You Smell of Her

A/N: I haven't read much Poldark fanfiction so I am not familiar with the tone and content that is typical on the site. This story has a somewhat graphic description of sex so if this offends you, please do not read, and I apologize. Heck of a way to start, eh?

What Had He Done?

Ross was tormented by the thoughts of all the wrong he had done his wife Demelza this past year with his incessant and unremitting pining over Elizabeth – the woman he had believed to be not only the love of his youth but also the lost love of his life. Yes, this past year saw him doing Demelza great wrongs, time and again, but last night was his absolute worst.

Dawn was just beginning to break and Ross was sitting astride his black stallion, maintaining a slow gait to Nampara. He was heading home to Delmeza, grateful for the time to find the words to explain himself to her and beg her forgiveness.

However, in the blink of an eye it seemed, he found himself riding into Nampara's yard. So quickly? he lamented, having no recollection of the ride there. Demelza was outside hanging laundry in spite of the earliness of the hour, as the cocks had just begun to crow. He tethered his horse and approached her slowly. She was so beautiful, her skin porcelain and unblemished, her long lush unruly red mane framing her face and swirling like fine strands of silk in the morning breeze. It was as if he was observing her beauty for the first time and he was trying desperately to remember the last time he told her how truly lovely she was. Her blue green eyes were searching his as he neared her, his arms at his sides in supplication. He stopped before her and opened his mouth to speak but she interrupted him.

"You smell of her, Ross," she stated.

That quickly, his words of apology and love vanished at the sound of disappointment, disapproval, betrayal, and pain in Demelza's voice.

"What can I say? You must know I had no choice," he started.

"Nor do I," she said.

She slightly turned from him, but quickly turned back, striking him with a hard backhand knuckle punch to the eye, the force of which knocked him into the dirt, the hard fall forcing the wind from him. Demelza began walking to the house and he lay there, explicit thoughts of his misdeeds in the last hours washing over him.

He had demanded that Demelza move aside so that he could go to Trenwith, Elizabeth's home, to confront her. It was near midnight, then, and Demelza had begged him not to go - to wait for the light of day. But the letter he just received from Elizabeth announcing her intention to marry George Warleggan, his mortal enemy, had been the final insult he intended to suffer, especially coming from the hands of she whom he believed he loved above all others – including his wife and child.

So he had stormed out of Nampara and raged into Trenwith. Upon his arrival he found Elizabeth in her bedchamber. He and she argued and fought viciously, wounding each other with barbs and taunts. But then he'd kissed her, impulsively, passionately, once, twice. The kisses stoked the fire that had been smoldering for 10 years, leading to the inevitable. They fell together into Elizabeth's bed, embracing, kissing deeply, tongues exploring each other's mouths. He was with Elizabeth…the woman who was the admitted love of his youth and the perfect love of his life, or so he'd believed up to this morning.

For the next hours, he had loved her hard and sweet as they lay writhing in her bed. He had pulled her dressing gown down from her shoulders and he'd looked at her face reading surprise there when his lips found her nipples, already made hard from their earlier passionate kissing. He had hardened them further with his wet tongue, first one then the other, finally suckling her like a hungry babe. As her hips bucked against him and he grinded against her, Elizabeth had keened with pleasure, holding her breast and squeezing the whole of it into his mouth while he sucked. After equal attention to each bud, he had stood next to the bed then and began removing his clothes, never breaking eye contact while he made himself naked before her. At last he stood tall while Elizabeth examined and assessed him in his nakedness with her eyes, and he saw the degenerate desire in them.

"At last I will know the love of a man, the love of you," she'd whispered and held up her arms to receive him. He knelt over her on the bed, and he paused for but a second as the full import of what he was about to do set in, but God help him, he didn't stop, wouldn't stop…couldn't stop….

They had been frantic at first, eager, hungry. He was rough, desperately trying to rid himself of 10 years of frustration and longing. Elizabeth clutched at him, grasped him, scratching and digging her nails into his flesh – his back, sides, thighs, even his buttocks. She held her legs open wide but bent at the knees, giving him complete access to her center and control over it. Control he did, peppering her face with loud wet kisses as he pounded her, alternately thrusting hard and fast, then grinding slow and sweet. Sounds of slapping flesh filled the bed chamber, mixed with the pants, groans and whispers of two people bound together in an illicit ecstasy.

Elizabeth eventually crossed her ankles at his back, kissing and nipping his shoulder as he buried his face into the crook of her neck, laving it with his tongue, while screwing into her deep. Eventually her breath hitched and her back arched, raising her breasts, tips pointing skyward. He groaned then and cupped one with his hand and lapped at it anew, even as she moaned and he could feel her pulsing, squeezing then releasing his turgid member, her hot juices gushing over him.

Changing position, he had withdrawn himself from inside her, pushed her legs open, held them at the ankles and tasted her, dipping his tongue inside her deeply, over, over and over again, then licking around and inside her folds, roughly. He read both the revulsion and delight in her, the latter emotion winning out as she squirmed and wriggled. Elizabeth tangled both her fists in his hair and pulled his face tighter against her mons while she bumped and grinded against his mouth. She soon released again, but in his mouth this time, and he growled at the heady taste of her. She had screamed his name then and he received a vicious satisfaction from it.

