And Then He Kissed Her

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  “It’s more than silly. It’s harmful. Ignorance of this can destroy people.” He thought of Consuelo, remembering well her shock, her horror, her revulsion. He’d never forget that night. How could he? She’d lashed him with it often enough afterward.

  “Harry, what’s wrong?”

  He shoved his former wife out of his mind. “Nothing. I just think people ought to be told these things, not stupid stories of cabbage leaves and storks and God only knows what else. It would save everyone a lot of grief if people were just told the truth.”

  “I agree with you.”

  That unexpected pronouncement had him looking at her. “You do?”

  “Yes. I’d like to think Auntie would have told me before my wedding night if I had ever married,” she said slowly. “But I’m not sure she would have, even then.”

  “I’m not sure of it, either. My wife’s mother never told her. It made things very unpleasant for both of us.” Abruptly, he rolled his legs off the bed and stood up. He crossed the bedroom and went into his dressing room. He wrapped the condom in paper and disposed of it in the wastepaper basket, then he poured water from the pitcher into the basin and washed his hands. He took up a fresh rag, wet it, rung it out, and took it into the bedroom.

  Emma was still sitting up, her arms now wrapped around her knees. She looked at him as he came back to the side of the bed. He touched her, running a hand up and down her shin. “Lie back,” he instructed her, “and stretch your legs out.”

  She complied, weight resting on her elbows. He nudged her thighs apart. There wasn’t much blood, just a smear on each thigh, but enough to remind them both of the enormity of what had happened. He wiped the blood away, and as he did, he had to ask. “Did it hurt?”

  “A little.”

  “I’m sorry about that.” He paused and glanced up from his task. “It won’t hurt again, Emma,” and he could hear the fierceness in his own voice. He tempered it. “If any of this ever hurts, you have to tell me straightaway. I wouldn’t hurt you for anything.”

  “Of course you wouldn’t, Harry.”

  Her conviction was rather shattering, especially in light of the fact that he had just done that very thing. Harry leaned down and pressed a kiss to her stomach, then straightened and took the rag to the dressing room.

  When he returned, she glanced at his groin as he approached the bed, then she looked up into his face. “I’ve seen statues of men in museums,” she said, “and I remember one very clearly. The fig leaf had been placed over the…the—” She broke off, waving a hand vaguely toward his anatomy.

  “Penis,” he supplied the required word as he stretched out beside her.

  “Yes, thank you. The fig leaf had been placed over it, as I said, but they hadn’t done a very good job, because from the side, I could actually see a portion of what was beneath, and I was terribly curious. Wondering what it was, knowing that if it was hidden, it had to be interesting, I tried to get a better look.”

  “And?”

  “My aunt caught me,” she told him, sounding quite put out. She swerved her head, her indignant gaze meeting Harry’s amused one. “She bustled me away and I never got a really good look.”

  He grinned, clasping his hands behind his head. “Look your fill.”

  Emma rose up on her knees, swung her hair back over her shoulders, then she sat back on her heels, studying his naked body with a thoughtful face, seeming fascinated. She tilted her head this way and that, as if his cock were some sort of mystery to be figured out.

  Striving for a straight face, he said, “It’s not that complicated a device, Emma.”

  She reached out her hand, then drew back.

  “Go ahead,” he invited, and the moment she touched him, his desire began to stir. He closed his eyes, savoring it as she ran her fingers over him, her touch light and exploring. His penis began to stiffen, and she felt it, for she immediately started to withdraw her hand. He prevented her, wrapping her hand around his shaft, guiding her in how to caress him. “Don’t stop.”

  He opened his eyes and watched her face as his penis hardened in her grasp; he saw her eyes widen.

  “Seeing that statue when I was a girl, I never realized…” She drew her hand back and stared at his erection in amazement. “I never dreamt it stands up like that.”

  He gave a shout of laughter. “It salutes, too,” he told her.

