I know it's been a while - sorry :-(

This chapter started out quite long so I've split it into two and I'll post the other half during the week. You should also be aware that it's a bit on the 'naughty' side so if you're not happy with that, maybe skip and go straight to the next chapter. There's nothing crucial happening so you won't miss anything.

Chapter 22

"Thought it might help?"

Once Dempsey had completed the task last night, he'd had second thoughts almost immediately.

Maybe it only served to highlight her issue and would possibly make things worse. But it was worth a shot.

Harry didn't answer straight away, just moved out of his embrace and hitched up her trousers as she looked about her.

"Does it help… at all?" he tried to break what felt to him like an awkward silence. "A little?"

Watching her from behind, she appeared tense, her back straight and her fists clenched by her sides.

"Maybe?"

Jeez, had he screwed up again? Why did he get the impression she was about to go loco on his ass?

"When did you do this?" she asked calmly.

"Last night."

"You had a busy night of it then last night… all in all."

Okay, Harry, say what you gotta say an' let's get this over with.

At last she turned to face him. "You never cease to amaze me, you really don't."

He shouldn't have gone with his gut instinct. What the hell had made him think that moving the bed onto a different wall would put her at ease? And switching the wardrobe and chest of drawers from where they had stood to sit alongside the bookcase in the space the bed had left had been a mistake because somehow, now, they just didn't look right.

But Harry had broken into a heart-stopping smile. "And it had never crossed my mind what had happened to that bed linen we got in Cornwall!"

The pink cotton rosebud printed duvet set brought back memories for both of them.

"Sooooo… you're okay with the change-around?"

She nodded and went to him, putting her arms around him and hugging him tightly. "Thank you. Thank you so much – for understanding."

He chuckled, glad that he'd made her happy and gone some way towards eradicating the tenseness of the situation. "Figured it's the little things that make the difference sometimes."

He pulled away from her then and leaning forward with his arms outstretched and his knees bent, he whooped, "I got it right! Twenty-four carat, gold plated, cast iron miracle!" he grinned, showing that gap in his teeth that seemed to be reserved for only the happiest of occasions.

Harry tutted at his clowning. "It isn't like I never give you credit."

"Is that so?"

He'd straightened up again and Harry slapped teasingly against his chest, allowing him to catch her arm and pull her into him once more.

"So you gonna gimme some o' that sweet, sweet credit?" he hummed into her ear, making her giggle.

She offered up her mouth to be kissed. "I'm going to need something credit-worthy then."

"Mm hm." He pecked at her lips. "I hear ya."

The second Harry raised her arms to hang them about his neck, Dempsey scooped her up and took a few paces to the right to deposit them both on the bed. Harry, laughing through her protests, allowed him to wrestle her black leather brogues from her feet and toss them to the floor. His own shoes were kicked off quite effortlessly moments later.

"These suspenders are really starting to bug me," he said, pulling the braces down for the second time.

"Funny because most Englishmen generally get rather over-excited at even the thought of suspenders."

He pulled off her quite severely tailored trousers and cast them aside. "Yeah, yeah, you call 'em braces, I know that but to me, that's a mouthful of metal that fixes your teeth in line. And right now, that doesn't seem to me the most interesting of things to be fillin' your mouth with."

"You're really quite bad, aren't you," she observed coolly, covering the fact that her heart was thumping like a jack-hammer.

He had her shirt fully open now, feasting his eyes upon her naked torso.

"God loves a trier."

Worshipfully, he ran two fingers from the hollow of her neck, down between her breasts and over her stomach. His progress was deliberately slow, carefully managed, both for Harry's entertainment and his own. Removing her clothes was like unwrapping a gift and whilst there was a great anticipation in the process, the actual pleasure in viewing and holding that gift in his hands was immeasurable.

Harry squirmed deliciously, a little smile lighting up her face and telling Dempsey he was definitely in the right ball park. When her hands slunk to his waist-band to pop the button and then deftly undo his fly to enter his ball park, he lay back to give her room to play around.

This was the third time of being together – the second time of sharing a bed since their fake Christmas and the first time Harry had taken the initiative in both hands so to speak.

"Oh, babe," he whispered, watching as she quite elegantly removed him from the confines of his Chinos. And then, that flirtatious little smile again before Dempsey's much louder exclamation of "Sweet Jesus!"

Every act was so much better with her; it all felt new and different, like the first time, like she was his first girl almost but this girl sure as hell knew what she was doing. And that surprised him. He hadn't expected her to be this… willing? No, not willing; wasn't like she was some sweet innocent kid. Adept? But that wasn't right either. He smiled inwardly when the word came to mind.

Pushing the shirt back off her shoulders, he watched her ease herself down onto her side before gripping him firmly in her right fist, her lips continuing to move languidly up and down his length.

Compatible. That was what she was; she was compatible with him, right up until the point where she had to let go. But he was determined to get her past all that crap.

"Oh that feels good, baby… that feels so good."

He raised his hips up off the bed in order to shuffle his trousers down as far as he could get them before reluctantly, Harry released him and sat up. She shrugged off the white shirt and tossed it to the floor then without too much disruption to the proceedings, peeled the trousers off inside out, closely followed by his sports socks.

Without a word, she lowered her head back down and Dempsey took a sharp intake of breath.

