Camilla didn't know herself what her boundaries were, if she had them. Bacchanal quite aside, she'd grown up with a brother who felt free to demand anything from her, and the only real boundary she knew was that she wasn't supposed to do anything like this with anyone but Charles, or else he'd be angry.
The bacchanal had shattered that one, and she didn't know how much Charles knew for sure about that. But the bacchanal had been such a haze of fantastic and improbable perceptions, Charles might not know what really happened even if he'd been at Camilla's side the whole time, which Camilla was sure he hadn't been.
This, though -- this was indisputably real, what she was doing right now, and she could get in serious trouble for it. There was no excuse for it, either. Not that she should have to make excuses. Charles could do what he wanted; why shouldn't she?
She pulled away to catch her breath, staring at Henry with those inscrutable rainwater eyes of hers. A slow blink.
Then she reached to take his glasses off. "May I?" she asked, but she didn't wait for an answer.
Henry experienced just a fraction of an instant's panic when she pulled back--yes, actual panic; he would have been surprised, if he'd been capable of registering surprise. When he realized she just wanted to get rid of his glasses, he smiled.
"Of course," he said, low. His eyes held hers for a moment before his hand slipped down to the back of her neck and he drew her mouth to his once more. She'd tasted of something rich and exotic, before, and he was discovering that that at least had not been a product of the bacchanal; she still did, and he kissed her slowly, savoring her.
Of course, he said, and she let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding, his glasses already in her hand. She wasn't really sure what his boundaries were either. She wasn't sure if either of them could have any, against one another, after what they'd been through. At the same time, this calm quiet sitting room was worlds away from the moonlit wild forest where they'd first come together. Maybe that made a difference. Light streamed through the window to remind her --
-- of what? She pushed away the nagging feeling (something forgotten, something she needed to take care of), wanting nothing more than to be subsumed in the improbable wonderful kiss he'd resumed. Her fingers stole up to wind through his hair, long at the front where he grew it and parted it carefully to cover that mysterious scar he had, and her other hand reached over to drop his glasses on the coffee table, then sought the small of his back. She had an odd suspicion she'd just dropped his glasses half in and half out of the ashtray. The same ashtray she'd thrown at Bunny to get him to shut up --
oh, damn it. She stopped again, drawing away from Henry's lips just far enough to murmur against them.
"Hold that thought," Henry said, standing and crossing the room. He clicked the lock on the door, and when he came back he took Camilla's hand to help her up. Certainly no one could see them in the back room, and unlike the bedroom, his bed that pulled out of the wall was more than big enough.
He led her back, away from the window, away from the theoretical eyes of anyone who might be irritating enough to try to stop by. The bed was already pulled down, neatly made as always, and he pulled her down to sit beside him, his hand tangling in her hair once more. For a long moment he just looked at her, and the fair clean lines of her face, her soft, almost luminescent hair.
She gazed back at him, uncertain what he might be looking for in her face. He was close enough that even his awful eyesight couldn't blur her too badly, she was sure. They'd left his glasses in the sitting room -- of course he didn't need them to navigate his own familiar house -- and it occurred to Camilla that this was the longest she'd ever seen Henry without his glasses. She'd seen him take them off to clean them before, but that was all. He'd even worn them the night of the bacchanal, scornful of any disjunction between that and the makeshift chitons. The glasses were like a part of the armor he wore, the facade that distanced him from the rest of the world; without them, he seemed somehow more human. More approachable. Not softer, exactly -- the square set of his jaw, the strong lines of his face, could never be soft -- but warmer, maybe. On an impulse she reached to draw her fingertips down his cheek.
It wasn't something she would have done that night in the woods, this tentative inquisitive little caress. This was terra incognita, completely uncharted, no matter how much of him she thought she might remember.
Henry didn't really know what he was looking for, either. His eyes shut when she touched his face, her fingers smooth and cool--in all his life, no one had ever touched him like that. He couldn't help but return the gesture, her cheek even smoother than her fingers beneath his hand, and with that he leaned in to kiss her again, pulling her close and shifting to lay her on the bed.
It was the same bed where she and Charles had collapsed in an exhausted heap after they'd finished scrubbing up the blood from the porch and the inside of Henry's car. Camilla knew that, even as Henry drew her down. She just didn't care. The only way it signified was that she knew where she was, somewhere familiar, and she'd lain here before with him, only Charles had just happened to be between them at the time.
No one was between them now.
