Little Women Fic: A Night to Remember, Ch 6 (Jo/Laurie, NC-17)

[mariagoner]

I originally hadn't planned to put this chapter up this week though it's been done for a while, simply because the Little Women fandom has become a bit depopulated as of late and I thought it would be sad to end my first series for LW while few people are around. But after realizing this fall is going to be a very, very busy one for me-- graduate school is a cruel, cruel mistress!-- I realized I might as well update this story now, since I likely won't be putting up any new up for a while. (Sorry, dear Poti... I will try to finish the Jo/Laurie piano-sex for you ASAP!) In any case, consider this last installment a present to all the kind readers who have kept up with me for this very productive summer. Posting will be much, much less frequent this fall but I'll try to update at least twice a month. I still have piano-sex and much more to work on, after all. ;)

Much love goes to Elizabeth, Ed and Saff, for being such fantastic beta-readers. And this is especially dedicated to Ablusterday, who's facing the going-back-to-school blues even more keenly than I am. I hope this makes you feel a little bit better, love. ♥

And as always, I love and appreciate reviews. Thanks goes to all my fabulous readers for the support, encouragement and constructive criticism they've shown so far!

Title: A Night To Remember, Chapter 6
Fandom: Little Women
Series: A Night to Remember
Characters/Pairings: Jo/Laurie
Rating: NC-17 for this final chapter
Summary: With a wedding day comes a wedding night. But who on earth could have predicted that Jo and Laurie's one could have proceeded quite *this* madly? Jo/Laurie and a night that they'll remember for the rest of their lives... no matter what they might try to erase from memory. AU, explicit sexual content.

Important Note: This is the NC-17 rated version of the story. If you'd rather skip over the explicit sex to linger on the emotional convulsions, you can read the R-rated version archived at fanfiction.net.

***

From the last chapter...

"Only--" she said again, stubborn as always, doomed to make him worry perpetually. "Only, I'm not sure if I want you to see me fully... free. Or at least... maybe not just yet! Maybe in a little bit, after we've come to... feel ourselves already? So maybe... possibly... if you don't mind...?"

Oh.

*Oh.*

Oh dear.

Suddenly, Laurie experienced a rather sinking feeling.

"Perhaps," she asked finally, touching hope in her eyes even as she moved like sin under him, "you wouldn't mind wearing a blindfold for me?"

***

Given the unorthodox love life Laurie had experienced over the last few years, he considered himself unusually well-versed in accommodating to eccentric boudoir conditions.

It was a condition that went hand in hand, of course, with keeping company with equally eccentric women. Even a cursory flash back to his wilder days brought many of them at hand. There had been, for example, Louisa in London, a courtesan for some reason insisted he keep a bowler hat on whenever he reached out for her body. There had been the equally fair and strange Giselle in Italy, and she had been even stranger in her lust for tying him into knots that often left his feet and fingers tingling for hours after he had left her candle-lit beauty. And finally, and possibly most wickedly, there had been the rather daunting Clara in Germany. She had enjoyed practicing the English vice very often, which he would have been perfectly fine with if only she hadn't like to wield a paddle on him most... vigorously.

(Laurie sometimes had to wonder if exposure to Jo at an early age had left him with a life long yearning for women who tested his limits to the honest point of insanity.)

Leave it to Jo, though, to find a way to shock a man long thought utterly unflappable where the ladies were concerned.

"A blindfold?" he asked, incredulous not only because of the request but also because of the person making it. "As in... a fold made to blind? As in, something covering my eyes so I won't have the distinct pleasure to looking at you presently?"

"Ah," Jo said, looking uncharacteristically meek. "Er... yes? If you don't mind, Teddy?"

The problem was that he rather did. Years of trying to banish the specter of Jo from his mind and his heart had made him very adamant about chasing only women who were her diametric opposite in appearance-- small where she was tall, red or blond when she was dark, curvy where she was blade-thin-- and even more adamant about keeping the lights on when he made love. It had been the only way to hold his oldest and once-cruelest friend at bay from his thoughts... which was why the thought of actually making love to Jo in the dark felt so bittersweet.

He wanted so much to look on her face as she experienced love for the first time that it took his breath away, as though it were he who was being introduced to carnal matters here.

But after a moment, Laurie shook his habitual selfishness off and resigned himself to what was coming. After all, this was her very first time, she barely knew what intimate relations entailed, and she was doing her best to be comfortable in a situation that probably made her want to jump half off her skin. He had to be willing to do whatever he had to to make her comfortable and pleased.

...And if the full truth had to be told, he had to admit that he rather liked the glint in Jo's eyes as she made her request, one that hinted that his blindfold might serve purposes other than shielding her modesty.

Which was he nodded again and smiled at his bride, brightly and sincerely. "Fine then," he told her, and pressed a light kiss against her brow that made her smile tentatively. "Whatever you want, Jo, is whatever I'll do. So hand me my tie now, please."

A few minutes and a bit of help from Jo later, the sturdy fabric was fastened upon his eyes and wrapped around the back of his head, blocking his gaze completely. It felt awkward and foolish and Laurie hoped it would be inclined to eventually slip, but for now, it covered him fully. So with a sigh, he let his hands fall down, smiled reassuringly at where he supposed Jo still was, stood up carefully, pushed his trousers and drawers down past his hips and to his feet...

And stopped as soon as Jo made a noise that made her sound like an asthmatic bear coming out from its slumber half-way through a strangling.

