An exploration of sexuality. Blame Batwings (sorry, but it's true).

The little high window of the hotel room was open a touch, allowing the last grey light of the evening to fall on the walls. A slight ripple of cold flitted through the room, only just enough to be noticed, enough to heighten the senses by an edge, to wake up the surface of the skin. The window was too high to be able to see the sea from the relatively low bed- the room was on the top floor of the hotel anyway- but enough to glimpse a fraction of the expanse of sky that the prominent position at the top of the cliff afforded. A fire burned low in the grate- but strongly enough to be undisturbed by the breeze that ran through the room- casting the faintest of flickerings in the shadows starting to deepen on the wall.

Completely naked, the tension of a long car journey still wound up in her body, Isobel sat in the centre of the bed, Richard sitting behind her, pressing her back into his bare chest, his hands on her breasts, his lips and face buried in her neck, where hair lay tumbling down over her shoulders. The cold of the air hit the fire that he seemed to be creating beneath her skin with even the softest of his touches in a deliciously exciting, heady mixture, quickening her breathing for her before her body could even get it bearings to react.

She was alright, she was fine, until he started to talk to her she could stay in control. Just about. Sitting there, his lips buried in the side of her neck, reaching downwards to her collarbone, he was unable to speak.

Then she felt his hands leave her breasts. Her protests were silenced by the feeling of his hands on her hips, nudging her forwards. Confused, she allowed him to guide her, pushing her onto all fours before him.

Feeling immensely naked before him like this, she cast a cautious glance over her shoulder. She trusted him, of course she did, but there were some things that pushed at the boundaries, certainly of what she'd ever done before, and probably of what she felt secure in doing as well. Her thoughts were momentarily interrupted by the feeling of his fingers lightly on her sex, betraying how excited she was in spite of her nervousness.

His hands then smoothing over her behind before him, cupping her in his palm, resting there, she moaned almost involuntarily. They slipped then, back over her hip, up over her flanks, to settle once more on her breasts, ensuring that he was securely wrapped around her and over her. She realised now where this was going, and slipped her knees an inch further apart to allow them more stability and him better access.

As he slipped in side her, she felt his lips once on her neck kissing her softly, and impossibly chastely given that at that moment she was feeling every inch of him as he moved slowly between her legs. Sunk inside her, he was still for a few seconds allowing her to adjust to the feeling of having him like this; then proceeded to move impossibly slowly.

"Richard, please."

"Please what?"

If he was going to be like this, she just about managed to think, between the nudges of feeling starting to collect in her core, I'm not going to make it easy for him either.

"You know," she told him shortly, stifling a moan, clamping her lip between her teeth.

"No." He slowed just a little.

She jutted her hips frantically back and forward, trying desperately to make him move for her, in vain. However, a moment later, the feeling of one of his hands, moving from where it rested beside hers on the bed to rest on the inside of her thigh, millimetres from where her centre rocked to so his knuckles ghosted over the edge of her folds. She could not stifle a whimper then.

"Richard," she gasped, "Harder, please."

He surged forward.

"Harder," she found herself moaning almost in time to his thrust, her climax building all of the time.

Still he remained largely silent. He knew her secret now and she knew he was saving to drive her over the edge. The truth was that she liked it when they were like this and he whispered things to her that would normally send a flush straight to her cheeks and cause an involuntary jolt in her groin. She felt him take the top of her ear into his mouth, sucking it as he continued to thrust into her.

"Oh, Isobel."

Here he came, his voice low and husky in her ear. She vaguely felt his hand slip away from her thigh back to her breast, but it did not really register; she was listening.

"I love you," he whispered, "And I love you especially when you're like this. I love it when you come for me, I love the sound you make. Yes, just like that. When you're hot, and wanton, and wonderful, so wonderfully mine."

She could barely hear him now, as he thrust hard into her, her own cry drowned out the last of his words. Aware that he was not yet finished, she stayed for the last few seconds that she could on her trembling arms, allowing him to take her hips in her hands and thrust deliciously hard into her, before they both collapsed onto the bed.

…...

By the time they awoke, it was dark outside. Pulling the bedsheet around her more for warmth than anything else, she crossed to the without and shut it, closing the curtains, looking out for a moment at the dark expanse of black black sea stretched before her. The fire was still just about keeping itself going, but she took the tongs for a second and added a little more coal before climbing back into bed beside Richard.

Finding him stirring, she kissed his throat, feeling his hands moved as he awoke to hold her to him. She laughed at his sleepy expression of disgust to find her in the sheet, preventing him from her body and allowed him to lift it away from her and to kiss her breasts softly. She wound her hand into the back of his hair softly, kissing his lips once and then simply holding him. She had never felt closer to another human being in her life than she did to him then.

Smiling against his lips, she kissed him once again and then pulled back to look him in the face.

"You can be cruel to me sometimes, Richard Clarkson," she scolded him.

"I don't know," he replied, "You seemed to feel the benefit in the end. You have to be cruel to be kind sometimes."

"I'll remember that."

"Is that a threat or a promise?"

She laughed heartily, finding his hand and winding their fingers closely together. Closing her eyes, she raised his fingers to her lips and kissed them as tenderly as he did to hers before letting them fall back to lie between their legs.

"I love you," she told him, "And not in the ordinary sense of the word. Extraordinarily."

"Thank you, I think."

"Please take me seriously, Richard. No one has ever been able to do-... well, that to me before. Not like that."

"Isobel, you can't tell me that you've never had an orgasm before," he told her swiftly, "I know, remember?"

He saw the furious colouring of her cheeks at the word, taking him immensely by surprise.

"Nurse Crawley," he admonished, "You're surely not embarrassed by the word, are you?"

"It's rather different when you're actually applying it to me," she told him quietly, looking at his neck, "When I'm not... when I'm thinking straight, that is."

He smiled, remembering the recent discovery of the way words could affect her at the right moment. Gently, he pushed the side of her face upwards to look at him properly.

"Can I ask you a rather intimate question, Isobel? Don't answer me if you don't want to but-..."

"Richard, I don't suppose I really have anything left to hide from you now."

He paused for a second before continuing.

"How much of this is completely new to you?"

He knew he was pushing her, but it wasn't anything that he would not answer truthfully should she ask him, and he had told her that she didn't have to answer. She was looking at him still, very honestly.

"Quite a lot of it," she admitted, "Reginald and I were... well, we were quite conservative."

"Ah."

"Its ironic, isn't it?"

"It is rather," he admitted, "But thank you for telling me. Do I frighten you, then? Am I too insistent?"

"You're very insistent," she told him, "But I rather like it."

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