“Yes. Oh, yes. Please.”
He put his arm around her hips and found her clitoris from the front. He rubbed it, and her own juices coated his finger now.
“I want this lamp shiny and polished and glistening with oil. I want it aflame. I want it on the verge of combustion.”
“Yes. It is. It is!”
He put his cock at her entrance and thrust into her. Oh, God, it was so good to be inside of her. He bent over her, intent on taking her to her completion with his finger as he thrust.
“You like that.” Thrust. “Wench.” Thrust. “Enchantress.” Thrust.
“Ungh. Yes, yes, yes.”
“And your cunt is,” thrust, “my cunt to take.”
“Ahhhh!”
Not the grunt of a scythe-witch but Susannah’s cry of ecstasy. Her peak was upon her. As always, in that moment, pretense fell away.
“Oh, I . . . Henry . . . love you.”
Her walls clasped him, and her hands skittered over thedesk, knocking papers aside, narrowly missing the encrier and the inkwell.
He took his finger away from her slit and held her hips with both hands as he pulled her onto him and thrust harder, faster. His Susannah liked a bit of roughness, and he was frenzied now, pounding at her brutally, totally consumed by the thought of spending inside her, spilling his seed in her own warm wetness.
He was all devouring need, his ballocks tightening, his spine tingling. He was almost there. He thrust a final time and managed, “I love you, Susannah,” before his back straightened and he released into her.
He stood above her, panting. He might grow old—in fact, he hoped he did—but being with Susannah would never grow old.
“Henry?”
“Yes, love?
“This desk is not valuable, is it?”
“Why?”
“I scratched it.” She ran her fingers over the surface of the desk and the four gouges she had placed with her nails.
The desk was the same age as the house. It had been made for Queen Elizabeth under the commission of Sir Walter Raleigh and willed to Henry’s ancestor upon the queen’s death.
“It’s not at all valuable,” he said.
“Good,” she said, sounding relieved. She came off her toes, and he slid out of her.
She stood, put her hand to her lower back.
“Is your back all right?” His hand covered hers.
“Yes.” She sighed. “I was just worried about the desk.” She turned to face him and put her arms around his neck. “I’m glad I didn’t ruin something precious.”
Shewas the precious thing. And she hadn’t ruined the desk. She couldn’t ruin it.
Henry would not have the scratches filled in or varnished over. He wanted them there, four parallel lines showing ancient raw oak, reminding him of the time his precious enchantress took his wand as he rubbed her lamp.
Years from now, many years from now—many, many, many years from now, Henry thought—Charles would sit at this desk and wonder how the scratches had come to be.
“I was thinking of turning the old thing into firewood anyway,” he said.
