Note that this chapter is definitely M rated...just in case it's not your thing.
The use of present tense in this chapter is also a deliberate device to suggest immediacy.
oOo
9 days after the bombing – evening:
Harry follows Ruth as she leads the way to her bedroom. He is mesmerised by the fluid movement of her legs and hips, the curve of her spine as she climbs the stairs ahead of him, and as much as he longs to step up to her and back her against the wall, to lift her skirt, press his body against hers and push himself into her again and again, his rational mind tells him that the wait will be worth it. He's been half hard since she shared with him the decision she'd made at the time of the bombing. He's also been waiting for her for at least 6 years, so what is the worst thing that can happen if he has to wait a little while longer?
They'd already done it, of course, the sex. He's not sure whether what they had done together under that table after the bombing was simply sex, making love, or just fucking. For him it had been a bit of all three, but he likes to remember it as making love. Had it been anyone other than Ruth, he would have stopped it before it had even begun. Had it been anyone other than Ruth, he'd not have been hard, and he'd not have pressed his body against hers the way he had with Ruth. He'd been momentarily flummoxed by the Ruth who had taken charge that afternoon after the bomb had gone off. It had been such a change for him to follow where another led. Had she not led from the front that afternoon, he would have done nothing more than to hold her close to him, hoping she'd not be too offended by his erection pressing against her. To hold her like that had been almost enough for him, despite his transparent want for more. She'd taken charge again, both in inviting him here tonight – for sex, that had been made quite clear – and in her suggestion they share her house in the country. Perhaps the shock of the bombing had realigned something inside her, and if that was so, he is in a way thankful that the bombing had occurred, notwithstanding the tragedy of unnecessary loss of life.
Ruth's bedroom reflects her personality, as he knew it would. Her bed is covered in a patchwork quilt of many colours, some of which clash in Harry's perception of the order and rules of colour combining. For instance, he would never put orange, red, yellow, green and pale blue together, but her quilt is a chaotic hotchpotch of all five, bound together with a broad black border. Nor would he ever share this opinion with her, as that would be impolite, but were he to, she would no doubt say: Where's your spirit of adventure, Harry? The room is small, and the bed large, while under the window is a comfortable armchair on which books are strewn. Books are piled on the floor near the chair, as well as on the small table beside the bed. In the corner between the far wall and the bed is a chunky wooden wardrobe with the door leaning open, revealing Ruth's clothing, much of which he'd already seen her wearing at some time during the two years since she'd returned from Cyprus. Seeing his eyes move to it, she quickly closes the wardrobe door and turns on the lamp which sits on the bedside table.
"Harry, you're closer to the light switch. Could you turn the light off? The lamp will throw just enough light."
He does as she asks. Suddenly he's nervous, and he doesn't know why. Ruth appears to be again taking charge, which leaves him feeling uncharacteristically unsure of his role in this encounter with her. Should he just let her determine everything about tonight's lovemaking? They are standing apart, she on one side of the bed, and he on the other, and he has a sense that she's still fighting an urge to run from him. She ran from him at the table after he'd suggested they should take a week's leave together in Suffolk; she'd stood up and started clearing the table. It has been her default behaviour for so long she is no doubt unaware of even doing it, and suddenly the prospect of him perhaps having to chase after her for another five years wearies him.
Deciding that action beats inaction, he slips off his shoes and socks, and tosses his jacket aside, and climbs in under the quilt and duvet, pulling the covers up to his chin. Ruth stares at him like he'd broken some fundamental house rule.
"Harry, that's my side of the bed."
"It's mine now. Come on in, and cuddle up to me," he adds, patting the quilt on the side of the bed on which Ruth is standing. "Besides, I should be closest to the door."
"Why?"
"To protect you, in case -"
"In case robbers or rapists or terrorists or -"
"Bad guys -"
"Bad guys, Harry? Bad guys?"
"It's my job to keep the bad guys away, so I should sleep on the side closest the door."
"What if they climb in through the window?"
"Ru-uth! Get into bed with me. I thought you wanted to -"
"Shag you until you require resuscitation?"
"Yes, if you like." Harry smiles at her as she slips off her shoes and kicks them under the bed, and then removes her overshirt. She is about to take off her skirt, when he reaches for her.
"Come here," he says. "Let me help." Stop running, Ruth. I need to touch you, to hold you, to feel your body against mine.
