Anna leaned as closely into the kiss as she could manage. There was nothing for her but the sensation of John's lips on hers and her fingers curling in his waistcoat to hold herself upright. And she needed nothing more than him. He was all she would ever need.

His tongue ran over her bottom lip and she opened her mouth just enough to tease the end of it. John surged forward, pressing her back against the wall and holding her between it and himself to sweep his tongue deeper into her mouth. Anna tilted her head, at his silent urging, to offer more of her mouth to him and the reward was a sucking sweep that left her curling her fingers in his waistcoat to support herself.

The details of the wall in her kitchen never seemed to matter before but with her back pressed against it and John's body all she could contemplate in front of her, Anna noted every ridge and ripple of the wood. Each and every nick and divot caught and wrestled with the wool of her sweater as if to help divest her of it. And it was all she could think about when John pulled his mouth away from hers.

"Why'd… Why'd you stop?" She gasped out, struggling to gain control of her mental faculties when all she could comprehend was the man before her and the old wall behind. "Are you-"

John kissed her again, stealing what little breath she had left before breaking away. He shook his head, almost violently, and sucked in a breath to speak. "No. I just… I don't think this is the kind of activity best suited for the kitchen."

"Best not." Anna agreed, allowing a smile to creep through the rise of her nerves. "I'll be honest, I've not… I've not done this before."

His fingers ran gently over her face, "I know."

"I don't want you to think I'm scared or nervous or-"

"I think you are scared." John bent to kiss her cheek, letting the heat rise a moment before pulling away. "And I think you are nervous."

"But?" Anna swallowed past the tremor in her voice as John kissed her other cheek before facing her.

"But I don't believe it'll stop you." One of John's fingers brushed a bit of hair from Anna's eyes. "If you're neither nervous nor scared, Ms. Smith, then you're made of sterner stuff than I was the first time I tried all of this."

"You were nervous?"

"Very much so." John's gaze seemed to take in her face until he landed back on her eyes again. "And I'm nervous all over again now."

"Why?"

"Because I want to do this right for you." The callouses on his hands held her face perfectly in his steady but delicate grip. "I want to make the world sing for you. This is a moment I could never give you again and, if I ever gave a perfect gift, I'd want this to be it."

Anna leaned into his grip to kiss him all the harder then, a swift tug at his waistcoat toppling him forward just enough to put her back hard against the wall while the weight of his chest crushed her breasts. Her mouth muffled his surprise but did nothing to stop the moan of pleasure they emitted in overlapping moments as their tongues learned to dance and tangle together better than before. And instead of focusing on the details of the wall of her kitchen, Anna found herself wondering if the weight of him on her would feel as lovely in her bed as it did in this moment while their lips fused together.

There was only one way to find out.

Breaking the kiss and grinning at John, Anna took his hand and guided him through the tight corridor to another room in the little over-the-shop flat. The room she shared with no one before. The room that was entirely her own.

The room she wanted to only ever share with John ever after.

John's fingers, the ones not gripped tightly in her hand, uncurled from the lamp as he set it on the bureau. Flickers of the flame sent their shadows dancing even as they barely moved before one another. Shadows traveled over the walls and Anna darted a quick glance toward the bed.

A gentle caress across her face brought her back to John but instead of kissing her, his lips traveled the distance of her jaw to her ear. "We'll fit."

"It's not a very big bed."

"We won't need as much space as you might think." Anna shivered as the stretch of John's lips into a smile pulled against the skin of her cheek. "Trust me, I can make do with what we have available to us here."

"Is it what you'd want?" Anna's eyes fluttered closed so the dusky brown behind her eyelids jumped and shifted in time with the weak light trying to illuminate a room she could no longer see.

"What I want is not as important as you."

"But-" Anna's eyes opened and John's finger landed on her lips.

"Trust me in this. If we both seek your pleasure then we'll be satisfied." Anna frowned and John kissed at it until her face softened again. "I don't know what anyone taught you, about all of this, but it's not that way."

"Growing up on a farm taught me all about what kind of way it is, Mr. Bates." Anna let her hand flatten against his waistcoat, skidding up toward his shirt and noting the layers of fabric still separating them. "But I'll trust your experience in this. You do have more of it than me."

