As I lay in bed after having literally crawled to it across the floor of my apartment from where I had been slumped against my front door sobbing piteously for hours after he'd left, shades drawn, room funereally dark, weeping and crying so hard I was literally choking, my body curled in on itself in the fetal position, hindsight took control of what little of my brain was still functional in order to torture me even further.
I should have told him no.
I should have fought him more fiercely, taken a stand and held my ground.
I shouldn't have allowed my hormones to control me.
As if it was that easy.
. . . as if it was merely that, just simple lust and nothing more, nothing deeper, as if my heart wasn't lying ripped open and bleeding out into my ravaged soul.
What I'd done - what he'd done - the enormity of what had happened between us in such a relatively short amount of time rattled around in my head all night, keeping me up, weeping inconsolably, trying to find some sort of succor by hugging myself and rocking or burrowing under the covers with them pulled up and over my head, but of course nothing helped, nothing eased the shame and pain I felt about what I had done to him, and for him . . .
. . . about what he'd very bravely confessed to me, the mere thought of which still made it even more impossible to breathe.
I don't know if I could have done it, myself - to say something so powerful through a door that had been deliberately closed on me by the person I loved in order to put a physical barrier between us, while he wept brokenheartedly on the other side of it.
He had said he loved me. Whether that was prompted by any guilt he felt, I didn't know - although I did know because Tom wasn't a person who ever did much of anything to feel guilty about, and I knew he certainly hadn't with me. I was the one who bore the guilt of this situation, every bit of it, for allowing myself to dream, for allowing myself to act on those dreams I had for someone who was so far above my station.
Not in social rank, per se, although handsomeness certainly translated to that nowadays, but in the way of the fact that someone who looked like me had absolutely no business even just hanging around someone who was as painfully gorgeous as he was - much less allowing him to bring me to such heights, having done the same - I hoped - for him in the first place, in the ill-fated act that had precipitated this agonizing cluster-not-quite-fuck.
I couldn't even begin to deal with what he'd admitted to me, and it hurt so much to think about what I knew I absolutely had to do the next time I saw him that I alternated between railing against my fate in having lost the genetic lottery so badly that I couldn't even begin to entertain the idea that - although I loved him, too, with every breath I had in me - there might actually be a way we could be happy together, and out and out wailing my unhappiness into my pillow, not wanting to disturb my neighbors with my suffering.
Some time, just before dawn, I fell into an exhausted sleep, only to be rudely awakened by a sharp rapping on my door at precisely seven o'clock, less than an hour later.
Someone was knocking at my door, politely but firmly at first, but getting much less so very quickly as if his patience - which I had always thought was pretty infinite - had come to an abrupt end. I threw the covers off, knowing exactly who it was that was practically breaking my door down, dreading this confrontation worse than anything else ever in my life, which caused me to move much more slowly than the agitated man in my hallway - who was likely to wake the whole friggin' building if he didn't cut it out - would have preferred, apparently.
I got up and threw a robe over my cotton nightie, practically screaming, "Hold your horses, God dammit! I'll be there in a second!" although my voice had been so thoroughly ruined by the pleasure he'd brought me to yesterday - to say nothing of the bawling I'd been doing all night - that I didn't even recognize it.
Well, there's the ticket. Scream and swear at him like a shrew and he'll be out of here in a New York minute, I thought, catching sight of myself in the full length mirror I usually studiously avoided and taking a horrified step back. I looked like a Walking Dead zombie who'd just gone a highly unsuccessful round with Michon - much, much worse than usual, if that was even possible. My eyes were nearly swollen shut from having cried all night, the dark circles beneath them showing even darker against my pale, wan skin. My curls - which were a little longer than shoulder length, rioted around my head much less like the halo his had so effortlessly mimicked when he was younger and much more closely resembling some demented rat's nest.
A thought gave me pause. Should I clean myself up? Get dressed? Brush my hair? Put on perfume, maybe?
I immediately rejected all of those ideas. It would be much easier to convince him that we didn't belong together if he had an example right in front of him as to exactly why we didn't. I couldn't imagine that he had ever looked this bad even on his worst day.
By the time I got to the door, he had long since started to knock again - more like pounding - and not only that, he'd begun yelling. Yelling. I'd barely ever seen him even hint at being angry, much less giving way to a full fledged roar as he was now. "Stop stalling and open the fucking door or, so help me God, I will kick it down!"
I could hear that - of course - someone just happened to be passing down the hall as he issued that treat, so completely without looking I hurriedly opened the door then blindly reached my hand out and grabbed a handful of what I prayed was going to be his shirt - and not his crotch - to drag him into my flat with me and away from prying eyes and ears, unspeakably relieved when it was a fistful of his hoodie I got rather than a fistful of his package.
I let go of him immediately once we were both inside, carefully taking a couple of steps back so that we weren't touching after I shut the door, not really noticing as he locked it, only seeing how tiredly he sagged back against it, facing me, his hands folded in front him as if he knew he couldn't trust them to be anywhere else.
Apparently I wasn't the only one who'd had a rough night; he was dressed just about as casually as I'd ever seen him in a black hoodie, a white t-shirt and old, soft looking jeans that molded themselves lovingly to every muscular - and otherwise - bulge, making my mouth literally water as I fought my almost overwhelming desire to trace those gorgeous contours of his with my lips and my hands.
He definitely looked more haggard than I'd ever seen him too, his hair matted down as he doffed his Cleveland Indians baseball cap and hung it on one of the pegs next to the door, his eyes just as red rimmed and dark circled as mine, and - in what I considered much worse than any of those overt signs of his own anguish - they were alarmingly dull compared to the bright vivacity to which I - or anyone who knew him well at all - was used.
