A/N Thank you all for the reviews.

Very, very M rated, scenes of a sexual nature below.

They stood at her small kitchen counter and filled burritos. Anthony had made salsa and guacamole from scratch as well as the spicing for the chicken. He'd had time to go to Waterstones and buy a book on Mexican cooking. It was all for her, he'd wanted to make her favourite meal.

His hand ran across her hip as he passed behind her, heading to the plates on the other side of the countertop containing the rice and chicken. He pressed an open mouthed kiss to the nape of her neck and put his plate down, continuing to build his burrito as if this was all an everyday occurrence.

When Edith was a teenager, a small awkward mess of emotions and insecurities, her mother had said that she'd be the spinster of the family, looking after her parents into their dotage. Her father would chip in and say no dotage at all might be preferable to such a fate. All in jest, of course, "we're only joking!" they'd chime.

Edith felt as though she'd tumbled into someone else's life. The cameras would be revealed any minute and the live studio audience would come into view; she was surely part of some psychological experiment. A bleach-toothed presenter would jump out from under her bed and say 'you didn't really think you could get a man like this!' Cue screeching audience laughter, cackles and claps.

"Edith?" She was still starring at him, salsa-filled spoon poised in the air above her plate.

"Sorry, what?"

"Are you ok?"

Are you real?

She swallowed the words, plastering on a smile, "you actually made the salsa?"

He crunched his way through a nacho, "it's very easy."

"I'll take your word for it."

She pushed the corrosive thoughts away and resolved to enjoy the moment because it was real and it was happening to her.

Anthony expounded on the surprising merits of Harry Potter, although he thought book five would have benefitted from the guiding hand of a more stringent editor. Edith explained that by the time book five was released JK Rowling could pretty much write her own ticket. He was delighted that he could finally understand several Jury speeches from trials long past in which Counsel had referred to 'catching the snitch' and 'Gryffindor vs Slytherin'. Edith explained the phenomenon of event publishing Harry Potter had single-handedly created and launched into a diatribe on the films and the scourge of the Hollywood machine. She tried, somewhat in vain, to explain the world of fan fiction; Anthony was perplexed and wide-eyed, "people have written sex into these stories?!" They cleaned the dishes (she washed, he dried). It was as it had been before, as if he hadn't given her the most mind-blowing orgasm she'd ever experienced or was ever likely to experience. They were just friends - the judge and his artist.

Except they weren't just friends, perhaps they never had been.

He cleared his throat as he put the last saucepan into its proper place, "Are you tired?"

"No."

"Nor am I."

"But I'd like to go to bed."

"So would I." He hooked a hand behind her neck and kissed slowly. He whispered the words into her mouth, "I didn't come here for this." He pressed his forehead to hers, eyes shut, "that's a lie, I did. I bought condoms like some teenager. But I - I'd be happy to just be - with you - just be."

"You bought condoms?"

"Yes, I got served by some spotty kid at the Co-Op with an infuriating smirk. I thought he was going to ask me if I knew how to use them, or, if I even knew what sex was."

"You know I live above a gay man don't you?"

"Thomas keeps condoms at the factory?"

"Thomas keeps condoms everywhere." She laughed. Anthony's eyes crinkled and shone. He was happy to be, just be - with her. Little life or not, he wanted to be a part of it.

Finding the bottom of his jumper she pulled it upwards, he assisted, far too tall for her to manage the task on her own. Then she pulled the tails of his shirt from the top of his trousers and burrowed underneath, tracing the line of his hips. His muscles hitched under her touch. Her hands met in the small of his back and she clasped them together pulling him close, "Anthony, I want this. I want you."

They peeled away one another's clothes with slow reverence. It was electric. Small sparking touches as fingers worked under cotton and the sizzling slide of fabric exposing bare skin. They unwrapped one another. Exposing inch by inch.

When the task was nearly finished Anthony fumbled endearingly with her bra clasp. It took two hands to get it open.

"You have perfect breasts."

"I cannot possibly take you seriously when you say things like that."

He ran his fingers around the edge of her rounded flesh. Barely a touch but it dropped through her centre and nestled between her legs. She took a step forward, a plea for more. He grinned and whispered, "I am absolutely serious, sweet one." He put his lips to the places he'd touched. Then he dropped to his knees, as if praying to the altar of her body, pulled down her underwear and put his mouth to precisely the place she craved it.

Her eyes rolled and her breath hitched, hands fisted in his soft hair.

An infinitesimal part of her still retained the ability to think straight, "wait, stop." She was breathless.

He looked up at her, "you want me to stop?"

"No." She pushed his head away, "but this isn't fair."

"Fair?"

"Come up here would you?"

It was time to be brave. If she was going to do this, and she was, she intended to do it completely. Anthony wouldn't laugh at her inexperience or criticise her ineptitude. And as much as she ached to be touched, she ached to do the touching as well.

Anthony pushed himself up with a groan, "kneeling is a younger man's game. What is all this about fairness?"

