A/N M for language.
Whistling. Annoying and pointless. Anthony Strallan QC MA LLM (Hons), appointed as a Circuit Judge by The Queen, on the advice of the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice, soon to be appointed to the High Court by the same illustrious persons, didn't whistle.
Except that, apparently, he did. He stood in his kitchen, flipped a pancake (two were already lost to the floor but he'd got the hang of it now - like riding a bike, you never really forget) and whistled. It was a Sinatra medley - Cheek to Cheek and Mack the Knife, with a couple of lines of I've Got You Under My Skin.
He hadn't felt this good since - no, he'd never felt this good.
Edith Crawley was slumbering in his bed. She'd fallen to sleep almost as soon as she'd had her orgasm. It was his mistake for going to clean up, her eyes had been drooping even as he left the room. He should've just kissed her with his wet mouth. After all, the wetness had come from her, literally.
He'd considered going to the bathroom and taking care of his raging erection in the shower, but he hadn't on the off chance she woke up. She didn't, except for a semi-conscious moment in the wee small hours when she'd mumbled barely coherent half sentences about being cold and he'd wrestled her back into his pyjamas. She'd curled into his arms and he'd been genuinely concerned that he might die from the overwhelming feeling of happiness swelling in his chest. He could only imagine how he'd feel when he'd been inside her, when he was inside her.
Any thoughts of restraint, of sense, had left his head as soon as he had brushed a first thumb across her nipple. If she wanted him, she could have all of him. Hang the consequences. Life was for living and this felt like living. He was going to the High Court in three months. He could stay in this alternative world until then. A respite from the life into which he'd bricked himself. As for Edith, wonderful, glorious Edith, she understood it wasn't permanent. She needn't ever find out about Maud. They could both come out at the other side sated and unscathed.
When he was at the Bar Anthony made his living defending murderers, rapists, fraudsters, even a terrorist or two. A great advocate could convince even in the most trying of circumstances. Lying in bed, with his arms wrapped around Edith's soft form was far from trying circumstances. He convinced himself nicely.
"Oh God." Edith's voice was at the door of the kitchen and muffled. He turned and discovered why: her hand covered her mouth, she looked devastated. For a moment he was devastated too, it was all a mistake and she knew it, it was over, and he'd barely had any time at all with her. She continued, "I am mortified."
He tried levity, "so you should be, those pyjamas look a fright."
They did. A beautiful fright. It was the same top she'd worn last night, so it had become the single most attractive item of women's clothing he'd ever encountered, but now she wore the bottoms. They were far too large in the hips and too long, leaving swathes of fabric about her feet so that she appeared to float on paisley mountains.
Her eyes darted down, "well - yes. But I meant - oh God - I fell asleep. I cannot believe it. I fell asleep."
He flipped his last pancake with a smile. If that was all she was concerned about all hope was not lost, "you did. You were dead to the world. Not to stereotype sweet one, but I thought it was men who fell into a useless stupor after orgasm?"
"I'm so, so sorry." She was solemn.
He stopped moving, pancake half on plate, half on spatula. He turned to face her where she leant on the counter, arms crossed, head bowed, "are you under the impression I'm angry?"
"It was bad of me. I mean I - " she gestured about her body and cleared her throat before - much to Anthony's amusement - whispering, "came. And you - you didn't get anything."
Pancakes abandoned Anthony went to her and kissed her gently on the mouth, scuffing a thumb over her cheek, "I got you, and it was glorious. Orgasm or not, it was the best night of sex I've ever had. You have nothing at all to be sorry for."
"You're sure?"
He kissed her frown lines and they relaxed away with a smile, "absolutely sure. Come on, breakfast is getting cold."
They ate quietly, cutlery on china, sprinkling sugar and squeezes of lemon the only sounds in the cluttered dining room. Every so often he'd catch Edith looking at him with quirked lips or she'd glance up to find him staring at her, admiring the elegant lines of her face and the flecks of gold in her eyes. Then they'd be looking at each other with shy smiles, like they were old friends who'd just met.
After a while he was conscious she'd stopped eating. Her eyes concentrated intensely on her half finished plate. She pushed the remaining pieces of pancake around with her fork and then set it down. She cleared her throat, "just so you know, it was the best night of sex I've ever had as well."
"What was your favourite bit?"
"You don't expect me to – I can't – it's – I can't actually talk about it."
Anthony suspected as much, but it was rather fun watching her skin turn from the translucent white of the English Rose to bright red in ten seconds flat.
"You're twenty-five years old!"
"I know." She covered her eyes, "I know. I should be able to. You can, for God's sake! That really makes no sense – you're older than me –"
"Oh, don't remind me."
"Yet, you can talk about sex as if it's nothing and I blush like a moron every time I so much as think about sex, let alone talking about it."
"The Crown and Brown."
"Excuse me?"
"The Crown and Brown. One of my first big cases at the Bar. Criminal prosecution of 10 men. Central issue – can you consent to an assault?"
She shook her head, "I don't follow."
"The ten engaged in sex acts, of a particular type."
He had her now, he could tell. There weren't all that many benefits to life at the criminal bar, but it certainly provided the best stories, they put the chancery millionaires right in the shade. She leant slightly forward, pyjama top dipping, he stole a peak and she pulled it up with a smiling reprimand, "well, what particular type?"