She inhaled sharply and gave something startlingly like a purr when he kissed her again. No one was between them and nothing could stop them unless they wanted to stop. Anyone who came by could knock on the door until their faces turned blue for all Camilla cared. Henry never answered the door anyway, not if he didn't want to. She felt a dizzying freedom, unlike anything she'd felt in years. Her nerves sang with it.
So odd to be on this bed again, with Henry in his gardening clothes -- she chuckled softly against his mouth and slid a daring hand under the x where his suspenders met in back.
Something about that simple touch seemed to jolt through him like electricity. Her hand was warm through his shirt, and for a moment his kiss hardened without him willing it. His own hand slipped beneath the hem of her shirt, delicate without being hesitant, his fingers brushing lightly along her sides. This was nothing like the bacchanal, which had been frenzied, abandoned--he had to be careful not to startle her, to make her stop believing that all this was ordained.
Henry had, some months previously, read the Kama Sutra (in its original Hindi, of course). As an insight into ancient Hindu culture it was fascinating, but so far as the rest of it went, it vacillated between amusing, irritating, and outright ridiculous. Ultimately it had been useless, but his desire was hardly a new thing, and between that and a certain amount of instinct, he was reasonably confident in himself.
His other hand slipped beneath her shirt as well, traveling over the smoothness of her stomach before finding the hem of her sweater. He leaned back enough to tug at it, somehow managing not to fumble.
No, this was nothing like the bacchanal. They'd been wearing chitons then. Camilla realized they were probably wearing the most inconvenient clothing possible -- she bundled in layers of bulky sweater and Charles's dress shirt, Henry wearing suspenders of all things -- and between that and the light graze of his fingers verging on an inadvertent tickle, she had to laugh again, low and almost soundless. Her hand reached to cover his, under the hem of her shirt, pressing his fingers more firmly against her skin. "That tickled," she explained, half apologetic, breathless all the while. "You're not ticklish, though, are you? I don't want to -- "
I don't want to do anything wrong. She was as afraid of a misstep as he was, for her own reasons. She didn't want to disappoint him. He meant too much to her for that -- his approval meant too much. Suddenly apprehensive -- of what? that he'd change his mind? -- she buried her face almost shyly in his shoulder. Except then, she couldn't resist placing a soft kiss just above the collar of his shirt, and once she'd done that, she had to do it again.
Her laughter made him laugh, dispelling some of his tension. "Not really," he murmured, stroking her hair as she kissed his neck. Henry was just now realizing how very inconvenient all their clothing was--there really was no graceful way to get out of suspenders, even for him. "I'll just have to be more careful, won't I?" he added, turning his face to kiss her cheek, her temple, the hollow beneath her jaw.
He pulled back again, tugging the hem of Camilla's sweater with much more assurance, slipping it over her head and down her arms, tossing it with almost unnerving accuracy onto a nearby chair. His fingers reached for the buttons of her shirt next, as he trailed kisses down the pale smooth line of her throat. Camilla couldn't make a mistake with him if she wanted to, now--not unless she should change her mind and flee, and he now had little enough fear of that.
Having come this far, Camilla was indeed extremely unlikely to flee. Leaving was the last thing she wanted to do.
What was happening wasn't anything like she had imagined it might be, when she'd let herself think it would happen at all. She had thought it would be like a more restrained version of the bacchanal, quieter but mad in its own way, something inexorable and quick and a little frightening. She thought that could still happen, maybe, sometime. That wasn't what was happening now, though.
She hadn't really thought about what Henry would be like, Henry as a person with needs like hers and imperfections like hers, not an extension of Julian or a vessel of the gods. More than anything it was his tenderness that surprised her, the soft kisses to the side of her face, the way he smoothed her hair. The closest she'd ever known to such a thing was Charles in a pliant mood.
It prompted an answering tenderness in her, without her really understanding how or why or what she felt. "You're being careful enough," she said, holding still to ease the sweater's passage over her arms and head. Were the suspenders the kind that clipped onto the belt, or that buttoned onto the waistband of his trousers, or what? She thought she might dodge the question entirely and try to tug them down his arms, if she could, except that he was working at the buttons of her shirt, so his arms were busy. All the while he was kissing her throat, sending little bursts of pleasure and anticipation through her.
"You don't have to be too careful," she whispered near his ear, arching her neck so she could kiss him there too.
Henry laughed again, low. He had wondered if he would hear something like that--he'd suspected Camilla had it in her to want something more than pure gentility. He solved her quandary about the suspenders, slipping them down his arms and off, fingers immediately returning to her buttons.
