A/N: First, thank you and I am sorry to everyone who reads this story. It's come in fits and starts, hasn't it? Some weeks there have been three chapters and then there is a month drought. I'm sorry. Not only does my family situation continue to get worse but I have been working on another project altogether (see my tumblr for details). It didn't mean that AGYK wasn't important to me. It really just meant that I was avoiding writing this chapter because I knew there were a lot of expectations about it (btw, definitely rated M). Thanks for your patience and your continued support. Really, they mean so much to me. I'm so behind on reading fanfic as well as writing so please, grace.
Chapter Thirty One
Matthew plays marbles with Declan while it rains outside. This game involves Matthew curtailing the marbles into a neat circle. "A circle, Uncle Cousin Matthew, a circle!" Declan repeats, ever the perfectionist, where upon Declan scoots as far back as the little cottage will allow and shoots (throws) a marble at the neat pile up. The louder the sound, the more marbles that scatter, the more points Declan gets.
"How many points are we at now, Dec?" Matthew asks.
Declan is also the scorekeeper. "I have thirty seven. You have two."
Matthew laughs but rounds up the marbles again so Declan can give it another go.
From his vantage point, he can see Mary asleep in a chair with one of the babies on her chest, the other is asleep in the cradle they dragged from the Branson's room. His heart clenches at the sight of her with a dark haired baby on her chest, her eyelashes brushing the delicate skin beneath her eyes. For a moment, he imagines that this is their life. They married young but are happy in a too small cottage that leaks a bit when it rains and with dark haired children that look like her. He is content to be a small town solicitor and she is content with him and there was never anyone else for either of them.
It's a beautiful dream
He supposes, both the dream and her sleeping, are partly to do with their nightly activities.
In fact, when Sybil arrives home, not much later, she is surprised that Mary doesn't wake with the commotion. "I've never known Mary to be a deep sleeper," she murmurs while her son loudly and excitedly tells his mother about his day with Uncle Cousin Matthew.
That night after kissing her hello in the hallway in the darkness, his hand finding the space between the door and the wall, he pulls back for a moment. "Are you sure you aren't too tired?"
They are cramped in the coat closet. There are shoes and boots beneath his back and she is directly on top of him in order for them to fit (which neither seem to mind) while their feet spill out the door.
She laughs lowly in her throat. Her finger draws a design on his chest (she's already unbuttoned his pajama top). "Do I seem tired?" She leans forward again for another kiss and the subject is dropped. She nearly always gets the final say. Like most nights since all this started, it escalates quickly. Her nightgown is around her waist, probably dirtied by the muddy boots. Their lips cannot stop finding one another. She swallows his groans and he eats her sighs. She bites his lips and their tongues tangle. His hands leave her bare waist to find the cords of her neck and slip up into her hair.
They are both sweaty even as their kisses slow into something almost patient, almost loving. They savor and so slowly he barely realizes it is happening, her hands leave his chest to frame his cheeks. She pulls back for a moment, looking at him in the dark, before pushing his hair back a little, and kissing him again, with a delicacy that is new. The kiss spins out so he aches from it alone. It reminds him of their first kiss over sandwiches and their infamous kiss they both could not help while dancing. Something is changing unfurling and he knows Mary can feel it too. She is shaking and not just from pleasure. She is afraid, though he knows she would never admit such a thing to him.
"Matthew," she sighs and begins to pull away but his hands take her wrists so she must keep them on his face, his thumbs rubbing intimately on the soft underside of her skin, just below her palm, on the backside of her wrist.
"Again," he asks. It is not a demand. He is aware that he cannot demand her to open her heart to him again, not that he could ever demand anything of Mary, but especially that.
"I don't know what you're referring to," she tells him, though even in the dark her face is serious. She tries to lift an eyebrow but fails. She is quivering. "You must be tired."
"Do I look tired?" he repeats her earlier words back to her. Slowly, gently, watching her brown eyes carefully, he tugs her forward until their lips meet. He is watching her so closely that he sees she leaves her eyes curiously open just as their lips touch, as their mouths open to one another, before she closes them on a helpless sigh. Her hands slide from his cheeks into his hair.
He wants to say the words so badly. There is a spot in his throat, like a lump, as if he is holding back tears. I love you. I love you. I've always love you. So he holds back words instead of tears and wraps his arms tightly around her. Her lips slip from his mouth to his jaw where she lingers before she finds his throat. She goes slowly. They both are aware that something different is happening and she respects it, though he doubts she would ever admit to herself, let alone him. He feels the tip of her tongue at the base of his throat, before she suckles there and he gasps.
"Come to my room," she whispers.
"I can't. Declan–"
She does it again and she is a vine winding herself around him, hands in his hair. "Declan had a bad dream and is with Sybil and Tom."
"Mary," Matthew begins again. Up until now, their nights in the closet have been like two randy teenagers, reaching for skin, and almost selfishly seeking pleasure in one another. At least that is how they have felt for him, so ravenous for her, he fumbles constantly though she never seemed to mind.
But this...This kind of kissing...The longing is not just for skin and pleasure but joining and the ache is not just in the expected places but in his chest and lungs so it is hard to breathe. He wants to make love with her. He wants. He wants.
She knows it and pushes his sweaty hair back from his face again. The closet does get quite warm. "I know what I'm asking."
He takes one of her hands and presses it to the bare skin of chest, where his heart beats. "Do you?"
She smiles. "Matthew," she whispers again. "Come to my room."
She means it quite literally since she leads him by the hand. She does know what she is asking. She does know what is about to happen and his mouth is suddenly dry with nerves. After all this time, all these years, now? He knows he's an idiot to be surprised after the last few nights but he is still shocked. Won't someone or something, some insane circumstance, stop them from doing what they've wanted to do for so long now?
