Little Women Fic: A Night to Remember, Chapter 5 (Jo/Laurie)
Sorry for not updating this series for an entire month, especially given the way the last chapter left off! I've been really busy with the end of the spring school semester but now that it's summer, I'm looking forward to finally wrapping up this series which is-- egads-- over 30,000 words already. That's a lot of words to spill on one deflowering so after this and chapter 6, this mini-series will be wrapped up completely.
Thanks once again to all the lovely, lovely readers who have reviewed and told me what did and didn't work for them in the series-- I truly wouldn't have stuck to writing it if it weren't for you all. ♥ And special thanks to the wonderful Elisabeth Harker. She beta'd this tenaciously and made Laurie a great deal more in-character than he'd previously been. Thanks again, lovely!
Title: A Night To Remember, Chapter 5
Fandom: Little Women
Series: A Night to Remember
Characters/Pairings: Jo/Laurie, Amy, Fred, Cast
Rating: Hard R this chapter, NC-17 later
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. Slight AU, strong sexual content.
***
Last Chapter:
Jo was wholly intoxicating in his arms, from the taste of her throat to the texture of her thigh, from the feel of her velvety breasts to the sounds of her sharp cries. She was both dream and fantasy, image and reality, and she made all of Laurie’s fervid imaginings from years past look like the stuff of schoolboy idiocy. She was enough to make him almost glad that he had practiced enough with the women in Europe to escape humiliating himself against her already.
He would have done anything to please her as much as she did for him now, to bring her to the same heights of wanting, feeling-- *loving*.
And given all that, it came as quite a shock when he took a momentarily rest from loving his wife completely to see that, far from urging him on any longer, she now had her eyes shut tightly as she held on to the sides of the settee and seemed to be preparing herself for something vastly, *vastly* terrifying.
***
There were (Laurie would reflect later) probably quite a few ways to react to the fact that your beloved new bride apparently found your attentions to her on your wedding night terrifying. A man might withdraw gracefully, for example, and gravely tell her that he would not dare dream of pressing her into anything that she felt unprepared for currently. He might gallantly carry on, finding some magic way to press himself to her that would presently make the terror leave her and fervent passion rush in to mark its place. Or-- if all else failed-- he could shriek like a frightened infant, duck his head, and crawl out of the room he shared with her, terrified himself of the thought that perhaps he had overestimated just how much she wanted him in the first place.
Laurie had a little too much pride in himself to resort to option three and he knew he might very well end up a eunuch if he chose to be a demanding husband and go to option two. Therefore, he did his very best to execute option one, although his voice was still a trifle higher than he would have liked when he managed to follow through.
"Jo?" he asked, rather bewildered, a considerable amount of eye-brows askew over his startled face as he smoothed her nightgown over her exquisite thighs once more. "I... er... don't know quite how to put this but... ah... is something the matter?"
The last time Laurie recalled seeing her so horrified, her father had just burst in on them when her intended had been advancing on her with opium on his breath and a pinafore in his hands. But rather than acknowledge as much, he saw her-- eyes still tightly shut-- swallow hard and then jerk out a nod. "No, no, nothing's wrong! Please go on as you were before!"
It was just as well that she'd given up dreams of being an actress for ones of being a writer if this was the best she could presently do. "Jo," he simply replied, leveling a cocked eyebrow she could not see at her, "contrary to what you may believe, I'm not a total idiot-- merely a temporary one. You may as well try and be honest with me now."
Her first response with a very high and enormously false laugh that ran right past being amused into being stricken with terror. "A ha ha ha, wrong? What could be wrong? There's nothing wrong at all! So please, just... you know. Do go on."
Given as how that last command was accompanied by a barely suppressed tremble of her shoulders, Laurie felt he couldn't quite trust it. So with a sigh, he finished smoothing her gown's skirt back over the lovely expanses of leg he'd found so much delight in and then got up to sit beside her on the settee. She wouldn't even look at him until he reached over and tousled her dark curls affectionately, and even then, Jo's dear face held rather more apprehension than he had ever wanted from her.
"Well," he began, trying to be gentle despite his own confusion, "You see... I'd really like to. I'd really like to a great deal."
He'd always liked it when he made Jo flush and now was no different, despite the... interesting circumstances they were in. And this was a nice one-- it went all down her beloved face to her bonny breasts, leaving a pretty red stain that he could nearly see through the thin fabric covering them.
(God help him but he hoped they would resolve this issue of whatever made him a knee-knocking horror before he died of terminal frustration from wanting her.)
"Then you should!" she cried, not knowing how much she was tempting him, her mouth wobbling into a smile that held just the tiniest sliver of delightful impertinence even now. "I'm inviting you to!"
"Like a city might invite a few natural disasters?" Laurie murmured.
Jo actually looked a little affronted by the comparison, her pride warring with her unknown fears and (at least for the moment) having won. "Oh, come on, that's going a bit far! I know I'm a little... green at this but you're no intruder into my, er, physical territory. You're a welcomed guest at Josephineland! If I were a town you'd just moved into, it'd be festooned with welcoming banners."
He had to work very hard not to think of the image of her festooned in nothing but a few paper banners that this particular phrase brought forward.
"I appreciate the verbal invitation," he returned briskly, blinking hard to dispel that last thought. "And as I said before, I'd like to. Believe me, I'd very much like to. Only, it's a bit hard to feel amorous when you... er. Look as though you think I'm about to take a few bites out of you... and not in a mutually pleasurable manner either."
This made the blush fall from her sweet face, seeing as it now drained of blood dramatically. Still, good sport that she was, Jo tried to carry on, as though such an idea were normal. "Ah. Hah. Hah. Is that what you think? Silly boy! Biting, biting... I-- I love biting! If, er, if that's what you prefer! And also if that's what's... called for."
Laurie's shrewd eyes narrowed at her; he had the sudden feeling they were getting to the heart of the matter. "Only occasionally and never very deeply. And darling, you've still got a death-grip on the furniture."
This made her look down at her hands in horror, as though they had suddenly betrayed her. Still, her voice when she spoke hardly even squeaked. "Am I? Oh-- I am! But-- only because I'm very attached to it now! It was a lovely wedding present. You are the best husband I can imagine and I am-- looking forward to our wedding night very, very much!"
"Really?" he asked, and knew he was probably a terrible person for being very, very amused in the midst of her mounting horror. "Then I am as well! Darling, it's been so long that I've nearly already forgotten what to do and where to do it. Have you've already got all the rope ready for us?"
