Author's Note

Thank you for your wonderful responses to this and my other stories, and for those who have generously followed me back and forth from A03 as I begin to post Let Love clasp Grief over there. This is my first actual Anne and Gilbert love scene, although the previous M chapter and Ch 20 of the T section are also part of this long dance of many movements. And wasn't it a long, long dance in canon too for Anne and Gil!

I am not at heart an explicit writer, and this even so is still mild and tender rather than hot and sizzling. I hope it suffices all the same and that, most importantly, it matches the tone of its parent story, and captures something of the essence of Anne and Gilbert's relationship, which is, ultimately, what we all come back for.

This chapter is dedicated to Excel Aunt, who has understood so well what I am trying to do here; she said, so eloquently, that for these two 'the experience is its own revelation.' I so hope it is.

With love

MrsVonTrapp x


Chapter Two

Adoring

So let me be thy choir, and make a moan

Upon the midnight hours *


Anne


Their marriage bed gave way gently as Gilbert drew her into his lap, in the same loving manner of countless times before, when their perch might have been the cold ground or a hollow log or a field of wildflowers. Now, though, his hands could leisurely span rib and waist and hip, his long fingers playing upon each and his smile carrying a trace of his delight as they migrated to the lacy gathering at her thigh.

"Anne-girl…" he rumbled, eyes sparking, "what do we have here?"

She gave an embarrassed little laugh. "Diana. For luck."

"I see…" his fingers moved beneath the blue garter, running over the width of it, tracing over the specially embroidered horseshoe. "Should it come off now, do you think, Mrs Blythe?"

Anne gave a breathy titter. "I think it must."

He nodded thoughtfully, as if upon receipt of some sage wisdom, and inched it down agonisingly slowly, over knee and down calf, whilst her eyes followed the progress of his warm, brown hands as their touch left a streak of heat upon her skin even through her stockings, like a darting flame passing over her. Did you not flame and I catch fire? ** she contemplated, burning at the mere thought, knowing that it had always been his touch alone that kindled these desires. Gilbert reached the obstruction of her satin shoe and didn't hesitate to remove this as well, so that shoe and garter and other shoe were banished to somewhere beside the bed, and she wondered whether all their combined clothing was the shedding of their skin, leaving them smooth and shiny underneath; remade in the new knowledge of one another.

Her fingers came to the irresistible cut of his shoulders, stroking the muscles and feeling the corded strength here and of neck and arms, before moving up to tickle his ear with her breath and finding his temple with a kiss. Her mouth slid down to his cheek, slightly prickly now and studded with stubble, her lips tingling as she rubbed them across it.

Gilbert paused, closing his eyes and sucking in a breath, relaxing, finally, into her touch. His long lashes swept shadows onto his cheeks and the soft lamplight turned his skin golden; the sculptured perfection of his profile would have been intimidating had she not known the kindness, humour and goodness of the man within. At her prolonged silent perusal his Adam's apple bobbed up and down with some ferocity, and, fascinated, Anne kissed this, too, and the moan that came from his throat hummed against her lips, vibrating his need of her as potently as a thousand love sonnets.

"Anne…" she didn't know if her name was declaration or question, but she answered it anyway by wrapping her slim white arms around his neck, fingers in his hair, holding on as his own kiss greeted her, hot and seeking and a little desperate.

"Gil…" she echoed, smiling against his lips, even as her breathed hitched to his hands back at her thigh, at the border of her bloomers, as he began to tug at her stockings, still gently but with some resolution now. And then there was nothing but long bare legs, which he scooped up closer towards him, running his hands up and down them with a fervent reverence.

"Oh, Anne…" he whispered into her collarbone, cradled there as she was herself held by him. "You are like a silken thread…" he raised his hazel eyes to search hers. "To hold you like this… to touch you like this…"

To love you like this… was the thought unspoken, and the query she still read in his face and his tone; this darling, wonderful man, still asking, even now, some sort of permission; where others might take or demand or cajole or simply expect, as the natural order of things, he… Gilbert… was forever putting her before himself.

"Yes…" Anne affirmed with a loving look she hoped was encouragement and confirmation both, infused with her own burgeoning awareness. "Yes, my beloved…"

His hand around her waist she grasped and held up to her, as if a hovering promise, interlocking their fingers and then pressing them to her chemise.

Gilbert found her small, pointed breast, his hand spanning it with insulting ease; she might have wished to be more shapely and certainly more full here if nowhere else, and had always feared he would feel this, too, but the flare lighting his hazel eyes rather spoke otherwise. It was, of course, not the first time he had touched her here; through never ending layers his wondrous reaction had permeated her more than the touch itself, but his warm hand was here, now, shockingly real… stroking and cupping, thumb grazing, until in the one audacious action he had undone the top ribbon and whisked the entire filmy garment over her head.

The coolness and the heat both came as a rush; to be exposed like this before him, but also to be free. She might have been embarrassed but for the adoring expression on his face, which made every inhibition melt away. Gilbert's long, beautiful fingers splayed against her spine, entwining in her hair, whilst blanketing every inch of skin with his seeking lips, until his mouth encased the rosebud tip of her breast and her involuntary gasp sent her arching backwards, them both sinking back into the bed.

