Part 7 (Epilogue)
It was a cold, crisp winter morning at 221B The Esplanade. Mr. Butler handed his mistress the post and a steaming cup of coffee. With a grateful expression but no words—it was far too early for words—she tucked into the small telephone table. There was a guest upstairs at her invitation and she did not want to stray too far.
Phryne first tore into the envelope, addressed to her in a tight curlicue hand. She smiled to herself as she read the contents and tucked it into the pocket of her dressing gown.
The next letter was postmarked from Wonthaggi. Kasi Ferguson had made the journey to the mining town twice now to visit her brother, as he recovered from his injuries. According to her letter, Neville's prognosis was a good one. The doctors forecasted a rather severe limp but believed he would regain full use of his leg. Kasi went on to write that Neville had gotten engaged to a lovely local woman by the name of Mary.
Phryne fingered the paper, feeling hopeful her friends might find a way to be a family again—especially if Mary Briggs had anything to do with it. It was the silver lining to a bittersweet end.
The case was one of the toughest they had ever worked, resurrecting spectres from their pasts and conjuring new ones. A passing flash of red hair gave rise to Penny Mitchell's face. And the mine's poppetheads had found their way into Phryne's dreams. In the weeks that had passed since their return from Wonthaggi, Phryne had kept a watchful eye over Jack. Something had happened to him out there, but she couldn't put her finger on precisely what. He seemed to be sleeping easier despite the persistent ache in his shoulder. Perhaps he had made peace with his ghosts.
The shuffle of heavy steps on the landing interrupted her thoughts. A large shadow slowly engulfed her where she sat in the nook.
The man's arms and chest were so thick, he could only just clasp his hands in front of him at the wrist. The peaceful, patient stature said far more about him than the abundance of muscle evident even hidden beneath the white cotton tunic and trousers he always wore.
Getting the master masseur here had been quite a feat, considering his bookings. She suspected she owed it more to Mr. Butler's promise of fika than any charm she might have possessed.
"How is he?"
"Han är vacker, Phryne." A shy smile broke across Gustav's broad face as he complimented the beauty of her lover.
She sidled up to the massive blond masseur and looped her arm around his. "Tell me something I don't know, darling."
Reading the concern behind the façade, Gustav didn't tease her any further. "He is resting."
"What do you think?" she asked, leading him into the parlour for coffee and buns. "Is it very serious?"
"Is much better," Gustav assured her, sipping his coffee and explaining the nature of the strain in Jack's shoulder. Phryne had to bite her lip to keep from smiling as she pictured her lover's ears turning puce, attempting to explain how he had sustained the injury in the first place.
"He is doing the ice treatment?" the trainer asked.
"Well, yes… Mac had suggested it."
"Good," he grunted, nodding his lion's mane of a head. "Mac is good doctor. Men should listening more to women. But athletes are liking mules sometimes."
"Jack isn't an athlete," Phryne groused, taking Gustav's meaning. "He's a policeman. So, it's infinitely worse!"
"Men are devils," Gustav agreed with a grin. "Is why we love them."
Phryne toasted him with her buttery roll, and happily spent the next quarter of an hour catching up on her friend's latest exploits and Collingwood's prospects for the Premiership.
Citing another appointment, Gustav stood to take his leave. He noticed the crease in Phryne's brow. "Do not worry," he said, taking her hand firmly between his. "If it still bothers him for next week, you telling him to come see me. I will making room."
Phryne smiled brightly up at him. "That is sweet of you, Gustav. Thank you."
"I not doing it for you, Phryne." He winked cheekily and released her, accepting his coat graciously from Mr. Butler. "Keep with the ice and, please, taking it easy on him until it heals. Lovar du?"
"I won't overextend him… too much," she teased, receiving a stern look in return. "Oh, alright! I promise."
Five minutes later, Phryne was padding up to Jack's room. As a whole, Jack preferred to sleep in Phryne's bed and was welcomed with open arms. His wardrobe however, required a space of its own—a sacrifice she was all too happy to make when she had laid eyes on his police formals. And with a décor that was serene in contrast to her room's opulence, it was an ideal place for Jack to relax in relative peace.
She silently eased the door open and slipped inside, throwing the bolt behind her. The room was dim and cozy-warm with the curtains pulled tight and a fire burning in the grate. Weaving around her like a spell, destined to ensnare her in its invisible curls, were wafts of peppermint leaf and lavender blossom—anchored by the rich oaken scent of Jack's skin.
Licks of light and shadow danced over the sinewy figure lying supine on the long narrow table that had been set up in front of the fireplace. He was nude but for a snowy white towel, draped crosswise across his middle to cover from hip to mid-thigh, and his skin still shone with the oils Gustav had used to coax his muscles into submission.