"What is it?" Laurie cried out loud, trying not to panic while also attempting to understand what in the world might be prompting that noise. "What's gone wrong?"

Jo made that asthmatic bear noise of hers again, before finally speaking again, though her words came out a little garbled and weak. "It's... oh, Teddy, nothing's wrong! It's just that I'm... well... I got a bit startled by... well... I mean... is that supposed to look so... angry?"

Forgetting he couldn't see anything, Laurie looked down, and then frowned when he remembered his blindfold. "Angry? I'm not angry. Who's angry now?"

"It's not really a who," Jo replied, and he had a feeling that if he could see her, she'd be furiously blushing. "It's more like a... what. And, well, I knew men probably had larger versions of what little Demi has but I didn't know they could come along looking so..."

...Oh?

Oh.

Oh!

Oh, he probably should have anticipated this response from her now.

"It's not angry," Laurie said, trying for 'manly' and 'reassuring,' though he was afraid he might start laughing after he realized her reason for being flustered. "It merely looks agitated. I assure you, it-- and I-- are actually feeling quite chipper indeed."

"...That's good to know," Jo murmured, after an awkward silence where Laurie stood before her, nearly stark naked, feeling very foolish with his legs still tangled up with the remains of his clothing. "I'm... grateful about that, really. It's just that it's so... so..." And here, Jo's voice pitched so low Laurie had to lean forward to hear, although at least it let him step out of his pants and feel a little less like a dolt.

"So intimidating," Jo finally said, in a mortified squeak, while her new husband tried very hard not to preen, wondering if he ought to let her know he was really only average, and then decided to say nothing. "Is that... I mean... I think I'm starting to understand that awful metaphor of yours about the 'lock and the key' now and... well..."

"Do go on," Laurie solicitously said, as he gingerly groped his way back to his seat on the settee his bride still lay sprawled on, lightly moving one of his hands up to touch an unknown patch of bare, hot skin. "Let Professor Teddy come up with answers to all the questions you may have at present."

Jo made a noise that sounded like a cross between a laugh and a sigh, before one of her own hands came down to rest on his and lead them up to her breast. He caressed the even softer skin there and she sighed again, more languidly this time, a simple little hum that somehow was enough to send prickles of heat up and down the lines of his body.

"That's supposed to fit inside me, isn't it?" she asked, and though her voice held tremors of fear, her hand still held his to her form. "I think I'm finally starting to understand a bit about those ludicrous and unnecessarily convoluted explanations you were trying to feed me."

"They were the best I could do on such short notice," he told her lightly, although he felt again all his old worries about the night returning. "Next time, I'll commission pictorial depictions to educate you more thoroughly." Then, more seriously, he went on. "And I'll be as gentle as I can, Jo, and stop any time you want. If you feel in the least uncomfortable, I swear, all you'll have to do is shout and I'll end it as quickly as--"

But before he could start sputtering out contingency plans, her clever hands had somehow found his broad shoulders and his sleek hair and were pulling him down to him again, until he tipped his neck and his lips met hers, slow and hot, electric and languid, raw and open and aching with need. And when he finally pulled back, the heat of her searing his skin, he knew from the curve of her lips against his shuddering throat that she was already smiling.

"If I want you to stop, you'll stop," Jo said, and she sounded blessedly like herself again, brave beyond anything. "But right now, I want you to start because I want to. So how do I get you to begin already?"

And when Laurie finally slid his hands onto Jo's dress and across her river of smooth curls and skin, she received her answer with her laughter flush against his neck.

***

He began by kissing her ear, his lips deliberate and languid as it wove across her body. He had actually meant to reach her mouth again but, circumstances being what they were, his eyesight was not what it could be and when she threw her head back at the feel of his fingers on her collar, his teeth found themselves at the lobe of her ear. It didn't stop him though, not for a minute, and he simply carried on as she shivered underneath him, her fingers tangling in his curls and his own running up and down her form, ready to unravel all her secrets.

That turned out to be a more difficult task than he had initially anticipated. For whatever reason, whoever had made Jo's nightgown had done so by scattering what felt like hundreds of buttons down the white front, scattered like stars across the night's velvet canopy. Normally, Laurie might have found the effect of it alluring as he undid them one by one 'til he had Jo bare beneath him, nude and flushed and silky and dissatisfied and aching for everything he could currently. But unfortunately for him, although Jo felt flushed and dissatisfied and silky indeed, having her bare beneath him proved far more difficult a proposition than it should have been, given the way his shuttered eyes led his fingers fumbling over her gown's intricate openings. And after a few minutes of failing to reach the least bit of bare chest, even feeling Jo's perfect breasts rise and fall under his hands while she laughed at his hopeless efforts proved remarkably annoying.

"Give up?" Jo playfully asked after the eighth fruitless swipe he took at her buttons resulted in nothing more than another growl rising in his throat. "All you need to do is swallow your pride and ask for my help, Teddy. I swear, if I knew how entertaining you were when blind, I would have asked you to wear a blindfold through all the hours of our courting!"

"That would have made for an even more interesting experience than the one we've already shared," he agreed, although his lips were already drawing up into a rather wolfish smile as he realized a way around his lack of sight. "And, oh, Jo..."

Her breasts suddenly stilled beneath his fingers and Laurie grinned even more widely.

"Do you happen to have a very great attachment to this gown?"

Then, before his lovely bride could quite finish assuring him that she could just undo the damned thing herself, he leaned down, took one of her buttons between his teeth--

And discovered a completely different way of helping her disrobe.