"Whoa! You got a little somethin' goin' on with your tongue there, princess. Where'd you learn that trick?" He groaned deeply as she applied a rhythmic pressure; hand, lips and tongue all in perfect sync. Reaching out, he tucked her hair behind her ear to afford himself an unrestricted view of one of his primary dirty fantasies being played out for real.

Dragging his eyes away from her ministrations for a moment, he ran his gaze over her body. Her prone attitude reminded him so much of the clay effigy Montgomery had created it was scary.

Dempsey trailed his hand down her spine, the glorious texture and radiating heat of her skin leaving him in no doubt that this Harry was the real deal.

Her slim build produced sleek, aesthetically pleasing curves that held him in rapture as she slowly brought him closer to ecstasy.

From the angle at which she lay he only had a glimpse of the underwear she still wore but suddenly it seemed imperative that he see all of her; that her whole image should be captured as a memory, melding with this intense pleasure to be recalled at will forever.

"Hey!"

Her eyes fluttered open, their blue violet luminosity causing his heart to stutter and his surge of pleasure to flex Harry's fingers.

"Kneel up here a minute."

But she carried on, taking in more of him, her lips squeezing down gently as she worked on the sensitive tissue.

"Wanna see you," he persisted.

The seduction in her eyes was firing him up. Just one minute more would have him at detonation point for sure.

"Come up here."

Reluctantly, she slid him out of her mouth, making him groan as she scooped lazily with her tongue as though licking a particularly scrumptious ice cream.

Dempsey was leaning back on his elbows but lifted an arm to caress her cheek, smiling.

"You look like a dirty angel," he grinned.

"I wonder if that might possibly make you the devil."

She sidled up beside him, letting go of her prize for the moment to kiss him. It started out soft and loving but they were both too excited from the contact that had just been cut short and the kiss soon became heated with Dempsey twisting himself over and murmuring hotly against her mouth, "Get up on your knees, princess."

This time she did as she was asked, raising herself up to look down on him, managing for once to enjoy the feeling of being under scrutiny because she was aware of the power she held over Dempsey right now. She had seen that look of adoration in men's eyes before but in Dempsey, it meant so much more. He was the player, used to being the one who snapped his fingers to watch the women come running with puppy eyes and kitten charms. But something in his look had changed over the last few months. Not only could she see it, she could feel it too; lust had turned to desirous love.

"If I could capture that image of you in my mind forever, I would," Dempsey growled.

His hand came up to cup her buttock, every nerve ending in his fingers sensitised to the feel of the tightly stretched apricot lace, his eyes drawn to the sheer panel at the front which gifted him with a sensuously obscured view of the dark bloom beyond.

"Not yet," he told her when she slipped her thumbs either side of her hips to hook the underwear down.

"Why?" Harry asked, really already knowing why.

"'cause they're way too pretty to cast aside like wrapping paper." His palm ran the curve of her buttock. "Wanna appreciate them for a while, wanna feel them…" Her blue eyes glowed intensely as she listened to his deep, magnetizing voice and she gloried in the reverence of his touch. "Wanna feel you in them… an' I want you to play me while you're wearin' 'em." A soft filter smile lit Dempsey's face as he drank her all in. "Stir me up a little, ya know? Gimme a hard time."

Her heart was howling in ruttish anticipation. She wanted to fight against this shameless, corpulent desire, show him that she wasn't as malleable as she appeared nor as whoreish as she felt but she just couldn't.

A tug of the invisible rein brought her kneeling up astride him, too eager, panting inside, trot, canter, gallop, the rider and the ridden both.

Why couldn't she show restraint with him? What was it about Dempsey that transformed her into his empowered slave?

"That sounds like a lot of wasted time as far as I'm concerned," she pouted.

"You tellin' me you got an itch to scratch, baby?"

His hands gathered at her slim hips, thumbs rasping over the sheer panel of her underwear.

"Something like that."

Her voice was atremble. She was so obviously not in control of herself.

But Dempsey was transfixed. Never had he been with a woman who was fire and ice like this. It was like something took a hold of her. He could see that deep, incandescent shade of violet swirling in her eyes, restless and powerful as the sea and he knew that like the sea, she could consume him entirely.

He had come to understand the habitual coolness which persisted right up until the point where she broke; she needed to stay in control, even to the detriment of her own pleasure and even though she reached that pinnacle with such phenomenal ease. Did she think that made her weak? Or easy, even? But boy, when she actually let herself go, she was something else! Maybe a little ice during foreplay was fun but he wanted more of that hot-stuff Harry.

He ran his hands up into her waist and back out over her ribcage, finally resting over her small but full breasts – the perfect handful.

Harry leaned forward into his caress with a strangled gasp and he saw a frown crease her forehead.

What was that? He was doing something wrong?

She grabbed the backs of his hands and for a second, he couldn't be sure she wasn't about to pull them away from her. She looked almost mad at him! She bit down on her lip and forced his hands downwards, her eyes filled with algid frustration.

"Whoa!" Dempsey growled when unceremoniously they were pushed down between her warm thighs.

"Don't keep me waiting, Dempsey," she told him with quiet severity.

Dempsey decided he could cope with her being in charge if that was the way she needed to play it.

Chapter 23 to follow very soon.