Let lips do what hands do… *** the Shakespeare came to her, unbidden, and she might have smiled at the saucy allusion if her nerve endings weren't buzzing in a frenzied dance, clouding every coherent thought. Gilbert had stretched out his long length beside her, hand on her hip whilst his dark curls brushed her quivering skin and the sight of his head bent over her as he concentrated his entire being on one peak and then the next… Oh. My. Stars. The stubble that had tingled against her lips now rubbed roughly against her delicate, waking flesh, and his tongue made scandalous swirls in all directions. It was wonderful. It was unbearably wonderful. She tried to articulate her feelings but instead only managed a few shallow, strangled breaths.

"Gil… oh Gil!" she grasped his hair, overwhelmed by the assault of sensation.

"My darling…" he gasped, seeking her eyes, lean face flushed with both pleasure and a primeval sort of triumph.

"Gil…" she echoed helplessly.

"Sweetheart…" he gave her a slow, maddening grin. "Where shall I love you next, do you think?"

She made a little o of astonishment, grey eyes rounding at the mere suggestion. He didn't bother waiting on her answer, but swept his hot, hungry lips to one shoulder and then the other, dipping to an audacious trail down the hollow of her throat and onwards between her breasts to the soft, pale belly peeking from beneath her bloomers. He nuzzled the waistband with his mouth in tremendous tease, running his tongue beneath it, making her squirm and clench her insides and then huff her exasperation at him.

"GilbertBlythe!" his name was a rush of breath that tried very hard to be some sort of admonishment. "You're enjoying this!"

"In so many ways, Anne-girl…" there was a smirk in his tone but not in his expression, which grew immediately shadowed to contemplate her, confused and overwhelmed on the bed beside him.

He propped himself on one elbow, gathering her into him.

"I'm sorry, my love… is this too fast?"

"No…" she protested unconvincingly, and his face fell in on itself.

"Oh, Anne, I…"

"Gil, just… could we take a moment?" She fought to control a weird flutter of panic. "Oh, this is just… ridiculous!"

"Anne?" his brows had drawn together in consternation.

"Only that we've waited years for this, and I just – "

"Have cold feet?" he joked kindly, struggling for a smile.

She gave a nervous laugh, clutching his free hand.

"Not cold…" she explained earnestly, grip desperately tight. "Rather the opposite. I'm too … feverish… too… ready to self combust! I don't want to explode, Gil!"

"I rather think you might like to, Anne-girl…" he breathed into her ear, nibbling on her lobe. "Isn't that what we've always done, together?"

At her silence he paused to note her face.

"You waited years for me to realise my feelings, Gil… I just think I'm back there again, running after you, trying to catch up."


Gilbert


She couldn't know how he clenched his jaw at her admission, fool that he was, rushing in as fools did. Believing that his love and ardour would be enough to overcome any awkwardness; he hadn't allowed for nerves except for his own. This was Anne Shirley – no, Anne Blythe – his brave, beautiful girl, forever marching forward, fierce and fearless.

And there it was… his brain rushed to process this elemental truth… Anne was always at her best when she led from the front. Hadn't he been proudest of his own achievements when coming in second to hers? When she set the pace and tone, as before, standing by their marriage bed, eyes drinking him as she confidently separated him from his clothing, she was sure of herself and of him.

Slow… steady… sure…

He almost rolled his eyes to think that his father's old, homespun wisdom was haunting him, even now, but it had not failed him yet, and this might be its most important test. Or, rather, his.

"I'm sorry, Anne. Sweetheart, I'm sorry…" He buried his face in her neck, suddenly shamed.

"There's nothing to be sorry for, my love."

He wished desperately that was the case, but in the moment he felt the very embodiment of the careless, hot blooded groom.

"Darling…" he ventured, drawing away from her generous embrace, voice descending with every syllable. "Would… you like… to touch me instead?"

Anne took a long, laboured breath, eyes serious as they searched his.

"Gil… really… I wouldn't know where to start." She was all blushing, charming chagrin.

"Here, Anne-girl…" he manoeuvred the quilt over them to act as cocoon, finally sheltering them from their uncertainty. "You start here, with my heart, which you made yours long ago…"

His arm went around her, drawing her into him, and her silken hair fell in a wave across his chest as he felt her cool cheek search for and rest against his heart. Her breasts and belly pressed into him, maddeningly, and he slowed his breaths, closing his eyes against the temptation to grasp her tightly and find a home for this building fire within him, for he felt flung on a pyre, and might well begin to burn from the inside for wanting her.

He frowned to himself. Had he learned nothing all these years of wait and want?

He felt convinced he could hear his own heart above their breaths and the sound of the sea on the air. And yet, Anne's thoughts had taken a different biological bent.

"You're so hot, Gil…" she murmured against his skin.

"Is that… a good thing?" his throat was raw.

"Mmm…" he felt her smile. "I knew you would warm me."