Just looking at him made me want to resume weeping where I'd left off early this morning when I'd fallen asleep. My hand went to my mouth in shock, followed quickly by those all too eager twins, guilt and shame. This is what I had wrought with my hubris - I'd single-handedly managed to make Tom Hiddleston look unbelievably sad and as close to ugly as he probably ever had been or would be in his life - although it was really only a bit less attractive - heart wrenching angst looked relatively good on him, especially in comparison to me just like everything else - which meant that instead of being a fifteen on a scale of one to ten, he was only a ten.
Go me!
He might have been exhausted - and he certainly looked it - but he wasn't acting the part in the least. Having given me a an almost insultingly thorough once over, he immediately began to stalk me, taking large steps towards me that had me backing up blindly, more worried about not letting him get his hands on me than where exactly it was that I was going to end up.
Weary or not, tired or not, dead three days or not, I realized something very starkly and quickly as he relentlessly advanced on me - having done what I'd done with him originally, and last night having let him do to me what he'd quite expertly done - to say nothing of what he'd said, both during the excruciating intimacies and then during his equally excruciating leave taking - had ratcheted up my already acute awareness of him exponentially.
As I backed up warily, my eyes locked with his through no desire of my own, my body - which I had incorrectly assumed would be on my side for some reason - had already begun to prepare itself for his possession. I was hyperaware of everything about him - every spot on me that he'd already touched, especially my most intimate ones - was in full rebellion, tingling, aching, yearning to feel those sure, knowledgeable fingers on me again, rubbing, probing, teasing, cupping - taking possession of me, owning what was already his, as far as they- and he - were concerned.
My mind, however, knew the horrible reality of what I was going to have to say to him in order to end this travesty once and for all and it made me want to curl up in a ball and weep endlessly. I felt divided within myself, torn asunder by the entire situation.
I had to lie to him and tell him that I didn't feel the same way. I had to. Lying wasn't something I did casually, ever, and to do so in this situation - when I most definitely did love and want him much more than I wanted to draw my next breath - was going to kill me.
At the very least, it was going to change me - irrevocably - and not for the good. The idea of hurting him in any way was so abhorrent to me that I was feeling considerably nauseous at the idea.
Then my heels hit the bottom of the couch and suddenly I was off balance, knowing I was going to end up dropping down onto the cushions in the most inelegant manner imaginable as he watched.
And why not? That was how my life was going these days.
But I was dead wrong.
His hands shot out, lightening fast, catching me as I was beginning to fall and snatching me tight up to him, his already impressively proportioned cock pressing unapologetically into my tummy, held there by his hand sprawled at the small of my back, as if he wanted to claim as much territory as possible.
Lord knows there was entirely too much of it there, especially just a bit south of where his hand lay.
I tried to ease away from him, my eyes drifting - entirely of their own accord - up to his, and when they collided I couldn't help but draw a short, sharp breath at the raw pain I saw reflected there, although it was quickly being replaced by things that made him much less vulnerable and me much more so.
Anger. Desire. Determination. Strength.
Power.
As I watched that change come over him, I tried to escape his hold - somewhat timidly at first, but then, as his change of expression inspired more than a slight fission of fear deep within me, more determinedly.
But I couldn't move, especially when his other hand, which had been cupping my hip, began to trail up my body, blatantly possessive as it molded itself to me while I tried desperately to shy away from it with absolutely no success at all.
Feelings of inadequacy flooded painfully through me - he should have been feeling hip bones and then ribs clearly delineated beneath his palm, and they were there, somewhere, but were hidden by my unfashionably - and I was sure unpleasantly to him - generous proportions.
Just as I was about to emit an agonized wail, he covered my breast with his hand, capturing all of it, the nipple that had been spiked since I'd first heard him at my door nestling cozily into his broad palm.
I gasped out loud at the contact. Dear God, that alone was very nearly enough to bring me off, but combined with my hyper-awareness of him - how the remnants of his cologne and the essence of pure man that I had been in the habit of conjuring to mind whenever I touched myself, how hard it was for me to resist the urge to press myself further into that broad palm, how even such a relatively tame touch had my clit - hell, my entire lower body - contracting sporadically, helplessly - I was actually having to fight off a full blown orgasm.
I closed my eyes and turned my head, trying to take a deep, steadying breaths - anything to calm my nerves and my heart, which were both racing out of control at his touch, as if they each wanted to be the one to render me dead.
"Look at me," he rasped, squeezing that over-full globe at its base, forcing it into even greater prominence against the thin material of my nightie and robe.
"No, Tom," I whispered, my voice barely producing much of any sounds at that volume and I was surprised he could hear me as I kept my face averted and my eyes tightly closed.
My breast was immediately abandoned in favor of his hand cupping my chin and I found my head being forcibly turned towards him. "Yessss. Open your eyes," he ordered in a threatening growl, which had my eyes flying wide open immediately beginning to fill with tears as they gazed into his. And then he piled on, "I believe you owe me at least the courtesy of looking me in the eye." He chose that moment to adjust his hold on me so that we were brought even closer together, which I would have sworn was a physical impossibility.
As he spoke, I could see - and feel - how tense he was holding himself; his teeth on edge with ever word as it was ground from between taut lips. "I don't much care at this moment whether or not you want to hear it, but I want to say it where I can see you while I do it this time."
It truly seemed that I couldn't remember a time when my eyes weren't brimming with tears, and they overflowed with remorse at his words.