"It only matters if I use it to please you." John stepped closer, so their feet slotted between one another like careful stitches. "We'll learn the ins and outs of this together, yes?"

"I'd like that." Anna smiled at him again, noting the flicker of shadows across his face changing the contours of it. One moment he looked like the boy version of himself, perhaps a bit more impetuous and daring, and in the next he resembled an older version of him. A version even wiser than he was now. A version Anna wanted to know intimately. "I want to learn with you."

"Good." John's lips found her other ear and traced that line back to her lips. "There's only one rule, in all of this."

"Only one?"

"Of you don't want it, say so."

Anna pulled back, "What?"

"If, at any moment, you feel too frightened or you want me to stop everything, I will. All you have to do is say it and I'll do it."

"I don't want you to stop."

"Not now but perhaps, when it comes to the moment, you'll-"

"You misunderstand." Anna took John's hands, moving them between their two bodies. "I don't want you to stop at all. I may not have the practical knowledge but what I know theoretically and academically is more than enough to tell me that I want what comes next between us. I want it with you."

"Then," John slipped her hands to his waistcoat, helping her undue each button and carefully tuck the chain of his pocket watch in with the chronometer. "Let me show you how it's done."

He did not kiss her as they removed his waistcoat or when they managed his cufflinks. Tucking them safely into the pocket with his watch, John guided her hands back to his shirt and she opened each one with a delicacy she used when undressing her customers. Each brush of her fingers against him, each one that brought her nearer to his actual skin, gave her a little shiver but did not allow a tremor to return to her hands. Careful, calculating, and cool motions brought his shirt from his body and Anna marveled a moment.

She worked with fabric every day. She knew the wear and tear on items, on materials, on fabrics and designs until her fingers could identify the age of anything almost to the month. The softness of John's shirt suggested sustained use, a softness of age and wear from washing with unforgiving soaps on even more unforgiving washboards in barrels of water leftover from something else. A shirt meant to stand the test of time and tide until it literally fell from his body.

But there was care there. Not a slap-and-dash motion for a clean hoping to remove obvious stains but one that allowed for the line of salt from sweat or the mended thread from previous tears or the slick stains of work to break apart and slough away. It was the clean of a man determined to take what little he had and use it up until it wore out but to use it well. The shirt of a man determined to make it last as long as he could and as well as he could. A frugal man, a man of work, a man she wanted to wrap around her so he could care for her as well as he had the shirt they laid over the back of a chair together.

John kissed her then. With her hand catching itself in confusion between an undershirt that separated him from a chest she could feel expand and contract and his suspenders, Anna hardly knew which step to take next. Which part of him should she expose? Or, her tongue darted over her lips as if to moisten them before John accomplished the task for her with his ever-delicate cupping of her cheeks, perhaps she could expose herself to him. What would he learn from her clothes?

Nothing, came the thought. Anna let her eyes flutter shut again, losing herself in the tempting shadows that fluctuated between bright and dark behind her eyelids, and her mind wander on the soporific loving of his mouth over hers. He would learn nothing from her clothes because John learned by tactile sensation. Everything he needed to know he would find on her skin.

Given the adoring way his mouth moved with hers, Anna guessed he could read her desires through her lips. Or perhaps through the way his hands kept her head in place to lavish his kisses so thoroughly wherever he desired. Or, to put it more correctly as she moaned into the subtle sweep of his tongue under hers, wherever he found she desired.

Unclothing herself would leave him free to learn her with his hands. Hands scarred and calloused from the work that defined his shoulders and back. Hands he used with force or with surprising gentleness. Hands that could heal and soothe as much as damage or destroy. Hands she wanted on her body.

Her hands, so small and fragile by comparison, covered his and drew them from her face. The lines in John's forehead and the twinge of his lips against hers alerted Anna to his surprise first. She ignored his unspoken question and took his lower lip between her teeth, scraping the skin to pull at it as if to distract him from her intentions.

She succeeded as John's hands trembled in her own. They only shook worse when Anna laid his fingers gently on the hem of her sweater. Their eyes met and, even in the dim light, Anna could see the moment of confusion and doubt. Her hands left his and leaned over far enough to reach the bureau and turn up the wick on the oil lamp. The flare of light left them exposed to one another and Anna replaced John's hands on her hem.