His face was turned away from her but Jack's soft snuffles of breath told her he had fallen blissfully asleep. "Jack," she purred, more for her pleasure to say than intent of him to hear. Slowly, she circled him. Taking her time. Savouring. Drinking him in like one of Mr. B's decadent amber cocktails, letting the heat burn and build in her belly.
Gone was the tension that always seemed to inhabit Jack's body. His current lack of movement was irrelevant. It was in stillness that he wielded his iron grip—the way he held his tea cup, arched his brow in consternation, leaned against her mantle. Even after lovemaking, Jack harboured a trace of hunger—a thrum of delicious energy that danced along the veins in his forearms and vibrated in his thighbones. It was a rare gift to see him like this, exposed and unfettered and utterly pliant.
She toed off her slippers and slid the dressing gown from her shoulders, the knickers from her hips—leaving only the pale blush chemise that so perfectly matched her skin. Jack had once called it the cruelest of optical illusions. Phryne ran her hands along her satin-covered skin until her fingers were warm and tingling with the trace of her hardened nipples. Standing near his feet, she palmed his insteps with great care, imagining how her touch might find its way into his dreams. Her hands moved upwards, over his heels, his ankles, his calves, warming them to her presence.
When she reached the backs of his knees, he breathed her name into the room. "What took you so long?"
"I promised you privacy," she reminded him, hands continuing to smooth up his thighs. "And I am a woman of my word." Jack had still not turned his head to look at her and she considered that he was either unwilling or unable to move. "I see Gustav hasn't lost his touch. You're as weak as a kitten."
"That's laying it on a bit thick, Phryne," he countered in a drawl. Even the muscles of his tongue seemed to be drunk with relaxation. "Though, out of curiosity, does that arouse you more or less than the alternative?"
Her index finger edged under the towel to tease him. "Oh, darling, much, much more. Especially as you seem to have lost your traditional ways along with your drawers."
"What? He needed access to my lower back."
Phryne couldn't help but giggle in the face of Jack's most incredulous voice. "I'm sure he did."
"Mr. Nyström was a perfect gentleman. He said he knew you too long to have a go over a man," Jack chuckled. "And that he was leaving everything beneath the towel to you."
"Wise," she agreed, folding up the towel inch by inch. She kneaded the supple flesh, hands sliding over his hips and up his flanks. A rush of warmth suffused her skin as Jack hummed in utter contentment. "If you made sounds like that, I doubt I could have I could have resisted had I been in his shoes."
"Your lack of self-control has been well docum—ooohhhhfuucckk!"
Phryne had pressed her mouth to the junction of his left buttock and thigh and was suckling the spot.
With his precarious position on the massage table, there was no chance of retribution. No chance of distraction. There was little Jack could do but take her sweet torment. No scarves. No ropes. Only the gelatinous consistency of his bones and the fact that he did not want her to stop. That he was enjoying it. The thrill of it went off inside her like a firework.
She nuzzled closer, nibbling on the insides of his thighs, the globes of his arse, until he was strangled for breath and shifting his weight on the table.
"Any other smart remarks, Inspector?" Phryne teased.
"More than you have contraband, but as I'm at a bit of a disadvantage—"
"Yes, you are," she grinned unapologetically. "You've also been remanded to my care… and you know I take my obligations seriously." Leaning forward, she bit his earlobe softly. "Turn over, darling. We're only half done."
It was managed as elegantly as possible considering the circumstances and he lay gazing at her from his new posture, his erection bobbing between them. Phryne had to bite her lip to keep from whimpering. Jack Robinson, rumpled and wanton—with his soft dark eyes and bruised expression that meant he was ruined for anyone else—could make a right fool out of her.
Jack saw her lips quirk—a little tic that exposed her sentimentality—and took his chance, nudging up on an elbow to capture her mouth in a slow, succulent kiss.
He relished the effect his kisses—the way her body would go liquid in his arms when he slid his tongue across her palate, the way she rose up on her tiptoes when he gave her bottom lip the edge of his teeth. But, mostly, he loved the way her eyes remained shut long after he released her.
The sooty wings of her lashes fluttered once, twice, before her darkened irises found his. "Keep that up," Phryne panted, pushing firmly down against his breastbone, "And I won't be able to stop. This table isn't built for two."
"And since when does practicality keep you from doing anything?" He was aiming for smug, but heard himself miss by a mile as her fingertips slipped down his abdomen to trail through his russet curls.
"Since I've been thinking about doing this all morning." She massaged the root of his cock and watched as the fire within him ignited, colouring his chest as though it had been sunburnt. But it did not stop there. Up it creeped, along his neck and towards the tips of his ears. And, for a moment, he couldn't meet her eyes.
"Jack?" she gasped. "Are you? You're blushing."
"I'm prone to bouts of primness, as you're always keen to point out," he quipped.