He swallowed hard, his voice starting out a bit broken with emotion, but gaining strength as he spoke even as his own eyes filled. "I love you somuch. I adore you. I worship you. I never, ever want to be away from you, even for a second." He cleared his throat and continued, his lips dangerously close to mine, his tone deeper, huskier, "If neither of us had any other obligations, I would live inside you, keep you beneath me in our bed, always full of me. We'd never not be making love." His kiss was a passionate extension of his words, yet wonderfully, surprisingly gentle at the same time, the fingers of that big hand entangling themselves in my hair, holding my head firmly but carefully still for his lips to claim mine, our tears mingling as did our mouths.
Tom pulled back a bit, very reluctantly, a few minutes later, pressing his nose to mine.
I was stunned. Speechless. Completely unable to process what he was saying. Mindless from his words and his kisses - to say nothing of his touch.
He moved a bit further away, so that he could take a long, avid look at me before dipping his lips to my ear and whispering in a devastatingly sexy tone, "Your pupils are enormous; I can barely see any of that pretty violet of your eyes because of them. You're panting and can't catch your breath no matter how you try. Your nipples are pebbled. And I would be willing to bet every single thing I own that," he paused to kiss me deeply before catching my eyes again as he continued, "if I slipped my hand between your legs, I'd find you wet and wanting me. I know it." He buried his fingers in my hair again to tug my head back a bit roughly. "And you're going to let me do just that to you, aren't you?"
Was that a whimper that escaped my throat when I should have been putting my foot down, telling him no, demanding that he listen to my so-called truth, that I didn't love him, that I could never . . . ever . . . love . . .
H-him.
Seconds later, he rudely kicked my legs apart, the hand that had been at the small of my back now claiming my lower belly instead, gathering fistfuls of my nightie until he could reach beneath it and insert his fingers beneath the waistband of the least sexy pair of panties I owned.
"No," I breathed, completely without conviction, and it wasn't obvious to either of us whether I was trying to answer him - which would have been a lie - or just to trying to discourage him from doing what I knew he was going to do to me as his fingers began to move inexorably southward, and, because of their tremendous length, it wasn't more than a second or so before he was touching me intimately, their tips resting just above the top of my swollen, moist folds.
Either way, it was a waste of what would rapidly become precious breath.
As he boldly slid them home within me, annoyingly sure of his reception and damned if he wasn't right about it, his eyes held and searched mine, the truth of everything he'd said to me - today and last night - plain as day in them as I whimpered and mewled and sighed at his invasion of my most intimate parts.
This man has said he loved me - another - and the most devastating - reason that it physically pained me to look up at him, but I couldn't seem to rip my eyes from his, regardless of the impetus.
As those devilish fingers began to move within me, he growled, "You can't tell me you don't want this." He drove them fiercely into me then curled them against a spot only he had ever attended to that had my feet moving restlessly, my head lolling back on its own. "That you don't want me, because I am in possession of the irrefutable proof that you do." His tone softened, becoming achingly tender and vulnerable. "But . . . " he gave a reluctant pause, "if you can tell me that you don't love me," I heard him swallow hard, "I'll go. You - you'll never have to see me again." I could hear how each of the words were individually ripped from the back of his throat, as if he could barely manage to give voice to any of them, that usually bold, strong voice of his cracking on "never" and "again".
That was what I supposedly wanted - my ultimate goal, to make him believe the lie, not to allow him this close to me again. He was giving me an out. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it would kill the both of us if I didn't take it now.
And it would likely be the end of me if I did.
But when he was near me - when I felt the lean, whipcord strength of that body against mine, his hands touching me in places few men ever had as if he was already well past the point of no return, as if I was already his as far as he was concerned - which he'd already informed me of in no uncertain terms last night - what I wanted most in the world dangling right there for me, in front of my eyes, .within my grasp - I couldn't think of anything else.
Memories of the lustful, dominant things he'd said to me hours ago mingled with what he was doing to me right now . . .
"You taste like . . . mine," he'd said then, warning me seconds later that he wouldn't allow anyone else to touch me, ever.
He'd staked his claim. He was here now to reinforce it.
And yet all I had to do to make things right - and, at the same times horrifically wrong - was something I was physically incapable of, apparently. Four little words.
I don't love you.
And this would all be over.
As if he sensed his advantage, Tom leaned down and lifted me - somehow effortlessly, it seemed, although I couldn't believe that - into his arms, taking the two steps to the left necessary to then head into my bedroom.
But I couldn't even think about how lost I'd be if he was able to cover me with his body. All I could do was worry about the fact that holding me in his arms was going to hurt him, somehow.
"Tom!" I squealed. "Put me down! You're going to break your back!"
He easily hefted me further into the air with a wolfish smile. "Don't be ridiculous. You hardly weigh more than a mosquito."
It was only a few steps more to the end of my bed, but I couldn't allow him to do this. What if he pulled something? What if he fell and I crushed him? What if an injury I caused was the reason he wasn't able to take some potentially Oscar winning part?
"Put. Me. Down. NOW."
I found my feet beneath me in record time, and I was loathe to notice that he wasn't even so much as breathing heavy from what must've been considerable exertion.
He was looking at me very intently, a puzzled, and not a little worried, expression on his face, understandably created by my vehement demand.
I took a step away from him and, although his hands came up as if he would stop me, he allowed it and they fell to his sides, but his eyes never left me. "No, you're the one that's being ridiculous, Tom. 'Hardly weigh more than a mosquito'. I don't appreciate being patronized."