Jo's eyes were the eyes of a woman who had woken up one day to find enough pigs flying through the air to festoon the trees with pork-chops. Still, being the brave wonder that she was, she simply gulped and raised her head gallantly forward.
"Not... so much," she admitted, her lips thin with courage. "But there's some ribbons in my vanity drawer if we need them. I'm assuming you'll tie me and then have your... your way with... me...?"
Wonderful. Now he had another tempting image to try and dispel so he didn't do something wild like actually tackle her before he could find out just what was wrong.
Instead of tackling her, he smiled instead, tousling her hair once again until she finally smiled weakly at him. "I was merely jesting about the rope, dear, although... Well, no, that's leave that alone for now. And Jo, if this is the best "I know what I'm doing" acting you can muster, I don't believe the thespians on the New York stage have much to be afraid of."
She smiled weakly again, although a certain hint of ruefulness now played on her lips. "Well, now you know why I wasn't such a hit in New York." And then, after he responded to that uncharacteristically sad tone with a sympathetic smile and a gentle hand caressing the pulse in her thin wrist, she sighed and finally came out with it. "I'm sorry, Teddy. I really am. I was trying to seem all-- all ready for this even though... well, maybe I wasn't because... anyhow. I'm sorry. I know you were looking forward to this so and now I've gone and been myself again and ruined it all."
"I'd dispute that," he said to her in her own defense, a mischievous smile playing on his lips. "I don't know about you but I think you're already given me a great deal to think on."
Jo shot him a surprised look, which he cheerily shrugged off. And finally, after seeing that he was sure to keep mum for his thoughts on the moment, she sighed again and went on. "I was just... well. You know. Trying not to interfere with-- er. Whatever was supposed to be... presently going on. I know about as much about this as I know about being all nice and pretty and sweet and sensible. Even less, really, since at least I've seen others go about at the latter. In this area though... I've got even less an idea of what to do than a Neanderthal tasked with proper table manners. "
Oh.
Oh.
Oh ho ho. He'd had a suspicion that this was what her uncharacteristic terror would boil down to, but it was good to have it confirmed.
And after a moment of looking down at her wincing face with tender affection, he reached out and tweaked her nose until she gave a sharp little cry and kicked his ankle in retaliation. Satisfied that said retaliation wasn't nearly as sharp as it could have been-- and that her self-disappointment was currently being thrown by her indignation-- he then cupped her warm face in his palms and angled his lips down to kiss her until she went back to being the Jo he knew and loved so well.
It was a good kiss-- as good as all their kisses were, as good as they all inevitably became when her soft little mouth opened up (in a way that was still tempting and still shocking) to let him ply her with his teeth and lips. It was a good kiss made even better by their isolation-- by the feel of her full breasts near bare against his chest and the way her own hands flashed out to grab him by his hip and hair, as though she wanted him close to her still despite all she felt yet. It was a good kiss-- hot, sweet, wet, electric, not even marred by the way her teeth sank into his lush lower lip in search of her own revenge.
It was a good kiss and he quite regretting pulling away from it, his lower lip smarting, his whole being suffused with a sense of rightness and completion.
The things he did for love, he sighed internally, and then ran a cocky hand through his cropped dark hair.
"I like you much better angry than frightened," he whispered, after he had finally pulled away and they were both breathing hard and her eyes were flashing up at him like angry, radiant, and indisputably beautiful stars. "The latter state didn't suit you in the least."
"Oh really?" she said sharply, although she couldn't quite hold her own smile back. "It's a good thing you told me. Otherwise I might have continued thinking facing a frightened wife would have pleased you immensely."
"I don't," he said, and had to fight the urge down to continue the kisses as he had done so before, down her collarbone and to her breast, where he wanted to make her dark little nipple as flushed and hard as it had been earlier, beneath his greedy palm and teeth. "I like you much more angry at me than looking at me as though I were set to painfully ravage you. Although..." And here his voice faltered a little, at the images, the inexperience, the trust it called to his mind. "I suppose this means that you are not quite as experienced as I had... I mean, not to cast any aspersions on your virtue but..."
He had been a little afraid that she might hit him for assuming she'd be a little less afraid of intimacy because of previous romantic fumbling; instead, she simply looked down at her hands, her cheeks burning. "You can cast as many aspersions as you like, Teddy. I wouldn't live up to any, obviously. I mean-- not that I'd want to, of course!"
(Although given the set of her lips and the way Jo had always despised appearing ignorant before him, he was tempted to wonder if she was revising a different opinion presently.)
But before she could start beating herself up as she was sometimes wont to, he diverted her with a hand to her waist and a roguish smile that sent another blush scurrying against her features. "Of course not. Why waste your time with other men when you had to know I was still about? No wonder you wouldn't spend any time with them. At all. Obviously."
Another blush, indignant but also perhaps a little pleased, overtook her. "I knew nothing of the sort, Teddy. And really, I ought to scold you so for doubting my flawless moral character so much!"
"I can think of better ways of making me repent," he returned cheekily. "Physically even, if you know what I mean. And if you'd like to lay those hands on me to make me a saint once more, you may do so. I shall simply do my best to bear it manfully!"
Unfortunately, years and years of being exposed to his teasing had made her mindful of knowing when not to dance to his tune, lest her punishment to him soon become farce. So instead of wrestling with him as Laurie had hoped, she ended up barely touching him-- although he was half convinced that she did so only because she knew how much a sharp rap of her knuckles against his thigh would take his breath away now. And after it was over and he was blinking hard at her, the sudden, sharp pain/pleasure mingling with the maddening scent of her skin, she laughed, pulled away slightly, and tossed back her hair, near auburn in the candle-lights that still burned. "I hope that taught you well! And to be fair, Teddy, I think you've led a far wilder life than I have so far. But given that your charms far exceed mine, that doesn't surprise me."
He had to breathe very, very slowly through his nose for a few seconds before he could compose a bright and untroubled smile with which to greet her. Even so, he couldn't help the hoarseness that underlined his next few words. "I think you vastly underestimate yourself, Jo. In fact, I'd be surprised to learn that you somehow managed to make it to New York without finding yourself trailed by a passel of admirers."