"Or we could do that," he said and, after another moment went by and he realized she was going to let him keep his life, smiled charmingly. "That's one way of getting around my current blinding."

"I suppose I can't fault your attempts at problem solving," Jo finally said, after a long moment of hissing at him and sounding torn between amusement and consternation. "Although I'll let you explain to Meg what happened to her present from the wedding! I hope you enjoy tonight because I'm not sure you'll even remain alive after she gets her hands on you."

Laurie would have told her that this night was worth it but his mouth soon became otherwise occupied...

And once Jo sent her nails to run down his neck as he helped her undress, he could tell she wasn't all that put out either.

Undressing Jo still ended up taking more time than he wanted, even after she gave in and helped him so he wouldn't actually tear all of those irritating little buttons off completely. He still ended up giving it a good go, however, and somehow-- between his ready teeth and her flustered and oft-nipped hands-- they managed to pull all the fabric from her torso, until a rather delicious arc of skin ended up splayed beneath him from her belly button to her chin, the warmth of it taunting him as he felt it just underneath.

Laurie groaned, Jo giggled, and even without the help of sight, he knew just how fiercely she was grinning.

"Didn't you know," she whispered, "what you were going to do with me once you finally had me pinned down?"

"Of course not," Laurie lied very sweetly. "But I don't mind improvising an answer."

Then his greedy lips moved and found themselves pressed against her velvety aureole, and all conversation momentarily ceased.

He had dreamed of this night together before, probably a hundred thousand times before, in a million different configurations as pale and dark hours had slid him by in wicked dreams. He had dreamed of it as a boy, and denied it as a man, and had felt his inner heart shudder against his palm as he had made silent love to her in his bed, even when she had been gone from him for years. He had dreamed, and wondered, and imagined, and hoped, and now that she was here, now that she was actually near...

Well, here she was and here he was, loving and blind and hungry. Here they were, and though he could not see, he kissed her as though his lips and his eyes held their own strange sight, as he ran his tongue and fingers all over every crevice he could find of her, as though mapping out every pore and follicle of her body. Here she was and here he was, kissing every bit of her could reach, from the tender aureoles of her breasts to the tendons of her neck to the curve of her belly as it rippled with every shaky breath she expelled. He kissed the tip of her nose, the edge of her collar, the jut of her shoulder and the valley between her breasts, kissing even as he felt the heat build up between them. He kissed her until she moaned and let her own hands fall frantically on his frame, as though she could something flame inside her as well, as though she could feel the same salt-slicked need he felt from root to tip, as her hips moved against his with surprising eagerness.

He felt hungry, needy, blind and so, so damn alive, as though he were finally being revived after months and months of walking about half-asleep. And by the time he had finished making her sob by taking her dark little nipples between the points of his teeth, he found himself slicking his fingers between his wife's thighs and realizing that if he could not relieve himself of some of the pressure building in him, he might very well die of longing.

"What do you want?" he asked, and shifted so that his erection nestled in the delicate crease left her thigh and her mound, the friction there sending him groaning. "Jo, what is it that you want? What is it that you need? Tell me and I'll give it-- I swear, I'll give you--"

And he would finish his sentence but for her whimper, and suddenly it was all he could do not to press himself to her until he was fully spent, the pressure in him building, and building, and building.

Jo cried out again, one a low desperate sound, one that made fire erupt between his spine and his knees. And when she finally whispered back, her voice was throaty and helpless, so low with begging that he almost-- he nearly couldn't--

Oh, this was most certainly not helping him keep resolute and gentlemanly.

"T-touch me," she whispered, and her mouth was moving against his own as she spoke, as she hesitantly led one of his hands between her legs to the animal beat of her heart. "Please, Teddy, do anything, please, just-- j-just--"

Her hips shifted again and if he had not had such fine control over himself again, he would have made her his, right then and there, all sense of consideration lost entirely.

Instead, with the shreds of control left to him, he only allowed the head of his prick to slide against her inner warmth, against the folds of velvet between her legs, against that part of her that made his knees buckle hard--

But only to slide for a few precious seconds before he could move away, panting desperately, dipping down to kiss her neck and her breasts, almost tearing her gown away to have access to more of her body.

Her heart beat like that of a frantic bird's as his teeth grazed her tender nipple frantically and she whispered: "More," and then, even more dangerously, "Teddy, please--"

And Laurie had always happy to oblige her but never before, he realized when he dipped his hand against the delicate heat just below her hips, had he complied with a request more enthusiastically.

And so help him, when she cried out and opened her thighs to his inquisitive fingers, she was so warm, and so wet, and so willing and so...

So vulnerable already.

He could never be described as inexperienced in the pleasures of the bedroom, not after his adventures in Europe, not after he had tried so hard to forget her. And yet, as Laurie found himself stroking blindly and tenderly between her legs-- his sensitive finger-tips gliding up and down the softness of her folds, caressing the rough curls between her legs only to open her up again-- he felt as though he had somehow stumbled into the past again. Somehow, she made him feel reduced to that naive young man who set out from America years ago, not knowing what to do when he touched his first bare-legged woman but only knowing he did not want to fail again, that he did not want to be rejected entirely.

Only Jo could have done this to him. Inexperienced, ignorant, wholly innocent-- but still Jo, still the woman he loved, still the only one in the world who could surprise him over and over--

Beneath his lips, her heart beat; beneath his fingers, she pulsed ceaselessly. And every time he ran his thumb against the pearl of her pleasure between her velvety folds, she whispered his name, calling him to her over and over, her hands running up and down the length of his spine, raking claws over and above his throat, her nails sinking in deep.