"I wasn't -"
His mouth was left hanging open as I interrupted, "I'm not finished." The sound of his teeth clicking together as he closed it was horribly loud in the otherwise quiet room; his eyes narrowed on me, letting me know he wasn't at all happy with my tone or my attitude, but he nonetheless remained quiet.
"I don't know if you're just . . . blind or you're - " I snorted derisively "- lovestruck or what, but do you really not see me, Thomas? How you possibly think that you - drop dead gorgeous, walking spontaneous orgasm that you are and I belong together - it's . . . well, frankly, it's downright hurtful."
The puzzled, concerned look was back, deepening into a dark frown, but he still didn't say anything.
I sighed, feeling defeated and deflated, never able to stay angry at anyone for very long, him even less so, and ever present tears rushed forth to fill the void that my anger had left. I put my hand out as if to touch him, which I wanted to do more than I wanted to take my next breath, but I couldn't quite bring myself to do it, curing my hand into a fist at first, instead, then unfurling my fingers and using it to cover my mouth as I sobbed.
Tears streaming down my face, I closed my eyes and took as deep a breath as I could manage, forcibly grabbed a hold of my wishy-washy self and said it. I finally said it, my voice and my lower lip trembling so badly I was nearly incoherent even to my own ear.
"You can't possibly, really want me or love me, Tom. You should to be with someone beautiful - someone like Susannah, or Jessica or I don't know. You should be with someone skinny. Someone pretty. Someone you can be proud of having on your arm, that you can show off and eventually marry and create beautiful babies with that you can sing Pure Imagination to and watch The Jungle Book with."
After a long silence, I somehow got brave enough to look up at him and he appeared stunned, as if I'd just smacked him upside the head with a two by four.
Still, he reached out to me, but I ducked away from his hand, and the hurt look on his face at my movement only added to my abject misery.
But I steeled my resolve as best I could and pressed on, addressing the floor, my voice even more choked and tight. "You should be with someone who will look wonderful next to you on the cover of Vogue or GQ and on the red carpet at premieres - not - not someone like me who would need a team of make up artists and stylists - not to mention a year's worth of liposuction - to even become passable."
Despite how hard it was to say these things, I was rambling, babbling from the sheer nerves and pent up emotions, both unbelievably relieved at having said what I had bottled up within me throughout this whole debacle and horrifyingly sad at the same time because I knew it meant that it was very likely that I'd never see him again.
By my - granted, distinctly skewed - calculations, he should have been running screaming out of my flat to get away from me, but instead he took a determined step towards me. My head shot up and my gaze was caught by his stark one. There was no more confusion in his eyes, no more puzzlement. He looked like a man who had just experienced a revelation, just had an epiphany, and he was out to right all the wrongs he could find, armed with this new knowledge.
Having slipped deeply back into my own anguish, I wasn't paying much attention to him, really, although my mind automatically encouraged me to avoid him, and we did that dance that was becoming disturbingly familiar in that, with every step he took towards me, I took one back until I couldn't go any further, having been neatly corralled into the far corner of my room, with Tom standing - his feet as always well apart - in front of me, deliberately caging me there without ever having laid a hand on me.
Unable to bear the wait for him to abandon me, as he surely would - as he surely should - I wailed, "Go!" More softly, as my heart broke at last into a million unrecoverable pieces, I whispered as I sank to the floor in a gross, sobbing heap in front of him, "You should go, Thomas. Be happy. Find someone who's right for you -"
He followed my descent, crouching in front of me, those beautiful hands out as if he wanted to touch me, to console me, but he didn't dare. Instead they ended up clasped in front of him, as they had been at the door. "I already have."
Those words, delivered in that devastating voice stopped me crying when nothing else could have, because I wasn't really thinking and I was truly shocked to hear that there was someone else, although I knew I had no right to be. I should be happy for him - he'd found someone. Happy face. Happy . . . face, I thought to myself, although I couldn't quite get it to translate to my expression, which was quite pained. "You did?" I couldn't seem to stop myself from asking even though I was truly horrified at the prospect that he was going to then tell me about her.
And then he did, nodding wisely as he produced a tissue and began to blot at my perpetually moist cheeks, his tone rich and warm and soft, full of a wistfulness I'd rarely heard before. "I did. She's everything I've ever wanted in a woman - smart and funny and sassy and sexy and she never lets me get away with anything. And her body - " he drew in an impossibly long breath then expelled it in a devastatingly sexual groan that left my body aching in its wake "I'm no poet, but her breasts and her bottom and her lips and her eyes - I don't think I've ever not been rock hard around her in all the time I've known her, although she's pretty oblivious to that kind of thing. I didn't think she wanted to be anything but my friend."
I was staring at his shoes - marginally alarmed by their enormous size - still crying, of course, huddled as far in on myself as I could get, my arms wrapped around myself, desperately wishing he'd leave so that I could get on with the business of dying slowly.
One long finger lifted my chin until my eyes met his only to slither quickly away. I tried to rescue my chin from his grasp but his fingers held fast.
"D-don't look at me. I'm all puffy eyed and snotty nosed . . . I'm even more h-hideous than usual -"
"Stop that." His stern sharpness stung me. "If I ever hear you say anything like that again about yourself, you'll not sit down for a month." My jaw hung open as his had a few minutes ago. "You seem to think that you're the arbiter of what I want - or what you think I should want - in a woman." He stood, and I did my best to prepared myself for the devastation that his walking out that door would cause, trying to turn away from him so I wouldn't actually have to watch him walking out on me and go to another woman.
But instead, I found myself in his arms again. He had deadlifted me.