Her eyes widened, sparkling with mischief, as she continued to work him over. "It must be good if you don't want to tell me."
"It's nothing. Just a silly dream I'd forgotten." He tried to dismiss it, tried to keep his voice even, but his cock grew even harder beneath her hands at the mere mention of the memory.
"Come on, Jack," she cajoled, dipping her fingers beneath the hem of her chemise to swirl them across the planes of her sopping-wet sex. "I'm dripping with intrigue."
With her slick hand, Phryne fisted the head of his cock, applying a twist that knocked the air from his lungs in a bellow and had his hips bucking into her touch. "But if it's upsetting you—" Her lips twisted into a smile that showed her canines. She had spent months attempting to tease his fantasies out into the open. Perhaps he was finally ready. "I'll stop."
"No!" he begged, blurting out the word—unable to bear the thought of the loss. "I mean, please. Please don't stop!"
Between heaving breaths as she balanced him on a knife's edge, Jack described the sordid dream he'd had. It had happened weeks after the Edwards case had wrapped. He and Phryne had never had the chance to discuss his experience at the Chinese brothel, but his subconscious had placed them both firmly in the middle of the scene—he in his Constable's uniform and she as one of the hostesses.
Phryne was breathless with the raw weight of his confession—the guiltily earnest way he had tried to explain even while her hand was stroking his cock. Rivulets of desire tickled down the backs of her legs. She edged closer to where his hand was gripping the edge of the table, nudging his knuckles with her hip.
Jack felt his cheeks flame anew as Phryne altered her pressure, her grip. She was handling him rougher now, like she had in the dream, and her other hand had snuck beneath his balls to wickedly tease the smooth strip of tissue just behind. The pad of her little finger was flirting with the sensitive puckered skin of his arsehole.
He looked up at her, his face twisted in consternation as he tried to control the hot ball of pressure building in the floor of his belly and still say what he needed to say. To apologize and explain that he didn't see her as an object, that he would never expect her to act on his twisted fantasies. But then, she whispered, "Jack, I'm going to come."
He woke, sometime later, on his back and in his bed—with no memory of how he had gotten there. Phryne was bright-eyed and nestled into his side. Her fingers were absent-mindedly toying with the jut of her nipple through the satin lingerie.
"Y-you're not angry, then?" Jack croaked.
"Angry?" She sparkled with laughter. "It was a fantasy, Jack. I was beginning to worry you didn't have any." Phryne slid her hand from her chest to his, pinching his nipple cheekily until he growled at her.
"You know," she began, adopting a more serious tone. "If I were to come home one night and find you in your police uniform—" She couldn't help but kiss his mouth as it hung open with the realisation of what he was about to be offered. "I would make the rest of that dream come true."
"Is that so?" His voice had the texture of cut glass and it sent ripples of dark pleasure up her spine.
"Mmm," she agreed, pulsing her cunt against the broad of his thigh. One of his large hands had curled around her hip and was echoing the rhythm with delicious squeezes to her derrière. "One of the rewards of honesty," she purred in delight. "Anything else you'd care to get off your chest, Inspector?"
The possibilities began to emerge in front of him like the stars in the night sky, until one had turned into a multitude—some burning brighter with the heat of a thousand suns, others winking cheekily, glowing softly—all a delight to behold.
With one smooth turn, he had Phryne's sweet, aching weight over him. She stretched up languidly to give him a better view, squealing in pleasure as he danced his fingertips up the length of the pale pink chemise, lingering where she was most sensitive.
"You know how I feel about this slip," he whispered hoarsely.
Phryne's skin prickled in anticipation. "Tell me?"
Jack licked his lips and traced the contours of hers through the sodden material with his thumb, his other hand at her hip, pinning her in place. Following her gasps of breath, he narrowed in on her clitoris, using his nails to scratch maddeningly against the swollen flesh, the satin providing near-perfect friction. Near perfect.
"It flays my patience."
"What would you do about it?" she asked. Her voice had taken on the whinging, desperate quality of the tormented, but she stared at him boldfaced and curious.
He grinned hungrily back. "I thought about tearing it off your body with my bare ha—"
"Your teeth," Phryne cried. Her hips broke free from his grasp to sink down upon him in a slide of satin and sex, and she shuddered as the wave of release viciously racked her body. One of her hands reached up, blindly, for her covered breast and squeezed, digging in her fingernails to mimic the feeling of Jack's mouth. She screamed as another orgasm overtook her.
The constriction of her inner muscles had triggered his release, though her abandoned expression would have almost certainly done it. The knowledge that Phryne had very specific ideas of how he should rip the clothes from her body sent aftershocks pulsing through his cock.
She kissed him sloppily and sagged against him—inebriated with lust and secrets.