"It's just, that's the second time you've –" she cycled through all the words and phrases she knew for that particular sex act and decided she couldn't possibly say any of them, opting to gesture lamely instead, "and I haven't even seen you."

He kissed her neck, "I'm right here sweet one."

Flattening her palm on the middle of his chest she pushed him back to the bed, "you know that's not what I mean. Lie back please."

The sight was better than she'd imagined and she'd imagined it repeatedly: Anthony half-naked and sprawled on her bed. Edith worked hard to push her own self-consciousness to the recesses of her mind, mentally reciting a constant, looping reminder that Anthony had seen her naked before, he'd seen everything, in close, minute detail.

She straddled him, his length pressing into her thigh. He bit his lip, hands on her hips, "hell-o." His voice cracked.

The exploration was leisurely. Two hands in matching arcs across his chest. The tips of fingers through the fine hairs she found. A kiss on the lips, at the pulse of his neck, behind his ear – she liked it when he tended to that spot – his murmurs of approval suggested he had the same wiring. His nipples were smaller than hers, they pebbled under her thumbs. There was an audible hitch in his breath when she sucked one into her mouth.

"This fairness concept has some merits, I'll admit."

With a wry smile Edith moved off his lap and undid the drawstring of his boxers, "and I still haven't seen you. Curiosity's got the better of me." She pulled them down; he lifted his hips to assist.

She was vaguely aware of Anthony's voice - "curiosity killed the cat, sweet one" - but her mind was elsewhere, examining what she'd revealed. It was true that she'd only seen a couple of them before now, but they'd been decidedly unimpressive. Anthony's, however, was quite different, thicker and longer and, somehow, with its eager bobbing and glistening tip, beautiful. She must be going mad - this body part was ugly, objectively speaking. But she could no longer be objective about it; this one was his and she liked it as much as the rest of him.

Flicking a tongue across her lip she looked up into his blue eyes, "you know the rest of that saying don't you?"

"What?"

"Curiosity killed the cat?"

He looked puzzled, "I thought that was the saying."

"No." She shifted and kissed just below his navel, "Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back." She gripped the base of his cock and took it into her mouth.

"Christ, Edith!"

She'd never enjoyed doing this, never wanted to do it, not really, it was an act performed out of obligation. Ridiculous, she would later realise, to feel obligated to do anything for someone else in the bedroom. A folly of youth she'd sworn not to repeat. This was no folly. It was something she'd considered in her idle hours away from him and when she'd finally looked at him, at his cock, it was no small idea at the back of her mind; it was a desire, on par with all the others. His reactions spurred her on, she was powerful and he looked at her as though she was new, a sight of wonder, the hanging gardens of Babylon or the Lighthouse of Alexandria. She smiled as she spiralled her tongue around him, taking him in as deep as she dared.

"Stop, you have to stop!"

Her chest heaved up and down as she gulped for breath, "why?"

"Because that is far too good and I'm not ready to finish yet." He leant up and pulled her down the bed.

"Maybe I want you to finish, you did it for me."

He growled, "another night."

There would be other nights. Edith could swear that her heart swelled in her chest and threatened to break its way through the wall. Her cheeks hurt from smiling. She was completely naked, aroused beyond her wildest imagination and with Anthony, her Anthony – because he would be hers tonight, in every respect, and she would be his.

A tangle of limbs, he kissed her and then her breasts, "Tell me if you're going to come. I don't want you falling asleep before we –" Edith's hand found his erection, he didn't complete the thought.

With firm strokes, Edith continued, "You're never going to let me forget that, are you?"

He mumbled into her breast, his voice laboured, "no." Anthony groaned and grabbed her wrist, bringing it into the soft cushion above her head, "You'd best stop that too."

He bent his head to kiss her nipple again, flicking it with his tongue.

She grasped clumsily at his erection with her other hand, she couldn't be as elegant with the left; the right remained pinned above her head. He grabbed her wrist and lifted it to the pillow where he still held her right hand, her fingers twined together, he positively growled, "stop."

She giggled, almost unable to breathe for the happiness in her chest, she was giddy with it. That, and the fact that his clever fingers had found her clitoris. She leant up and caught his lips with a gasp.

He stroked and kissed and she moaned the spiralling desires of her body into his mouth. Her thigh pressed between his legs rubbing along the length of him in rhythm with her writhing hips. He moved his hand slightly, resting his thumb on the spot he'd been tending and slipped two fingers inside her. It caused the same cataclysm of throbbing want it had the night before and without thinking the word punched from the back of her throat, "fuck!"

His blue eyes flashed and he smiled, "I wondered if I'd make you swear again sweet one, such a rare word from you, quite lovely in a lot of ways."

If he hadn't taken his hand away, his voice might have been enough to make her come. A firm, even tone in her ear. The one he used when he was absolutely certain about something.

He moved away from her and Edith was suddenly alone on the bed, her heartbeat heightened in her ears. He slid his hands under her back and pulled her to the edge of the mattress. He kissed her lips and each breast before he stood between her parted legs, he'd acquired a condom and put it on. Edith was a pulsing mass of anticipation.