"I'll keep that in mind," he returned, his mouth traveling along her shoulder, her collarbone, now daring to bite, very lightly, at the smooth pale skin where neck and shoulder met. In the space of a moment he'd pushed her shirt off her shoulders, one arm hooking behind her back to pull her up enough that he might pull it off entirely. His own shirt followed, much less carefully, tossed onto the chair with all the other discarded clothing.
Her bra presented something of a challenge. Henry had never, ever had to deal with one before, but it was a challenge he rose to surprisingly gracefully--there was none of the clumsy, thick-fingered fumbling of the normal amateur. Away with it as well, and then she was beneath him, nothing at all between his skin and hers as he kissed along the smooth plane of her breastbone, his hands already reaching for the snaps and zippers of her pants.
Reaching to undo his belt, Camilla couldn't help a slight shiver at the warmth in his voice. The timbre and depth of it were familiar, but she'd never heard it this warm before, though she'd heard him laugh now and then at something he found genuinely and deeply amusing, a real laugh as opposed to the dry derisive snort most things got.
She realized that the next time she heard him laugh, the next time Julian said something clever enough in class to make Henry really laugh, she'd remember this moment. Maybe every time she heard him laugh she'd remember it. He was changing everything for her, irrevocably.
Maybe she was changing everything for him too. I'll keep that in mind, he said, and half in play, half in genuine curiosity, she murmured, "Will you?" In any number of ways, in any number of contexts, would this drift into his mind later? The past week had been desperately confusing, even after the first couple of disoriented post-bacchanal days, and it hadn't helped for little flashes of sylvan debauchery to flicker into her thoughts at inopportune moments. Those were impersonal and remote in a way, though, things that almost could have happened to someone else, or to herself in a dream. This would be much harder to dispel, if she wanted to dispel it, and she wasn't at all sure she would want to.
Thanks to her brother Camilla had experience enough with men's clothes. Deftly she undid Henry's trousers, pushing them down around his hips, which was as far as she could reach. Boxer shorts, unsurprising, except they were a finer cotton than Charles's ever were. That wasn't really surprising either (Henry practically loaded with money, of course he'd have the best of everything, simple and plain until you looked at it closely enough to realize how truly costly it was). Just another detail, another perception in the overwhelming cascade of perceptions that made up the startling whole -- little things she'd recall later. The warmth of his skin under her fingertips, the way he shivered too even though he wasn't ticklish. She pulled at the boxer shorts too, wanting him bare.
The rest of her clothing was easily dealt with--no complicated hooks or snaps to slow him down. When he had her bare beneath him Henry paused, just for a moment, smoothing back her hair--he had always thought of Camilla as a kind of remote goddess, but now there was a certain vulnerability about her that he would never have expected.
This was, he supposed, the time to say something--anything--but he found he could summon no words, not with Camilla stretched out slim and lithe beneath him, smooth lines and slight curves, her fair skin warm to his touch.
He could say nothing, and so he did not try--instead, he bent his head and kissed her again, just as slowly but nowhere near as lightly, one arm slipping beneath her to rest at the small of her back. The faint ghost of something that might have been perfume lingered on her skin--some flower he could not name, but whose low, sweet fragrance complimented her perfectly.
Fully aware of that brief pause, Camilla waited, holding still, curious and almost apprehensive. Then he kissed her again and she relaxed -- no, she melted. Twining her arms around him softly, she kissed him back, a long slow serious kiss. Kissing him was like learning a new language. She needed to learn the structure of it, the way one phrase glided into the next.
For all her eagerness to get him undressed, she found now she was in no hurry at all. "Mmm. Wait," she said, breaking away for a moment, twisting away from beneath him to sit up. She tugged at his shoulder so he'd move with her -- she needed him to move enough so she could tug the blankets out from underneath them both.
"Better," she said, wriggling under the blankets. "Come here." It was half a question.
Henry had a moment of heart-stopping anxiety as she pulled away from him--anxiety that was immediately dispelled by her next words. He didn't take his time about complying, either; it took only a moment for him to join her, pulling her close to him and letting his hand trace up along her spine, all the way up to the soft hair at the back of her head. He himself was in no hurry, either; to rush would be vulgar, an affront to Camilla and everything she was.