From the floor.
The man must have a death wish. It was a wonder he had any back left.
I began to try to wrench myself out of his arms, but all he did was contract them and I could barely draw a breath. "Put me down - Tom! You're going to hurt yourself for no reason!"
He stood at the end of my bed for several long beats. "I'm not going to hurt myself, and I'll pick you up any damned time I please, in any way I please." And when he did, finally, let me down, it wasn't simply onto my feet.
No, he released me only enough to allow me to very slowly descend the front of him, keeping his hands pressing on my bottom, guiding me the entire way to assure himself that my body was plastered against his the whole time, and as I was forced to do so, there was no way I could miss his massive erection. I practically got caught on it, right where it most wanted me to, which I'm sure was exactly what he'd intended since his eyes practically rolled back into his head as it happened.
When I arrived on my own two feet, my legs had no choice but to part so that my feet could land to either side of his; his hands remaining exactly where they had been, keeping me obscenely close to him.
"You seem to be functioning under a false assumption - " he cocked his head and drew his chin down which only added another dimension to his strict tone " - several false assumptions, not the least of which is the completely fatuous idea that you are in charge here."
That wasn't at all what I had expected him to say.
"How I ever allowed you to believe such a notion I'll never know. But you, in particular, are not in charge of deciding to whom I am attracted." He rubbed himself against my tummy. "And I am most definitely attracted to you."
As he spoke he tipped me over onto the bed, very carefully not allowing me to flop down on it, but instead using his not inconsiderable strength to lay me down very gently, positioning himself next to me, carefully gathering the material of my nightie and pressing it against my side, so that he wasn't lying on any of it.
Then, in what seemed like a split second, he divested himself of every stitch of clothing he'd come in here wearing. I knew I was going to be completely unable to resist the urge to stare, so I forced myself to close my eyes.
"No. Open them."
I steadfastly refused, but he had learned a bit about me from dealing with my own particular brand of crazy for the past couple of weeks, and he didn't get mad and he didn't issue threats. Instead, he simply burrowed his hand under the hem my nightgown and lay it over my tummy.
My eyes sprang open as I felt him touching skin that wasn't anywhere near muscular and taut and I tried to lurch away from him, aiming for the relative safety of jumping off the side of the bed he wasn't on, but all it took to hold me in place was that hand on my stomach - and one long leg that easily slipped between mine even before I tried to make a break for it.
"You're not going anywhere, my darling, until I decide to let you go. I already know you're at least as hot for me as I am for you." He paused, his lips tightening, "And besides, you have yet to say the magic words that will send me away."
The magic words? What the fuck was he talking about, I wondered, having already forgotten - since my mind tended to be a sieve around him, especially when he was this close - that he had said that if I could tell him I didn't love him and didn't want him, he'd leave. And shouldn't he already be out the door and on his way to this dream girl of his?
While I was trying to decipher his remark with a brain that had pretty much ceased functioning as soon as he mentioned that he'd already found someone who was right for him, he casually reached out to me with his left hand, lacing it with the fingers of mine and gently bringing both of our hands up to rest above my head.
In those simple, calm movements, he had quietly relieved me of my ability to move much beyond my left leg, which wasn't any kind of a help at all. My right arm was trapped under his weight and thus essentially worthless, my right leg was beneath his and in much the same situation, my left hand was entwined with his up between the headboard and my head and he seemed in no mood to let it go, and my left leg simply lay there, useless.
His right hand, however, was free. It was the one that was already laying claim to my tummy, and it didn't seem to want to remain in place but began to move up towards my breasts, taking my nightie with it, exposing my rag bag underwear, which at least covered some of the sins of my flesh, although he was now able to stare at my thighs and then some as his hand claimed what it wanted, squeezing each breast thoroughly before reaching down to guide the hem of my nightgown even further up with devastating ease, revealing to those eyes that I knew missed nothing the terrible softness of my belly, the gentle curves that shouldn't have been there, the fact that no one had seen my ribs in decades, all the way up to bunch it up under my arms, almost every one of my secrets exposed to what I was sure was going to be his disgusted gaze, automatically trying to cover myself, to hide myself away from him when I had no ability to do so.
"No, Tom, please, don't do this!"
"Do what, my love?" he asked in a husky whisper, sounding genuinely surprised at my request, capturing my lips with his, then bowing his head to swirl his tongue around a painfully distended peak, suckling it slowly into his mouth. "Don't adore you? Don't love you? Don't become aroused by you?"
Tears squeezed out of the corners of my eyes. "You can't see me like this - I'm - I'm -"
His hand reached beneath me to squeeze an ample cheek in warning and my eyes flew open to be caught by his. "Be very careful about what you say next - you know what I'll do if you say something that I consider to be derogatory about yourself."
Frustrated beyond words on several fronts, I turned my head away from him, tucking it against my arm until he surprised me by bringing the hand he'd been holding above my head down to cup his somehow elegant hardness as it overflowed my grasp and he began moving helplessly against my palm.
Unable to look away from the contrast between my small, sun browned hand and the presence of his full fledged erection beneath my fingers as it moved within them, I whispered, barely brave enough to put my fears into words, "But - what about h-her? Shouldn't you go be with her?"
"Her who?" He didn't look as if he could think very well, either - he was very concentrated on dragging his cock along my hand as my fingers did their best to wrap themselves around him while he did so.
"The woman you found. The sassy, sexy one who doesn't let you get away with -"
He chuckled, smiling broadly as he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me onto my side, holding me tight within his arms. "I am with her, my love. I am right where I should be, where I want to be, and, if you'll have me, I'll never be anywhere else."