He had worried of that often enough to upset the disposition of his own thoughts when he'd been in Europe. Hell, even as he'd cut a swath through the high society there, he'd still spent more time than he'd wanted to thinking about her and who would be privileged to share her company in another country. He knew she didn't come anywhere near the traditional definitions of beauty; nothing about Jo suggested the kind of milk-pail blandness that defined prettiness and purity for much of the people that surrounded them both. She had too much nose and chin and not enough eye and lip according to the standards of society, and while Laurie had long thought her quirks only made her more memorable and interesting, he was quite happy with the thought that perhaps no other man had ever gazed at her and realized what a wonder she was.
(Not that he'd ever tell her about this personal feeling. He rather liked his skull precisely where it was.)
"Although..." he added hopefully, his hand sneaking out from where it lay on the mark she had just given him to her own hand, "Perhaps I was wrong? After all, young men are idiots and too often rely on their eyes rather than their other and keener senses. Perhaps there was no one who chased you about in windy Manhattan. Probably they were all too foolish to try to get into your literary skirts and find what sort of wild thoughts fly around beneath your dark curls and ruddy cheeks!"
She cocked a sardonic eyebrow at him; perhaps he hid less from her than he thought. "Weren't you the one telling me that I was underestimating my charms? Aren't you the one doing that presently?"
"Er..." he began and then, cleverly, found a way to circumvent her great and terrible wrath, which he generally enjoyed but when directed solely at him. (Although that little rap on his thigh had been quite...) "I don't meant to underestimate you, dearest. Rather, I underestimate them! Stupid young men, with their stupid young eyes and their utterly insipid lack of interest in what ought to interest them. I suppose," he added hopefully, "that you didn't meet many of them anyhow? All your publishers and editors must have been older men. Usually very married older men. Worn before their years and with not much too offer such a talented young lady!"
"Well," she replied, smiling slightly in a way that he did not quite trust. "There were men like that, of course. But then, New York is so very large, Teddy. And I met my share of eligible young bachelors."
Thankfully, before his eyelids could start twitching unattractively, she smoothly went on. "Only they had a terrible habit of disavowing me for much better writers after they set themselves through my manuscripts and realized my plots were never up to par. Horrible editors, those young men. I hope you're much better, dear."
"I shall be," he promised gallantly, smiling properly now that he knew the threat was over. "And that's very good to know, Jo. Because if they were any better and-- worse yet-- even more amorous, there would have been a lot of dead bodies afterwards for me to dispose of. Would have made quite a mess on city streets."
She grinned at him in response-- sharp, bright, fierce, ferocious, the girl he had adored and the woman he now loved. But then, before he could go on by amusing her with detailed descriptions of his plans to dispose of all who had done her wrong, she smiled again in that shy, awkward way of his that could have broken his heart. "Although... to be honest, there was also... well. Somebody."
That old professor, he remembered Amy saying once, who had seemed to be courting her wild, bright, rash older sister. And given that Laurie himself had courted Jo's own flesh-and-blood, it was hardly fair of him to feel a flash of sharp pain at knowing what could have been, to hear of who he could have lost her to, to know his present happiness could have been washed away from him through a simple quirk of time and meeting and illness and art.
"There was someone," Jo was saying still, her voice a little tender after all this time. "Someone who was... kind to me, even in my darkest hours. Someone who was sweet and firm and loving and intelligent, who knew what I ought to writing and who was... was simply...."
German, Laurie distinctly remembered, and was suddenly seized with a sudden passionate hate for sausages and sauerkraut.
"...Brilliant," Jo concluded on a sigh Laurie could not like. "But he and I... we never really... well. We never even kissed, let alone came close, and I was probably deluding myself. I do that, don't I, rather a lot?"
Only the better angels in Laurie's nature forced him to tell her no and then led him to say, very softly, that it sounded as though she had cared very much for this man and if he were in the least bit sensible, he ought to have felt the very same for her.
It was a good thing to say. It was the right thing to say, even as he had to fight back a sharp flash of panic to see the soft tenderness that still lit up Jo's great gray eyes at the thought. But in another moment, he got his reward for good behavior. And when Jo leaned forward to press her lips in a tender kiss, it was one for him and it was his, just as she was.
She leaned forward and he leaned as well, their lips meeting in a collision of sweetness and delicacy and under that, hot little coils of desire, drawing against his skin until he thought he could die of sheer wanting and pounce on her again. One of her hands found his curls again; one of his nestled deep into the fabric by her hip; their bodies languid but full of raw need as they pressed against each other once again. His fingers roamed down her body, stroking curl, crevice and curve with expert care, as though to make sure the bride he had wanted for so long was truly still with him. And his control only broke when she began making soft, impatient, powerless little noises and twisted her mouth against his once more until he could feel her very desire-- hidden only momentarily beneath her terror-- rise into his own skin.
He could feel it and he knew that this was his-- all his-- her dark hair suddenly coiled tight against his fist, her mouth opening up under his greedy lips, her impossibly soft breasts pressing once more against his bare chest, the cleft between her thighs innocently firm against his own desires, one of her ankles hooking around his own as she meshed herself shyly but ardently against him in a way that only felt premeditated.
This was his, all his. She had entrusted him with this. And now that he had it-- had her with it-- he knew he couldn't bear to let it out of his arms again.
He was going to do something rash, he knew. Worse, he was going to press her to do something she wasn't ready to if she didn't interrupt him. And though he knew-- of course he knew!-- that she could have no real idea precisely how she was testing his self-control, he almost felt ready to snap if she wouldn't-- if she couldn't-- give him some clear signal that she didn't--
Her face was flushed with both love and embarrassment as she finally pushed him away, both their eyes shining, both their lips stung and red. It was nearly a wonder that she could speak afterward with such a swollen, kiss-flushed mouth, although as Laurie pressed his panting face to the back of the settee, he silently blessed her for it.
"I liked him," she said, her eyes intense and sincere on his. "I liked him quite a bit. But to be honest, even if I hadn't been wrong about what he might have wanted, it wouldn't have mattered, even in the slightest. There was never a point where I wanted anybody else the way I want you right now, Teddy. There's absolutely no room for comparison here."
It took a monumental act of will not to roll himself upon her and atop her and into her just then. But with every bit of will power still left to him, he angled his suddenly trembling hand to her hair and followed the line of a curl down to her flushed cheek and her full lips, her trembling chin and her shivering neck. His thumb pressed forward on the seam of her damp lips until she parted them for him and he felt the delicate flicker of her tongue against his jaded calluses.