  She nudged his hip playfully with her knee. “Oh, it does not!” Then she bit her lip and met his gaze, looking doubtful. “Does it?”

  He laughed again. He couldn’t help it, she was the sweetest thing. He pulled another condom out of the packet on the floor, then rolled to his side and turned her around, positioning her on her side as well, with his arm beneath her and her back against his chest. Keeping the condom in his hand, he eased his penis between her thighs without entering her and began moving his hips, sliding back and forth along her opening to make her ready for him. He kissed her ear and the side of her neck, which he knew she liked, and caressed her breast with his free hand. By the time he slid his hand down over her belly and between her thighs, her breathing was quick and shallow and her feminine opening was lusciously wet. He spread her moisture over her in light, slow circles, then he deepened the touch, stroking her back and forth with the tip of his finger as he slid the condom between their bodies with his other hand and sheathed himself.

  He eased the head of his penis into her from behind, then pulled back. He repeated the move several times as he caressed her in front, teasing and tormenting them both until she was uttering a frantic moan with each breath and her hips were moving in quick jerks that told him she was close to orgasm. So very close.

  He entered her fully then, pushing deep. At the same time, he touched her clitoris, and she came immediately, crying out his name, her body clenching around his cock in tight, quick convulsions that brought his climax as well.

  Afterward, he felt lethargy overtaking him, and he wanted to fall asleep just like this, with himself inside her. But he could not give in to that desire, for they didn’t have much time. He stirred and pulled free of her. Pressing a kiss to her cheek, he said, “Emma, we have to get up. I have to get you home before first light.”

  She nodded, and when he rose from the bed, so did she. They dressed in silence, but he knew there were things to be discussed before he deposited her at her door. It took him less time to dress than it did her, and while she finished, he went in search of his valet.

  Cummings, being an experienced gentleman’s gentleman as well as a man of tact and discretion, had appreciated his master’s need for privacy this evening. He had foregone his usual sleeping space in the dressing room and gone belowstairs to sleep in one of the empty servant bedrooms. Harry went in search of him, and when he found the valet, he woke him, ordering him to locate a hansom cab.

  Emma was dressed by the time Harry returned to his room. When he entered, she was sitting on the edge of the bed. She rose when he came in. “Is it time?”

  “Almost.”

  He fetched one of his mackintoshes from his dressing room. “It’s still raining,” he explained, holding up the heavy oilskin garment.

  “Are we taking your carriage back?”

  “My valet’s getting a hansom for us. I thought that would be better. I don’t want anyone in your street to see the insignia on my carriage.”

  “Not a likely occurrence at this hour. It’s three o’clock in the morning.”

  “I don’t want to take the chance. I’m much more worried about how to get you back up into your flat without anyone knowing.”

  “There’s no need—”

  “Your front doors are locked, aren’t they?”

  “Yes. Mrs. Morris locks up at eleven o’clock, front and back, unless one of the tenants will be coming in late, from the theater or a revue. In that case, she leaves the door unlatched and has her maid wait up to lock it after the last person has come in. But—”

  “You didn’t do that before you came her
e, I suppose? Invent some excuse to be out late?”

  “No, but Harry—”

  “Well, there you are. We shall have to figure out a reason why you’re caught out at this hour. Girl-bachelors might be allowed to walk with unmarried gentlemen on a public street at three o’clock in the afternoon, but somehow I don’t think it would be considered acceptable for them to be out with said gentlemen at three o’clock in the morning.”

  “That is not a problem, as I’ve been taking pains to try and tell you, if you would just listen. I left my window unlocked. The French window, mind,” she went on as he continued to look at her uncomprehendingly. “The window that leads onto the fire escape. Heavens,” she added, shaking her head as she looked at him, “it’s a good thing I’m a sensible person and able to think of these things, or we should be in dire difficulties indeed.”

  She pulled the oilskin from his hands and began to unfold it. “I believe I’m going to be rather good at this illicit love affair business, Harry. Don’t you agree?”

