The Convergence

She wore a plain, square-necked gown in dove-grey silk from his mother's wardrobe. I didn't fit perfectly and was hardly the fashion of ladies in town, but it suited her well. The colour contrasted with her hair - which he was amused to see looked more than a little dishevelled from the spring winds outside. Several strands had escaped the plaited mass atop her head and fallen to graze her cheeks and neck.

She seemed to belong here already. Sat on the edge of the bed, she stretched her bare feet out in front of her, at ease. She adapts to his world well, Dunstan thought, but I suppose she is used to being a chameleon.

He lingered in the doorway of her room, one foot still in the bathroom that adjoined the two bedchambers, unsure of how to follow up their last exchange.

Simply sharing the room with her coloured the air with a thrum of tempatation. Sebastian's words rang in his ears. 'Are you certain you know how to handle yourself?' they chided. Of course, Seb knew all too well that Dunstan did not, in fact, know how to handle himself when it came to desire. Guilt prickled at him. He rubbed at the back of his neck as if to erase the emotion. He tried to put it out of mind, as he had since their conversation in London.

"If you're going to come in, come in," she called across to him. Dunstan stepped fully into the blue-drenched room, dimly aware of how stiffly he was moving. The afternoon sun was casting a beam onto the bed where she sat soaking in the warmth like a cat. The light caught her red-blonde hair in flame.

"I wondered how long it would take you to make use of that door," she remarked cooly, gesturing at the threshold he had just stepped through.

"Miss Baker, I must reiterate my intent to-

"To treat me as an honoured guest, yes, yes, thank you. You made that intention clear enough this morning. Need I reiterate mine, or will you stalk off again?" She fixed him with a challenging stare. "I had hoped that when you finally knocked it would be with a more interesting intent than that. If that is all, you may take your leave, Mr. Whitling."

He did not move. She is more hurt than I knew. He felt another twinge of guilt. It was wrong of him to admonish her, he knew, and worse still to abandon her in the garden. I am not a delicate woman, said a voice in his ear. He had wanted to take her then, there in the corridor of Sebastian's house, he had wanted to take her by the lake and the entire restless journey back from London.

"Your being a guest in my home includes my own appropriate conduct," he protested. The words sounded feeble as they hung in the air. She narrowed her eyes in response.

"What was it you said before? 'Fuck appropriate.' I hardly believe the man who said that is now suddenly a gentleman."

The reminder of his past behaviour tugged at him, whispering memories of her skin against his. His pulse quickened. The room suddenly felt too small, too blue, too full of her presence. A sticky heat clung to him as he found his eyes drawn yet again to her lips and the soft curve of breast atop the neckline of her dress. Hypocrite. Coward. He could not deny that he wanted her as much as he did then.

"That was -- that was a lapse of judgement," he found himself saying. Even as the words left his lips, he cursed them for their falsity. Liar.

"As I said, you may take your leave, Mr. Whitling."

Something crumpled within him at the finality of her tone. He could tell that, despite the desire she had confessed to him, the window of her interest was closing. She was unwilling to put up with the indignity of rejection and soon, he would only ever be 'Mr Whitling' to her. The thought of it cracked through his chest, sending a wash of longing into his very fingertips.

Without knowing what he intended to do until it was already done, he strode across the room to where she sat and knelt over her, drawing her face to his with both hands. His heart pounded in his ears in response to the soft warmth of her skin, their breath on each other's cheeks.

Led by nothing but feverish yearning, he traced the contours of her face with shaking thumbs. Her lips, mere centimetres from his, were parted in surprise at his sudden approach, but her dark doe eyes glittered with a mutual desire.

Breathlessly, he pleaded, "Dunstan, call me Dunstan."

"Dunstan, I-"

Her breath caught as he pressed his lips to hers. Her voice rang in his mind, the sound of his name feeling entirely new to him from her mouth. He remembered their previous kisses; how harsh they had been. He wanted to kiss her properly now. Tenderly. Slowly. As a brand-new man. He wished he could return with her name, but all he had was the facade she had provided him.

A cold doubt washed over him. He pulled out of the kiss and groaned in frustration. Why on earth was he allowing himself to do this? He scrunched his eyes closed and pressed his forehead against hers, allowing the pain to hold him, just for a moment. "Tell me," he murmured softly to her. "Give your name to me, please. I need to know the truth of you."

For a few seconds, there was no sound but their heavy breaths. It felt like a lifetime passed.

"Celine," she eventually granted. A shiver ran through him at the harmony of the word.

It was Celine then who recommenced the kiss. As their tongues found one another, she pushed his jacket off his shoulders, unknotted the cravat at his throat, finally balling his shirt in her fists and pulling them both to lay back on the bed with a soft thump.

"I have wanted this," Celine said as he traced a line of kisses from her ear to clavicle, "since the beginning."

He grinned against the flesh of her throat.

