Author's note: I really enjoyed writing this. I hope you enjoy reading it!
If you do, please review! :)
For the last three hours, he had been trying to get out of the bed. The fact that he hadn't succeeded in doing so, was of course entirely due to Miss Fisher. Every time he had mentioned 'getting up', she had found new ways of keeping him right where he was. A hand here, a kiss placed in exactly the right spot, and before he knew it, thoughts of leaving the bed seemed perfectly absurd when compared to the delights waiting for him between the sheets. Time and again, their bodies entwined on the bed, and afterwards he drifted into that delicious state between sleeping and waking that came with being utterly satisfied. And every time when he had recovered enough to start thinking about getting dressed and going for breakfast, she would just start the whole thing over again.
He was certainly not complaining, but by noon he was determined that this time, he would manage his escape. He would gladly spend the entire day in bed with her (it wouldn't be the first one, either), but he had something very particular in mind that he really wanted to get done today. The problem was, that he didn't want tell Phryne what it was, which made it much harder to give her a reason for wanting to leave. He looked at her, dozing on the pillow next to him. Very quietly, he started to move out from under the sheets.
'Where are you going?' she murmured sleepily.
'It's nearly noon. Don't you think we should get up?'
She nestled herself more snugly between the sheets. 'What ridiculous notions you have sometimes, Inspector.'
He smiled. 'I really need to go home today, Miss Fisher. I must get some clean clothes.'
She opened one eye to look at him naughtily. 'If you just stay in bed, you don't need clothes at all.'
'An excellent point. But I'll need to leave the bed at some point, and when that time comes, I need clean clothes.'
She yawned and stretched luxuriously, revealing white skin in places that made him seriously reconsider his decision. However, he had his reasons to go. He needed to be strong now.
'Well, Inspector, your reasoning is perfectly sound, as ever. I will see you tomorrow.'
She smiled as he kissed her hair, and when he got up and started dressing, she settled herself comfortably in the warm nest they had made and seemed ready for a good nap. With a sigh of regret, he closed the bedroom door behind him and descended the stairs.
He accepted a cup of tea from Mr. Butler, and wandered into the sitting room, appearing to look vaguely at the books in the book case while drinking his tea, but in reality he was looking for something very specific. Soon, he found it. It was a big black book, fairly inconspicuous, tucked away into a corner of the book case. He furtively looked around, then quickly slipped it under his coat. He thanked Mr. Butler for the tea, handed him the empty cup, and left the house at a brisk pace.
It took him only a short time to drive home, which was a small bungalow that he had bought after Rosie had left him. He didn't need much space, as he didn't spend much time at home in any case, but the place was nice enough, with a fireplace and a comfortable chair in which he could read Shakespeare. He really didn't need much more than that.
When he entered, he was greeted by his housekeeper, a middle-aged woman who came around in the afternoons to clean, do laundry, and prepare some meals for him. Luckily, she was a sensible woman who wasn't the least bit nosy and didn't care at all about him keeping odd hours. She was competent and efficient, and left him to his business, exactly the way he liked it. 'Good afternoon, Mrs. Thompson,' he greeted her. 'I'll be in my study.'
'Good afternoon, Mr. Robinson,' she replied. 'I was just going out to run some errands. Do you require anything specific?'
'Not today, Mrs. Thompson, thank you.' He retreated to his study, seated himself behind his desk, and waited until he heard the front door close. Then, he took out the black book and placed it in front of him on the desk. The title said 'Erotica of the Far East', underneath a highly colored picture of a man and a woman in an very indecent position. Really, he thought, shaking his head, this was highly compromising material. He could only imagine how she had smuggled it into the country.
But now that it was here, the Inspector was fully prepared to take advantage of the fact. He was aware by now that there was much more to the art of the bedroom than he had ever suspected: Phryne had taught him much and he had discovered other things himself, but he felt that by now it was time for a more thorough investigation. For once, he wanted to surprise her, and not the other way around. He felt that it was high time he took on a more assertive role in their lovemaking. Even if it meant having to get his information from… questionable sources.
He looked at the book with a slight frown. He was not the kind of person who would naturally seek out this kind of thing. Apprehensively, he lifted the cover and flipped through the pages. There were lots of illustrations, accompanied by highly detailed instructions. He opened the book at a random page, and his frown disappeared as he lifted an eyebrow. That looked… interesting. Though he wasn't sure how practical it would be if they were to actually try it out. It seemed like it would be… difficult to maintain balance.
He turned a page and the frown returned. Now that just looked plain uncomfortable. Another page… they'd done that already. Another page, and he winced. That just had to be painful. He didn't think she could bend that far, and he knew he definitely couldn't. Another page, another frown. He couldn't even distinguish which limbs belonged to whom and he was not about to try and figure it out. He sighed impatiently, and decided that maybe he should start at the beginning of the book.
