Louisa’s heart picked up, but she trusted Fletcher and knew he’d stop the moment she told him to. She felt something blunt at the entrance to her body and understood what was happening. She grasped at Fletcher’s shoulders and held him there as he began to push inside her. It did hurt a little, but she was determined, and the pain was short-lived. Suddenly, whatever Fletcher was doing felt so good, Louisa groaned and dug her fingers into Fletcher’s shoulders.
Fletcher groaned, too, and his face was beginning to lose its control. He put a hand under one of her knees and pressed it up and then began to move within her.
“Oh!” she said.
“Are you all right?”
“It… I’ve never felt anything like this.”
Fletcher paused. “Is that good or bad?”
“It’s good! It’s good. Keep moving!”
Fletcher sighed and began thrusting in and out of her, and Louisa felt something within her building. Parts of her body ached, but in a very good way. And when Fletcher pressed his thumb againstthat spot, right above the entrance to her body, her whole body jolted with pleasure.Yes, she thought,more of that, but she couldn’t make her mouth form the words becauseshe was so absorbed infeelingand taking whatever Fletcher wanted to give her.
He groaned again. “How are you—?” he started to ask.
If he finished the sentence, she didn’t hear him, because something crashed over her whole body. She threw her head back and groaned and let this sensation wash over her.
She knew it was a sexual peak--she’d made herself get there before, but it felt so much better with Fletcher’s arms around her, with him inside her.
Fletcher kissed her and kept pumping his hips, but his rhythm became more erratic.
“I wanted to last,” he said, “but…” Then he groaned and jerked away from her abruptly. Then she felt him spill on her belly.
He rolled onto his back, panting. He breathed heavily for a long moment, as Louisa felt her own heart rate slow down. “Was that all right?” he asked.
“It was more than all right.”
After a moment, he slid out of bed and walked across the room to his washbasin. Louisa took a moment to admire his bare backside. He really was a splendidly put together man.
He came back a moment later and used a cloth to clean up her belly and between her legs. He sighed and said, “This is all so new, this thing between us. We’ve never talked about children. I don’t even know if you want them.”
“Is that why you…?” She gestured at her belly.
“Yes. That, and we’re not married yet, and I didn’t want anyone to do the maths.”
She rolled onto her side and took his free hand. He stood next to the bed, and she gave him a very thorough once over. “We’d make very cute children,” she said.
He laughed. “I suppose.”
“Well, let me answer your question this way. I felt ambivalent with…my former fiancé,” she said, not wanting to say Daniel’s name when she was naked with Fletcher. “But with you? Yes, I want children. I want to watch them grow up and be little terrors at your estate in Cornwall where they’ll catch frogs and hide salamanders under teacups the way you did one time.”
“I was ten years old,” Fletcher said, but he laughed.
“But yes, I want that, Fletcher. I want that future with you.”
He tossed the cloth vaguely in the direction of his washbasin, missed by a couple of feet, waved his hand as if this were of no matter, and then lay down beside her, on his side, facing her. He said, “I want that, too.” He pressed his head against hers. “We were unholy terrors as children, weren’t we?”
“I think we were…normal children.”
“Our children willdefinitelybe unholy terrors.”
“Probably.”
Fletcher laughed. “Then I look forward to having them with you.”
She smiled and ran a hand through his hair. “Was this strange to you? Being with me like this?”
