body through the hips and a shuffle. She wasn't going to allow that. She flattened her palm to his chest, pulled the hair again, for the fun of seeing his reaction.

"Just looking."

"Looking is all you have to do."

"Is it?" She looked slyly at him, "Anthony, please tell me that you know nothing I have done this evening was done because I thought I had to do it."

"Yes. Well, good then. But I want you to know that just because I -" He waved his hand around in the air.

She longed to hear him say the words - dirty, crude words - in that glorious voice. Perhaps next time she'd ask him to speak more. To articulate all the detail of what he intended to do, because he had intentions and so did she.

She drew her fingers up the inside of his thigh, "Yes?"

His voice cracked, "I am not expecting you to – in fact, you shouldn't – there doesn't have to be turnabout with, that – I don't expect reciproca -" The words ceased once she had his balls in the palm of her hand. The moment she put her lips to the base of his cock he was a quivering wreck – men could quiver too, apparently - words would've been quite impossible for him, she was sure. He shook so violently she wondered if she should stop, and then she did stop. Frozen, like some erotic tableau.

Then his hand brushed the hair from her forehead and his eyes were brimming with desire. And he managed a whisper, "Please."

It wasn't a request, or a demand. It was need.

There hadn't been any doubt in her mind what she would do; it was more a question of how she would go about it. Now she decided that a slow exploration was not the way. The years of abstinence were wrought across his face and he'd chosen to end them with her. She was humbled by him. Aroused too, and empowered.

Her tongue traced a quick path from the base of his cock to the tip and she took him into her mouth.

His hips writhed on the bed. She swirled over the head of his erection. He was all moans and expletives and her name over and over; the soft benediction on the end of a harshly pleaded prayer, "Christ! Edith." "Fuck! Edith." "Oh, God! Edith – Edith – Edith."

No one had ever said her name that way. Tears sprung into her eyes and she told herself it was simply because of her enthusiasm for the act.

"Oh, fucking hell. Edith, I'm - I'm going to - I'm going to -"

Come.

She knew, because he did.

They lay across the bed. Strewn like unruly throw pillows. Him at an angle, feet dangling off the edge of the mattress. Her lying face down over his lower half, breathing heavily into the crumpled sheets.

His hand found her shoulder, traced a circle and squeezed, "spare me the ordeal of moving, would you?"

She mumbled her refusal into the quilt, but she knew she'd get up and go to him eventually. Moments later, she crawled into the space he made between his arm and torso and fell sound asleep.