"I want you so much," he said, his pianist hands running down her candle-lit beauty once more, as though she were another set of scales he needed to master before he could find peace of mind again. "I want you so much that if I were to consume all the world with you absent from it, I still wouldn't be sated. Do you feel anything like this for me, Jo? Do you feel what I feel knowing you'll be mine and mine alone? And knowing that I'm yours, because you've chosen me out of all the men you could have had?"
Pressed against the pillows, as he had pushed her backwards, she seemed impossibly delicate and precious and startlingly unprotected, although he knew from the gleam in her gray eyes that his fair opponent would not be so easily taken in. "I think you exaggerate, Teddy-- clearly under the influence of my potent feminine charms! I suppose you'll tell me now that you've felt like this for ages?"
He didn't know what he enjoyed most about being with her: fashioning ways to penetrate her armor or watching her do her best to patch it up. "Oh my but yes," he almost purred, leaning his body forward until he was almost draping over her, her ankle still hooked around his. "Don't you remember, Jo, of that one Christmas morning where your father came home-- and you, dear girl, became so overwrought I had to drag you to a nook in your house and doctor you with as much tenderness as I could handle in our half hour?"
She shivered slightly under him, though to be fair, it might just have been because of the way his hands now roamed across her chin and neck. "Oh Teddy, you didn't! That's-- that's so-- so very--"
Unfortunately, her command of adjectives seemed a little lost when faced with his fingers trailing lightly down her breast, coming to cup the sweet, full curve of it. Terror certainly wasn't part of whatever flickered past her face just then.
"Oh," he said lightly, still touching her so gently she had to arch her back into his hands to feel it, "I hate to admit it but I did. And the fantasies I had about being properly thanked for taking care of you in that little nook thereafter went quite a long way as compensation. It kept me virtuous through my college years, Jo, and that's nothing to shake your head at!"
She was shaking now, and not just with her head. "Theodore Laurence," she whispered instead, holding herself weakly up by her hands, "I ought to really upbraid you now for your conduct, do you know that?"
"Then why don't you?" he asked playfully, as playfully as he ran his fingers down her trembling form and circled the planes of her stomach with his calluses, until she gasped and arched to him. "I don't think I'd mind so very much. Especially if you get creative with my penance."
"Thirty days of bread and water," she whispered, her eyes all irises as they fixed on him.
"I thought you'd be crueler," he said, grinning, one of his hands finding her ankles and securing both around his waist.
"It'd be hypocritical to be since... since I didn't exactly... well. I didn't exactly come away from that episode without some of my own... fantasies..."
Oh.
Oh.
Oh ho ho. Clearly, all was far from being hopeless here.
He had to clear his throat as he scooted a little closer to her, she now fully on her back with him hovering above her, her body already pressed intimately to his own as her legs opened up so he could occupy the space between them. "You're very good for a man's ego, my Jo. Although..." And here, he couldn't help suppress the mischief in his voice, or the chance to unburden at least a few of the secrets of yesteryear. "I suppose it's interesting to know that both my conduct and my imagination were far more scandalous than yours in recent years. Ah, the things I used to imagine about you when you were merely my dear friend Jo, walking in those filmy nightgowns of yours in front of your candled windows..."
This time, Jo did hit him good and solid, although her loving little paw didn't make nearly the impact as it could have given her body tightened next to his in her wrath, in a manner that only made the sting she left on his upper-arm ache pleasantly. "Teddy, you didn't!"
"I did," he answered cheekily, leaning down to kiss her good and proper so that she couldn't be tempted to hit him again. And only when he knew he had her under him, good and breathless, did he let go, the taste of her lips all but imprinted on his. "I very often did. Every hour of the night that I could stay up for. Ol' Brooke should have stopped me but by then, he had other worries."
Jo looked both frightened and intrigued by the time his confession ended, although she still drew her chin up bravely to look at him. (She never turned back; it wasn't her way.) "Should I ask for any other perversions? Or have we finished up with them?"
"I think I'm done," Laurie announced thoughtfully. "I mean, unless you want me to run through the entire gamut of fantasies. Your attic features quite prominently, as well as all the interesting haberdashery you made me put on."
Despite herself, Jo laughed, and looked a little touched by his thoroughness. "Well, it may be insane and morally dubious in the most disreputable way but... honestly, Teddy, that's rather sweet. It's just that..." And how she could look worried when their bodies were all but melting into each other like bread slathered with hot butter he didn't know but Jo was managing it currently.
"I just," she finally whispered, eyes wide and tender on her flush face, "don't want to be a disappointment to you Teddy. I know you love me-- of course I know you love me! You chose me when you could have had... well, probably a lot better than me. And-- don't interrupt dear, I'm speaking-- I know you love me and want me, mentally and physically. Only--"
Disregarding her instructions, he lightly raked his nails down her neck to emphasize the latter; she cried out sharply and then opened hazy eyes to look at him afterward. "I love you," he whispered, only his elbow and the arm that he had against the settee's back keeping him from descending fully to her. "And I want you in every way possible. Whatever else you believe, believe that with all your being."
"I don't think I have the choice to do otherwise," she said, her eyes dark even with the candle-light shining in them, and he knew that if he were to touch her intimately just now, he'd find her already damp and ready for him. "But I also know that even if you find my figure-- which, by the way, looks like a wet noodle with a few uninspiring lumps attached-- insatiably attractive, it doesn't change a few key facts. After all, I know that... that..."
Blushing so hard he could feel it against his own body, Jo made a sort of snaking movement with her hand that resembled on a caterpillar on a conga line. Blinking hard, Laurie momentarily felt so confused it distracted him from his own passion-- a blessing in disguise, he was sure, but one he couldn't quite understand.
"Er," he finally said, once he felt quite sure it hadn't been a hallucination from him actually going mad from wanting and desperation, "is that supposed to stand for, ehm, se--"
Panicked, Jo slapped her hand against his mouth before he could add the 'x' to the last word. "Please don't say it!" she begged. "Oh, I'd feel so wanton if you did!"
Given that their current position with him draped sans-shirt on her half-naked form, Laurie found it a rather curious request to make. Still, though his considerable eyebrows shot up at her words, he subsided it. "So... what shall we call it then?"
"It will suffice," she mumbled, suddenly looking bashful, as though they hadn't been doing things that were a little unorthodox even for newly married couples. "Yes, even if you want me, even I'm not... inexperienced to know that... it can be... disappointing. And that some men, for all that they're supposed to be beasts, don't like..." She made her ridiculous hand-movement again and it was a tribute to the gravity of the moment that he didn't laugh. "...With some women. And I don't want to be a disappointment to you. I'd do anything not to wound you. But I simply don't know enough to know how to avoid it. And I feel like a complete ignoramus when I know I should be thrilled with everything I presently have!"