"It only lifts one way." She whispered and they both chuckled together a moment before John lifted up. With a shimmy and a slight twist, Anna escaped the wool with no more than a crackle of static that threatened to put her hair on end.

John's hands immediately went to her hair, combing through it to find the pins and pieces that held it to her head so, as he removed the accouterments, it bounced and jostled to her shoulders to settle there. The curve of his mouth and the widening of his eyes did nothing to tamp down Anna's thrill at his reaction of surprised satisfaction. And she succumbed to the gentle pull of his fingers through her hair as he exulted in the way its golden sheen draped from her head to hang like a veil on her shoulders.

"You're so beautiful." He shook his head, staring at her as if trying to comprehend the reality of her existence. "How did I ever find you? How could I have hoped to ever find you?"

"Fate and a very kind God brought us together, Mr. Bates." Anna found his fingers at the end of a run through her hair and guided them back to her dress. "I believe you were finishing helping me remove my dress."

"I didn't want to rush you."

"You learn with your hands, Mr. Bates, same as me." Anna let her arms cross his so they both used their hands to touch hesitantly at the throat of the other. "I just learn from your clothing and you learn from holding."

"What'd you learn from my clothing?" His voice whispered in her ear and Anna forced herself to focus on the tiny buttons that kept his undershirt tight to his body. "What could my clothes tell you?"

"Your shirt tells me about your care and devotion and your desire to use what you have well. It's worn but not damaged." She lifted her head to meet his eyes. "Just like you."

"You're right." His fingers slid over her face, toward her hair and then back to her throat.

"About what?"

"That my hands've told me a lot about you."

Anna's breath caught, "And what've you learned?"

"Your hair is soft. Softer than it's any right to be which tells me you use products you've found through careful experimentation because you want to feel beautiful." John's lips kissed both of her cheeks and then to her throat, where his fingers slipped the buttons out of their holes. "And your skin is soft, not because you don't work hard but because you care for it. You value your appearance."

"I hope you don't believe I'm vain."

"Never." He breathed against her skin, kissing the newly exposed expanse as her collar peeled back. "I believe you care for your appearance because you want to care for yourself and there's no shame in that."

"Do you care for me?"

John met her eyes, his fingers pausing in the separation of her dress. "I care for you very deeply Ms. Smith. You are my Davy lamp."

Anna blinked at him, "Your what?"

"It's a safety lamp named for Sir Humphry Davy, the inventor." He sighed, stroking his fingers through her hair while her hands slipped toward his trousers to pluck the materials apart so her fingers brushed against the skin of his hips. "It helps me through the mines so they can see."

"Do I help you see?"

"Yes." The whisper of his voice wafted toward her ear while his hands slipped down her back to wrap back to the buttons going down her dress. "You've even got hair like a light. The yellow-gold of salvation and light."

"You're quite the charmer."

"One needs a decent amount of charm to seduce a beautiful woman."

Anna leaned toward him, moving her hands under his shirt to spread over the skin of his chest, and let her lips find the skin available for her to kiss at the collar of his undershirt. "That's a lovely thought."

"It's not a thought." John's hands pulled her dress open and Anna took half a step back to see the expression of unhindered awe on his face. "It's the unfettered truth. You are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."

"You're rather glorious yourself." Her hands caught under the fabric of his undershirt and forced first his suspenders to thwap against his hips and then his arms above his head. She dropped the offending article on the chair with his shirt and finally took in the sight of his bare chest. "You're a gorgeous man, Mr. Bates."

"And you, Ms. Smith," A playful smile urged at the corners of John's mouth as he guided Anna the pace closer that he needed to shove the bodice of her dress down and leave her arms temporarily trapped at her sides. "Have me at a rather unfair disadvantage."

"Do I?" Anna reached her arms behind her back to yank on the cuffs of her sleeves to bring them down her arms and leave the top of her dress dangling at her waist. Her corset shoved her small breasts up and kept her contained within the confines of the dress but it was enough to see John's face when he could trace her arms with his fingers. "Are we matched now?"