He smiled at her--a real smile, such as he had very, very rarely bestowed on anything or anyone--and leaned in to kiss her again. His mouth only met hers for a moment, however; soon it was traveling along her jaw, her neck, her shoulder, down along her arm, nibbling and occasionally biting outright. Her skin was satin-smooth, sweetly salty, and as he kissed her hand hands traced wherever they would, somehow careful not to tickle.
The bacchanal had shattered that one, and she didn't know how much Charles knew for sure about that. But the bacchanal had been such a haze of fantastic and improbable perceptions, Charles might not know what really happened even if he'd been at Camilla's side the whole time, which Camilla was sure he hadn't been.
This, though -- this was indisputably real, what she was doing right now, and she could get in serious trouble for it. There was no excuse for it, either. Not that she should have to make excuses. Charles could do what he wanted; why shouldn't she?
She pulled away to catch her breath, staring at Henry with those inscrutable rainwater eyes of hers. A slow blink.
Then she reached to take his glasses off. "May I?" she asked, but she didn't wait for an answer.
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"Of course," he said, low. His eyes held hers for a moment before his hand slipped down to the back of her neck and he drew her mouth to his once more. She'd tasted of something rich and exotic, before, and he was discovering that that at least had not been a product of the bacchanal; she still did, and he kissed her slowly, savoring her.
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-- of what? She pushed away the nagging feeling (something forgotten, something she needed to take care of), wanting nothing more than to be subsumed in the improbable wonderful kiss he'd resumed. Her fingers stole up to wind through his hair, long at the front where he grew it and parted it carefully to cover that mysterious scar he had, and her other hand reached over to drop his glasses on the coffee table, then sought the small of his back. She had an odd suspicion she'd just dropped his glasses half in and half out of the ashtray. The same ashtray she'd thrown at Bunny to get him to shut up --
oh, damn it. She stopped again, drawing away from Henry's lips just far enough to murmur against them.
"The window."
Anyone could see them, anyone coming up the walk.
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"Hold that thought," Henry said, standing and crossing the room. He clicked the lock on the door, and when he came back he took Camilla's hand to help her up. Certainly no one could see them in the back room, and unlike the bedroom, his bed that pulled out of the wall was more than big enough.
He led her back, away from the window, away from the theoretical eyes of anyone who might be irritating enough to try to stop by. The bed was already pulled down, neatly made as always, and he pulled her down to sit beside him, his hand tangling in her hair once more. For a long moment he just looked at her, and the fair clean lines of her face, her soft, almost luminescent hair.
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It wasn't something she would have done that night in the woods, this tentative inquisitive little caress. This was terra incognita, completely uncharted, no matter how much of him she thought she might remember.
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No one was between them now.
She inhaled sharply and gave something startlingly like a purr when he kissed her again. No one was between them and nothing could stop them unless they wanted to stop. Anyone who came by could knock on the door until their faces turned blue for all Camilla cared. Henry never answered the door anyway, not if he didn't want to. She felt a dizzying freedom, unlike anything she'd felt in years. Her nerves sang with it.
So odd to be on this bed again, with Henry in his gardening clothes -- she chuckled softly against his mouth and slid a daring hand under the x where his suspenders met in back.
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Henry had, some months previously, read the Kama Sutra (in its original Hindi, of course). As an insight into ancient Hindu culture it was fascinating, but so far as the rest of it went, it vacillated between amusing, irritating, and outright ridiculous. Ultimately it had been useless, but his desire was hardly a new thing, and between that and a certain amount of instinct, he was reasonably confident in himself.
His other hand slipped beneath her shirt as well, traveling over the smoothness of her stomach before finding the hem of her sweater. He leaned back enough to tug at it, somehow managing not to fumble.
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I don't want to do anything wrong. She was as afraid of a misstep as he was, for her own reasons. She didn't want to disappoint him. He meant too much to her for that -- his approval meant too much. Suddenly apprehensive -- of what? that he'd change his mind? -- she buried her face almost shyly in his shoulder. Except then, she couldn't resist placing a soft kiss just above the collar of his shirt, and once she'd done that, she had to do it again.
Reply
He pulled back again, tugging the hem of Camilla's sweater with much more assurance, slipping it over her head and down her arms, tossing it with almost unnerving accuracy onto a nearby chair. His fingers reached for the buttons of her shirt next, as he trailed kisses down the pale smooth line of her throat. Camilla couldn't make a mistake with him if she wanted to, now--not unless she should change her mind and flee, and he now had little enough fear of that.