Ruth climbs on to the bed and kneels next to him, her skirt billowing around her. Here she sits, his bold, earthy, sexy Ruth, and perched on the bed like this she could be mistaken for the innocent poster child for a dairy company, or a brand of soap – butter, yoghurt or Pears anyone? He lifts himself up until he is leaning on one elbow, and then he slowly moves his hand under the hem of her skirt until he touches her skin. With his fingers he gently caresses her outer thigh, and her eyes hold his, almost as though she is daring him to explore further. She then fumbles with the button of her skirt until he reaches out with both hands and quickly frees the button, and then the zip, so that she can push the skirt down over her hips.
"Come in under the covers," he says. "Lie next to me."
Ruth doesn't need asking a second time. She tumbles under the duvet, letting a blast of cold air in as she does so. He puts both arms around her and pulls her to his side until her head rests under his chin.
"Ruth,"
"Hmm?"
"Have you noticed that we're beginning to -"
"Finish one another's sentences?"
"Yes. I wonder what that means."
"Dimitri says we've been doing it for as long as he's known us."
"How did that particular conversation even begin, Ruth?"
"I can't remember. It was just an observation he made about us. It was after a team debriefing last year, and apparently you and I had been sitting side-by-side at the meeting, finishing one another's sentences. Everyone has noticed. They all think we've been having sex for years, you know."
"I know. Are you warm?" he asks.
"Not really. I need warming up." She turns her face towards him, and he wraps both his arms around her and meets her mouth with his. Their kiss begins gently enough, soft lips on soft lips, gentle exploration of tongue on tongue, soft moaning from two throats, but then the years of self-denial soon catch up with them. The kiss becomes hungry and raw and deep and demanding, a clash of lips and tongues and teeth and hot breath. Ruth rakes her nails across his sides and down his back to where her hands meet the waistband of his pants, while his hands travel down her back, over her buttocks, and to her upper thighs. They pull away suddenly, both panting heavily.
"Are we moving too fast?" he asks her, planting light kisses beneath her ear.
"Not fast enough," she whispers, her voice hoarse, slipping both hands under his shirt collar, and caressing his shoulders. From there, she draws both her hands down until they are together against his chest.
"I love you," he whispers in her ear.
"I know you do," she says. "I should have let you say it that morning you came to see me off at the dock."
"No regrets, Ruth. We mustn't stay stuck in the past."
While they've been talking, she had deftly opened the front of his shirt. He leans back against the pillow while she kisses his chest, his nipples, and then all the way down his stomach.
"I love your tummy," she says between kisses.
"Come back here, Ruth. I need to hold you for a while. You keep running away from me."
"I've made a pact with myself to never run away from you again, Harry," she says, returning to his arms, and resting her head against his shoulder. "Running away is easy. It's staying and facing things which is hard."
"I know, my love. We both do running away rather well."
"I thought I was the only one who ran away," she replies.
"I have my walls, as you may have noticed."
"I have noticed. They're almost impenetrable, too."
"I'm trying, Ruth, I really am."
"I know you are, and I love you for it."
They lay together in silence, their arms wrapped around each other. Without words to come between them and distract them, to take their feelings and diffuse them into the air around them, their breathing slowly becomes heavier, and the heat between them rises. Her breasts are pushed hard against his chest so that their hearts beat as one. Each have closed their eyes, but are hyper-aware of the other. Harry lifts her head towards him and kisses her mouth with gentle, barely-there kisses. As they draw their bodies together - stomachs, hips, thighs, legs, feet - they became entangled and interwoven. They are content to lay like this for now, but it will not be long before the insistence of his erection – now nestled against her thigh – and the heat between her own legs will demand more, much more.
There is perfection in their posture – their lying together under the covers, their bodies entwined like vines, their hearts beating in unison, their lives joining together for as long as they both shall live. Theirs is a marriage of true minds which can now only be destroyed by death. Harry silently utters a blessing for he and Ruth, that they will be free to love one another without impediment or obstruction, until their lives on earth end, and even into the realm which exists beyond life.
Their kisses suddenly become deeper and more demanding. Ruth's hands run up and down his bare back, while he lifts her t-shirt, all the better to explore her skin. He is very conscious that she is grinding her hips into his groin, and as much as he loves this, wants this, and would love to follow her by grinding back, it will be up to him to exercise some self-restraint. He grasps her hips and draws them away from his lower body.
"We have to slow down, Ruth," he whispers.
"But I don't want to," she pleads.
"Neither do I," he confesses, "but we must. For us."
He pulls away from her and looks at her, her pupils large, her eyes lustful.
"We're not in a hurry, remember?" She runs her hands over his face, his neck and his bare chest. She stops at the gunshot wound on his left shoulder. It is knotted and raw, and it looks sore.