"Teddy," she whimpered, her voice cracking on her own cry, and he wondered what she felt and what she saw as he stretched over her, blind and naked and with his hands never-ending within her inner warmth and on her belly. He wondered what he saw even as he never ceased to touch her even for a moment, determined to bring her to that place beyond words, to please her in a way that no other man would ever get to do, or touch, or see.

This was his, all his, and he'd be damned if he ever shared this with anybody.

But even as his fingers moved, he could feel his own ache begin, the frustrations of his own body starting to cloud his mind, especially after all the interruptions it had suffered from already.

And he didn't want to interrupt her pleasures, not when she was whimpering his name, not when her nails were clawing at his back again, not when she was shifting her hips and bucking every second his fingers continued to work against her skin...

He didn't want to interrupt her in any way whatsoever... but if he didn't do something to take care of himself, he thought he might very well embarrass himself without even experiencing it with a certain amount of pleasure. And he certainly didn't want to end tonight with himself spilling fruitlessly on her knees, of all things.

Maybe it would be all right to be selfish for a moment if he attended to her quickly afterward.

At this point, he'd be more than willing to beg for forgiveness on his knees.

"Will you do something for me?" he asked, when his plan finalized in his mind, and felt his heart pound as she reared up in surprise, after one of his fingers proved bold enough to begin easing its way inside her already. She was ridged deep within, intimate and real and deliciously untouched, and so damn taut he knew he could not simply take her as he pleased. But oh God, he needed and he wanted and he might end up expiring of longing if he didn't--

Well, selflessness had never been a cardinal virtue of his. But as he clasped her hand to his and hear her shakily whisper her assent, Laurie found he could no longer give a damn about that either.

He wished he could see her just then, that his wretched blindfold would not keep so persistently to him, that he could see what she looked like as she stretched open for him, her thighs going wide and her eyes probably going even wider as he led her hands to a place within her he knew she had never before reached. He imagined her wild and dark eyed for him, even as she grew so wet on her inner ridges that his palm went tacky with it, so wet she sent him aching.

And when he led her unsteady fingers first to her warmth and then to his prick, all he could do was shudder and hold on as she embraced him slowly.

His fingers replaced hers and he could feel her shiver again, the smell of her tangible on them both, animal-hot and touched with something faintly salty.

"Trust me," he whispers, and the fingers of his left hand begin to stroke her folds at the same time the fingers of his right clasped her palm around his erection desperately. "Trust me, Jo, please, love, trust me, trust me, trust me--"

And he would say more but then Jo yanked him hair first to roughly kiss her and suddenly words alone had no useful meaning.

He had dreamed of this a thousand times before, and had always dreamed of her as virginal and hapless and sweet. And now he laughed and groaned into her hungry, open mouth and wondered how on earth he could have thought that she would remain still and passive when they made love, however untouched she might be. Jo was Jo, no matter what a man might be doing to her, and she had no need whatsoever for hesitation or delicacy.

She was almost too rough to begin with, her palms nearly stinging him every time she applied pressure and worked her hands up and down his length, her writing calluses afire with heat. There was friction there already, a rough, raw sort of friction, one that made the want in him blaze up like madness in his blood as he shook and curved and thrust himself right into her fingers, the slick on them barely enough to make this more pleasurable than painful, barely enough to keep him from collapsing on her, his own digits blindly thrusting between her legs, not as gentle as he should be.

And he should be more gentle about this, he knew-- he should be and he would be. Only it was too damn hard to think when he could feel her grip around his shaft, her fingers flexing and then turning aquiline, her other hand groping against his shoulder, the blunt nails of it scratching welts up already--

With a low, animal grunt, he shifted his hand from between her legs to her hips, no longer trusting himself with what he was doing. Jo made that noise again, that noise that made him want to show no consideration whatsoever, and he could feel the tension build even higher in him, build irrevocably to a splintered heat.

"More," Laurie begged and beneath him, his wife laughed bravely and looped her fingers around his prick again, her thumb brushing his wet tip and making him pulse with ease.

"Show me," she whispered back, and when his hand abandoned her breast to cover her anxious fingers, all his blood pooled abruptly between his knees.

It was like thorns and brambles, what she did to him now, her hand bringing him both pain and pleasure in its rapid intensity. Thorns and brambles, edges and corners-- but he did not want her to cease in the least. Did not want, would not want, could not want-- not when she was pressed so desperately to him, not when her fingers were working him so hard he knew her knuckles had to be white, not when she was letting him kiss her with barely more than his tongue and teeth. Not when stars were patterning themselves beneath his eyes because of the intensity of her sweet friction, when her authorial calluses were barely softened from her slick in their rough slide, not when he had wanted this for ages, not when she is letting him do this to her, letting him so desperately use her, her sweet palm arched up for his pleasure, her mouth open and whimpering--

It shouldn't have been enough for him, what they were now doing. After all these years, after a short lifetime from being the naive boy he had once been, the mere touch of her hand-- however slick, however solid, however warm and sweetly wicked-- shouldn't have been enough to satisfy his baser needs. He knew that even as he brought her hand between her thighs again, even as he showed her how to hold her fingers curved and alight, even as he showed her how to stroke him from base to tip as he shifted forward in her grip. He could even reach out for that knowledge as he arched up and grunted and sighed, so close to the edge he could feel it blacking the edges of his already dim sight, so close it was all he could not to-- to startle her or to-- surprise--

It shouldn't have been enough for him, he knew, even as his tendons felt as though they were melting into her hand, even as he dug his fingers into her hips and shuddered into her grip over and over, his nerves overloaded, his lungs burning, his thighs shaking with the effort of holding himself aloft and alight. It shouldn't have been, given it was merely her hand, and she barely even knew how to do this to him, barely had a hundredth of the expertise of some of his past women--

It shouldn't have been enough-- only this was Jo, his dream and his life and his world and his bride, and when had she ever not been enough to surprise him entirely?

