They made love with no urgency, but taking their time was satisfying in its own right. Slow exploration made the places they had been before seem new. There was wonder in the rediscovery of how sensitive Jane was to his lips at the hollow of her throat, and how responsive Morgan was to her fingertips at the nape of his neck.
Their kisses lingered, wet and slow and deep. They tasted at their leisure. Sometimes they teased, but not often. It was more than either one of them wanted to do just then.
When Morgan took her breast into the hot suck of his mouth, Jane lightly held his head in the cup of her palms. The contractions were sweet. She closed her eyes and concentrated on them.
When Jane’s hand made a languorous sweep of his thigh, Morgan held himself very still in anticipation of her palm slipping over that curve and making a nest for him. When it happened, he held his breath. She squeezed.
It meant something that intimacy could also be play. Jane laughed in short, staccato bursts when he learned she was ticklish at the base of her ribs. He kept coming back to the spot because the sound of her laughter was transcendent. Morgan’s laughter was deeper, vibrating in his chest, lodging in his throat, and it overtook him every time she whispered something outrageous in his ear. Her breath was warm, damp, and he did not think she knew half of what she said, but it tickled him that she said it.
“What about here?” he asked, sliding his fingers between her dewy lips.
“Mm.”
He removed his hand. “Good to know.”
She parted her legs a fraction, but his fingers did not return. She accused him of having no mercy. That merely made him grin.
Later, she asked, “Here?” Her fingers were making a trail from his neck to the base of his spine. The twin dimples just above his taut buttocks were her targets. She felt for the impressions, found them, and pressed.
“Mm.”
They agreed that indolent lovemaking did not lend itself to eloquence. It seemed they were too lazy for words.
She straddled him. It seemed fitting since she had learned to ride. Jane liked seeing him from this angle, his eyes filled with her. She drew his hands to her breasts and guided their caress. She lifted her hips and then slowly lowered herself onto his cock until she found her seat.
Neither of them moved. This was also part of the play, and they might have stayed in their still, carnal pose if the absurdity of it had not struck them at the same time. Their simultaneous shouts of laughter changed the tempo of everything.
Jane rocked her pelvis, rising, falling. Morgan stroked her. His fingers pressed the flesh of her bottom. He added his thrust to hers. The rhythm was shared. They heard the same pulse, the same percussive beating, and their bodies responded to the familiar cadence effortlessly.
Jane’s dark, damp hair fell over her shoulders as she arched backward at the moment of orgasm. Morgan’s eyes followed the extension of her slender neck, the thrust of her pink-tipped breasts, the lift of her abdomen, as her breathing grew shallower. He heard her gasp, catch her breath, and then her shudder rolled into him like water spilling over a dam. He clutched her hips as though he needed to hold on. His muscles had reached a state of tension that could not be sustained, and when they released that coiled energy in one long spasm, Morgan thought he might come out of his unbearably tight skin.
For the third time since entering room number six, Jane collapsed on her back on the bed. Naked, although hardly conscious of it, she did not try to cover herself.
“You are exhausting,” she whispered.
“I am too tired to return the compliment.”
Jane was able to raise a small smile. She laid a forearm across her eyes and nudged Morgan’s shoulder with her free hand.
“What?”
“More coals in the stove, please.”
“You could pull up a blanket.”
“I do not think that is a good idea. Not when you find my modesty fetching. I don’t think I could be fetched right now.”
Morgan gave her a sideways look, but since she couldn’t see him, his suspicious peek was lost on her. Grunting softly, he rolled out of bed and padded to the cast-iron stove. He added coals to the belly of the stove and then went to the bathing room to wash up. When he returned, Jane was lying on her side, her head propped up on an elbow. She had a sheet draped over one shoulder and across her torso. One of her long legs was exposed from thigh to toe. Modestly covered, she looked like a goddess.
Careful not to disturb the arrangement of Jane’s sheet, Morgan climbed into bed and drew the blankets on his side up to his chest. He had just settled comfortably into the mattress when Jane touched him on the corner of his mouth with her fingertip. Since it was the corner with the crescent moon scar, he knew what she was finally going to ask.
“Fishing,” he said.
“Fishing? I’m not—” She smiled and lightly tapped the scar with her fingernail. “I see. You were answering the question I hadn’t asked. How very prescient.”
“Prescient. There’s one I haven’t heard before.”
“It means?—”
