Someone was knocking on the door. Graham lazily turned his head to face mine; he was resting on my chest. His arms were wrapped around my shoulders, and mine were draped over his. I looked down at his face. His eyes were closed but from his darkened skin, and rough day-old stubble I knew they would not be the young bright green they had been years before. They would be just as vast, and just as warm to me, of that I was sure.
Again, ever so slightly, he stirred and rustled the fabric of my gown. My gown that had hastily been discarded and tossed to the floor on a pool of fine lace and silk. His coat, waistcoat, shirt, and trousers had also been removed and thrown aside. We were tangled in and on top of it, and each other.
The knock came again, loud on the dark oak door that was across the study from where we were laying. The door was locked, I knew, and far across the mansion from the on goings in the ballroom.
I ran my fingers through his hair, "Graham," He moaned against my chest and shifted so his face was next to mine.
"Graham," I turned to face him, his eyes were still closed but when I said his name a faint grin flashed across his face. "Graham, there's someone at the door."
"They'll not come in, lass, 'tis only us in here."
When I walked into the mansion with my husband the room was full of everyone we knew. He talked politics after and obligatory dance with me. But while I was on his arm, stepping to the side of the room, I saw a face that I had not seen in five years. However, it was one that I would recognize anywhere.
Graham stood, tall and stoic in his deep blue uniform. He looked older, the kind of older that doesn't come with only years. It made me wonder if I had also aged, and how. His dark hair was pulled back at the nap of his neck. His face was tanned and sharpened. He no longer had the wandering look about him from years before, instead his hands were steadily clasped behind his back and he was looking straight forward. He was looking at me. I felt my heart catch at something from inside my bodice as I met his gaze. I wasn't able to keep my chest from rising and my head from beginning to spin. But from him, as always, there was perfect calm. Until I saw half of a smile creep up from the corner of his mouth. And once again, just as they had years ago, his eyes fell on me like with a fierceness that could have reduced me to nothing in an instant.
So I turned, and I walked away.
He was displeased and I could tell. Even from across the room. He made conversation with other gentlemen, and paid compliments to other ladies who ventured near him to compliment his uniform. Or so they feigned.
The orchestra began again and nearly all everyone returned to the dance floor. Except for me. Except for Graham. He turned away from the dancing and walked with purpose down an adjoining hallway. I skirted the edge of the room and followed, though I half hated myself for it.
I opened the heavy oak doors and stepped into the study. The music could no longer be heard from the opposite wing of the house. There was not a single noise except my gown brushing the floor as I leaned back on the door and the turning of the lock that sounded around the room. I stayed leaning on the door and looked across the room to where he was standing. For the first time all evening he was not standing in a manner that matched his impeccable uniform. Now he was as I remembered, leaning languidly on the desk. Legs crossed at the ankles. And though I couldn't see his face, the moonlight from the grand window behind the desk shadowed it, I knew the look he surely had. The same look he had when I had followed him for the first time, and one I would not easily forget.
"Ye look a sight for sore eyes, lass" He didn't move, nor did I, except for the flutter that came somewhere under my left ribs. It made me breath heavy all over again.
A million things that I wanted to say bounced around my head, things that I had thought every day for five years. I didn't know where to begin. All that I could think was that he was not dead. He had come home, he was standing here, in front of me, a rooms length away.
"Graham," was all that came out.
I heard him sigh and he shifted, "I haven't been called Graham in a very long time."
"You're and officer now,"
"Aye, a lieutenant." I felt his eyes on me. He had to know that I was all nerves. "And you, are even more of a lady than when I left ye."
I stood up, now away from the door. I felt suddenly aware of myself, standing there, stuffed inside my fine gown. Perfectly pinned and painted to be beautiful. To be a flower. I was also aware that he saw straight through it, down to my skin and my bones and my heart.
He stood, and took as many steps as to shorten the distance between us by half. "Will you not come to me?"
I didn't make a move. He took a handful of steps closer with his incredibly long legs. He stood close enough for me to reach out and touch. Something that I never would have guessed I would be capable of doing again.
"I cannot stand it, Charlotte, I need you."
And I stepped forward; I closed the gap between us and exhaled in a futile attempt to release the pressure in my head, and in my chest. It did not help, for I then inhaled him and nearly crumpled at his feet. My chest was so close to his that I could almost feel him.
