After a time, he could feel his knees start to protest the weight of his body pressing them into the floor, so he got off his haunches and sat cross-legged.
A reaching hand touched his thigh, putting weight on him. She crawled into his lap.
Oh, thank God.
She was sideways to him, her bottom in the hole created by his crossed legs. He wrapped his arms around her and now he could not only hear but also feel the quiver in her breath. Her hair brushed his face.
“Phoebe—”
“Shhhh.”
He bit his lip.
“Don’t say anything, George.” Her voice was thick with tears. “Nothing.”
Time passed. He had no sense of how long, but he was happy to be here and holding her. Even in the darkness he abhorred, even if she required him to be mute when all he wanted to do was give her words of comfort. He was where he belonged.
He felt her turn slightly toward him, a hand on his cheek. Her fingers ran over his lips, followed by her mouth.
It was a hungry kiss, a needing kiss, a kiss born of desperation. And he kissed her back without reserve, tasting the tears on her lips, feeling the tremble of her chin. She opened her mouth and the kiss became deeper and her hands were on his head, pulling him into her as if she wanted to consume him whole.
And then her lips were on his chin, his cheeks, his jaw. Owning him. Devouring him. Her wet face rubbed against his.
“Phee—”
“Shut up.”
She moved so she was facing him, straddling him, her breasts pushed into his chest, her hands on his head, and she was still kissing him with ferocity. Her pelvis pushed into him, rubbing him, rocking against him.
George’s hands, at first on her waist, moved down to her bottom and he held her against him. Her own hands moved down to his torso and the waistband of his black trousers. She leaned away from him and he could feel her unbutton his fall.
He was hard. Of course, he was.
“Lie back.”
It was not a request. It was a command. A queen’s fiat.
He lay back and straightened his legs. She put her knees on either side of him. He felt her hands between their two bodies. She must have moved her skirts and petticoats away because the next thing he felt was her cleft, her wetness against his cock, and then her hand grasping him and putting him inside her.
She sat down on him, encasing his member completely.
There was a moment of stillness. A groan from her.
He suppressed his own groan. Even as every bit of his being was aching to tell her he loved her, he stayed silent. She had told him to shut up. He would do as she said. She was his queen. If this was what she needed, something wordless and primitive here in the dark, she could have it.
She leaned down over him, he felt her breath on his lips, and then she began rising up and sitting back down, sliding him in and out of her. She was kissing him, her breasts grazing his chest as she took him.
He helped her rise and fall with his hands at the tops of her thighs, just under the cheeks of her bottom. But he was careful to let her control how deeply she took him, how quickly she moved up and down. He was only there to assist. To serve.
She was slow at first, shuddering as she kissed him. But in that close, hot darkness, over time, she began to move at a relentless pace.
She grunted.
He wished he could see her. Her hair must be falling down by now. Yes, strands of it tickled his face as she moved. She was likely flushed and sweating. After all, he was sweating and all he was doing was holding her and lifting her slightly.
Her kissing became disordered. Her body trembled.
“Unhh,” she said.
