Bash took her hand and pulled her to her feet, pulling the towel from its place on the hearth to dry her off. He did it slowly: of course he did it slowly. For all the man charged recklessly off in pursuit of whatever task Henry or Francis gave him, he had always been careful with her, whether it be the return of her dog or the care of her ladies or, most especially, with her welfare.
She almost told him not to bother when he had her sit on the bed and began working his way down her legs, but he looked up at her through his eyelashes when she made to speak and, well. It was unfair for a man to have those thick lashes, when at least two of Mary's ladies would have killed for them. It was more unfair for him to look up at her through them when he knelt at her feet.
"Mary," he said when he finished, holding her ankle, thumb running lightly up and down as if he couldn't help it.
"Bash," she said.
He nodded and leaned forward, pressing a single kiss to the side of her knee, right where the crease ended. She bit her lip: it felt… it tickled, but not in a bad way.
"All right?" Bash asked. "Usually I – most women are more vocal."
"Should I be more vocal?" she asked, immediately worried. "I'm not-"
"No," Bash said hastily, over whatever she had been about to say. She wasn't sure what it would have been. "No, you should – you should do whatever you want."
So she reached out to run a hand through his hair. He closed his eyes.
"You have very thick hair," she said. "Not like your father's at all."
Bash opened one eye. "When I said you should do whatever you wanted, I didn't think it would be talking about my father while we were…"
"While we were what?" she asked, her tone arch, her brow cocked. She was nervous. Bash would never hurt her, but –
Bash surged up, her hand still in his hair, so his hands could cradle her face.
Mary had been kissed before, not least by Francis. She had been kissed by Bash before, but something here was different: before, kisses had been nice, if wet and a little strange. She had understood the intent, though, understood that the person kissing her liked her or at least liked how she looked.
She was not sure she understood the intent anymore. Bash seemed to be saying something she could not quite understand, some archaic dialect of romance that she had no translation for. She was sure she could figure it out if she wasn't losing her mind.
"Oh," she said when he pulled away. Not far – his forehead touched hers. His nose brushed hers.
"Oh?" he asked, teasing.
"I liked that," she said. Her voice did not sound entirely as it usually did, but it still sounded like her. She felt like herself.
"Good," he said, and kissed her again.
This time she bit his lower lip almost on accident, but she did not apologize: he made a surprised little sound, not discouraging, so she did it again and he moaned and laughed when he pulled back.
"You liked that?" she asked, just to be sure. Mary knew the mechanics of sex – she had learned the basics of midwifery with the nuns, and it had been educational. She had had sex. Once. No one had mentioned biting.
Bash smiled at her as he propped himself up on an elbow so he could run a thumb along her lip and say, "I did. Do you? Like that sort of thing?"
Mary couldn't help it. She made a face at him.
"Right, no, you wouldn't… know. Would you?" His face closed off for a moment, but Mary, feeling daring, kissed the thumb still at her lips, and his eyes softened.
"I did already get the first bit over with," she said, refusing to sound apologetic. She mostly succeeded.
His brows furrowed. "First bit over with? What first – no, wait, over with? Do you not want-"
"The first time," she said patiently, wondering if he had never actually slept with a virgin before. She supposed he probably hadn't. "It hurts the first time. So you don't have to worry about-"
"Oh for the love of god," he said, rolling off to the side and covering his eyes, ignoring her indignant huff over the blasphemy. He immediately uncovered his eyes and caught her arm when he felt her shifting away. "No, not you, I'm sorry. It doesn't hurt if you're doing it right, Mary. I promise."
Mary did her best to look skeptical, though she did wonder how Bash had, apparently, learned to have sex correctly and Francis had… not? She knew Francis had slept with women other than her. Maybe it was only that he was a prince, and they had not wanted to comment. Bash did tend to be more accepting of constructive criticism.
"I hate everyone," Bash muttered, but he rolled back over and kissed her again. "Let me know if something hurts or you don't like it. That means something is wrong."
"Oh," she said.
"People," Bash said, in the same tone Catherine would have said pagans. Mary tried not to giggle. "It isn't funny, Mary, if Francis told you-"
"Francis didn't tell me anything about this," she said, bringing her hands up so she could cup his face. He looked so irritated. She leaned up to kiss the line between his brows while he frowned down at her. "I'm sure he thought someone else would tell me."
"Well now I want to hit him for that," Bash said, but he had stopped frowning.
"Don't hit Francis," Mary ordered, and traced over Bash's cheekbone with a thumb. "Don't think about Francis right now, maybe."