"Just… not overcook you?"

Their sudden laughter steadied them both; their ship righting itself, back on course.

Gilbert swallowed, painfully, grateful to not have beached himself, and trying to keep his hands polite, though his fingers could hardly help their passage as they stepped up and down the ladder of her spine. He felt Anne sigh and snuggle deeper into him, which was an exquisite agony, for as she relaxed he felt a new spark at her every movement.

It took him a moment to realise it, but there is was, unmistakable – her lips brushing, feather-light, against the dark hair shading his chest. Then again… longer, lingering. Fine, pale fingers sought out the planes of his torso, traced the outline of his ribs, before she bestowed a hundred tiny, tremendous, taunting kisses all over his stomach and hips and then paused in their own passage at the waistband of his underwear.

"Anne…" his breath was plosive and pained. "Oh… Anne…"

"Gil..?"

"Yes, Anne… Lord, yes…"

He had answered her own unexpressed question resoundingly, barely able to contain his reaction to the mere thought. To have Anne's hands on him in any measure was both wonder and torment; but to have her even contemplate touching him there… there where only his dreams of them had dared go … was a reality he could hardly process. In the end she offered just a whispering touch through material; a palm running lightly over him, but he still jerked involuntarily, hissing his frustration. He looked up to see her, face wondering at him, a poker of prostrate passion beside her. She raised the one delicate, knowing brow, not mockingly, but with the look he knew so well, of a point well made, or even of an argument won.

"Are you enjoying this, Gilbert?" she asked, voice low.

He gave a dark chuckle.

"Touche, Mrs Blythe."

He ran a hand through his damp curls, steadying himself enough to give a wry smile.

"I'm afraid I'm no expert here, Anne, remember."

Her heart seemed to leap into her eyes at the admission, and the vulnerability he couldn't hide in his deep, wavering voice. Her smile to him in the moment was possibly the sweetest thing he had ever known. She crawled back up to him, sliding her arms around his neck again in that bravery he knew and loved so, pressing her whole self into him closer and then closer still, so that she could undoubtedly feel every striving inch of his arousal.

"Aren't we learning together, Gil, my love?" her husky admission accompanied her trusting kiss, and he was entirely, utterly lost.

Slowly, surely, though perhaps not entirely steadily, Gilbert learned to love his wife. To decode gasp and moan and sigh, to interpret cues to surge and retreat, to even manage his own tangled emotions and driving desire. His broad brown hands coaxed by lily white ones helped divest him of his underwear, and then hers, and then it was just they too, flesh to flesh, hot and aching and amazed and adoring. Turning them into the mattress, he finally felt her lithe, lovely body blanketed by his own, marvelling at his bulk compared to her slight form; how their differing heights at this angle were more complimentary than he had realised, as if enacting an ancient symmetry; and how her awed, beautiful look as she gazed up at him was a memory he might carry with him to his grave.

"Gil…" Anne shuddered, arching into him as his deep kiss diverted again from her mouth to the hollow of her throat.

"Darling…" he murmured, inhaling her, nose pressed to skin as if trying to absorb her.

"Gil…?"

It was a strumming sensation to kiss her this way, withholding nothing from her or himself; to finally give free rein to his feelings once she was ready for them and having her reciprocate with an undaunted passion that he surely didn't deserve.

"Gorgeous girl…" he answered, travelling down and down still, lips leaving a trail of his desire, skirting briefly over flat belly to land on her thigh. His kisses here had her gasping with quick, shallow breaths, rubbing her legs together as if to ward off her own sensations… or encourage more. When his lips found the red curls of his curious imaginings, the shivery sigh escaping her reverberated within him, too.

"Gilbert…"

Her eyes were a blazing emerald as he finally met them with his own, and there was a silent moment of connection, when everything else fell away to reveal he, and Anne, and the inevitable.

It always had seemed to him to be a terrible contradiction, even a cruelty, that the moment of greatest love between them would come with pain for her. That in loving her fully, completely, wholly, he would first have to hurt her. He had agonised over it, perhaps unduly, and how much she might understand, forgetting of course her intrinsic understanding of him.

"I love you, Gilbert Blythe," she whispered, as if reading his torn indecision on his face. "Love me, Gil."

"I love you, Anne… I… love… you, I…"

Words were superfluous now, and he couldn't have summoned any if his life had depended on it. There were only scattered thoughts he couldn't pin down… his at last… was he worthy…? if he failed her…unafraid… ****

He was afraid, now, at the very point of no return, but he was also falling… falling … his guide rope unravelling at speed, and the depths waiting for him, and Anne his anchor.


Chapter Notes

*John Keats from Ode to Psyche

**A.S. Byatt Possession (1990) (Ch 28)

It remains one of the most amazing reading experiences of my life, and twenty years after my first encounter it is still a novel to both dip into and luxuriate in. The film adaptation is also utterly wonderful. I have also referenced it in my other story Betwixt the Stars, where my notes rather fixated on Jeremy Northam. Understandably.

***William Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet (Act 1 Sc 5)

****Anne's House of Dreams (Ch 4)