Pam Rosenthal - The Slightest Provocation

A bit of a chafing sensation, actually. But she rather liked it. And more than liked the effect of his fingers touching and molding her nipples through it.

He pinched her. She squeaked rather gracelessly, and he laughed and gave her a great, smacking kiss-and a smack on the rump for good measure.

There’d been a time, years ago, when his hands had been too big for the rest of him. Tonight they were exactly the right size, and the one that wasn’t playing with her breast had curved itself around her bottom now, pressing her so firmly against his belly and thighs that she could have no doubt (even if she hadn’t caught a delicious glimpse) of how extravagantly eager he was for her. And even if their intertwined bodies’ lurching progress toward the bed was proceeding far, far too slowly.

Not that she had any right to criticize, since the fact that they were moving at all was mostly his doing.

Yes, darling, she told him silently, yes, I’ll help. In just a moment. As soon as I pull your shirt from where it’s tucked into the waistband-ah yes, lovely…

Wait, she’d found a button, which by dint of much tugging, she’d succeeded in getting open… Oh, dear, actually she’d ripped it from the fabric and sent it skittering across the floor… At exactly the instant her calves collided smartly with the bed frame (which should have been painful but wasn’t), and just a second before she felt herself lifted up and bounced onto her back and bum and…

How long had it been since she’d seen that particular smile of his? Amused and aroused, egotistical and overbearing…

Delightful, the simple pleasures of a good firm bed beneath her and his warm breathing weight on top.

And the satisfying certainty that all she really needed to do was lie still and smile back at him.

“Oh yes, much better,” he told her. “Much better indeed.”

He raised his weight onto his arms and dipped his head, licking her neck and throat and then nibbling her breast through the thin silk. Nettle cloth, the fabric was called-odd how certain words came unbidden at the most inopportune of moments. Was it actually made of nettle? It didn’t feel like it-it felt smooth and sweet. Everything was sweet; he was feasting on her as though she were apples and cream.

She shouldn’t have been so surprised by the quick updraft of sensation that had grabbed hold of her…

… swept her into a vortex…

… and caused her to scream like that.

Though she might have expected that, before she’d quite recovered her senses, he’d have contrived to lift her petticoat (all the while keeping his eyes upon her face) to enable her to rub her quim (no, no drawers, absolutely not!) against the bottom of his belly, to open herself and receive the quick entry of his cock, to moan and gasp, grasp and tighten her very wet and slippery self around him, and then (for he’d pushed her a few inches backward on the bed) to dig her heels into the mattress, so she could move in rapid, rough arcs, in rhythm with his thrusts.

His thrusts or (one might say) his pummeling. If one were able to say anything at all, if one could stop howling and mewling, groaning and giggling-and acting so utterly delighted with this abrupt and utterly undignified…

She hadn’t expected to lose herself again so soon.

Expectations be damned. Pleasure was what mattered, losing and then finding herself once more, just in time for him to give way to his own excitement. He spilled himself outside of her (which was generous-not to say skillful) before collapsing so heavily that for a moment she thought he’d gone right to sleep.

She rather wished he had.

For now they finally would have to attempt a conversation.

He was quite certainly awake; she could tell from how he was breathing. And how he was moving too-inch by sweet inch, just as she was, their intertwined bodies striving for a more harmonious alignment of limb and torso. She always loved this moment, the humor of it, the graceless intimate shifting about to make provision for the awkward extra arm that inevitably gets in the way of postcoital bliss. Until at last he’d gotten his body curved around hers, her head fitting (perfectly as ever) into the space below his clavicle.

Her thoughts drifted back to Curzon Street.

“ ’Ere you are, gov’nor,” the hackney driver would sing out, “and my compliments to your lady too.” She and Kit had been favorites among the town cabbies: running, laughing and half-unbuttoned, up their front steps, they’d fling large coins behind them, all breathless eagerness to finish what they’d started on the way home. Though they might have to wake the servants to let them in, for they frequented such raffish parts of town that they’d sometimes lose their keys and purses to pickpockets.

Astonishing that the house had never been robbed. And that all they’d lost was each other.

Perhaps if they hadn’t behaved so badly… she should be regretting it. But instead she felt herself almost drunk on unbearably sweet nostalgia. A sigh escaped her lips before she could bite it back. He dropped a kiss on her forehead.

Had he guessed her thoughts? And could he also remember how much fun they’d had?

“I want you again,” she said. “Soon. Before we begin remembering…”

He stopped her lip with a fingertip, laughed, and took her hand. “No chance that I could forget how demanding you are.”

Just as well to turn it into a joke. There’d be no suppressing the memories, but she supposed there was no reason to speak about the horrible parts.

“Soon,” he agreed. “Give me just a few more minutes.”

A few more minutes would be quite acceptable, even nicer, perhaps, than the times when he’d been ready for another go-round before she’d entirely caught her breath. And maybe by the time they’d quite finished with each other, they would be too tired for conversation.

She snuggled against him while he kissed the inside of her wrist. And then her palm. Very softly, and oh, very nicely indeed, his lips and tongue insinuating themselves into hidden places where one wouldn’t have thought there were any.

“And I’m not so demanding as all that, ” she protested happily. “I’m perfectly content… Well, it’s perfectly nice…”

She wasn’t quite sure what he’d contrived to do with his tongue just then. No, not his tongue-it was his teeth, and whatever he’d done had caused her to gasp and forget to finish her sentence.

She only knew that she wanted to do something equally nice for him. To trace the sinews of his neck with her lips; sniff, snuffle, and lick at him; nibble at his ear.

Of course, things would be nicer still if there were no obtruding buttons or wet and sticky layers of clothing interposed between their bodies. But on the whole, these were very minor inconveniences.

She wriggled a bit and settled her other hand into the little arch at the small of his back. Good. Excellent, in truth. He breathed deeply and let out a ragged chuckle.

“This wasn’t at all how I planned it, though,” he said. “I’d imagined us sipping our Calvados and exchanging compliments…”

The bottle on the dressing table, next to her journal and portable writing desk. She’d utterly forgotten.

As she slipped away to get it, she could hear him rearranging himself in bed. Backing up against the head-board, he’d propped his head against the bolster to watch her.

“Well, I do have some news,” he said.

“Hell.” She was fiddling with the cork.