"Right," he said. He knelt up suddenly, making Mary start, but it was only to peel off his shirt. Much to her own surprise, her hands went immediately to his stomach. Should she be more hesitant, after Francis?
She pressed, a little, and felt the firmness of his midsection under her fingers. "Is this all right?"
"Let's agree that the same thing goes for me as for you," Bash said, looking down at her, hands resting lightly on his own thighs. "If it hurts or I don't like it, I'll say something."
Mary sat back and considered. It seemed fair. "I don't like being naked when you're not," she told him, testing just a little.
He laughed, sounding surprised. He wasn't laughing at her, but she poked him in the ribs anyway. Bash had so many scars – she was painfully aware that at least one had been gained in her service.
There were fewer scars on his legs than the rest of him, once he got his pants off. She rubbed an absent hand up his thigh as he leaned down to kiss her again, moving to bite light just under her ear.
She pushed him back. He went without more than a hiss of protest, laying out on the bed. "Would you – could you-" Her lack of words was frustrating. How to ask?
"Yes," he said, strained, hips shifting restlessly. "Yes, whatever you want, I just – what do you want?"
"Could you show me how?" she asked, and hated that her voice went high-pitched and unsure.
Bash visibly pulled his thoughts together, trying to prop himself up on his elbows. She put some of her weight on his shoulders – nowhere near enough to actually force him back, if any of her weight was enough to actually force him back – and he gave up. "Show you how to what?"
"I don't want-" she gestured helplessly around her midsection. "I don't want to be pregnant. Yet."
"Right, no," he said. "I wasn't thinking, I'm-" He tried once more to sit up. She pushed him down again.
"So," she said, irritated that he wasn't getting her point. "Show me other things to do."
He stared at her, and she wondered briefly if she had managed to shock him, but no: he shook his head – short, sharp – and said, "Come here."
She could have made a remark about already being there, but instead she followed his beckoning fingers and let him, finally, sit up and pull her into his lap.
Bash tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled. She smiled back, but he still looked sad, a little, so on impulse she leaned forward and laid a quick kiss on his nose.
Strangely, that seemed to have more of an effect on him than anything up to this point: his whole face softened, eyes crinkling at the corners before he leaned his forehead into her shoulder. "You're so good," he said. "How are you so good?"
Was she? She didn't know. Did she want to be? Being good had not, after all, helped Ayleigh in the end. Being good had not saved Mary from Henry's machinations, and it certainly would not save her from Catherine's. God had not chosen Mary to be good, whatever that meant. God had chosen Mary to rule.
"I thought I asked you to do something," she said. Bash laughed against her shoulder, sounding disbelieving, and ran his hands down her back until he could hold her hip and bring another hand up between them to fondle her breast.
She made a tiny, approving sound she hadn't known herself capable of as his calluses dragged against her nipple, her hips grinding down as if by their own volition. She squirmed, suddenly aware of the ache low in her belly, between her legs, and decided to be brave.
Bash made a quiet sound when she moved his hand down, but it didn't sound disapproving in the least, especially not when he started rubbing small, hard circles where she hadn't ever quite dared, too afraid that someone would know.
She hissed, one hand coming up to tighten in his hair and the other at his shoulder as she hunched over him, biting her lip.
"God, Mary," Bash said, squeezing her hip a little harder and shifting a little to do something that made stars go off behind her eyes, why hadn't anybody told her she could feel like this? "God, you're perfect."
"Maybe," she managed, because he made her feel like she might be, but it was choked and tight and her hand on his shoulder slipped in the sweat there.
He chuckled in her ear, nipping at the lobe, and she wanted to say something witty, really she did, but her hips were moving in short, sharp jerks and her mind had stopped working quite right, something fizzing around the edges, and she might or might not be drawing blood with her nails so she couldn't be blamed for gasping brokenly instead.
Bash moved his head down to suckle on her nipple, and she decided, with a fuzzy sort of indifference, that she was going to die. She decided she didn't mind so much.
Someone, somewhere – Mary could remember who, if she wasn't going out of her mind – had likened worship to ecstasy. She rather thought they'd gotten it turned around, though if God felt like this when she prayed over her rosary no wonder He was so set on weekly mass.
The thought was blasphemous. Mary, riding out a tidal wave of confusing feeling, couldn't care.
When Bash let her lay back, gasping as if she'd been running for ages (or possibly as if she had just climbed out of a river), she couldn't do anything but breathe.