He traced a hand down the inside of her thigh and shifted his hips. She'd thought he would come back to bed, apparently that wasn't the plan, "Wait – wait." She was confused, she took a deep breath and stuttered out the words, "Wait – if you're there, if you stand up like that - I can't – I won't – I can't touch you if we do it like this."

"I know, but I can touch you like this. And I can watch you. I want very much to watch you, all of you. If you don't mind?"

There was that voice again, as if she could mind anything he said in that voice.

"N-No."

"No?"

"I mean, yes, I don't mind. I don't mind. I –"

The rest of the words fluttered like fledglings at the back of her throat, a series of unconnected gasps. Anthony entered her, slowly, tenderly in one motion, looking – just as he said he would – first at the place their bodies joined so intimately and then back up at her. He rolled his hips and moved inside her, shaking his head all the while, marvelling at the sight, "God, Edith, I – fuck!" She'd have laughed if she could remember how, but she barely recalled her own name. She was just a vessel for sensation now. The tensions from before, the ones he'd created with his mouth and his fingers, begun to build again. She groaned and met his languid rhythm with her hips, trying to speed him up and urge him onwards. He wouldn't be swayed, slow and precise was his intended tempo and he stuck to it, he troubled her clitoris with his fingers again.

Then, he stopped. Hard and thick inside her. Not moving. Why? Why. Why. Why had he stopped?! She couldn't form the words, any words. She was so close, tilting on a precipice, Edith fisted her hands into the sheets, groaning and opened her eyes reluctantly. His breathing was laboured. He looked straight at her, half a smile on his face. If she'd had the wherewithal she might have worried about her appearance. She was sweating, red-cheeked, her mouth parted in silent desperation, but there was not one small particle of her being which cared about that. All there was, perhaps all there had ever been, was this man and what he was doing, or not doing, at this very moment. His hand flitted across her stomach and he reached for a pillow. He motioned her hips upwards and pushed the pillow under her bottom. The changed angle caused a jolt of pleasure, tips of fingers to toes. A cry caught at the back of her throat. That. That is why he stopped. He did nothing more but look down at her.

He spoke softly, "You are beautiful." Edith whimpered at the tender words and at his hips, which flexed into action again. Curling her legs around his lower torso Edith pressed her heels into the soft flesh of his backside. He quickened his pace now and set back to work between her legs, looking and touching just as he said he would, thorough and constant in this, as in all aspects of his life.

Then, he commanded, "come for me Edith." Powerless to refuse him any request, she did just that.

Her head buried into the pillow and a guttural moan emerged from her throat. She wouldn't have thought she was capable of such a sound. Base, like an animal. The physical effects of the orgasm pulsed between her thighs and curled in her stomach. She was aware of Anthony's voice drifting in her ears, "God, Edith, yes."

Her legs slid off his hips and dropped to the mattress, she had no strength to keep them elevated. Anthony dropped as well, finally cocooning her body. He drove hard into her, neck muscles flexing. The ghost of her orgasm rippled lazily around him and he groaned his release into a firm kiss.

They lay there then. Anthony's weight on top of her, yet somehow light as a feather. A perfect mass of happy, sated bodies. Edith kissed at his chin, the only part she could reach without the effort of moving. His fingers played with the lobe of her ear.

She might as well have been a virgin, because now she knew - she'd never had sex, not really.

"I'm squashing you."

"Not at all."

He lifted his head to look her in the eye, "I'm sweaty."

"I like it."

He kissed her lips and whispered, "I like you."

Edith smiled weakly in response. Tears threatened at the base of her throat. It was a measure of the realities of her life up to this moment that those three small words made her want to sob with contentment.

She cleared her throat and joked instead of giving herself away, "that's because you're inside me." Then she went beetroot red at the words. Nothing about the act had embarrassed her, but talking of it was still a stretch for her prudish head.

"Lewdness becomes you, sweet one."

"Oh, hush, I've gone bright red and you know it." Her voice was muffled as she pressed her face into his shoulder.

"It's becoming!"

"Liar!"

He rolled off, but pulled her across his chest.

"Hang on." He jumped up and ditched the condom. Apparently completely confortable with his own nudity he walked about as if fully clothed, bustling to the stack of linen and into the bathroom. Edith didn't know what he was doing and she shut her eyes for a moment.

Then he was opening her legs, "What the hell are you –" and placing a warm flannel between them.

"I want to hold you a bit longer."

"Oh." She burrowed against his side, head on his shoulder, forcing back the stupid tears again. What good was happiness if it made her cry? He kissed her hair. "I should go and clean up properly."

"But at this precise moment you are delicious."

"I'm a disgusting, sweaty mess."

"You're sweaty. You're a little dishevelled, actually you're quite a lot dishevelled" She pinched his arm, "Ow! But you are not disgusting. You smell of sex and sweat and me and you. It's wonderful."

It was a monumental effort given her exhaustion but it had to be done. Edith pulled herself up his chest and kissed him soundly on the mouth. Slowly and leisurely, too tired for anything else, her tongue gently melding with his.