Even as she lay quivering, he pulled away, flipped her onto her belly and sank himself into her anew. He sat high on his knees, straddling her, one hand gripped her shoulder, the other pressed at the small of her back. He rode her, hard, as hard as he rode his beloved stallion to get to Elizabeth this night. He had eventually leaned over her, his lips at her ear and he rasped unimaginable filth to her…laughing to himself profanely as she flushed and gasped. He had flipped her again, to her back this time. He, quickly settled between her legs and plunged himself into her again, panting deeply, as if each breath were his last. She was now whimpering his name, over and over, professing her love, begging him not to stop, to never leave her – to stay with her from this night forward…

He changed their position three, or was it four times more? At any rate, it was hours later that Elizabeth came apart for him that final time, her entire body spasming and convulsing as she cried out his name, their bodies appearing golden in the candlelight and glistening with sweat. He, too, then experienced his last release with a low roar that reverberated from somewhere deep in his guts. He inhaled sharply, breaths hitching in his throat. He exhaled deeply, breaths spurting from his open mouth even as his copious essence spurted into her. He had thrown his head back and shut his eyes tightly, realizing in that second that he should not have neglected Demelza, her pleas for him to remain at home. He should not have come to Elizabeth and he didn't belong there with Elizabeth, not now, not ever.

It was as if a veil were lifted. For the first time, he saw Elizabeth for what she really was, a woman who was selfish and without loyalty. She was a woman who had had no faith in him, a woman without her own strength of conviction, for, at a time that her faith and conviction would have mattered most to the two of them, she showed neither. Instead, she chose her own immediate benefit and was doing so again, in marrying George. To think that he had spent the last 10 years seeing and loving her like the 20 year old he'd once been, a boy who had experienced nothing of the world. But that is not who he was any longer and that love had no place in his life.

What had he done?

Unbeknownst to him, though, Aunt Agatha was not only awake but listening. She heard the words they had hurled at each other in anger, as well as the sounds they made in pleasure - every moan, grunt, and groan, every slap of flesh hitting flesh, every thump of the mattress, every bump of the four poster against the wall, every rustle of the sheets as they changed positions in their congress. Aunt Agatha had grinned lasciviously as she remembered her own sexual escapades with Lord Anthony Poole-Smythe. Or was it Sir Robert Fensworth? Or perhaps it was Squire Foley Hackem? Maybe all three? No matter…she resumed her eavesdropping. But unfortunately for her, the night's excitement had ended. She strained to hear but silence was only sound she could hear.

Even as he was still inside of her, Elizabeth had fallen asleep. But in spite of his exertions, he did not. He had withdrawn himself from inside her slowly, then he left her bed, dressing quietly, watching her all the while, hoping not to wake her until the last possible moment, the moment when he would say his last goodbye. But awaken she did…

"What are we going to…?" she'd asked.

"I must think," he responded.

'When…?" she'd pressed.

"Soon," he'd stated.

He couldn't bear to hear the last part of those questions, because he knew that there was no "we", and there was no "soon" and there was no future for the two of them. He hated that Elizabeth felt assured that he would leave his wife and son for her and his heart ached at the thought that his behavior caused her to believe that he would. He'd wondered, what of Demelza? What had she believed this past year? What did she believe now?

"When…?" she'd pressed.

"Soon," he'd stated.

With that final word he left her, offering to her no kiss, no pleasantries, no lingering looks, no promises. He walked out of her bed chamber bereft, dejected, overcome with sorrow and regret for how he'd treated his beloved Demelza. He would never forget the look on her face when he walked out…it was as if she knew what low he would stoop to. He loved Demelza without question and without apology, not just for everything she had done, but also for who she was, strong and principled, trustworthy and true, his helpmate, mother of his children, his wife, his lover, his life.… He was truly, deeply ashamed and swore to himself to make it up to her.

So he had mounted his horse and started the short long ride home.

He had spent the last few moments just lying there, reliving the night, but getting not an ounce of pleasure in doing so, for any pleasure received from the deed was not worth the agony it caused. His eye was paining him sorely now, but still he remained where he fell. He rolled to his side, shook his head and pulled his knees to his chest, dirtying himself even more as he faced Demelza's retreating back…

"You smell of her, Ross."

"What can I say? I had no choice."

"Nor do I."

"Demelza!" Ross cried out from the depth of his soul. "Demelza….!"

A/N: Hi again, All! I hope you enjoyed my humble contribution to Poldark fanfiction. I just completed binge watching the PBS series on Amazon Prime Video, having discovered that my local library carries the DVDs as well (both sources are the UK version). An avid reader, I borrowed the Poldark novels from the library, too, (I'm on book 3, Jeremy) and am enjoying them immensely. Can't wait to read how the books treat this situation. Oh yes, and as I am the author of this specific fanfic tale, in it, Ross does NOT force Elizabeth against her will! Cheats with her, yes, runs out on her yes, but force? Absolutely not!

This story is a one-shot as I plan to post nothing further, even though my mind has raced forward with a continuation and a completion for this Ross and Demelza starting from You Smell of Her onward (Hint: it includes Hugh). But who knows (twirling moustache)? Thank you for reading and please review as I'd love to hear your thoughts. Kisses and Romelza always!