I was shocked to my core. I would never have considered the idea that he had been describing me. "But -"
He shook his head solemnly. "No. No buts. I'll say it to you until the end of my days, all day, every day - I'll begin and end every sentence with it, if you like - until you believe it, until you feel it in your heart, until your stubborn mind stops throwing up roadblocks against me." Tom's hand cupped my jaw as he looked down at me, his heart in his eyes. "Until I feel as safe in your heart as I want you to feel you are in mine."
I knew he was trying to unsuccessfully reign in his desire as one big hand slipped beneath the waistband of my panties - the baggy old granny panties that I only wore when I was sick or hurting were being slipped slowly, surely off me as I bit my lip and held my breath. Once he'd kicked them to the floor, he gathered me against him, adjusting me so that I faced him a bit so that when his arms contracted around me, we almost fit together, his cock pressing eagerly against my mound.
He kissed me then, and it was the most tender, loving kiss I'd ever been given in my life, and when he moved away, separating our mouths as slowly as possible, his eyes closed as if he was already experiencing Heaven. Then those devastating eyes opened and wordlessly encouraged me to fall into them, willing me to know that he would catch me as I fell.
"I'm going to ask you something that I know now - and I didn't before - is going to be hard for you to do, but it's something I want desperately."
If he'd asked me to lie down in front of moving bus at that point, I'd've done it, no questions asked.
His fingers came up to my chest and began to pluck at the bunched up nightgown I was still kind of wearing. "Please . . . be naked with me?" I swallowed hard and he rushed to reassure me in a very adorkable, purely Thomas manner. "I know you feel ugly and unattractive, although I hope you realize that that's not at all how you are or how I see you. This," he pressed his eager cock against me, practically gaining entrance to my body with just that powerful thrust even though my thighs were still tightly closed, "should go quite a ways towards proving that to you, I hope, and I know you think I'm sort of ridiculously perfect physical specimen, but I'm really not."
He proceeded to point out all of what he considered to be his faults. "I'm tall and thin, not big and bulky like all the men I've heard - and seen - you drool over." I had the grace to blush, because I certainly had in front of him. "I have a scar right here on my forehead where I was attacked by a vicious, rabid door. My hairline is receding. My hair - unless it's tamed by tons of product - makes me look like a broom, according to my sisters, or a golden retriever. My teeth are fixed and my eye color is often contacts. I have a scar on my upper lip thanks to Emma."
Leaning a bit away from me, he moved down his body, continuing to point out various blemishes that no one but him would ever notice.
"My cock -" he began, but I interrupted him.
"No."
His head jerked up and our eyes collided. "No?"
"No, you cannot say anything derogatory about your cock. It's perfect."
"It does kind of curve a bit -"
I put my index finger over his lips. "No."
Just before his mouth formed a huge grin, he kissed the side of my finger. "I shall gladly defer to the lady on matters of just how aesthetically pleasing my equipment is."
"Damn straight," I agreed.
But then he continued, ending with, "And lastly, there are my freakishly big, narrow feet."
By this time my eyes were practically rolling out of my head. "Please, Thomas, you're fucking perfect."
His eyes settled warmly on mine. "That's how you might feel about me, but I've just pointed out all the flaws that are there that could completely turn you off. But I know first hand that they don't."
"You're not - " I choked on the word " - fat."
"Neither are you."
I snorted. "You, my friend, are delusional."
"Rita Hayworth."
My eyebrow rose. "An interesting non-sequitur, but hardly relevant to our discussion -"
"Yes, she is. She's my favorite old Hollywood actress. I like all of them, really, but she has the same red-gold hair as you do, although hers was more wavy. And she had your build - although I don't think she was quite as well endowed as you are in certain areas that are of incredible interest to me." He ran a fingertip over each of my nipples, making me gasp, then let his hands drop to my bottom, which he cupped and squeezed with an appreciative growl. "You look like a woman, not a stick. You look wonderfully female and feminine, even under the jeans and sweatshirts you prefer because you think they hide you but there's no mistaking who and what you are. Everything - and I do mean everything - about you brings me perilously close to losing complete control of myself every second that I'm with you."
I knew my face was glowing a bright, completely unbecoming red. "Stop," I breathed, my voice further constricted by embarrassment. "You shouldn't say things like that about me - "
In an instant, I found myself in the same nearly immobile position I'd been in before, on my back, hands above my head, legs forced apart by one of his, his big hand storming my privates, two fingers lodging themselves inside me, fucking me powerfully as he bore down on me from above, making my breath hitch in something that was very close to fear.
His liquid velvet voice was deceptively soft. "From now on, lovely, any time I compliment you on your appearance -" his eyes narrowed, and he corrected himself, "any time I compliment you period - the only acceptable answer that will keep you from a blistering is, 'Thank you, Sir.'" His head bent to suckle almost painfully hard at a bobbing nipple. "Am - I - making - myself - perfectly - clear?" he asked, emphasizing each word with a thrust of that hand that nearly lifted my hips off the bed each time.
My back arched of its own accord, my body overruled and overtaken by him, our eyes still locked because I couldn't seem to find the will to look away from him, I nodded, as close to obediently as I would probably ever get.
That was nowhere near enough for him. "Say it," he ground out, not letting up with those fingers in the least, in fact he added the torture of the big, broad pad of his thumb, which had been dipped into my own honey then laid atop a distended clit that had been craving his touch since long before he'd left yesterday after caressing it so expertly.
And it wanted more - much, much more - of his attentions.