"Never." He breathed, running butterfly-like touches from her wrists to her shoulders and back down. "Anyone who suggests that man and woman will ever be equal are fools."

"Why?"

John let his fingers encircle her wrists and pulled each to his mouth to kiss the newly discovered skin there. "Because women are far superior to men."

"Are we?"

"Yes." His hands shifted back to her shoulders and played over her collarbones before he held her still to allow his mouth to retrace similar steps. "You're visions to behold. Creatures of light and smiles with tempests raging inside you that we're lucky to even glimpse if you're generous and merciful to us."

"Tempests?"

"Infernos, blizzards, and earth rending torrents that encapsulate all the emotions of mankind that you pass onto your children." John's lips never stopped adoring her skin, moving to her breasts as Anna's hands only pressed to his chest to find a hold for herself. "It's all beneath the surface that you keep serene and gentle."

He paused, his tongue darting out to trace into the crevice created between her breasts by the push of her corset. "It's why they call the sea a woman."

"I thought," Anna swallowed, one of her hands finally curling her fingers around his waistband to hold herself upright to him as the other sought a steadying grip on the underside of his arm. "They called the sea a woman because she's tempestuous and unfaithful."

"Only fools think women who are free and unrestrained are unmanageable and undesirable."

"I didn't take you for a sailor."

"I'm not." John raised his head, taking her lips in a deep kiss that distracted her from his fingers finishing the buttons that helped him drop her dress to the floor. "But I believe there's more to enjoy if women are left to themselves. We're just grateful to be spectators."

"I've never imagined myself much of a spectacle."

"Then I'll be the first to enjoy watching you come out of yourself." John's dexterity loosened the ties of her hoops to drop them to the floor and kick them to the side when Anna stepped free. "You know there's a storm inside you, begging to be set free, and you've just got to find it."

"Help me." Anna's hands gripped at the back of John's head, fingers carding into his hair to bring his mouth to hers. "Unleash my storm."

"With pleasure." His mouth took hers and they managed an awkward half-shuffle to land on the bed.

The wooden slats and the ropes under them groaned a moment but settled as they did. Anna urged John more over her, reveling in discovering the sensation of him over her was as wonderful as him pressing her to the wall of her kitchen. Perhaps more so, if she were honest, as his body pressed the length of hers. Every muscle and curve aligned until they rested as if two halves of the same piece finally came together.

And he never stopped kissing her. His lips moved from her mouth to her face to her neck to the tops of her breasts to her collar and back without a break in stride. Not even when they fumbled together to free him from his trousers and manage her stockings. They paused for a moment at the sound of tearing but Anna only grinned and pushed John's trousers to the floor to loosen his garters while he kicked free of his shoes. With a shared chuckle they resumed their exploration.

Anna risked pushing John to his back, to finally shed light on his skin and marveled at it. The dips and curves so familiar, from years of measuring men for suits and shirts, and yet so different. His skin vibrated under her touch and he shivered when she happened upon his nipples or the brush of hair leading in the same direction as the guidance of his hipbones. She bit her lip at the thought of watching him walk naked, to finally see the power of the man so obvious when he wore clothing and yet…

His thumb pulled her lip from her teeth and John leaned up to kiss her. She gasped into the motion as John bending at the waist put them closer than they were before and she felt… Something pressed against her stomach and Anna pulled away from their kiss when realization finally set in. John held still, his hand still alongside her face, and Anna forced herself to swallow as if that might regulate her breathing.

"It's nothing to be scared of Anna."

"I've heard…" She took a deep breath, "I've heard stories."

"It won't be like that." He soothed, moving her hair back away from her face. "I won't let it be like that for you. Not ever."

"But you can't help…" Anna shifted against him but the furrow of confusion remained in the deeper lines of John's forehead. "I've measured a great many pairs of trousers, Mr. Bates, and I know how to judge size."

"Oh."

"I'm no expert on… On this side of things but you're…" Anna managed another breath, the heat from her face surely shining as brightly as the light on her bureau. "I doubt there are any men in this area, whose trousers I've measured, who could claim they're on par with you in this."

