Fic: A Shopping List
Title: A Shopping List
Rating: T
Word Count: ~500
A/N: It's been an aboslutely rotten day. :( So, in my effort to run away from it all, I sat down and wrote this. At least it was a bit of an escape! I don't usually write this often, but it's been kind of nice. Well, at least insofar as it's good for my mood. Not insofar as I've been doing less work! lol
Anna sat at the little table in their cottage, pen in hand. She smiled as she heard the tell-tale click-and-step of her husband coming down the stairs. It was their first half-day since John's return and they were to spend it running some errands together in Ripon.
"Ready?" He asked her, stooping to place a kiss on the top of her head.
"Nearly," she said, as she finished scrawling something on the small bit of paper in front of her.
John leaned over her to make out what it said.
"It's a list of things we need," she volunteered. "I always manage to forget something if I don't write them down." She smiled self-deprecatingly.
He read the last item on her list. "Buttons?"
"Well, somebody was a little... impatient the other night." Her smile turned coquettish as she craned her neck to looked up at him through her lashes. From the way his hand tightened on her left shoulder, it was clear John knew precisely what she meant.
John hooked his cane on the end of the table. He leaned over her, running his right hand in a long, teasing caress down her arm until he reached the pen in her hand. Anna shivered. She was suddenly very aware of him. His scent, the sound of his breath in her ear, the heat of his body near hers... all of him. It took no effort at all for John to prise the pen from her fingers.
"Well, in that case..." he whispered hotly in her ear, before he slowly-oh so slowly-wrote 'waistcoat' on the page. Anna couldn't stop the small whimper that escaped her lips at the memory. Her eyes fluttered shut and she moved to lean back against him. Only to fall back against her chair. Her eyes flew open as she threw a stunned expression back at a bemused John Bates, who now stood nearly a foot behind her. How on Earth did he get back there so fast?
John stood expectantly, hands clasped before him, as though nothing at all had happened. Very well, she thought, two can play that game. She straightened her shoulders. "Anything else you need?"
John smiled knowingly, but then his expression changed as he remembered something he genuinely wanted from town. "In fact, there is," he began, his tone back to normal. "I nearly forgot. I must pick up some pomade."
At this, Anna forgot all about her scheming. "Oh, John, must you?"
"Now that I have my job back, I must be presentable."
Anna rose from her seat and closed the distance between them. "I suppose," she sighed as she reached to brush the hair from his forehead.
John took Anna by the elbows and looked down at her inquisitively.
"I much prefer it this way." She began stroking the hair behind his ear, and she felt him lean ever so slightly into her touch. "So much softer," she whispered.
John slid his hands to Anna's waist and drew her closer. "Just for work," he whispered back.
She could feel his breath on her lips, feel her chest rising and falling against his. Her eyes flitted to his lips as she licked her own. "John?"
"Hm?"
She buried her hands in his thick hair and drew his face towards hers. "Forget Ripon," she breathed before pulling him into a searing kiss.