But in contrast to the way his fingers were pounding into me, his thumb was dragged - slow and deliberate - over me, top to bottom, then the reverse trip, only to immediately start over again
"Say it," he warned, "or I'll tease you for a week before I allow you to cum again. I'll keep you right at the edge every time I fuck you for my own pleasure - and I can promise you that that'll always be very, very frequently because I'll never get enough of you - but I won't allow you to find your release - with me or without me - for seven long, torturous days unless you obey me now."
Fuck. Me.
Had he just said what I thought he said? A week?
I couldn't get the words out of me - or him into me - fast enough. "Thank you, Sir."
But when I was done he was shaking that ginger head of his. "Not acceptable. Again. You know how I want you to say it."
He hadn't said I how I had to say them, just that I had to say them. So I had whispered them as quietly as I could, rebelling as much as I thought I could probably get away with, not really knowing how far I could push him - yet. "But I said them," I whinged, my eyes slipping away from his, knowing I was testing him and his resolve.
I didn't like the way his face froze into a very stern expression as he removed his hand from me entirely, which prompted me to whimper very loudly at the loss.
Then he was suddenly above me, his overpowering presence holding my legs apart, my hands still gathered uselessly above my head as his travelled eagerly over every bit of me that it could reach, as if he wanted to brand me with his touch. I still tried to cringe away from him when he claimed areas of my body that I felt were ugly, but he anticipated my actions and wouldn't allow me to disrupt his path, groping and molesting me to his heart's content until he finally returned to my quim and literally held my body open for himself as I felt the broad head of his cock nudging against my entrance. Those stunning eyes sought mine seconds before he began to sink himself into me, hot and hard and powerful, forcing me to open around him, making my breath catch loudly at the size of his imposition, whimpering constantly at how I was struggling to adjust to him.
Every nerve in my body rioted at his blatant possession. I couldn't remain still beneath him - if my hands had been free they would have been pressing on his stomach, trying to wordlessly ask him to slow down, to ease back a bit, to give me some relief from his overwhelming presence within me which was only becoming more so as he inexorably filled all of me, until my hot, dripping wet glove was stretched over every last huge inch of him, every inch of me - not just there - but all of me feeling utterly claimed by him.
He was so big, stretched out between my legs, his mere presence there making me feel physically vulnerable to him - and proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was - he was all I could see, all I could feel, all I could think about. My body continued to spasm around him, which was at once both excruciatingly pleasant and skating even more dangerously along that sometimes blurry line between agony and ecstasy as I my breath hitched and I tried to pant through it until my uncomfortably imposed upon flesh could come to grips with what he was doing to it.
His lips sought my ear. "As I said before, you're not in charge here. Now, do as you were told, my love, or things will go very badly for you indeed. Right now, I'd much rather make you scream in my arms from my cock plunging into you than from my palm connecting painfully with that delicious bum of yours."
What the fuck was it that he'd wanted me to do? the question flashed across my mind for a panicked second, and then I remembered. Flushing bright red again, trying to avoid his eyes as I did it, although his fingers caught my chin and I ended up doing it the way he wanted me to in more ways than one, I said, not very loudly but at a much more conversational volume than I had before "Thank you, Sir."
His smile was soft, if somewhat self-satisfied. "Very good. You'll want to remember that rule, sunshine, because I can promise that you won't like the consequences if you don't."
I wanted to frown fiercely up at him, to assert myself in the face of having been forced to submit to him, but he chose that moment to begin to move on and worse - within - me, and all conscious thought was immediately lost.
He took his time, withdrawing excruciatingly slowly then plunging back into me not much more quickly, increasing the pace of his rhythm only incrementally each time, and as I began to become more accustomed to his size I found myself wanting more from him than he was giving me, making me lift my hips to meet his thrusts, moaning and catching my breath every time I opened myself further to him, each time I surrendered myself more completely to him.
The first time I did it, his eyes widened and became even dramatically more unfocused than they had been and he actually lost his pace, remaining buried deeply within me for long beats as I - consciously and unconsciously - pulsed around him, gripping him tightly.
"Fuck, stop that or I'll -"
It was my turn to grin evilly at him, teasing "Now who's in control?"
With that I saw a perfectly focused determination return to his expression as he reached down between us to press that demanding thumb over my clit again.
Seconds later, it most definitely wasn't me, and he resumed an almost leisurely pace as I whimpered and moaned - and finally, begged and pleaded - as he drew my body taut as a bowstring beneath him, yearning, searching, seeking just the right touch to send me hurtling into oblivion.
And then he stopped, and I nearly roared in frustration.
He almost smiled, but instead stared down at me and said, "I love you."
Tears immediately began to seep out from the corners of my eyes at his open, sincere, heartfelt tone, and I could see that his eyes were wet with emotion, too.
Feeling suddenly very shy, considering our positions, I bit my lip in hesitation, then said what had been on my mind since I met him.
"I love you, too, Tom."
The smile that he beamed down on me made me feel it from him more acutely than almost anything else he could have done.
Almost.
Then he began to rock firmly against me, which also dragged his thumb up and over me relentlessly.
"You can hold back, you know," he murmured to me as he decorated my face with butterfly kisses. "Relax - like Fred. I want this to last forever."
He was paraphrasing what I'd said to him that first night in the pantry.
"If I wait I know I'll die from it," I whispered, completely unable to draw a full breath.
He shook his head firmly. "I'd never let you go. Try it with me. Hold back as long as you can. I wonder which one of us can last the longest . . . "
He could.
I didn't even want to win that contest.