"Tell me," he whispered before adding an edge to his voice, "in detail."

"That first night, it clung to me. Sometimes it felt like it would burn right through me. When I tried to ignore it, I would dream about it. Waking in the night feeling your hands still upon me and then aching to realise it was merely a dream. I could have broken down that door a hundred fucking times, Dunstan." While she spoke, he feathered her chest and neck with kisses, inhaling deeply, drinking in every inch of her skin.

"My cunt has throbbed for weeks, yours. Reaching out for its master."

Her words, lightning in his veins, elicited a low animal moan Dunstan that he did not intend. He felt the blood flooding through his straining cock, the pulse intensifying with each new sentence. It was all he could do not to release his need right then and there.

"Fuck, what is a man to do when you speak like that?"

He pulled her dress over her head. Her breasts were spilling out from the top of her corset in a delightful disarray. I could die for breasts like this. He gathered the fullness of her flesh in his hands as if in worship. Celine gasped as he drew a stiff nipple into his mouth and sucked hard. An impossibly sweet sound. Again and again, he flicked his tongue across the hard peaks of her breasts until they were reddening, flushed from his attentions. Then, with one hand still lazily pulling at her nipple, he reached down to the froth of petticoats, pushing her skirts high.

"Have you been wet for me, Celine?" He paused, hand on her thigh whispering its intent.

"Every day." Her words came out in a low whine, there was a hint of desperation in them, an almost pathetic need. He savoured that.

"Are you wet for me right now?"

"Yes."

He slid his hands deeper within her petticoats to discover the undeniable truth of that. So fucking wet. The thought of plunging his pained cock into those deep waters called out to him like a siren's song. He almost gave into it. But the whimper she let out when his fingertips grazed her lips had a greater pull. He wanted, he needed, to grant this woman her pleasure. Using every ounce of self-control he had, Dunstan instead teased a line between her lips, drawing her wetness upward in a lazy motion, before stopping shy of her most sensitive prize. He repeated the gesture until he felt her stiffen in frustration beneath him. Only then did finally trace a slow circle around her swollen clit. The stream of shuddering profanities she released in response was worth all the waiting in the world.

"What do you think of, darling? When your cunt aches for me?"

"Exactly fucking this." And through ragged breaths, she gave confession. Every sinful thought spilled from her lips as if she could barely hold them back. The circles against her clit grew more insistent as she grew more breathless. Celine bucked against him, pushing his hand downward, demanding more from him. He took a moment to swirl his finger through the well of moisture at her entrance before plunging his middle finger deep into her cunt. The moan that escaped her was like nothing Dunstan had ever heard before. It ignited a potent desire in him, a feral, grasping urge. As if possessed, he pushed another digit inside her, thrusting in time with her breaths. He ran his fingertips along the ceiling of her cunt, feeling every delicious ridge as he beckoned her to come. His cock twitched at the tightness of her, and then again at how she clenched around his touch. He pushed her further towards climax as she groaned affirmations in his ear. Her orgasm eventually rolled through her accompanied by the raking of fingernails along his back and the divine chorus of her crying out his name. Dunstan buried his face into the crook of her neck, inhaling her as she panted in relief. This time, it was his turn to confess.

"I have thought of you also. Every night. I cannot sleep for the light you drench my mind in. I- Fuck, I-" This could consume me, he realised. He knew he desired her, of course. But until this moment he did not know just how ardently he needed her. Suddenly, the weight of all that had brought them here, his guilt, his shame, the hunger presently inside him which felt as if it might never be sated, came crashing down on him. The intensity of this feeling -- he feared it. I have walked this road before. 'It ruined a part of me forever,' an echo said. My fault. My sin. And now, he had brought her into it too.

"This is a perilous lust, Celine. I cannot. We cannot."

Dunstan tore himself from her embrace, leaving Celine flushed and sprawled on the bed. He hurriedly retreated to his chambers. Hot with shame and unfulfilled, he paced at the foot of his bed with head in hands.

"Do not toy with me. You asked me to come back with you." An indignant Celine stormed after him through the adjoining chamber and now stood in the doorway of his bedroom in rumpled underclothes, hair cascading over one shoulder. "Are you so faint of heart that you would back out now? Do you want me, or do you not?"

In one movement, she surged toward him with a kiss that sent Dunstan stumbling backwards onto the bed. She was on top of him, straddling him, and he was lost to her. Her hair, her scent, her tongue hungrily seeking his; it filled his senses so completely that Dunstan let go of his fear. The ferocity of Celine's desire matched his, which soothed him as much as it awoke a beast within him. Like for like, we may both be consumed.

