What she had told him had not been an utter boast.
She /did /know how to please a man.
And he had not boasted at all, of course.
She wanted it to last forever, this sensual delight that was beyond anything she could possibly have imagined. But of course it did not. And finally she was glad it did not. She would, she felt, have gone out of her mind if there had not been a sudden convulsive clenching of her muscles that refused to unclench themselves until something - it was impossible to give it a name - came flowing softly but inexorably up from deep inside where the muscles were and burst through them and through /her /until she was trembling with wonder and then limp with a satiety that also defied words.
He had fallen still, she realized.
But then his hands were beneath her again, and he was pumping into her hard and fast until he stopped abruptly again, deep inside her, and she felt a flow of heat at her core.
She wrapped her arms about him. He was hot and sweaty.
So was she.
How strangely enticing the smell of sweat could be.
She felt suddenly cold when he disengaged from her and moved off her to lie beside her. She shivered, and he reached down and pulled the covers up over them. His one arm came beneath her neck while the other lay heavy across her. And she was warm again.
And sleepy.
And then asleep.
And so it was done.
He was married before the age of thirty, just as his grandfather had expected and he had planned. For convenience he had married one of the Huxtable sisters. Now the other two could make their debut into society and he would feel no further responsibility for them.
He was married, his marriage had been consummated, and soon, it was to be hoped, his wife would be with child. And if he was fortunate, that child would be a boy, and another duty would be done. /Duty! /It was something that had weighed him down for more than a year now. How he longed sometimes to have his old carefree life back. But it could not be done, and now he had fulfilled his most pressing obligations to his family and his position.
Elliott lay awake for a long time.
Even tonight she had wanted to quarrel with him, staking her claim to be his equal. If she must please him because she was his wife and bedfellow, then /he /must please /her /for the complementary reasons.
She had not been educated in the ways of polite society, of course. If she had, she would have effaced herself and accepted the inequalities in silence and with dignity. /The master has spoken. It is to be hoped that you know how to please me since you are my husband and my bedfellow for life./ His lips twitched despite himself.
Vanessa stirred in his arms, muttered something, and burrowed closer.
Strangely, she /had /pleased him.
He was not at all sure why. She had about as unvoluptuous a body as he had ever beheld unclothed or had beneath him on a bed. And she had displayed no really extraordinary skills.
Perhaps it was simply the attraction of novelty.
The novelty of having such a lover would, of course, wear thin very soon. And then? Well, then he would settle into the rest of his life. It was not a bright prospect, though he supposed one must always hope. That was what she had said of her sister, was it not? Something to the effect that hope for the return of the absent military officer was all that gave meaning to Miss Huxtable's life?
Hope.
It was a thin chance for happiness. "Mmm," she said on a long sigh. Her nose was buried against his chest.
Novelty might as well be enjoyed while it /was /novelty.
He lifted her chin with one hand and kissed her openmouthed.
She tasted of sleep. She smelled of woman and sex. She was warm and relaxed, only half awake.
He turned her onto her back, covered her with his body, spread her legs wide with his own, and buried himself deep in her.
She was hot and wet. "Mmm," she said again, and her legs came up to twine about his while she tilted her hips to give him deeper access. "Again?" She sounded sleepy and surprised, and he half smiled in the darkness. "Yes, /again,/" he said against her ear. "What are wedding nights for?" She laughed softly. Just a few days ago, when she was still in London with his mother, he had remembered her laugh as something irritating.
Tonight it was not. It was a low, merry sound of genuine amusement.
It was sexy.
He moved in her with deep, rhythmic strokes, prolonging the encounter for as long as he could, listening to the wet, sucking sounds of their coupling, feeling her smooth, wet heat about the near-pain of his erection, knowing the relief of having a woman again after a long dearth.
She clung to him with her legs, spread her hands over his buttocks, and held herself open and relaxed. She made no other moves of her own. It was clever - or innocent. It gave him more time to savor the satisfaction of sex.
But after several long minutes, he became aware that she was no longer passive. Her inner muscles had tensed, and her hands were straining against his buttocks as if to hold him deep and prevent his withdrawal.
He quickened and deepened his strokes until he felt her sudden shudder of release a few moments before his own came.
He must remind her, he thought just before falling asleep, that he had fulfilled his part of the bargain. He had pleased her.
He woke an indeterminate time later, still on top of her, still inside her. He disengaged and moved to her side. "I beg your pardon," he said. "I must weigh a ton." "Only /half /a ton, I believe," she said. "You do not need to apologize.
Don't ever apologize." "Never?" he said. "Not for any reason?" She sighed sleepily. "I will have to think about that one," she said. "Perhaps we could arrange our lives so that we never do anything that calls for an apology." He found himself half smiling again in the darkness - the candle appeared to have burned itself out. "A happily-ever-after?" he said. "Do you really believe in such a thing?" "No," she said after giving the question some thought. "And I am not sure I would want it even if it were possible. What else would there be to hope for in life? What else would there be to work toward? I would prefer happiness to a happily-ever-after." "What /is /happiness?" he asked her. "A moment of joy," she said without hesitation. "Only a moment? It sounds not worth working for, then," he said. "Oh, there you are wrong," she told him. "The whole of life is a single moment. There is nothing else /but /this moment, is there? Always this moment." In his experience moments passed and were gone forever. "The whole of life is joy, then?" he said. "It is /all /happiness?" She could not possibly be /that /naive. "No, of course not," she said. "But one moment of happiness can make the whole of life worth living - like leavening in bread. It can show what life can be and is meant to be. It can give one hope in the dark times.
It can give one faith in life and the future. Have you /never /been happy, Elliott?" He felt a huge nostalgia suddenly for the way life had used to be - a long, long time ago. A lifetime ago. "I was happy enough a few minutes ago," he said. "You think you are being flippant," she said. "You expect me to scold you for thinking that s - " She drew a breath and rushed onward. "For thinking that /sex /can bring happiness. But it can. Sex celebrates life and togetherness and love." "I thought," he said, "you did not love me." That silenced her for a while. "But I was not the one who said I was happy a few minutes ago," she said. "/I /was celebrating love, then?" he asked her. "Oh, you foolish man," she said. "Of course you were. There are many kinds of love. You are not in love with me. You do not even love me. But you love… this night." "Our wedding night," he said. "Sex." "Yes." "Sex is love?" "You want to provoke a quarrel with me," she said, and she lifted herself onto her elbow so that she could prop her head on her hand and look down at him. "Admit it." /Did /he? Perhaps she was right. Perhaps he was trying to set this night into perspective. He had married a woman today whom he barely knew, who frequently irritated him, who was not even attractive. He had bedded her tonight because it was their wedding night, and he had enjoyed the sex because he had been without a woman since before Christmas.