It only lasted about eight minutes from beginning to end, once his Jo had put her hand on him and made him arch into her helplessly. But it was a glorious eight minutes, full of heat and pleasure and madness and fire, minutes well worth treasuring. And after it was over and he had spent himself all over her fingers, he rested his face between her sweet breasts in the languid aftermath and laughed softly as she gasped audibly at the evidence of just how much she could make him feel.

"That," he began to whisper as soon as he could, "was... rather was... quite honestly... and absolutely..."

Jo made another hum now-- one of half-satisfaction and half-surprise-- and spoke up, her voice torn between amusement and astonishment. "Does that mean I did fine? Because if we tore up and soiled this nightgown for nothing, Meg really will be angry."

"Oh God," he muttered, groaning against her neck, a little aghast at the worst post-coital pillow talk he had ever witnessed up to and including this current deed. "Don't talk about her right now. Please don't talk about anyone else right now. And that nightgown died for a good cause. You did amazingly. Astonishingly. Wonderfully. Exquisitely! You were so... I mean, Jo, you were so..."

"Thank you for all those adjectives," she returned as he continued to sputter, laughing against his neck softly. "And I think you've earned the right to take your blindfold off, if you'd like. I imagine it's already getting rather itc--"

She had barely finished saying the words before his hands were level with his brow, busy unraveling the damned thing. And when he was finally able to blink and reopen his dazed eyes, her plain, honest face swam into his gaze, her chestnut hair tangled and riotous and falling all over the place, freckles scattered on every limb not covered in torn lace, and a twist to her lips that suggested she wasn't sure whether to clout him or kiss him currently.

"--chy," Jo concluded and rolled her eyes. "Oh, Teddy. What am I supposed to do with you?"

He solved that dilemma for her by leaning over and taking her mouth with his again, not even closing his eyes as he did so, not willing to miss a single flutter of her long, dark lashes against her impossibly sharp bronze cheeks. And in another moment, Jo began to sigh and then her breath began to stutter as it fell hot and dry on his lips before he left her sweet tongue momentarily.

Although, Laurie smugly thought as she groaned and began to rock into him once more, that might have been because of the way he now slid his hands onto her hips and then to her thighs, his thumbs caressing the smooth velvet of her rear, lifting her slightly up and lifting her open, even as he took advantage of her momentarily speechlessness to descend down her body.

"You can do," he replied-- and his grin was on this side of wicked-- "whatever you want with me."

And then he was descending down to his knees and a beat later, he was kissing a line of fire from her curled toes ascending. Lips light and mouth burning, he went up the arch of her foot, up the curve of her ankle, up the perfect line of her leg and the velvet of her inner thigh, and then into the dark nestled curls that hid the heart of her momentarily--

He spread her out between his finger-tips as she cried out and rocked suddenly toward him, hasty, urgent, needing. And then he had her raw and exposed and wholly open, and she made a noise half-way between a gasp and a sigh, as though not sure what to feel.

"Such as in this way, for example," he added, gave her shivering thigh a kiss for reassurance, and then bent down even further to lend her the warmth of his mouth and the bite of his cool, sharp teeth.

He had, after all, promised that he'd make up for his bout of selfishness on his very knees.

Which of course didn't mean he wasn't a little nervous himself as he went on, hoping he could actually pull off his impulsive actions. After all, he had never done this particular act often before; even for someone of his experiences, something about it seemed a little... well, wrong, a little off, and more than a little obscene. There was something strange and undignified in the idea of a gentleman bending down to pleasure a woman who had introduced God only knew what else into her body before he had even found her through mutual 'friends' or in a saloon, ready to begin entertaining.

No, he hadn't done this often before, and only once to completion previously. He had thought it strange and disquieting and quite disliked, and never did it more than the rare times he felt he had to, to make up for something.

Calling Jo's name out accidentally in coitus was usually his most common misdeed.

Only this was Jo herself and she trusted him to do right by her and he would not be-- he could never be-- selfish when she gave of herself so freely.

So he took her with his lips now, slowly and leisurely, as though he knew exactly what he was doing. His own need temporarily extinguished, his own desires momentarily banished, he concentrated on her with the ardor of a man who had his dreams quite literally bucking under him presently and wanted nothing more than to please it until it was pleading. Senses prickling from the textures of her and his mouth at the ready, he began to lap at the damp folds between her legs tentatively, hoping he was doing enough to compensate for his selfishness earlier and the pain he might well inflict later on in the evening.

And maybe something about his impulsive attempt to please her was still obscene. Maybe he ought to be ashamed of himself for introducing something like this on his wedding night and exposing his innocent wife to such things. Maybe he'd gone to the devil and was now dragging her with him, degrading her in some way by even showing her what could be.

Only this was Jo and he wanted the best for her, wanted to somehow simultaneously possess and protect. He wanted to make this night good for her, not merely something worth enduring.