"I don't know about that." John bit the inside of his cheek. "But I do know there are ways to make it so… So it won't be so painful."

"Even with…"

"Even with," John nodded, one of his hands slipped between them to hold between her legs for a moment. Anna hitched in his hold and then sighed at the gentle massage he applied. "This is a muscle, like any other, and with a bit of preparation and stretching it won't hurt."

"It won't?"

"Not like you've torn something. It'll stretch and feel sore but," John put his lips next to her ear. "I promise I'll do everything in my power to give you more pleasure you'll ever remember as pain."

"I trust you." Anna slipped from him, her fingers finding the ribbons holding her corset closed. "And I… I want this. I want this with you. No matter the consequences I want this with you."

John's fingers joined hers, eventually replacing them as she lifted them high enough for John to pull the contraption from her body. It hit the floor with a thud and left her in her slip and knickers. Despite the shadows of the oil lamp, Anna noted the tent in his pants that he adjusted to try and relieve but the shape remained as erect as ever. She swallowed and took advantage of John's moment of distraction trying to tug her slip from her thighs to reach a hand forward.

His body froze, taut as one of the rope lines that raised and lowered the lifts in the mine. Anna went to remove her hand but John's landed over hers and held it in place. After a moment, her involuntary noise when he twitched under her palm quickly answered with John's fingers firming around her wrist, he helped her move around him. And, as if growing more comfortable with a skittish horse, Anna withdrew her hand and met his eyes.

"May I?"

He nodded and lifted himself from the bed to drop his pants to the floor. Anna turned away, scrunching her eyes closed as she berated herself for missing an opportunity to see him in his glory. To enjoy the sight of him, of any man, for the first time. But a dip in the bed brought him back to her and his fingers enclosed her wrist again so he could guide her back.

The skin, soft and supple, surprised her. Every other part of him bore the signs of a life lived through work and sweat and effort and here was a part of him untouched. A part of him kept separate from all else the world threw at him. She flicked her eyes down to gaze at him and wondered if daylight could solve her confusion at the sensation of softness encasing strength she could not begin to comprehend. Almost as if he carried a tempest inside him as well.

Her tentative explorations ended when he hissed through his teeth. Anan's hand froze, hovering over him as John's fingers tightened on her wrist. "Did I do something wrong?"

"It's not that." His chest expanded and John forced his eyes open. "If we continue then you'll… I don't know if you're ready for what might happen."

"It's what'll happen inside me, yes?"

"Only if I'm inside you." John bit his lip as Anna swallowed hard enough for it to echo through the room. "I'm sorry Anna. That was… That was uncouth and I shouldn't have said it like that."

"No," Anna stopped him, blinking as if to file some fact away in her brain. "I… It's what I want, isn't it?"

"Is it?"

"Yes." Anna met his eyes. "I just… I don't know the words for it. It's not something people talk about and I don't-"

John quieted her with a whisper. "The best words, for this moment, are none at all… Except those we can't help but say because we're in ecstasy."

"Yes please." Anna's lips bruised against his with the force of her surge toward him and John's hands caught at her hips. Caught in such a way that they managed to sneak under the hem of her slip and slide it up her body to rest under her breasts.

It broke the kiss but Anna nodded slowly and raised her arms to allow John to lift the slip above her head. His eyes could not stop staring at what he found and Anna forced her arms to her sides. Even though her skin glowed pink with her nerves and her embarrassment. Even though his gentle touches sent shivers through her. Even though he paused so she could regain her confidence.

"Are you alright Anna?"

"I'm just nervous." She swallowed hard, "Do you… Do you like me?"

"I've never touched a goddess before but I doubt 'like' is the word you use when you do?"

"Then you like… Looking at me?"

"I'd look at you for the rest of my life if that was all I could do." John ran the backs of his fingers up her arm and brushed at her breast. "May I touch more of you? May I bring you pleasure, Anna?"

She nodded, "Yes."

With a shift and another conscious effort to ignore the groan of the slats and ropes, Anna lay back on the bed at John's insistence. She kept her arms up as John kissed over familiar territory. He used the kisses at her mouth to drug and seduce her until her body could barely move. He used the kisses over her shoulders, neck, and collar to excite her. And he used kisses at her breasts to encourage her.