  Harry made all the arrangements. He found a cottage for them in Kent, a place only two hours from London by train, but one where she assured him she was not known. To keep away any village gossip they were to be known as Mr. and Mrs. Williams, a couple who highly valued their privacy.

  They would journey there on Fridays and return on Mondays, he had explained during their most recent meeting at his office, a whispered conversation his secretary couldn’t overhear through the respectably open door, their secret plans fitted between his comments on her writings and her outlines of future Mrs. Bartleby articles. They would come by separate trains, he’d whispered, and would leave the same way. He’d have the cottage provisioned prior to their arrival, and cleaned during the week while they were in London. No servants would stay with them, but he assumed from all her wonderful recipes that the great Mrs. Bartleby knew how to cook? If not, he could always toast them bread and cheese over a fire.

  By the time all these clandestine arrangements were made, two weeks had passed. During that fortnight, Emma discovered a new delight: anticipation. By the time her train reached the small village of Cricket Somersby, she was in a state of such giddy excitement, she could hardly contain it.

  He was there on the platform waiting for her, and the moment she saw his smile, Emma’s heart gave a leap. She wanted to run to him right then, but even now, away from everyone they knew, they could not be so free. He took her portmanteau, and she followed him to a waiting carriage, where he gave her bag to the driver and assisted her into the vehicle. Once both of them were seated, the driver climbed up onto the box, and they were off.

  Their cottage was a two-story, stone affair with a thatched roof, fat dormers, and a front door of bright red. It was surrounded by woodland, with a brook and pond nearby. There was a kitchen garden at the back, Harry told her as he carried her portmanteau inside, and it was comfortably furnished.

  Emma paused in the small foyer, but she only had time to note that to her left was a parlor and to her right a dining room before she heard her bag hit the wooden floor with a thud. She turned around and looked at him as he shut the door, and her breath caught at the purposeful expression on his face. When Harry caught her up in his arms, bent her back, and kissed her, Emma pressed a hand to the top of her head to keep her straw boater in place and hoped those comfortable furnishings included a bed.

  There was a bed, a big one, with an old-fashioned oak headboard. It had a thick, horse hair mattress with a chain-spring one beneath it, and it had been provisioned with sweet-smelling linens and pillows. Mrs. Bartleby, she assured Harry, would approve of such a bed, though not, she added somewhat ruefully, what went on in it.

  That particular fact, however, was one she and Harry did not discuss further, and one upon which Emma did not dwell. Because of what Mrs. Morris had overheard that evening in the parlor, the landlady knew Emma was not Mrs. Bartleby’s secretary, but was instead the famous author herself. Mrs. Morris also knew there had been no proposal of marriage in the offing for dear Lydia’s niece. Though delighted by Emma’s celebrity and pledged to keep that fact a secret, Emma felt sure the other woman suspected the real reason for her weekend trips to do “research.” But to her great relief, Mrs. Morris asked no questions and gave no lectures, and Emma tried not to care about the expression of concern on the older woman’s face whenever they chanced to meet in the corridors of the lodging house.

  She had no regrets about the choice she had made, and little time for worry. There were plenty of other things to occupy her attention when she was with Harry and plenty to savor when they were apart. During the next four weeks, every moment with him at their cottage was filled with fascinating discoveries and joyous adventures.

  She loved watching him shave. It confounded him, but observing him as he performed this daily ritual never ceased to fascinate her. “It’s so…well, manly,” she tried to explain, earning herself a shout of laughter for her trouble.

  “I should hope so,” he’d said severely, when he’d stopped laughing. “Shoot me with a pistol the day I do something girlish.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “So am I,” he said with emphasis as he set aside the razor and picked up a towel.

  “Watching you shave is…” She paused, leaning against the wall next to the washstand, studying him as he wiped away shaving soap. She ran her gaze over his bare torso, the powerful muscles of his arms and shoulders, trying to find the right word. “Arousing. It arouses me.”