Three ideas shot through Laurie's mind just then. The first was that he really oughtn't have given her that book on the six wives of Henry the VIII before. Clearly that had given her terrible ideas and may have made her believe that Anne of Cleaves' fate might well be hers, though he wasn't (thank God) nearly as big or obese as the king himself had been. In the future, Laurie would have to be far more circumspect about his presents.
The second was that this entire scenario could have been worse: she didn't seem at all afraid of him accidentally injuring her, which was what he had been most afraid of when he had run through the scenario in pleasant dreams before. Hopefully, it wouldn't be so terribly difficult to make Jo understand that if disappointment was to be found, it was probably-- sad though it was to admit-- only on her end at this point.
And finally, he had to wonder at his own perversity, in how even when she was being the strangest being that he could contemplate, he would love her all the more dearly. Clearly, there was something to that idea she had once floated past him, that he loved her at least partially because he had been exposed to her young and when she had been able to imprint him with her image before he had learned of just how much an oddity it truly was.
Not that it changed anything, of course. In all the world, if he had to choose, he'd have still chosen her.
Finally, after a moment of contemplation, he leaned down-- although he ignored her hopeful pucker to kiss her tenderly on her brow as though she were a child. When he looked at her again, it was with vast tenderness, with love and laughter dancing in him, temporarily subsuming his want. "Jo, dearest Jo. You are the very best creature I've stumbled across, did you know? You... of all the people to worry about, you should not worry about me. Or about..." He made her hand movement but added a little twist so that her caterpillar seemed to be jousting about a bit. She laughed softly beneath him and he smiled even as he felt his desire stir once more. "Or about it either. It can be brutal and disappointing, Jo-- I won't lie to you about that presently. Think of all the pirates you've had maraud across your fair maidens in your adventures so far."
"And believe me," Jo said sadly. "I'm now regretting it."
He kissed her on her forehead again, laughing as she arched up to try and capture his lips, only to be eluded. "Do unto others, dearest. It'd be good for you to remember that. But even so, it doesn't necessarily have to be that way, Jo. It isn't always the stuff the nightmares. It can be intimate, dear. Sweet and gentle and loving and intimate. Even beautiful, if you're with someone you care for very, very deeply."
He made sure to linger on those last few words, as he let his elbow slide down and his grip on the settee's back relax so he could melt more easily into her, until the tip of their noses were pressed against each other's gently. This close, he could feel her blush as it pressed against his own cheek, her brilliant eyes coming to meet his own almost shyly. "Have you... ever found it to be that way for yourself?"
Well now. Talk about territory to tread cautiously. "A bit," he began, his voice a little wary. "Perhaps with a few women I admired, for a short time-- although next to you,they meant nothing. And now that I'm with you..."
He had meant his sweet words to be reassuring but rather than doing so, it seemed to unsettle Jo, and she began fidgeting under him until he had to retreat into a crouch over her, lest he embarrass himself against her completely. "Oh no!" she cried, not nearly as happily or wantonly as he would have liked. " I know you and I know what that means for you! Theodore Laurence, you've probably spent so much time dreaming about this moment that now that we're about to get to it, you're likely to be-- be disappointed or let down or embarrassed or-- or something--"
Dear God, she really didn't know much about sex, did she? Although knowing his stubborn darling, she'd probably been too embarrassed and prideful to go to her sister Meg for help. She was impossible sometimes, honestly.
He made her pause with another light kiss and spoke before she could interrupt with mad talk presently. "Believe me, dear Jo. I've had experience and I know that men are fairly hard to disappoint in bed. Don't worry about me unduly. If anything--" And here he had to wince, even as he knew he spoke the truth. "--I'm more worried about your disappointment."
Jo looked about as startled as he would have been had he pulled a mackerel out of his pocket and asked her to immediately make a meal with it. "Really? Why? What do you mean?"
He stared at her, suddenly unaccountably nervous. "You... truly don't know anything about the... erm... anatomical wrangling of the marital bed, do you?"
Nothing embarrassed Jo like ignorance, and though she had done it enough times that he had wondered if she'd forever be inured, she flushed again, all over her delightful little body. "No, not really."
It was times like these that made Laurie despair for the state of education in the States today. Surely it was better to allow young, soon-to-be-married women out in the world with some education on these matters than to force young and confoundedly longing husbands to have to run through the whole of human anatomy on the eve of their wedding! He had known Jo would be nervous, and had assumed that it would be primarily because she would be placed in a situation that she had never experienced before, given the apparent stupidity of the menfolk in Manhattan. But to know that she truly knew nothing about carnal congress and had been fumbling with him blindly all this time--
It angered up the blood and made him feel even more a knave than he had been previously.
Still, there was nothing to be done now but to do what should have been done earlier. And so, for her sake, he marshaled up his courage, boxed his embarrassment in enough mental concrete to make sure it would not escape just yet, and bent down to whisper a quick, highly edited and very metaphorical version of what she ought to expect to happen in the next few minutes-- hours-- days now that he had her body presently panting beneath his.
He thought he had done quite a fine job himself, given that he had vast waves of ignorance to combat here. But just when he withdrew from her-- though alas, not in quite the way he wanted!-- and was ready to congratulate her on a job well done, he saw the look in her eyes.
The look, to be frank, of profound ignorance.
...And cursed the American school system all over again, for failing him in his time of desperate need.
"Teddy," Jo said finally, "I don't know what a lady softness is. Are you referring to my elbow or my ear?"
All right. So this wasn't going to be easy. But. He could do this. He'd just... have to cut down on the metaphors and perhaps be a little bit more blunt about a man's... instruments. He could carry this out presently. He could, if only for the sake of marital harmony!
So he bent back, tried again with all his heart and soul, withdrew from her in a wholly unsatisfying manner...
And then tried not to cry tears of bitter sadness when he was confronted with Jo's blank face once more.
"Er," she said, looking deeply regretful. "I'm very sorry, Teddy, but that... that doesn't sound very anatomically probable to me."
One more time. One more time. He could do this one more time. For her. For his love! Like a knight errant off to save a maiden, although more from her own ignorance than any other dragon that might be!
One more time. One more time. And so, more intent on having a wayward pupil learn than ol' John Brooke had ever been, Laurie bent over to his task with feverish willingness...
...Only to see Jo almost glare at him when he pulled away, looking deeply unimpressed by his love offering.