He had mastered me so well that I didn't know which way was up. I could barely begin to reign myself in, and I really only lasted another few minutes.
"Tom - Tom - please - I can't - I can't -" I didn't want to disappoint him by caving so easily.
And he seemed to know exactly what I meant by my incoherent babbling.
"Shhh, baby. No worries at all," he whispered softly. "I just wanted it to be as good as it possibly could for you. Let it happen. I cannot wait to see you writhing uncontrollably beneath me -"
And then I was - only I was moaning very loudly, too, bucking up against him as he left his thumb right where it had been, lessening the pressure just a bit, but his movements continued to rasp it over me, eking every bit of pleasure from me as my neck arched and my toes curled and my mind became a complete and utter blank.
He quickly leaned down to smother my cries with his kisses, and my violent completion spurred his own seconds later when he began to move much more roughly, which sent me into a second, violent peak as he slammed himself into me, straining over me, every muscle in his body growing taut as he growled low in his throat and gave up the fight, splashing himself inside me, teeth clenched, breath hissing out between them in huge puffs.
We were both dragging great gulps of air into our lungs for the longest time after that, him collapsing down heavily on top of me, his face buried in the curve of my neck.
I tugged experimentally at my wrists and he let them go, and I could no more resist the temptation to touch him than I could have decided not to take my next breath. My palms itched to feel his skin. They landed on his back and moved everywhere from there that they could reach, up over his shoulders, down to shyly explore the curves of his perfect behind and beyond to those powerful thighs and up to his muscular arms, finally to his face as he was barely able to raise himself up on his elbows to look down at me.
My fingertips explored his face gently, reverently. He closed his eyes on a sigh as I brushed the sides of my thumbs softly over his cheekbones, then that darker area beneath his eyes that I knew I had contributed to, across the impossibly thick field of lashes to brush carefully over his eyelids, tracing his eyebrows then meeting at his forehead and surrendering to the urge I'd been denying myself - delving into his hair to bring his lips down to mine.
He remained docile and quiet through it all, letting me touch him - enjoying the hell out of it, if any of the quiet whimpers he emitted throughout my little exploration were anything to go by.
He kissed me deeply, with oceans of emotion behind it, but I couldn't respond in kind because I was crying much too hard. Tom rolled off me and gathered me into his arms, holding me against his chest as I sobbed my heart out.
He pulled a bit away from me and went through the usual litany of questions a man asks when the woman he loves begins to sob inconsolably after they'd made love. "Did I hurt you?"
I shook my head.
"Are you sick?"
More shaking.
"Are you hurting?"
No.
Then he came to his senses. "Do you just want me to just shut the fuck up and hold you while you cry?"
I hurled myself into his arms and he - bless him - did just exactly that, holding me extra tight, rubbing my back, murmuring wordless but nonetheless reassuring nothings until I calmed within his arms.
"Sorry," I muttered, thoroughly embarrassed by my outburst, as I tried to move away.
"Where do you think you're going?" he asked, tightening his arms around me. "And why would you think you had to apologize to me?"
"Sorry," I mumbled again where my face was buried against his neck.
"Stop."
"Yes, Sir."
It just slipped out, I swear.
But he enjoyed it entirely too much, apparently, chuckling softly. "Do you want to talk about it, or do you want to make love again?" He hinted at his own preference by waggling his already full mast self against me, and I had to laugh.
Shrugging, I answered, "The sex was phenomenal, by the way, but that wasn't why I was crying."
"No?" he asked, matter of factly, as if every woman he made love with burst into tears afterwards.
"No. I'm just feeling really overwhelmed. I - I never planned for this . . . eventuality. You're supposed to be long gone by now, and I'm supposed to be alone trying to pick up the pieces."
His lips sought and found every freckle on my face, kissing some softly and almost seriously, and smacking others loudly to get me to giggle.
Tom brought the backs of my hands to his lips. "Believe me, that was never going to happen."
I raised an eyebrow. "That's what you thought, anyway. That's not how I saw it, though. I figured you'd take one look at my hideous, naked body -"
I didn't even get to finish the sentence. He sat up, propped himself against the headboard, then used his hold on my wrist to draw me gently over his lap.
I was so fixated on explaining to him why I hadn't expected to make love with him that I barely noticed my position - until he brought his hand down on my bare, defenseless butt cheek.
"YEOW! What the fuck was that for?" I tried to struggle off his lap, but quickly found there was no way out.
His eyebrow rose into his hairline as I looked back at him. "You didn't think I meant it when I said I was going to spank you if I caught you saying negative things about yourself?"
"But - OW! FUCK! Cut that out! It stings!"
"It would behoove you to learn quickly that I don't say things I don't mean. And I won't make rules for you that I don't intend to enforce, my love."
He was emphasizing different words with sharp smacks. "Yes, but could you enforce them a little more gently -"
After he'd landed the hardest swat so far, he replied calmly, "No. That's not how this works. It's not going to be much of a deterrent if it's pleasant." His tone grew thoughtful. "I believe I said something about you not being able to sit for a month if you said something disparaging about your beautiful self . . . "
Five more swats were delivered in the same powerful, butt singeing manner.
A month?! I didn't even want to consider what a spanking like that might feel like!
"Fuck me!"
"Later, after your spanking. If I think you've taken it well."
Dear God! What was my life going to be like with this man if he spanked me like this now?
I already knew the answer - it was going to be pure, unadulterated Heaven, and I resolved to do my best not to question one second of my good fortune. I was just going to be unendingly thankful for the love of one Thomas William Hiddleston - no matter how much it sometime hurt.