So he kissed her in the space between her legs, feeling her arch as he moved her slim thighs to his shoulders, feeling the grain of her skin slide past his cheeks as he moved against and into her, feeling himself being welcomed to her, safe and warm in the circle of her body.

And so he licked his way right through to the tight rings of muscle that were clenching rhythmically to his every action, feeling her thighs shake at every flick his tongue made at her and her lips whimper every time he introduced himself to some delicate new crevice of her anatomy.

And so he stroked her as gently as he could with his practiced fingers, trying to make up for his rougher touches earlier, his fingertips light and fleeting as he felt her inner muscles contract and clench as he was accepted by her, her cries echoing through his ears.

So he did the best he could by her presently, kissing and licking and stroking his way through, feeling just as blind as he was before even though he could see every little fall of her flesh as she rose against him, her body speckled and sweet. He did all he could and somehow, even as his lips and teeth and tongue continued to move within her, he soon found himself shaking as well, as though his own blood were back on fire, although he was doing nothing more than kneeling down and trying to love her as best as he could.

Laurie did his best and soon, with a sudden shock, he realized she wasn't merely babbling to herself, that she was actually saying something.

"Oh God," she was saying-- and he had to bite his busy tongue not laugh and break his concentration now-- "Oh God, oh God, Teddy..."

"I know I'm good," he mumbled between stray kisses and caresses, "but Jo, I'm not actually a deity." And then, more seriously, as he flicked his eyes up and gazed at her, looking past the acres and acres of pale skin bared just for him to meet gray eyes that were staring down at him bravely. "Do you like this? Or would you rather I stopped? I'm not sure what you want right now and..."

And when her hands unclenched from their position coiled into her dark hair to slide into his, forcing his mouth back to her velvety sweetness, her nails dragging against his already abused neck--

Well, at least it was enough to let him know what she wanted him keep doing.

So he pressed himself to her again, the taste of her flooding his mouth, strangely warm and bitter-sweet. He pressed himself to her and he began licking once more, his fingers threading themselves into her all over, blind and hesitant no longer, slow but still loving. He pressed and he licked and he kissed and he caressed and soon enough, he found himself lost inside her again, his back sloping as he worked at her, feeling her thighs pressed tight against his shoulders, feeling as much as hearing her beginning to keen. He pressed on, even as she moved sharply against him, using what little momentum she had to meet his thrusts as his teeth still grasped at the velvety folds of her inner self, his tongue sliding from the very end of her slit to the raised swell at the very beginning...

And then he realized she wasn't merely sinking her nails into his neck for the hell of it; that she was trying to tell him something.

"I can even... feel your eyelashes," Jo whispered now, and her voice seemed to surge a thousand different ways as her body arched and changed against his mouth and the sound of her filtered down to his burning ears. "I can even... your... God, Teddy... I can even feel..."

And then she bucked right against his mouth, her fingers scrambling for purchase on the settee as she shuddered momentarily, the passage his fingers had been scissoring inside seizing as her inner muscles contracted and her thighs went rigid, as though all the world was now writhing between her knees--

And just like that, she wiped all his notions of shame and doubt away very cleanly.

He lifted his eyes up to look at her as she trembled from sheer pleasure for the first time, his slippery thumb pressed against her core to extend her pleasure as he looked on, his other fingers working against her lightly. And if ever he had had hesitations about what he had done to her, they were spirited away just then, as he saw her shuttered face as she shuddered her first release, her brilliant eyes closed but her wet mouth half open, her summer-tanned skin flushed and afire with heat.

She was, he realized even as his fingers continued stroking her, just about the loveliest and strangest thing he had ever seen. And though she might well be driving him to madness now, it wasn't at all one he would wish to wake up from eventually.

By the time she had finished, she was in his arms again, and he was back to kissing her sweet, warm mouth and stroking her face clean of a few stray tears. She shuddered as she tasted him on her tongue but did not push him away, not now and never again, hopefully. Instead, shivering as though the humid heat of the summer night could not touch her, she wrapped her own arms against him and pressed her flushed brow to his collarbone, as though feeling unaccountably guilty.

"If I knew that feeling like that was possible..." Jo began to murmur and then turned even redder than before, her mouth pursing itself into a sudden, strict line, as though she now imagined the spirits of a very stern Marmee and Meg spiraling around them suddenly. It was enough to make her husband chuckle against her, his fingers working up and down her spine and shoulders, as though to massage boldness back into her body.

"If you knew?" Laurie asked, not even bothering to hide his amusement. "And what would you have done, Mrs. Laurence? Would you have glided into my arms the first time I asked you to, at the age of two-and-twenty?"

"Keep talking like that and I'll glide you somewhere far less pleasant," Jo muttered, although he could still feel the blush on her cheeks when she pressed them to his shoulders. And then, a moment later, after her reflexive annoyance had evaporated, she muttered, "I might have given the whole 'literary spinster' bit a little less consideration, is all. Please don't get all smug on me."

"Indeed?" Laurie asked, but grinned before she could take offense, moving onto another topic entirely. "So... you mentioned feeling like this, which implies you enjoyed it. Does that mean you want me to revisit this position on some other eve?"

Jo turned the bright pink of her mother's geraniums in the spring time and though Laurie knew she might very well take his life right now, it would be worth it to see her at a loss for words before he left the world.

"That isn't-- that wasn't quite--" she began, stopped, sputtered and started, her fever-bright eyes promising him a dire vengeance eventually. And then, in a furtive tone of voice that suggested she might have thought her family could hear them from miles away, she whispered, "Are you sure it would be... acceptable for us to do this regularly?"