Reply
What was happening wasn't anything like she had imagined it might be, when she'd let herself think it would happen at all. She had thought it would be like a more restrained version of the bacchanal, quieter but mad in its own way, something inexorable and quick and a little frightening. She thought that could still happen, maybe, sometime. That wasn't what was happening now, though.
She hadn't really thought about what Henry would be like, Henry as a person with needs like hers and imperfections like hers, not an extension of Julian or a vessel of the gods. More than anything it was his tenderness that surprised her, the soft kisses to the side of her face, the way he smoothed her hair. The closest she'd ever known to such a thing was Charles in a pliant mood.
It prompted an answering tenderness in her, without her really understanding how or why or what she felt. "You're being careful enough," she said, holding still to ease the sweater's passage over her arms and head. Were the suspenders the kind that clipped onto the belt, or that buttoned onto the waistband of his trousers, or what? She thought she might dodge the question entirely and try to tug them down his arms, if she could, except that he was working at the buttons of her shirt, so his arms were busy. All the while he was kissing her throat, sending little bursts of pleasure and anticipation through her.
"You don't have to be too careful," she whispered near his ear, arching her neck so she could kiss him there too.
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"I'll keep that in mind," he returned, his mouth traveling along her shoulder, her collarbone, now daring to bite, very lightly, at the smooth pale skin where neck and shoulder met. In the space of a moment he'd pushed her shirt off her shoulders, one arm hooking behind her back to pull her up enough that he might pull it off entirely. His own shirt followed, much less carefully, tossed onto the chair with all the other discarded clothing.
Her bra presented something of a challenge. Henry had never, ever had to deal with one before, but it was a challenge he rose to surprisingly gracefully--there was none of the clumsy, thick-fingered fumbling of the normal amateur. Away with it as well, and then she was beneath him, nothing at all between his skin and hers as he kissed along the smooth plane of her breastbone, his hands already reaching for the snaps and zippers of her pants.
Reply
She realized that the next time she heard him laugh, the next time Julian said something clever enough in class to make Henry really laugh, she'd remember this moment. Maybe every time she heard him laugh she'd remember it. He was changing everything for her, irrevocably.
Maybe she was changing everything for him too. I'll keep that in mind, he said, and half in play, half in genuine curiosity, she murmured, "Will you?" In any number of ways, in any number of contexts, would this drift into his mind later? The past week had been desperately confusing, even after the first couple of disoriented post-bacchanal days, and it hadn't helped for little flashes of sylvan debauchery to flicker into her thoughts at inopportune moments. Those were impersonal and remote in a way, though, things that almost could have happened to someone else, or to herself in a dream. This would be much harder to dispel, if she wanted to dispel it, and she wasn't at all sure she would want to.
Thanks to her brother Camilla had experience enough with men's clothes. Deftly she undid Henry's trousers, pushing them down around his hips, which was as far as she could reach. Boxer shorts, unsurprising, except they were a finer cotton than Charles's ever were. That wasn't really surprising either (Henry practically loaded with money, of course he'd have the best of everything, simple and plain until you looked at it closely enough to realize how truly costly it was). Just another detail, another perception in the overwhelming cascade of perceptions that made up the startling whole -- little things she'd recall later. The warmth of his skin under her fingertips, the way he shivered too even though he wasn't ticklish. She pulled at the boxer shorts too, wanting him bare.
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This was, he supposed, the time to say something--anything--but he found he could summon no words, not with Camilla stretched out slim and lithe beneath him, smooth lines and slight curves, her fair skin warm to his touch.
He could say nothing, and so he did not try--instead, he bent his head and kissed her again, just as slowly but nowhere near as lightly, one arm slipping beneath her to rest at the small of her back. The faint ghost of something that might have been perfume lingered on her skin--some flower he could not name, but whose low, sweet fragrance complimented her perfectly.
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For all her eagerness to get him undressed, she found now she was in no hurry at all. "Mmm. Wait," she said, breaking away for a moment, twisting away from beneath him to sit up. She tugged at his shoulder so he'd move with her -- she needed him to move enough so she could tug the blankets out from underneath them both.
"Better," she said, wriggling under the blankets. "Come here." It was half a question.
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He smiled at her--a real smile, such as he had very, very rarely bestowed on anything or anyone--and leaned in to kiss her again. His mouth only met hers for a moment, however; soon it was traveling along her jaw, her neck, her shoulder, down along her arm, nibbling and occasionally biting outright. Her skin was satin-smooth, sweetly salty, and as he kissed her hand hands traced wherever they would, somehow careful not to tickle.
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