Keane nipped Rose's lower lip, kissing her for a moment, then pulled back with a little smile.
"What?" Rose asked him, just a little suspicious of that cat-eating-canary look of his.
"Now that I know you're from the twenty-first century, I'm dying with curiosity to know how women in your day and age like to make love. Even if you are four and eight hundred and something-or-other years out of practice."
"Oh, out of practice, am I?" Rose returned tartly, rising literally as well as figuratively to the challenge, slipping off his lap to face him fully, hands going to her hips. "I'll show you 'out of practice'—you'd better not have a history of cardiac problems, Keane, honey, 'cause you've just been warned. I make love like I make war. No mercy, no survivors."
He grinned. "I'll believe it when I see it."
"You'll believe it when you experience it," she corrected him, and lifted her chin at the carved headboard. "Drop the sheet, lie on the bed, and put your arms over your head."
"Yes, milady," he mocked lightly, rising to his feet. Towering over her, with less than a foot of space between them, he slowly peeled the sheet back. Exposing himself, he held the sheet out for several seconds, displaying his body, then dropped it.
Rose pulled the belt free from her satin bathrobe. Swirling it in one hand, she flicked him on the hip with the soft end while he was still gawking at her naked body. "No dawdling!"
Keane arched a brow at her 'attack', but sighed and crawled onto the bed anyway. He spent a few seconds arranging pillows and bedding, then settled onto his back, stretching his arms up over his head, bending them just enough so that they fit between him and the head of the bed. Climbing up next to him, Rose straddled his chest. Ignoring his letcherous smile, she threaded the dressing gown belt through the spindles at the head of the bed and brought the ends to his wrists.
"What are you doing?"
"Tormenting you. Be a good boy and I'll make it worth your while."
"Worth my while?" he repeated as she gently tied his wrists together at the headboard. "Does this tormenting take the form of pleasure?"
"No, gee, I'm going to cover you in triticaeli grain and sic a bunch of tribbles on you," Rose retorted sardonically. At his puzzled look, she shook her head. "—Cultural reference. The only furry thing that purrs which you get in your bed today is me."
"...You can purr?"
Bracing her hands on either side of his head and wriggling her knees further down the bed so she didn't have to hunch her back, Rose dipped down, burying her face in the side of his neck, and did her best imitation of a happy cat, vibrating her soft palate as she breathed through mouth and nose combined. It was a very good imitation; even her parents' cats had been fooled by the sound, back when she was a teenager. Keane groaned, turning his head to kiss her. Rose allowed it for a moment, then pulled back with a smile. "Now that I have you at my mercy…"
"Yes, milady?" he asked, arching a brow. "I'm ready and waiting."
He certainly was. Rose ignored the erection pressing against her backside, though. Instead, she flicked her hair out of her way and lowered her head, brushing her lips over his. He lifted up, seeking firmer contact. She rewarded him by suckling his lower lip. Her lips nipped at his jaw, then pressed a trail of kisses down to his throat. At the base, where the muscles joined the shoulder, she sucked on him, working the skin to leave a nice, visible hickey, just like the one he had given her. Noticing the scar that crossed his collarbone, she moved over and licked that, softening her touch when his breath hissed out through his teeth. Rose laved the hollow between collarbone and neck, then sat up. That wasn't the only scar on his body; he had another, longer one kitty-corner to it, just below the ribs on his right side. "How did you get scars in an age where they can reattatch a severed limb seamlessly in half an hour?"
"My hovercar crashed in the wilderness. It took me three days to walk to the nearest estate, and they didn't give me any medical or transportational help, so I spent another seven days walking to the next place, where I could get treated," Keane said flatly. "By then, the damage was done. I kept the scars as a reminder of my foolishness."
The way how he said that made Rose think there was more to the story than just his dry recital. But since they only had an hour or so, and it would probably kill the mood to find out the real story, she simply nodded and said, "Ah. Well, I've got a few scars of my own, thanks to 'primitive' twenty-first century medical practices."
He eyed the scar on her belly, tracing the angle of her hipbone. "I noticed. Accident?"