"Oh come on now, Teddy," she said flatly. "Aren't you taking this the least bit seriously? I am this close to pleading a headache and retiring to bed if you're simply going to have your fun with me."
Ever the gentleman, Laurie did not howl. Laurie did not plead. Laurie did not haul himself off his radiant and brilliant bride to thump his head against the wall and wail aloud as to why fate wanted him to suffer so deeply and so dearly.
Instead, Laurie seized his wife by her shoulders and asked her, fervently: "Jo! I love you more than anything else in all the world! And so-- do you trust me?"
Looking a little worried for his mental health, she nodded cautiously. "I... yes, of course, Teddy! I'd trust you with my life if you needed to currently."
"Good," he said, with near military discipline, all traces of Lazy Laurence gone on a quest for his wife's satisfaction, as well as his own. "Because you must believe you when I tell you this. There is almost nothing you could do-- short of running off with my gardener-- that could displease me this evening. Nothing, absolutely nothing! Sex-- I mean, it-- it is a little awkward at first and God knows, we're not always the more coordinated people in all of humanity. However, I have faith that during the course of tonight, just a little trust from you would bring immense happiness to me. I want you so desperately it actually alarms me and every little move you make now feels like a bloody earthquake coursing through my body. I love you and I want to explore everything I can with you. I want to show you just how much you mean to me here, with everything I have to offer. So... if you will allow me a little of your trust to show you what I can share with you here..."
She was still for an instant, auburn and alabaster in his arms, the girl he had loved for so long and the woman who had accepted him into her life finally. But after a moment of excruciating deliberation, she finally smiled and all the world smiled back at him in her arms-- a smile that his heart beat fast against his ribs and made his whole body pleasantly ache.
"Do you mean it?" she said, even as she shyly took his hand to place it once more upon her breast, where he could feel her unknown heart beginning to beat quickly. "You won't-- take this back, you promise? You're being true and honest to me here?""
"Don't doubt this," he whispered in response, and his hand curved tenderly against her breast as his attention to her form, only momentarily diverted, rose up again in every way imaginable. "I may be a fool at times but I've rarely, if ever, been a liar. I want this more than anything.
She looked up at him, eyes shining, her face a portrait he would carry with him as long as she lived presently. "Then I want this too!" she cried. "I want to explore this more with you. Only..." And here she surprised him by biting her lips and looking away, hesitant suddenly. "Only... perhaps we can make this a little easier for me by... compromising on something?"
"How, dear?" he asked, tender and low, feeling his stomach muscles clench up to hear that sweet, unfamiliar note of longing stem from her long throat. "I'll do anything for you, Jo. Anything you please."
She wouldn't quite look at him yet, which her impending this request all the more intriguing, especially as she cleared her throat and looked away once more before speaking. "Well, I-- I have to admit to being speculative, Teddy. You know how I can be! And even though this might not seem quite... proper, I have to admit to being curious about precisely what goes on when people finally get to... coupling. So I perhaps wanted to know if we could maybe... only put out the candles... eventually...?"
Oh.
Oh.
Oh ho ho. And of all the oh's he had to give this evening, this was by far the most pleasing.
He interrupted with an eagerness that would, in nearly any other circumstances, be very embarrassing. "Oh, but it is! Or at least, it can be! We're married now, blessed by man and God, and we've got dispensations to do near anything we please!"
The lights would stay on. Lord God, yes. He had known being with Jo would mean leaving behind all the tiresome conventions that had dragged him down so far but he had no idea that things would get this interesting. He wasn't sure why his maker had blessed him so but he was going to be damn well grateful for it. He'd go to Church every Sunday, tithe at least some of his fortune away, and--
She interrupted him with a soft cry that ought to have warned him already. "I'm glad you approve!" she said. "I really like the idea as well! It's... you're beautiful, you know. Not that I'm with you merely because of your surface, of course. It's just... I've always liked the idea of... looking at you. Freely. And openly. And you seem so enthusiastic that I thought that maybe you wouldn't mind if I were just a little bit outlandish and..."
The pretty flush that had been playing on her face and collarbone seemed to deepen almost impossibly, until she was all but a scarlet flower of a woman splayed out enticingly beneath him. Laurie had to exercise rather more control than he'd be comfortable speaking of not to get on with exercising her trust already. "Yes, dear," he smoothly said instead, trying not to picture her writhing under him just yet and spoil the fun prematurely. "I understand your request! And believe me, I'd be happy to carry it out. After all..."
And though it likely wasn't playing fair, he couldn't quite help drawing the hand that had been demurely resting against her breast to just below the smooth, supple mound of it, to cup the tempting curve of it easily.
After all, she'd spent whole years tempting his self-control. Wasn't it fair to return the favor a little here?
"I live and die for your pleasure tonight," he whispered. "Make any request you please right now. I'll fulfill it gladly."
"That's good to know," Jo croaked in a shy little voice that made him grin like a cat that had caught the prized canary at last, and that sent the hand not occupied by her to undo his trouser buttons quickly. "I'm g-gratified to know you've pay so much attention to me..."
"Mmm hmm," he agreed, dexterous pianist hands already toying with one of her dark little nipples as they unbuttoned his slacks slowly. "Oh yes. A Laurence man always aims to please."
"I can see the truth of that right now," Jo weakly agreed, her legs tightening a little on his boyish hips. "Only--"
Only? Only? Only what? Laurie and his busy, busy hands didn't like the sound of that in the least.
"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?"
***
Author's Note: More than a month to write this and I end with yet another sex-cliffhanger. I really wouldn't be surprised if everyone who finished this chapter wanted to kill me currently! However, never fear. I'll try to get the next chapter finished before a month's gone by. Let's hope inspiration strikes me soon! And the next chapter shall be the last one so if you have any ideas for what Jo and Laurie should do as they get ready to deflower-- or possibly deforest-- one another, now is the time to let me know. ;)
And as always, please review if you enjoyed this chapter! I love comments and constructive criticism because they really motivate me and keeps me on track with my work. I'm trying to find a good fannish home for my imagination after leaving my last long-time fandom and I'd like this the Little Women series to be it. If you enjoyed reading this, please do drop me a note to let me know I have an audience out there to inspire me to keep writing.
Thanks once again to all the lovely, lovely readers who have reviewed and told me what did and didn't work for them in the series-- I truly wouldn't have stuck to writing it if it weren't for you all. ♥ And special thanks to the wonderful Elisabeth Harker. She beta'd this tenaciously and made Laurie a great deal more in-character than he'd previously been. Thanks again, lovely!