  “It does?” He stopped and looked up from the mirror to meet her gaze, a hot, hungry look in his blue eyes with which she was becoming very familiar. She loved that look. They almost always made love after he shaved.

  He taught her to fish, and she loved that, too—loved standing in the shallow brook in her bare feet with her skirt tucked up around her knees and feeling the excitement of patience rewarded when she flipped the evening’s dinner onto the grassy bank. Harry studied her bare legs in the water and declared fishing to be his second favorite pastime. She already appreciated full well what the first one was.

  He told her things no one had ever dared tell her before, such as the reason for her monthly and what certain intimate parts of the human body were actually called—hers and his. She learned how to spit—a disgusting habit—and how to make a decent bowline knot, and how caressing the underside of his penis just beneath the head drove him absolutely wild.

  He introduced her to pleasures she’d never dreamed people did together: the cool delight of making love outside in the grass at night, the tender pleasure of letting him brush out her hair, the sweet intimacy of standing side by side at the washstand with toothbrushes and powder, the cooperation of cooking eggs and bacon in their tiny kitchen, the lovely relaxation of lying in a hammock together for an afternoon nap.

  The hot days of August went by. They took long walks, exploring the countryside, and sometimes they encountered another couple who also seemed to enjoy walking. Though both of them looked at least seventy years of age, whenever Harry and Emma encountered them, they were always holding hands like sweethearts.

  Harry took her punting on the stream. Emma couldn’t swim, but he took her in the boat despite her misgivings, assuring her the water wasn’t over her head, and vowing that one day he’d teach her to swim. She vowed that would never happen, and they argued about it. Her opinions mattered to him, and they argued passionately over other things, too. Things like politics, and manners, and the value of matrimony in society, and whether Blake was a better poet than Tennyson. He made her laugh at least a dozen times a day, and she discovered she could make him laugh, too, especially when she wasn’t trying. But she didn’t mind that. She liked the sound of his laugh.

  He taught her to play poker, and Emma made another discovery about herself that amazed her: she liked gambling. Although, as she told Harry, she couldn’t ever wager for real money, a statement which earned her another accusation of being miserly. But using matches as a substitute, one m
atch being equal to one guinea, was exciting enough for her, because it was the challenge of competing against him that she liked. Adding to her excitement was that she had an incredible amount of beginner’s luck.

  “I’ve nothing left to wager,” he told her when she raised him another ten matches and she’d already taken all his others.

  “That’s a shame.” Emma grinned at him across the card table in the parlor, giving the lie to her words. “You have to fold, then, I imagine.”

  “Not necessarily, Emma.” He paused. “There are things to wager other than money.”

  Something in his voice made her start tingling all over. She glanced at her four kings, then met his eyes across the table, hers wide with deliberate innocence. “Do you have something I want?”

  “Heaps of things. The question is, which one do you want the most?”

  Her heart began to race with excitement, but she didn’t show it. Instead, she tried to be very blasé. “Hmm, I seem to remember you said that one day you’d kiss your way up the backs of my legs and over my bottom.”

  “So I did. Is that what you want?”

  “More than that, Harry. I want you to kiss me all over.” She smiled. “For an hour.”

  “An hour?” He groaned. “I’ll never be able to hold out that long.”

  “An hour, Harry. All over. Just kissing.”

  “Can I touch you all over, too?”

  She tilted her head, pretending to think it over. “Yes, I’ll allow that. But nothing else for an hour.”

  “All right, all right, if you’re going to be stubborn about it.” He laid down his two pair.

  Emma got a full hour of the most blissful kissing and caressing she’d had yet, and though he grumbled that such a long prelude was pure torture for a man, they never wagered over matches again. Best of all, she realized, was the most valuable thing she’d learned in her first month of their affair: How to admit to herself what she wanted. And how to ask for it.

  Chapter 20