The motions of his tongue distracted her. They kept her only aware of his tiny movements until he sucked desperately at her nipples. Then gently licked and laved them before making his way lower.

He kissed lovingly at the rise and fall of her abdomen, forcing air into starving lungs, to the line of her knickers. Knickers he removed one kiss at a time as if setting a path for them to travel down her legs. And when she lay there, as naked as the day she was born and matching him in their shared nudity, John worked his way back up.

For all the words that seemed superfluous and incomplete, his kisses were not that. They were poetry on her skin. They were dreams, wishes, desires, and wants. They were everything they could not say and all those things they wanted to express but could only manage to translate with their bodies. She, roughly and without finesse or eloquence. He with great elocution and elegance.

The gentle pressure of his hands spread her legs enough for his body to settle between them and Anna moved. Her hand sought one of his and intertwined their fingers to hold him in place before he continued. Their eyes met and she nodded enough for him to move his other hand between her legs.

Anna's eyes closed and rolled in their sockets. The pressure of his fingers, demanding and yet delicate on her sensitive skin, coaxed her reactions from her. All of his motions sought deeper crevices where pleasure stored inside her body, as if waiting for the right key to release them, and when he applied pressure from inside her body and out, Anna's back arched.

There were no words in her vast vocabulary, or any other she might argue, for what she felt. There might be descriptions or details or anatomically correct terms stated by men with certifications and degrees but those were just stuff and nonsense. For her there was nothing more beautiful than that moment.

As her body settled, still shivering and twitching from her reaction, Anna tugged on John's hand. He leaned over her and accepted the kiss she pressed hard to his lips before returning with a sweep of his tongue. For a second she recognized it as a distraction and frowned until a swift pressure broke their kiss.

She hissed, her body tightening, and her ears fogged with a warning from her body that something was out of the ordinary. It took John's voice, coaxing and soft in her ear, to remind her to relax. And he waited as Anna forced herself to breathe deeply and untense her muscles so he might move. Another shift and the unfamiliar weight settled into her body again, deeper this time.

His free hand, damp from her, held at her hip and lifted just enough for their bodies to merge together. Anna cried out and opened her legs on instinct to finally settle John as deeply inside her as their position would allow. Their hips joined together and John's body quivering around and insider her, gave Anna a shudder of sensation before John slipped back.

There was not even a moment to whine about the loss of contact before John surged forward again. This time deeper, impossibly touching to the very core of her as Anna's brain spun and fritzed to comprehend the idea. Then John set a rhythm.

A rolling, rocking seduction that lulled Anna's body into a steady beat of pleasure. It dulled the stretch, the uncomfortable fullness, the press and drag, and even the hints of pain as muscles moved as they never did before. Her body obeyed its primal, biological urges instead of the societal dictates and Anna blocked all thought so the natural mind might guide her to the proper next step. To the next appropriate response. To the path of pleasure.

And they found it. John's patience guidance and direction opened Anna until she moved to find more, to demand it of him. Their lips and tongues met, their teeth occasionally clacked together, and their bodies slipped and slid over one another until they could find a position they wanted and needed. And then, when their bodies tensed and tightened in unison, they reached the ecstasy John promised.

His body settled on hers, just short of collapse, and Anna shifted them together so they could lay staring at one another. Their bodies pulled apart and Anna cringed at the wetness gathered between her legs. She reached for something but John stopped her, climbing from the bed to gather the hand towel from beside the water pitcher and dampen it enough to bring back to her.

The sweep of his hands over her continued to encourage the tremors in Anna's body but it soothed the already aching muscles enough to allow her to relax into the cover of the bed. When he went to address himself Anna stopped him, taking the cloth to return the attention he paid her. Their lips met again before John set the cloth aside and nodded at the bed.

"Do you mind if I stay?"

"I'd like that." Anna shifted to pulled the covers down and curled under them until John joined her. In a few moments they found a position they liked and settled together, breathing quietly. "Will you stay until morning?"

"Of course." He put his lips to her forehead, "I'll stay as long as you want me to, Ms. Smith."

"Forever then." Anna breathed and closed her eyes.