"Is it?" she asks.
"Lets leave the past where it is," he growls.
Realising that while he will only have one climax in him on this night, and yet Ruth may have several, he lifts her t-shirt over her head and then quickly and expertly removes her bra. The releasing of her breasts brings a sigh from Ruth and a groan from Harry. He gazes openly and longingly at them, before raining a shower of kisses on her skin, from her earlobe, down her neck, and to one breast, and then the other, his tongue flicking each nipple, before he takes one nipple in his teeth and gives it a tiny nip. As he moves from one breast to the other and back again, his hand explores her lower abdomen, the soft skin of her inner thighs, and thence under the waistband of her knickers. His mouth then follows the path his hand had already taken down her abdomen. He slides her knickers from her body, and she helps him – just a little bit, because she is distractedly sighing with bliss. Harry is loving only her. He feels her heat with his fingers, and then his mouth finds her centre and he loves her with his tongue and his lips and his fingers. Her ecstasy overflows in not one orgasm, but several. Harry loses count. He loves the sweet taste of her, and he loves how her hips buck as she comes. She breathes out his name. This time there is no `damn you'. The words, Harry, Oh, Harry fall from her lips with love, contentment and wonder.
Ruth lifts her head and places her hands either side of his face. They love one another with their eyes. Harry quickly removes his pants and his underpants and throws them on the floor at the foot of the bed.
"Let me see you," she says. "Let me see all of you."
He slides up the bed to lie beside her. They are both now totally naked. His penis is hard, and he is more than ready, but he is not yet prepared to enter her. He wants their loving to be slow and languid. His dream is for when they are old together and prone to reminiscing, they will enjoy talking about this second time. They will certainly remember their first time, of that he has no doubt, but he wants this time also to be worthy of the occasional `do you remember when?' She reaches across to him and cups his face so that he turns to look at her. Then she kisses him lightly, her tongue teasing his lower lip. He feels her hand, feather light, slowly slide down his neck to his chest, and then her fingers glide down his body, over his stomach, to his pubic hair. He gasps in anticipation of her touching him – her soft fingers on his hard flesh. But her fingertips tease him by slowly travelling up and then down his inner thighs in a circular motion, before she gently cups his scrotum, and then to the base of his shaft. With a loving touch, Ruth grasps his penis and begins to slide her hand up and down. Her touch, gentle as it is, is almost unbearable, and a moan escapes his lips. He rolls towards her to face her, so that he can kiss her lips while his fingers play at her entrance, dipping in and out of her. When he lays on his back and closes his eyes and sighs, she knows he is surrendering, and now it is her turn to love him. With one fluid movement off the bed, Ruth straddles him, causing him to open his eyes in surprise. She takes his erection in both hands and guides him into her as slowly as she can. They both gasp as she takes the full length of him.
It is a long time since she's straddled a man – and it's even longer since she's wanted to. It is a position which places her on full and open display to her partner. Harry is the only man she would allow to witness her in this way, starkly naked, the joining of their bodies unconcealed. He is watching her, his face a portrait of love, his hands on her hips, his thumb occasionally drifting to her clitoris. It is then that she begins to move, and she takes some time to develop a rhythm. His angle, her angle are not quite the same. Eventually her movements match his, and she feels her climax swelling from within her centre. Requiring balance, she reaches out with her hands and grasps each of his hands in her own. She welcomes her climax as it pulses through her, and with her head thrown back she again calls out his name. He pulls her forward on to his chest, gasping his own completion, her name spilling from his lips as his seed spills inside her. And then they lie still, panting, breathing, coming down, their faces so close, their eyes closed, their bodies moist and spent. They each murmur `I love you', because they can, and they do.
Much later, Ruth rolls off him and lies beside him. She turns her head to watch him in sleep, his face gentle, peaceful, untroubled. This is the man she loves, and she is glad. She holds a secret belief that she has always loved him, and perhaps she has. The few others she has been with have merely been for practise in preparation for him. All along she has been searching for him - her Harry - and now she has found him, she will never let him go. She can no longer bear to be without him. She reaches across to turn out the light, and then settles beside him, her face against his shoulder, her arm across his body. She silently asks that tonight the bad guys will not burst through her door. Were they to, Harry will be unable to protect her, as he is deep in the land of dreams. Within minutes she joins him.
oOo
I've stolen a couple of phrases – from a Shakespeare sonnet (116), and from the marriage ceremony, so I'm just acknowledging it here.