Title: A Night To Remember, Chapter 5
Fandom: Little Women
Series: A Night to Remember
Characters/Pairings: Jo/Laurie, Amy, Fred, Cast
Rating: Hard R this chapter, NC-17 later
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. Slight AU, strong sexual content.
***
Last Chapter:
Jo was wholly intoxicating in his arms, from the taste of her throat to the texture of her thigh, from the feel of her velvety breasts to the sounds of her sharp cries. She was both dream and fantasy, image and reality, and she made all of Laurie’s fervid imaginings from years past look like the stuff of schoolboy idiocy. She was enough to make him almost glad that he had practiced enough with the women in Europe to escape humiliating himself against her already.
He would have done anything to please her as much as she did for him now, to bring her to the same heights of wanting, feeling-- *loving*.
And given all that, it came as quite a shock when he took a momentarily rest from loving his wife completely to see that, far from urging him on any longer, she now had her eyes shut tightly as she held on to the sides of the settee and seemed to be preparing herself for something vastly, *vastly* terrifying.
***
There were (Laurie would reflect later) probably quite a few ways to react to the fact that your beloved new bride apparently found your attentions to her on your wedding night terrifying. A man might withdraw gracefully, for example, and gravely tell her that he would not dare dream of pressing her into anything that she felt unprepared for currently. He might gallantly carry on, finding some magic way to press himself to her that would presently make the terror leave her and fervent passion rush in to mark its place. Or-- if all else failed-- he could shriek like a frightened infant, duck his head, and crawl out of the room he shared with her, terrified himself of the thought that perhaps he had overestimated just how much she wanted him in the first place.
Laurie had a little too much pride in himself to resort to option three and he knew he might very well end up a eunuch if he chose to be a demanding husband and go to option two. Therefore, he did his very best to execute option one, although his voice was still a trifle higher than he would have liked when he managed to follow through.
"Jo?" he asked, rather bewildered, a considerable amount of eye-brows askew over his startled face as he smoothed her nightgown over her exquisite thighs once more. "I... er... don't know quite how to put this but... ah... is something the matter?"
The last time Laurie recalled seeing her so horrified, her father had just burst in on them when her intended had been advancing on her with opium on his breath and a pinafore in his hands. But rather than acknowledge as much, he saw her-- eyes still tightly shut-- swallow hard and then jerk out a nod. "No, no, nothing's wrong! Please go on as you were before!"
It was just as well that she'd given up dreams of being an actress for ones of being a writer if this was the best she could presently do. "Jo," he simply replied, leveling a cocked eyebrow she could not see at her, "contrary to what you may believe, I'm not a total idiot-- merely a temporary one. You may as well try and be honest with me now."
Her first response with a very high and enormously false laugh that ran right past being amused into being stricken with terror. "A ha ha ha, wrong? What could be wrong? There's nothing wrong at all! So please, just... you know. Do go on."
Given as how that last command was accompanied by a barely suppressed tremble of her shoulders, Laurie felt he couldn't quite trust it. So with a sigh, he finished smoothing her gown's skirt back over the lovely expanses of leg he'd found so much delight in and then got up to sit beside her on the settee. She wouldn't even look at him until he reached over and tousled her dark curls affectionately, and even then, Jo's dear face held rather more apprehension than he had ever wanted from her.
"Well," he began, trying to be gentle despite his own confusion, "You see... I'd really like to. I'd really like to a great deal."
He'd always liked it when he made Jo flush and now was no different, despite the... interesting circumstances they were in. And this was a nice one-- it went all down her beloved face to her bonny breasts, leaving a pretty red stain that he could nearly see through the thin fabric covering them.
(God help him but he hoped they would resolve this issue of whatever made him a knee-knocking horror before he died of terminal frustration from wanting her.)
"Then you should!" she cried, not knowing how much she was tempting him, her mouth wobbling into a smile that held just the tiniest sliver of delightful impertinence even now. "I'm inviting you to!"
"Like a city might invite a few natural disasters?" Laurie murmured.
Jo actually looked a little affronted by the comparison, her pride warring with her unknown fears and (at least for the moment) having won. "Oh, come on, that's going a bit far! I know I'm a little... green at this but you're no intruder into my, er, physical territory. You're a welcomed guest at Josephineland! If I were a town you'd just moved into, it'd be festooned with welcoming banners."
He had to work very hard not to think of the image of her festooned in nothing but a few paper banners that this particular phrase brought forward.
"I appreciate the verbal invitation," he returned briskly, blinking hard to dispel that last thought. "And as I said before, I'd like to. Believe me, I'd very much like to. Only, it's a bit hard to feel amorous when you... er. Look as though you think I'm about to take a few bites out of you... and not in a mutually pleasurable manner either."
This made the blush fall from her sweet face, seeing as it now drained of blood dramatically. Still, good sport that she was, Jo tried to carry on, as though such an idea were normal. "Ah. Hah. Hah. Is that what you think? Silly boy! Biting, biting... I-- I love biting! If, er, if that's what you prefer! And also if that's what's... called for."
Laurie's shrewd eyes narrowed at her; he had the sudden feeling they were getting to the heart of the matter. "Only occasionally and never very deeply. And darling, you've still got a death-grip on the furniture."
This made her look down at her hands in horror, as though they had suddenly betrayed her. Still, her voice when she spoke hardly even squeaked. "Am I? Oh-- I am! But-- only because I'm very attached to it now! It was a lovely wedding present. You are the best husband I can imagine and I am-- looking forward to our wedding night very, very much!"
"Really?" he asked, and knew he was probably a terrible person for being very, very amused in the midst of her mounting horror. "Then I am as well! Darling, it's been so long that I've nearly already forgotten what to do and where to do it. Have you've already got all the rope ready for us?"
Jo's eyes were the eyes of a woman who had woken up one day to find enough pigs flying through the air to festoon the trees with pork-chops. Still, being the brave wonder that she was, she simply gulped and raised her head gallantly forward.
"Not... so much," she admitted, her lips thin with courage. "But there's some ribbons in my vanity drawer if we need them. I'm assuming you'll tie me and then have your... your way with... me...?"
Wonderful. Now he had another tempting image to try and dispel so he didn't do something wild like actually tackle her before he could find out just what was wrong.