He tipped his head back and laughed as though he hadn't been asking himself the same question before he found out just how much pleasure he could bring to her with his mouth. "Jo," he said through his laughter, "we're wedded and bedded now! We can do anything we please! Good God, if you wanted to hoist me naked atop a giant sling-shot and then launch me toward another landmass by force, it would be perfectly acceptable method of showing our love for one another."

Jo paused and looked at him with an expression that suggested she was reevaluating her decision to spend a lifetime chained to his side.

He grinned cheekily back at her in turn. "I was only speaking hypothetically."

And then, possibly because she loved to keep him on his toes about her, Jo surprised him by tipping her own head back and laughing herself, although she shook her head and glossy hair at him as she did so, as though torn between between giving him a clout or a kiss.

Not that it surprised Laurie. Between them, this was simply how life was meant to be.

Luckily for him, she chose the latter, raising her face from his collar to press her lips against his softly. And after he finished weaving his fingers through her hair once more and she had pulled away from entwining his wicked tongue with hers, her eyes were bright and her face was wavering and her shoulder was tense as his hand eased down on its sharp curve, wanting to feel all of her.

"Is it going to hurt a great deal?" Jo finally whispered softly.

It took him a moment to realizing what she was speaking of, even when the impossibly silky skin of her inner thigh began caressing his erection furtively. He had been only half-hard earlier, the memory of her fingers on him enough to give him patience as he had leaned over to attend to her. But now she was here and he was here and her hands were shyly touching his bare chest and he could feel every flex and ripple in the muscles of her leg as it brought him back to desire again nearly effortlessly.

He wanted to say no, no, he wouldn't hurt her, he could never, not when he wanted her so. That he would somehow find a way to make it painless and easy.

Only this was Jo and she had been so damned taut even around his fingers and he wasn't about to lie, never and not to her, not now and here.

"I have no idea," Laurie whispered back honestly, wishing he could tell her more. "I've certainly never been a woman before and... well, truth be told, you're the first person I've ever thought to deflower."

Jo winced at that last word as soon as it exited his lips and he wished he could take it back at once, although he'd said nothing false.

In another minute, though, he learned he wouldn't have to as she remembered her courage presently. And all of a sudden, her eyes were even darker, her smile was even firmer, and that face of hers was resolute again, her shoulders stern and upright once more.

"Then let's find out together," she said, and her voice did not waver though it went soft. "I'm yours and you're mine and I want this with you, no matter what I feel afterward. As long as it's with you, Teddy. As long as you're with me."

If he didn't already love her, he probably would have learned how to do so now, as she looked all her love at him so easily, as though it were simply in her nature. And when he stood and looped his arms around her to lift her up and carry her off, her body felt smooth and soft and sure under his hands, no longer even trembling.

"That's the spirit," he murmured, and smiled radiantly at her as he carried her to bed, not hiding his pleasure in the least. "And remember... if you really dislike it, you can always take it out on my mangy hide later. I'd probably deserve any given punishment that creative mind of yours can think of afterwards, dear Josephine."

"Theodore Laurence, you incorrigible romantic, you," she said, and smiled shyly again as he set her down onto their bride-bed at last, her chestnut hair gleaming in the last rays of the candlelight as it shone down on them both. "Where did you get that silver tongue of yours? I bet it works on all the lovely ladies."

"Special mail order," he assured her, his fingers already unbuttoning the remaining few stretches of her nightgown, easing the last of the bedraggled cloth off her. "Although now that we're married, I imagine you'll have to bear the brunt of it. Do you suppose you'll prove strong enough?"

And when her fingers found their way to his curls and dragged him down to take in her soft, searching kiss, Laurie learned just how strong she could be.

***

Afterward, he knew he would remember a few details for all the rest of his life, no matter how long it stretched out, no matter at what else he might endeavor.

He would always remember, for one, the feel of her hands as they settled on his shoulders, holding him close to her, her nails sharp against his throat as her fingertips had eased over and explored him with gentle, unsteady fingers. He would always be able to recall the way she had let him frame her face with kisses, the way she had glided her hands across the ripples of his ribs, the way she had tipped her head back and trusted him with the curve of her throat, the imprint of her delicate eyelashes stuttering on his cheeks as she had given herself up and over.

He would always remember the noises she had made, the little sighs she had given, the way she had groaned as he had first pressed into her thighs and then across the dark curls between them, before finding his way down and inside of her. He would never forget the way she had winced at his first lunge before smoothing out her face into raw tenderness, her lips exploring his jaw as she whispered yes, and yes and oh please yes, tangling her legs around his hips until he trembled from all the signs of her trust.

He would always remember the knots her fingers made on his back as he had found himself deep within her skin, the way she had whispered come on and then move already, you twit, and the 'o' her lips had made as he had finally pressed on as his heart beat furiously against her shoulder. He would hold it in his memory the way he would the taste of her mouth as he had drawn a map of it with his tongue, kissing her in time to the rocking, roiling rhythm of their forms, pressed to each other as fiercely as they dared until the spiraling heat between them overspilled soon after.

He would always remember the feel of her, the way she responded so eagerly to his every press and caress, her body so shaped to his that it brought him both pain and pleasure. It was as near and dear as the way she had lifted her hand to touch his cheek when he had withdrawn from her, only moments before he spent himself over her bared skin, her body so soft it felt like sin as she curved into his last thrust.