She closes the door behind him and then slides his shirt off his shoulders. She braces herself on his forearms, leaning up on her tiptoes so she can reach his ear. "Finally," she murmurs and that seals it for him, completely. She doesn't mean, finally, as in this past week in Ireland. She means finally, after all these years and complications. She must mean that. He reaches behind her and starts to undo her plait. She looks at him questioningly.
"I'd like to see you with you hair down," he explains quietly, solemnly. "I never thought I would."
She presses her face to his throat. He thinks he hears her say. "Oh, Matthew." But then her lips find his again and his hands are truly lost in the wild length of her hair while her fingers slip just inside the band of his pants.
"The bed," he tells her and they move as one towards it, so it is a simple thing for Matthew to lift her by the back of her thighs, her nightgown slipping riding up under his hands so she can sit on the bed, her legs hanging on either side of his hips.
"God," she murmurs as he caresses her there. She gulps, quivers, and suddenly weak, leans back, pulling him with her so they are finally on the bed together. "Take it off," she advises about the nightgown. "Please." So he does, pressing his lips to each patch of skin revealed by the bit of moonlight coming in from the tiny window. She writhes beneath him but he has no intention of rushing a thing like this. She raises her arms and the nightgown is gone before he grips each of her hands in his, above her head and squeezes them affectionately. She smiles and her lips curve while they kiss before his mouth leaves hers for her breasts. He lets go of her hands so he can hold her pale skin in his hands before laving one with his tongue and then the other. "Matthew," her voice is more urgent now–she's rising a bit off the bed, urging him on–but there is a patience inside of him, beating against the throb of arousal. Her hands find his hair again and hold him to her chest where he worships her. He could be content there for quite awhile. But her hips are insistent. He lifts his head and grins at her. "Oh, do take off your pants," she replies crossly to which they both laugh.
So it will be everything he imagines it could be: an act of love and affection and intensity and humor.
He does as she asks. He braces himself on his forearms. He isn't thinking so well as before. He feels dizzy. "Mary," he whispers.
"Matthew," she pleads.
He wants to savor it, this first time between them. So he moves inside her torturously slow. The only sound is their heavy breathing and her nails on the sheets. "Hold on to me," he instructs. For once in her life, she listens, wrapping her legs and arms around him. When he moves, she moves. Later, when he has his wits about him, he will think about that, the perfect harmony built on years of desire.
You are my stick.
The dance they started so long ago is finally coming to a close or a beginning, whichever way he looks at it.
He kisses every part of her that he can reach, his hands on her hips. She tilts her head back, on a long moan, and he thinks he will remember the long column of her white throat forever. I love you. He isn't sure if he thinks it this time or says it aloud but she is urging him on, meeting him beat for beat.
When it is over, after she muffles her own sounds against her fist, and he moves forward to muffle his against her shoulder. She sighs and squirms, tickling his back with her nails. "Matthew," she says and her voice is happy. He is spent, wondering how she has so much energy. He would happily die here inside of her. "Matthew, don't go to sleep."
"I'm not," but his words are sluggish.
"Don't," she begs and nips his earlobe, sucking on the skin just beneath it.
He twitches. "Give me a moment, Mary."
"Come on, Old Man." He lifts his head and she giggles at his expression. Giggles. He's lost in love with her, no matter how demanding she is. Why should he be surprised she would be demanding here, too?
"If I called you old, you would bite me," he reminds her, with hooded eyes.
She leans forward on her elbows, her lips barely a breath away from his. "So do it," she taunts.
He could never resist a dare from her.
They don't sleep much but when they do, she curls around him so he drags the sheet up over her naked back. He touches the beauty mark on her shoulder blade, remembers seeing it in the cream dinner dress, and now it is finally his.
"Matthew," she murmurs drowsily. "That was lovely." He is too tired to push her for more, not tonight. You love me, he would say. I know that you do. It is a battle for another day.
The next thing he remembers is Sybil's voice through the door. "Mary," she calls, and the sound of the doorknob turning, the knowledge there is nothing to be done about it. "Mary," she repeats before she must get a good look at her big sister and lets out a shriek before it ends abruptly with what he can only assume, with closed eyes, are her own hands.
"Syb?" Matthew hears Tom. "Sybil? Is everything okay?"
"Mummy?" Declan's voice reaches the room.
"Oh, Jesus," Tom curses. "Declan, go check on your sisters."
"But why is–"
"Now," Sybil commands. There is a pause and shuffling of feet. "Tom, you should leave too. It isn't proper. They're sleeping like the dead. What are we going to do?"
Tom's voice must move to the hallway so he doesn't see his sister in law naked in bed with a man because Matthew can sense the change in distance. "Oh, I'll tell you what I'm going to do about it. They're getting married. Today, tomorrow, but soon. Your father hates me enough as it is. He'll blame this whole thing on me."
Sybil lets out a sigh. "This has nothing to do with Papa."
"Of course it doesn't," Tom retorts, quite frustrated. "It has to do with years and years coming to a head now, in our home, so it's our responsibility. Now, Sybil, listen. I love them both but they've taken advantage...Well, of each other, I suppose–"
"Tom," Sybil hisses.
"But us too and I'm sorry, they are getting married. I'll make sure it's done. And that will be that and they'll thank us later. God knows, they both need some pushing."
Matthew feels Mary's head lift from his shoulder. Her voice sounds a bit gravelly and drowsy but her words are definite. "Oh, sod off, Tom. No one is getting married. Now or ever."
A/N: Yeah, so...that happened. Please review. There is a possibility of another chapter this weekend but I can't make a promise. Please let me know what you thought of this one though.