"Very well," Jack chuckled. "My teeth it is. Do you have plans this afternoon, Miss Fisher?" he asked, nestling her limp body into his side. "Because I could pencil that ravishing in right after a nap."
"Nothing of so much import as this," Phryne hummed in drowsy delight. She pillowed her head on his chest and strummed his ribcage with lazy strokes, enjoying the easy domesticity. "Mister Butler asked to go over the household arrangements but I can put him off a bit."
Jack froze beneath her, obviously appalled at the suggestion.
"Not to worry, darling. You won't suffer." Phryne assured him with a laugh and bestowed an affectionate pat to Jack's stomach. "He just wants to be sure everything goes to plan before Dot has the baby. Of course, nothing around here ever goes exactly to plan. I swear the man has a sixth sense."
Phryne didn't have to be able to see him to know Jack's eyebrow had just leapt toward his hairline in expectation. "I just had a letter from Jane. She wants to come home between terms."
"Oh." The news startled a cough out of his lungs. "Jane hasn't been home in quite some time."
In fact, Jane Ross hadn't been back to Melbourne since he and Phryne had embarked on their relationship. Phryne had written her, he knew. And, according to Phryne, the girl's response had been enthusiastic. But it was one thing to read about the arrangement in a letter—and quite another to return to a man living in your house, sharing your adopted mother's bed. His guilty conscience dispatched his hand to tug the sheet up over their hips.
"Too long," Phryne agreed. "So, you'll have to rearrange your schedule."
"Of course," he replied. "I wouldn't want to intrude."
Rolling up to her knees, Phryne looked at him in disbelief. Jack was fond of Jane. He had taught her how to play chess, and had been the only one the girl trusted to help her with her Shakespeare. She had expected a much warmer reception.
"Intrude? What on Earth are you talking about? You live here!" Phryne huffed, annoyance pulling her vowels taut.
"I can go to the flat for a few weeks," he said, referring to the little place he kept as his official address. "It's not a sacrifice."
"How noble of you," she crowed, sarcasm dripping from her tongue. "This isn't the same as ducking out of Aunt Prudence's dinner parties. Jane wants to spend time with us—together. I simply won't accept any excuse for your absence, not even murder."
"She does?"
"Oh Jack," she breathed, reading the confusion in Jack's expression. The fight fizzled away like the bubbles of day-old champagne. "You're a smart man. I would have never taken you for such a fool."
She placed her palm to his cheek and spoke softly. "Of course, she does. You've been part of her life for as long as I have. Longer, if you want to split hairs."
"As a policeman—"
Phryne had stopped him with a finger to his lips. "Jane doesn't see it that way. The choices we make carry consequences. Isn't that what you told me? After everything you've done, you mean so much more to her than that."
Jack was not a superstitious man by nature but the desire to touch wood—invoking spirits for his protection—was overwhelming. To feel this much happiness was surely to tempt fate.
"I never presumed to hope for such a thing," he finally whispered.
"Which?" Phryne laughed, when his worry lines faded away. "Jane considering you family, or me listening to what you say?"
"Both," he cheeked, beaming up at her.
"You sell yourself short, Jack Robinson," she said, leaning forward to kiss him softly. "Don't you know how easy it is to fall in love with you?"
Jack's heart, already fit to burst, skidded to a halt in his chest.
From the moment Phryne had invited him to share her life and her home, he had never doubted her feelings. She preferred to express herself physically, in every touch, every shared smirk, every press of her lips to his skin. He might have been content with this, had she not just dangled the words in front of him like gems to a lapidary.
He sat up and cradled her face in his hands, tenderly tucking a sweaty strand of hair behind her ear with his middle finger. "Phryne?"
Uttering not a word, she dropped jewel-bright promises to the corner of his mouth, his philtrum, the cleft of his chin.
"Just once," he lied against her mouth—knowing full well that, like kissing her, once would be never enough. His voice was rough and hungry. He needed to hear those words, needed to feel her skin against his, more than he needed to breathe.
Determined to use whatever wiles he possessed to extract them, Jack wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into his lap for a scorching kiss. It was then he realised that she was still wearing that confounded slip, and a string of curses tumbled forth.
An impish smile curled Phryne's lips and her eyes sparkled at him in challenge. Phryne was fond of games, and driving him mad with passion was her particular favourite. He could hardly begrudge her for it when the spoils were so rich.
Applying his teeth to the length of her throat, Jack took up the gauntlet. "Perhaps," he murmured, savouring the saltiness of her skin, the bitterness of her perfume, as they roughened his every word. "I need to loosen your tongue."
Amidst the snarling in her lover's throat, the peals of ripping satin tearing through the air, Phryne's voice rang out at last.
"I love you, Jack Robinson."
The words fell upon the crown of his head, glittering like gold—more valuable than any rubies or diamonds or coal mined from the Earth, their carat weight almost more than his heart could bear.