He turned to the first few pages, and for the first time, the book got his full attention. Hmm. He had never really thought to try things that way. And this seemed highly enjoyable. He flipped through the next few pages and found several more pictures that appealed to him. He kept on studying the book late into the night, deciding on favorites and reading and rereading instructions to memorize them. Finally, he went to bed with the sense that he had a much better grasp of things now, and the satisfying knowledge that she would not expect what he had planned. He couldn't wait to see her tomorrow and try out a couple of things.
Tomorrow, however, arrived sooner than anticipated in the form of a telephone call from the station. The familiar voice of Constable Collins informed him that there had been a murder, and gave him directions to the crime scene. When the Inspector arrived there half an hour later, it was to see an only too familiar red car parked at the scene. Of course, he thought, he should have known. Still, this was the first case they would work on together after they had started their affair, and he only hoped that Miss Fisher would behave professionally.
He needn't have worried. When he got out of the car, she greeted him with perfect cheerfulness and immediately started filling him in on the case (a young man found dead in an abandoned alley with a single gunshot to the chest), and as always she did not hesitate to give him the benefit of her own opinion. To his surprise, however, Jack quickly discovered that he himself had great difficulties to behave professionally around her now. When she kneeled close to him to examine the body, he caught a whiff of her perfume, and for a couple of moments lost track of what she was saying as his thoughts turned entirely to how much he wanted to kiss the exposed white skin of her throat. With a mental effort, he focused his attention on the body in front of him, but throughout the day he discovered that he had very little control over his thoughts anymore.
He had thought that things would be better now that they were sleeping together, that some of the tension between them would have diffused, and that he would be less distracted if she hopped up onto his desk, or stood entirely too close to him for comfort, but the opposite was true. While they went about their day as usual, visiting relevant locations, interrogating suspects, talking over clues, he realized that, especially after his reading of last night, the only thing he could think about was how much he wanted to pull her close and ravish her in every possible way. The fact that she was so close and he couldn't touch her was pure torture.
So when they finally left the station very late and went home, his patience was worn very thin. Phryne opened the front door quietly, as the household was already sleeping, and started to hang up her hat and coat. 'Would you like a nightcap and talk things over, or do you want to go straight to…' she started asking, but he didn't let her finish. She squealed softly in surprise as he suddenly lifted her and threw her over his shoulder, heading for the stairs. 'Well! Straight to bed it is then!' she laughed. 'You know, you had only to ask, Inspector.' But he didn't reply, just smiled in silent satisfaction as he carried her up the stairs.
Even in his newfound assertiveness, he couldn't really bring himself to throw her down on the bed, so he put her down gently and straightened to take off his jacket. When he saw that she was starting to unbutton her blouse, he leaned close, stopped her hand and looked into her eyes. 'Don't. I want to undress you.' She looked at him curiously, but dropped her hands and leaned back invitingly. 'Well, be my guest, Inspector. As long as you don't take too long about it.' He noticed that she was watching him with a hungry look, and smiled inwardly. He sat down next to her on the bed, and carefully unbuttoned her blouse, relieved that he was finally allowed to touch her, after wanting to all day. He couldn't resist to kiss a white shoulder, and brush a nipple through her camisole to hear her gasp.
He pushed her down onto the bed so he could remove her trousers and her stockings, but he really couldn't hope for her to stay this compliant the entire time. She sat up and took him by his tie. 'And now I get to undress you, I hope. It's only fair.' He relented. 'Whatever you like, Miss Fisher.' She looked up at him from under her eyelashes. 'I like a great many things, Inspector.' He smiled as she undid his tie and allowed her to undress him, before taking the lead again. He pushed her back into the pillows to kiss her, a long, slow kiss that was full of promises. A moment later, he had maneuvered her out of her underwear, and she was lying before him naked. He couldn't resist running his hands over her body for a moment and feel her shiver, before turning his attention to what he had planned.
'Lift your hips', he ordered her in a soft whisper. She looked at him questioningly, but obeyed without a word. He pulled down a pillow and placed it under her lower back, so that her hips were tilted. She raised an eyebrow, seeming pleasantly surprised. He felt quietly elated as he kneeled between her legs and ran his tongue up the inside of her thigh. She fell back into the pillows with a sigh and surrendered to him. When he pressed his mouth to her, she moaned, and he noticed that she was already wet. He slid his tongue inside for a moment to taste her, then moved upwards to work on the little hidden node that seemed to give her so much pleasure, until her breathing became quicker. Now was the moment. Trying to remember the exact instructions of the book, he slid two fingers inside her, palm up, and felt around for a moment, searching, until he found a soft spot, just like the book described. Faintly apprehensive about the results, he pushed upwards.