"Extreme BDSM." She coughed on a pancake, "they used – well – all sorts of techniques but, in particular, fire, and nails. There were photographs, mid-act photographs. By the end of the case my proclivity to be embarrassed about sex – thinking about it, talking about it, looking at it – had pretty much been beaten out of me."
She howled, "poor choice of words!"
He raised his arms, shoulders shaking, "sorry. I haven't thought about this case in so long. I had a hours in conference with my client. He talked so plainly about scrotums, penises, balls, nipples – everything - and the various painful pleasures he'd inflicted on his friends, or they'd inflicted on him. He was utterly po-faced whilst explaining all the sordid specifics. I barely knew more than two sex positions back then. I was so naïve at the start of that case and positively worldly by the end."
"Quite the education." She laughed again, it was mesmerising. She was mesmerising and he was staring, a stupid smile covering his face. She flushed and rested her chin on her hand.
Sexy and sweet.
She was in his lap.
Anthony couldn't tell if he pulled her there or if she acted of her own volition. Perhaps it had been mutual; the almost palpable magnetism between them could only go ignored for so long. It was simply impossible for them to continue with the monumental effort required not to touch one another.
Gratifyingly, she appeared to have been struggling just as much as him because now she had access to his person she took full advantage.
Her thighs wrapped firmly around his hips, she was seated deeply in the dip of his lap and he was outrageously hard. She burrowed her hands into his top and ran them through his chest hair. Her hands were as warm as her mouth and just as eager. She tasted of lemon and sugar.
The table would be the perfect height if he just lifted her up and sat her on the edge.
The carriage clock chimed insistently.
"Edith, stop."
Her hands were at the waistband of his trousers. She looked up, startled, her mouth wide and red.
"I'm not going to do this."
"Oh, right, no, yes -" She started to push away from him and he grabbed her wrist to seat her back down, the pressure of her slight frame both a relief and torment.
"Hang on. I mean not at this moment. If I'm going to do this terribly reckless, stupid thing then I mean to do it right. We have to leave for court in twenty-three -" He looked at the clock, "twenty two minutes. That's not sufficient time to do this as I mean to do it."
"The terribly reckless stupid thing we mean to do Anthony. We."
"Alright, we."
Edith tidied whilst Anthony saw to his morning ablutions.
A cup of coffee was placed on the side of the sink.
"Do you mind if I watch you shave?"
If only she hadn't missed his shower, "Not at all."
She perched on the edge of the bathtub, cradling her drink. This was intimate, perhaps more intimate than what they'd done last night. He washed his face and applied a beard of thick foam.
"I quite like your stubble."
He swiped a careful stroke down the side of his face, "I'm so fair haired you can barely see it."
"It's not the way it looks that I'm talking about. It feels nice."
"When I'm kissing you?"
"Yes."
"On the mouth or between your legs?"
"Anthony!"
He smirked, albeit through the dense white foam it had less of an impact, "you started it!"
"Hardly." She took another glug of coffee, "what happened in the case?"
"Which case?"
"The Crown and Brown."
"We lost. Then we went to the Court of Appeal and lost there and then we went to the House of Lords - as it was then - the highest court in the land and we lost there too. Client spent eighteen months in prison."
"So S&M is illegal?"
"Technically, yes. You cannot, in English law, consent to an assault."
He'd finished and Edith stood with a fluffy white towel and wiped away the remaining tufts of shaving foam clustered at his ears and his throat, "what rubbish. People consent to assaults all the time. Rugby, football, boxing, for heaven's sake! You can consent to an assault but only if it's the right kind of assault." She winged quotation marks around "right kind" running fingers through the air with a hearty eye roll. She'd found the absolute core of the issue.
"That was pretty much my argument. Except it took me eight months to perfect it, you've just done it in about thirty seconds."
"Perhaps I should become a lawyer." She tapped a finger to her chin in mock consideration.
He snatched the towel and pitched it in the direction of the washing basket, "I like my sweet little artist, thank you very much." Temptation got the better of him and he kissed her soundly on the lips.
"Bugger."
"Not precisely the reaction I was hoping for, sweet one."
"No, not that. Never that. I can't go to Snaresbrook with you. I'm having lunch with Matthew." She waved her hand absentmindedly, "I can cancel."
"You shouldn't cancel. Go, you can come to court tomorrow."
"Will you walk me to the tube?"
"Try and stop me."
It was a beautiful morning, in spite of the rain and the wind. Crisp and fresh. Anthony escorted Edith to the tube, as he'd done on so many occasions in the past. They didn't hold hands, they didn't even touch. At the station he bought her a bouquet of peach roses. He also picked up half a dozen lilies.
"Who are the lilies for?"
"Mrs Hughes. I've been rather difficult to work for over the last few days."
Her lips curved, "really?"
"Yes. Lilies are the absolute least that she deserves."
"What now?"
"I go to court, you go to Brixton. I'll see you tomorrow."
She smelt the roses, their peach skin caught the light and it bounced in soft circles off her cheeks, "that's a plan then, see you tomorrow."
He should pull her into his arms and kiss her again. The crowds milled around them, London's impatient commuters with heavy sighs and heavier steps. He lost his nerve and did nothing. He settled for watching her disappear down the escalator with a small wave. Tomorrow was not that far away.