And then his hand was on my neck, completely closing the gap between us. He ran his fingertips along my skin and slowly tilted my face up toward his. Half of his face was lit by the moonlight, as I assumed mine was to him. I could now see the stubble that ran along his perfectly sharp jawline and faint lines that creased his eyes. But those eyes, green and blue and full of color and adoration for me, I looked at them and felt a pinprick behind my own eyes.
"Lass," he brought his other hand to my face, and surely but gently, ran his thumbs over my cheeks. He drew my face near his and looked over every inch of it. Then, slowly, his fingers traced down my jaw, down my neck, and wrapped themselves in loose tendrils of my hair.
I lifted my hands and felt the wool of his jacket that fit over his shoulders and chest perfectly. I felt the soft fabric of his shirt and I felt the warmth of his skin underneath it. Then his hands were on mine and he brought them up to his lips and laid a kiss on each. A small sentiment, but when I looked back at the course of the night, at what we shared, what I gave him and he gave me, those two soft kisses are the sharpest in my mind.
He looked down at me, "Could it be possible these still are mine?"
And I looked up at him, "They never stopped being yours, I never did."
He dropped his chin and his lips met mine, and I felt myself fall to pieces from the inside out. Luckily, his hands found my ribs and held me together, and I held fast to the lapel of his jacket.
He kissed me firmly, and I pressed back. It was as if we couldn't get enough, I wanted to take in as much of him as I could. And when his hands found their way to my back and to my hips I was lost in him, and after his murmur of "bloody, Christ" I knew I had him lost in me.
He pulled away, quickly, and I was sure it was a sign that he did not want to be entangled with me any longer. I expected him to step toward the door, reenter the festivities of the evening and leave me standing alone, with that same feeling of empty pain that he left me with on that pier years before. But he stepped in the opposite direction, toward the inside of the study, and held out his worn hand to me.
And with a sharp breath, I took it.
He led me to the desk at a pace that matched his excitement and vigor of years past, not the cold, unrelenting sturdiness of a navy officer. I turned before the desk, still holding his hand, and faced him. I saw his chest rise and fall as he looked over me, landing at my eyes. He opened his mouth as if to speak, and after a moment of nothing I put my hand to his cheek, and pulled him down toward me.
His lips were hot on mine, so were his hands as they firmly grasped my shoulders and pulled me closer to him. He let his fingertips slide over my chest and my breasts as they begged to be loosened from my bodice. I could feel the heat rising in my body and spilling over my hips and down my thighs, ending in a tingling sensation at my toes. I wanted him, more than anything, more than I did five years ago. I made sure he knew it in my feverish kisses. And he did, he dropped his hands to my backside and as if I weighted no more than wet leaf placed me on the desk. I tipped my head back, opening my neck and chest for anything of his choosing. With a flash of his rakish smile he began placing kisses down my jawline and my neck. I turned so I could reach his ear. Just as I remembered, my suckling at his ear lobe, and caressing with my tongue quickly sent a tremble down his back and his hands became ever more desperate for my skin.
He used his muscular legs and parted my knees so he could step between them and get even closer to me, and again, with a deep breath I pushed my chest closer to his. He reached down and began pulling my skirts up and over my knees, offering even more skin to use at his leisure. And he did. He lifted my leg, to his side so he could easily run his hands over the length of my thigh above my stockings.
I whimpered, nearly inaudibly, into his neck and we both adopted heavy breathing, undoubtedly due to the hardness I was now feeling from beneath his trousers. I tilted my head back, again, and steadied my self on with my arms back on the desk, this time to keep from losing my breath entirely.
"Damn, woman, must you wear such extensive garments?" He growled into my chest as he attempted to pull my skirts away form my body and expose my legs, in full. I heard a slight tear and they were pushed toward the floor and cast aside, behind our feet.
I looked down at my bare thighs at his sides, and his hands firmly placed on my hips. He, too, looked down at me, completely naked from the waist down apart from the transparent shift now gathered at my hips. I pulled him down to me and began to work toward removing garments of his. I fumbled with the buttons until his jacket found the floor along side my skirts. Followed quickly by his vest. Reveling in the freedom from his uniform he smiled down at me and I felt his hand creep toward the source of the warmth taking over my body. I put my hands at his sides, pulled his hips closer between my legs and let him.