And most of all, he would always remember how afterward she looked to him with shining eyes, how in the aftermath she eased him down to her with a kiss and surprised smile, how wordless and weightless and with no guile, she had shown him that he was loved.

***

Laurie found himself stroking her hair in the soft aftermath, strands of it as heavy and lustrous as satin slipping through his gentle fingers. His body sated and his mind finally at ease, it was all he could do not to fall asleep right against the lovely line of her shoulder. However, if he knew nothing else about women, he knew that falling asleep on them during a first time together-- let alone on a wedding night-- was very poor form. And knowing Jo, showing as much would probably lead her to form a posse of strong-willed March women who would later hunt him down like a dog.

Besides, he still hadn't finished teasing her for how 'angry' she had thought a certain part of him to be earlier. So with a light, lazy smile, he reached over to press a kiss to her delicate, fluttering eyelids and whispered: "Hello, Mrs. Laurence. How do you do for now?"

She didn't reply for so long, Laurie had ample time to wonder if she had fallen asleep herself. But finally her eyelashes fluttered open and she gazed rather hazily at him, and halfway through a full-bodied yawn, she said, "Quite well, Mr. March."

"...Mrs. Laurence," he replied (and could not hide his smile), "I know I'm quite good at the art of love but I've never been able to erase a woman's memory in bed before, no matter how well I pleased her."

"Maybe," she suggested, halfway to laughing herself, "marriage has given you special powers."

"Probably," he confessed agreeably, his fingertips now moving to brush the corners of her sweet mouth. "I must admit, this night has left me feeling invigorated indeed. I bet if you asked me to, mmm, I don't know, become a dark, strange figure of the night and attempt some heroic rescues, I could carry it off."

"And I'm sure you'd be dashing," Jo said, agreeably, lifting herself up to smooth thin covers over their bodies and then nuzzling against him once more, her shoulder against the beat of his heart. "Though I fail to understand why would I want you to do as much when I could have you curled up here with me."

"It's just a thought," he murmured, every breath he took bringing in the scent of her hair, redolent of their past hour. "And why, Mrs. Laurence, are you calling me Mr. March when you know your last name is mine as well now?"

"I thought it was only fair," she explained, her voice already growing drowsy and a little faded, their antics apparently finally getting to her. "If I take your name, you take mine. It's like an exchange of sorts."

"Well, that's fair enough," he said, and then, after waiting several seconds in which she felt curiously silent, asked: "My dear Mrs. Laurence? Have you fallen asleep?"

"...It's sort of in the plan, yes," she muttered, after a few more seconds, sounding somewhat disgruntled at him for his interruption. "Or at least, sweet Teddy, it was."

"Ah," he replied, feeling a little abashed. "Then don't allow me discourage you. You are quite tolerable when you slumber."

Even with his eyes closed, he could feel her looking back and staring at him.

"That... is one of the more interesting compliments I have ever garnered, Mr. March."

"I assure you, Mrs. Laurence, it is a heart-felt one." And then he sighed a little anxiously next to her and went more solemnly on. "And I didn't hurt you, did I, Jo? I hope you're all right after our... well... night together. I know I might have been a little too... well... too passionate..."

She snorted in a way that sounded far too amused and very far from being afraid or alarmed. "And just what would you do if I were to tell you I actually was experiencing grievous bodily harm?"

Knowing what she sounded like when she felt fit to tease him, Laurie found himself chuckling, relaxing and smoothing out his fingers over her slow-beating heart. "Is that a challenge I hear, Mrs. Laurence? Do you expect me to climb the ranges of Mount Everest in compensation, or hie myself off to India to take care of bereaved orphans forever?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of bringing me breakfast in bed tomorrow, Mr. March," Jo murmured fuzzily, slumping seemingly boneless next to him, already close to drifting to sleep. "And I feel quite all right but I imagine I ought to milk your sympathy while I still have it. You're probably going to turn all stern and dictatorial and husbandly with me after the merry chase I gave you for a few years straight..."

"Absolutely," Laurie promised, as though he wouldn't have gone off to fetch the moon for her if she had asked for it right now. "I'm planning on being an absolute terror to you so you may as well enjoy your peace while you can. I'm very much going to enjoy having you cower under my heel."

And he supposed Jo would have said something in return were it not for the fact she was already beginning to snore, the strange, fluting whistle sound of it once more ringing in his ears, becoming ever more familiar and loved and known.

Which didn't mean he had run out of words, of course. He never could, not with her around, being precisely as bewitching and wonderful and downright maddening as he had always known she would be once she was in his arms. It only meant that when he whispered his last three words of this night he would never forget, it would be nearly noiselessly into her ears as she lay dreaming, her heart covered by his palm.

And then Laurie pressed his face to his wife's hair and went to sleep as well.

***

Author's Note: As always, reviews area greatly loved and appreciated. Please do let me know if you liked my first completed series if you've finished it. It'll make me keep working hard on updates for the fall. ;)

Additionally, I've got a few more fics planned for this universe where Jo and Laurie are happily married now that this series is done. I still update 20 Different Ways to Leap Through the Minuet (a series about Jo and Laurie's entire married life) from time to time, and I'll try to finish Tempo and Rhythm (the Jo and Laurie doing scandalous things on a piano fic) by this September. Meanwhile, if enough people want to keep reading Jo and Laurie going at it joyously, I'm planning on doing something centered around Jo and Laurie's honeymoon. Suggestions would be much loved...

In any case, thanks again for reading and encouraging me to continue on in this unorthodox but wholly lovely fandom. ♥