She immediately gasped loudly and tangled one hand into his hair, the other in the sheets. 'God, Jack', she gasped, and he smiled in satisfaction and started to rhythmically push upwards, in the meantime not removing his tongue from where it had been before. She arched her back and moaned; he felt her muscles tense, and as he increased the rhythm, her breathing became very fast and erratic, she tilted her hips even further to increase the pressure of his fingers, and threw her head back. He pushed harder, and suddenly she was crying out, her hand tightened on the sheets, and her whole body bent double as she half rose out of the pillows, every muscle tensed. The orgasm lasted for several long moments, then she fell back into the pillows, breathing heavily. He instinctively started to slow down, then remembered the book and pushed up hard again. 'Oh, Jack!' she cried out, surprised at how readily her body reacted to his touch, and she reached up to hold on to the headboard as he again started exploring her with his tongue, gentler now. Soon she was trembling again as he kept up a steady pressure both with his fingers and his tongue. Only a few moments later, she gasped, almost sobbing, as a second orgasm overtook her and she convulsed beneath him, contracting around his fingers. Finally, he slowed down and she gradually relaxed onto the bed, quivering slightly. He withdrew his fingers and looked up. She seemed out of breath and more than a little dazed, and he moved up to take her into his arms, feeling extremely pleased with himself.
As her breathing quieted, he saw that she was slowly returning to her senses and watched her closely to gauge when she would be ready for his next move. When she looked up at him and asked 'Jack, where on earth did you…' he judged that she was quite recovered enough, and closed her mouth with a kiss. 'No time for questions', he breathed. 'I'm not nearly done with you.' She smiled a delighted smile at that and bit her lip in anticipation as he rolled on top of her, feeling his own excitement rise sharply. She let out a surprised 'oh!' as he moved down and suddenly lifted her right leg so her ankle rested against his shoulder. Lucky she's so flexible, he thought, as he moved upward and encountered very little resistance. He preferred to think that was from judo practice. Or dancing.
She was so wet that he slid inside her effortlessly, and he couldn't quite suppress a moan that was echoed by her as he pushed in deep. She was tight this way, and he enjoyed the added friction as he thrust in again and again. It didn't take long until he felt he wouldn't be able to resist much longer. At that point, he stopped, ignoring her sounds of disappointment, and took a few deep breaths as he lay down beside her, their bodies touching full length. 'Jack, what are you…?' she started to ask, but he didn't let her finish. 'Roll onto your side', he ordered her softly, and she turned to face him. He smiled amusedly. 'The other side, please.' She flashed him another look of surprise that turned into a look of sensual pleasure as she turned and nestled her back into his warmth. He folded her closely into his arms and put one leg between hers for easier access, then entered her with a soft moan. She pressed her buttocks backwards into him and sighed in delight as he started moving with slow and deliberate strokes, enjoying the closeness of their bodies. With one hand, he started moving over her body, caressing a breast, pinching a nipple, stroking the inside of her thigh, before settling between her legs. Very gently, he started stroking as he moved inside her, and she pressed herself even closer to him. He softly whispered into her ear, how lovely she was, how beautiful, how much he adored her, until he felt the tension within him rise to a point that made it impossible to speak. When she began to quiver, he buried his face into her hair and held her tight as he felt a wave of pleasure wash over him, and they cried out together. He felt her clench around him, pushing him to an even higher pitch as he thrust in again, until he spent inside her. They both shivered and lay still, wrapped in each other's warmth.
They didn't move for what seemed like a long time, and maybe they slept a little. When Jack returned to his senses, it was to find Phryne facing him with a smile. She kissed him softly, then drew back with a shrewd look in her eye. Uh oh.
'All right, Jack. Out with it. What have you been reading?'
He tried to feign ignorance. 'Reading, Miss Fisher? What on earth do you mean?'
He nuzzled her neck, but she was not so easily distracted, and pushed him away with an amused smile. 'Well, it's either that or you had a very steamy affair last night that taught you a trick or two', she joked.
He suppressed a laugh and tried to look wounded. 'Perhaps I'm just naturally talented, Miss Fisher.'
She raised an eyebrow. 'I'm not saying you're not, but you don't just figure these things out overnight.' She gave him a calculating look. 'Erotica of the Far East?' she guessed, and he suddenly blushed fiercely, proving her right. She gave a delighted laugh, and cuddled close to him.
'Well, Inspector, I must say I approve of a man trying to improve himself through study.'
He kissed her hair. 'I thought you might, Miss Fisher.'
'And you certainly managed to surprise me tonight.'
He smiled a satisfied smile and held her close, seriously considering never letting her go again.