Disclaimer: Hmm… it is entirely too late at night where I am to come up with a witty disclaimer. For now – Alice/Hatter/what-have-you ain't mine. The concept for Baby Grands is. If you want to use it, ask me.

A Brief Author's Note: And now, we continue the LJ 10_prompts community's Table 4 and a thousand words of smut. I don't really know how I managed to make two Chapter 2's in a row into smut. This one is rated M. So if you're under 18, or whatever the legal age is in your area, or are offended by sex, I strongly suggest you leave now.

2 - Passion

It was some sort of official to-do tonight and Queen Mirana had made it crystal clear that they were both expected to be there – Alice as Champion of Underland, Tarrant escorting her. However, as things usually went, when the Hatter turned up at his beloved's door, he found her nowhere near ready to go! Innocently enough, he offered to help her get ready. Alice gratefully accepted, still with little idea of how to dress herself for a formal event in Underland. Truly, the man had a dizzying fashion sense – most of it she likely would have chosen herself, if not in the same combinations…

She started to struggle into a long, sapphire blue gown with an off-the shoulder neckline, but remembered that she still hadn't taken her hair out of its nightly braid. So while she fiddled with that, half in her dress and half out of it, Tarrant decided to help. Perhaps his hands slipped, or perhaps he just found her irresistible, but she felt his touch 'round her waist and couldn't suppress the small gasp. His lips had found the sensitive spot in the hollow of her throat. She leaned into his touch and the task at hand became getting her back out of the dress!

Leaving the sapphire silk in a heap on the floor, he carried her to bed in naught but her chemise and laid her back before shrugging out of his jacket and dropping it. Her fingers found the buttons of his shirt, she giggled at his lips on her ear, and she soon had him divested of that as well. He let it drop to land with his jacket and pushed the chemise's wide neckline down over her shoulders, kissing soft skin. Only a little awkwardly, she managed to get his trousers off. He pulled back only long enough to remove shoes and socks before joining her in bed.

She pulled her nails slowly down his back as his fingers found her center – they wasted no time at all in dragging deep, pleasurable sounds out of each other.

"Right now?" gasped Alice, squirming against his touch.

"Right now," agreed the Hatter, pushing his hardness against her.

As soon as she said "yes," he thrust into her. She couldn't hold back a moan, her hands gripping his shoulders and nails scoring his flesh. His arms held her tightly to him as he panted in her ear, whispering all sorts of filthy things to her. Yes, they had been making love in secret for quite some time, but he never failed to induce a virgin-esque blush in her cheeks. Alice thought for a moment, storing the contemplation away for later memory, that perhaps she ought to do the same to him someday! Heat built inside her and coherent thought vacated her mind as his teeth found her neck, biting down hard.

Tarrant couldn't help himself – he knew that technically, they shouldn't be doing this, but in his half-madness, he frankly didn't care. He loved Alice and of course he intended to have her as his forever! Whether he remembered to give her a ring or they just continued in sinful bliss, it didn't matter. They were both close. His already-doubted capacity for coherency left him as well as Alice finished, causing his own release.

"I should have known that one day I would catch you two in the throes of passion," drawled the voice of the Cheshire Cat. "Couldn't have waited for a ring now, could you?"

Alice shrieked and grasped wildly at the tangle of sheets and blankets, trying to pull enough of them up to cover herself. The Hatter toppled off the bed in surprise, mostly at his lover's very sudden movement, and remained on the floor, fuming. Chessur just floated through the room, just outside the range that Alice could decently aim a thrown projectile, his trademark grin gleaming annoyingly. A stream of black curses in several languages cropped up from Tarrant, who hadn't bothered to get up.

"Chessur, it occurs to me that you might very well make a lovely HAT," Alice threatened, glowering at the hovering feline. "Perhaps it would even have evaporating powers!"

Deep chuckling sounded from the other side of the bed.

"I suppose there's on'y one wa' t' find ou'," growled the half-mad, extremely angry Hatter.

Chessur turned his head upside down.

"Temper, Sir Hightopp," he replied, wafting his half-mist body towards the door.

"GIT YE GONE, YEH FOUL O' THING!" roared the last of the Hightopp clan, managing to look quite fearsome from his place on the floor.

With a small, huffy noise, the Cat wisely evaporated out through the door. The two surprised lovers continued to sit for a moment, each lost in their own thoughts. No doubt, the Cat would have it spread all over the castle in a matter of moments what they had been doing. It wasn't that Alice particularly cared what people thought anymore. And certainly scandals of such… scandalous nature were nothing new in the White Court. But still – Castle Marmoreal et al didn't need to know everything she and Tarrant did behind closed doors! Tarrant himself just continued to grumble in the Outlandish dialect, flaying the Cat verbally in every way he knew.

Surprisingly enough, Alice broke the mutual reverie.

"Tarrant, darling?" she asked abruptly.

She heard a grunted "…fez."

"Yes dear?" he replied, the burr gone.

Her pretty face lit in a new sort of smile – he could barely see from the floor, but he knew her expressions, so he could imagine.

"Let the damnable Cat say what he will," she practically purred. "No sense letting it ruin our evening."

Tarrant sat up a bit straighter, cocking an eyebrow at her.

"What're ye sayin', love?" The burr returned in an instant.

"Come back to bed," crooned Alice. "I'm nowhere near through with you…"

He rejoined her on the bed, intent on picking up right where they had left off – they could fix it up with Her Majesty later…