"Fuck me, Dunstan." The dark pits of her eyes burned into him. It was not a request. A command he rose to at once. Gathering her in his arms, he lifted her weight from him and flipped her back down onto the bed. His body pressed down onto her, cock hard as marble between them, as he roughly pushed her skirts up to her waist. He found her cunt soaking and eager from a few minutes prior and plunged two fingers into her once more. Celine growled in appreciation while deftly undoing his trouser fastenings. She gave a small flinch of anticipation when his cock finally broke free against her thigh.

"Celine," he breathed into her hair, "darling, do you need it?"

"Yes, I do," she returned emphatically before matching him with, "do you?"

"More than fucking anything."

The first time, he had taken his pleasure roughly and quickly but, despite the beast within him clawing to repeat the experience, he wanted to savour every last aching moment of this encounter. He withdrew his fingers and spread her lips a little, massaging her wetness into to every part of her. Preparing her for him. When he pushed the head of his cock past the entrance of her cunt, they both moaned in unison. Drawing on a well of self-restraint he did not know remained to him, he slid into her agonisingly slowly. Inch by inch he sank inside, stopping to let her body adjust to his, to savour the way her cunt clung to his cock. She stared fiercely into his eyes through every moan and shiver. He could read a fresh wave of wanting in those eyes with each inch she took. A heavenly fucking sight. It took everything he had not to finish immediately under the gaze of those hungry eyes.

"Fuck, it's like your cunt was made to take my cock."

"Or maybe you were built to fill it."

She hooked her legs over his hips and pulled him deep within her, patience spent. He met the prompt gladly. In tandem, they fucked, pushing and pulling at one another desperately. Celine's fingers twisted through his curls as he devoured her neck with lips and hot breath, nipping at her shoulder with his teeth. Together they were overcome, failing to speak, lost in the sensation of one another. Dunstan felt at the brink of climax sooner than he had hoped. She sensed it too, and brown eyes met green as she crooned, "do it. Finish for me, my lord."

His legs almost buckled. White noise filled his ears. He heard nothing, saw nothing. He only felt her cunt gripping him and the hot wave of his seed spilling over and over deep within her. He found himself moaning as if a wounded animal, shaking with the intensity of it. When he returned to reality, he realised he must have gripped her jaw and pushed his thumb into her mouth at some point, as she was sucking greedily at it having still not broken her eye contact. How can I be expected to stay afloat in her wake? he thought pathetically as he watched her.

He slumped against Celine's chest, panting, not knowing what to do with himself. She stoked his hair and lazily traced the contours of his arms with her fingertips. They lay there still for a while, feeling each other's hearts pound through their chests, content in the silence.

"Stand up," she said eventually, breaking through the quiet with a playful air.

Dunstan drew himself to his feet at the foot of the bed and looked down at her questioningly. He may have finished, but she did not seem finished with him.

"Undress for me," she said in a low voice. "I want to see your whole body." She gave his shoulder a mischievous prod with her foot.

Happy to oblige, he stepped backwards, lightly stumbling over the tangle of his trousers that lay forgotten around his ankles. Together they laughed; his earthy chuckle meeting her coarse Docklands cackle -- a discordant peal that only amused them more.

With a broad grin splitting his face, he pulled the billowing linen shirt over his head and stood naked before her. She has not seen me before, he realised. Not in his entirety. Each time in their lovemaking he had not extended to the patience of getting fully undressed. It felt vulnerable. It felt good.

Celine sat at the edge of the bed watching him approvingly. Wordlessly, she shed the remnants of her own clothing. Dunstan didn't move, transfixed by her.

He took in the sight of her soft curves, milk-pale skin, the marks left by his mouth, the reddened flesh between her legs. He hair was all but loose now, tumbling in a disarray around her flushed, smirking face. The way she was looking at him was too much to bear.

Unable to resist her, Dunstan sank to his knees and placed a kiss on her knee. Then higher up her thigh. Upward and upward he pushed, relishing her sighs. He was desperate to taste her, to bring her to climax once again. A trickle of his seed escaped her lips. Needing no further encouragement, he buried his face between her legs. He gathered the liquid into his mouth, tasting her desire, his own, in a heady mix. He lapped at her greedily, saturating his face. She bucked hard in response to his tongue, her swollen, overstimulated cunt hot against his skin. Celine groaned unrestrainedly, cursing and thanking the heavens in equal measure, but all sound was deadened once Dunstan pulled her thighs around him, pressing a tight vacuum to his ears. He didn't need to hear anything. There is only this, there is only my mouth against her.

Celine, celine. He could not be sure if he moaned the word aloud or it simply rang through his mind, but he heard it over and over. That beautiful fucking word. Celine. Kneeling at the altar of her, lost in her cunt, he gave himself entirely over to rapture. Quickly, was grinding into his face, near suffocating him. It did not take long for her to reach the apex of her pleasure. She gripped him tight in place as her orgasm shook through them both. By the time she was done, his cock felt again like an iron bar, reaching out for her. Dunstan wondered when this back and forth would end. When they both might be sated.

Never, he prayed.