Instead of tackling her, he smiled instead, tousling her hair once again until she finally smiled weakly at him. "I was merely jesting about the rope, dear, although... Well, no, that's leave that alone for now. And Jo, if this is the best "I know what I'm doing" acting you can muster, I don't believe the thespians on the New York stage have much to be afraid of."
She smiled weakly again, although a certain hint of ruefulness now played on her lips. "Well, now you know why I wasn't such a hit in New York." And then, after he responded to that uncharacteristically sad tone with a sympathetic smile and a gentle hand caressing the pulse in her thin wrist, she sighed and finally came out with it. "I'm sorry, Teddy. I really am. I was trying to seem all-- all ready for this even though... well, maybe I wasn't because... anyhow. I'm sorry. I know you were looking forward to this so and now I've gone and been myself again and ruined it all."
"I'd dispute that," he said to her in her own defense, a mischievous smile playing on his lips. "I don't know about you but I think you're already given me a great deal to think on."
Jo shot him a surprised look, which he cheerily shrugged off. And finally, after seeing that he was sure to keep mum for his thoughts on the moment, she sighed again and went on. "I was just... well. You know. Trying not to interfere with-- er. Whatever was supposed to be... presently going on. I know about as much about this as I know about being all nice and pretty and sweet and sensible. Even less, really, since at least I've seen others go about at the latter. In this area though... I've got even less an idea of what to do than a Neanderthal tasked with proper table manners. "
Oh.
Oh.
Oh ho ho. He'd had a suspicion that this was what her uncharacteristic terror would boil down to, but it was good to have it confirmed.
And after a moment of looking down at her wincing face with tender affection, he reached out and tweaked her nose until she gave a sharp little cry and kicked his ankle in retaliation. Satisfied that said retaliation wasn't nearly as sharp as it could have been-- and that her self-disappointment was currently being thrown by her indignation-- he then cupped her warm face in his palms and angled his lips down to kiss her until she went back to being the Jo he knew and loved so well.
It was a good kiss-- as good as all their kisses were, as good as they all inevitably became when her soft little mouth opened up (in a way that was still tempting and still shocking) to let him ply her with his teeth and lips. It was a good kiss made even better by their isolation-- by the feel of her full breasts near bare against his chest and the way her own hands flashed out to grab him by his hip and hair, as though she wanted him close to her still despite all she felt yet. It was a good kiss-- hot, sweet, wet, electric, not even marred by the way her teeth sank into his lush lower lip in search of her own revenge.
It was a good kiss and he quite regretting pulling away from it, his lower lip smarting, his whole being suffused with a sense of rightness and completion.
The things he did for love, he sighed internally, and then ran a cocky hand through his cropped dark hair.
"I like you much better angry than frightened," he whispered, after he had finally pulled away and they were both breathing hard and her eyes were flashing up at him like angry, radiant, and indisputably beautiful stars. "The latter state didn't suit you in the least."
"Oh really?" she said sharply, although she couldn't quite hold her own smile back. "It's a good thing you told me. Otherwise I might have continued thinking facing a frightened wife would have pleased you immensely."
"I don't," he said, and had to fight the urge down to continue the kisses as he had done so before, down her collarbone and to her breast, where he wanted to make her dark little nipple as flushed and hard as it had been earlier, beneath his greedy palm and teeth. "I like you much more angry at me than looking at me as though I were set to painfully ravage you. Although..." And here his voice faltered a little, at the images, the inexperience, the trust it called to his mind. "I suppose this means that you are not quite as experienced as I had... I mean, not to cast any aspersions on your virtue but..."
He had been a little afraid that she might hit him for assuming she'd be a little less afraid of intimacy because of previous romantic fumbling; instead, she simply looked down at her hands, her cheeks burning. "You can cast as many aspersions as you like, Teddy. I wouldn't live up to any, obviously. I mean-- not that I'd want to, of course!"
(Although given the set of her lips and the way Jo had always despised appearing ignorant before him, he was tempted to wonder if she was revising a different opinion presently.)
But before she could start beating herself up as she was sometimes wont to, he diverted her with a hand to her waist and a roguish smile that sent another blush scurrying against her features. "Of course not. Why waste your time with other men when you had to know I was still about? No wonder you wouldn't spend any time with them. At all. Obviously."
Another blush, indignant but also perhaps a little pleased, overtook her. "I knew nothing of the sort, Teddy. And really, I ought to scold you so for doubting my flawless moral character so much!"
"I can think of better ways of making me repent," he returned cheekily. "Physically even, if you know what I mean. And if you'd like to lay those hands on me to make me a saint once more, you may do so. I shall simply do my best to bear it manfully!"
Unfortunately, years and years of being exposed to his teasing had made her mindful of knowing when not to dance to his tune, lest her punishment to him soon become farce. So instead of wrestling with him as Laurie had hoped, she ended up barely touching him-- although he was half convinced that she did so only because she knew how much a sharp rap of her knuckles against his thigh would take his breath away now. And after it was over and he was blinking hard at her, the sudden, sharp pain/pleasure mingling with the maddening scent of her skin, she laughed, pulled away slightly, and tossed back her hair, near auburn in the candle-lights that still burned. "I hope that taught you well! And to be fair, Teddy, I think you've led a far wilder life than I have so far. But given that your charms far exceed mine, that doesn't surprise me."
He had to breathe very, very slowly through his nose for a few seconds before he could compose a bright and untroubled smile with which to greet her. Even so, he couldn't help the hoarseness that underlined his next few words. "I think you vastly underestimate yourself, Jo. In fact, I'd be surprised to learn that you somehow managed to make it to New York without finding yourself trailed by a passel of admirers."
He had worried of that often enough to upset the disposition of his own thoughts when he'd been in Europe. Hell, even as he'd cut a swath through the high society there, he'd still spent more time than he'd wanted to thinking about her and who would be privileged to share her company in another country. He knew she didn't come anywhere near the traditional definitions of beauty; nothing about Jo suggested the kind of milk-pail blandness that defined prettiness and purity for much of the people that surrounded them both. She had too much nose and chin and not enough eye and lip according to the standards of society, and while Laurie had long thought her quirks only made her more memorable and interesting, he was quite happy with the thought that perhaps no other man had ever gazed at her and realized what a wonder she was.
(Not that he'd ever tell her about this personal feeling. He rather liked his skull precisely where it was.)
"Although..." he added hopefully, his hand sneaking out from where it lay on the mark she had just given him to her own hand, "Perhaps I was wrong? After all, young men are idiots and too often rely on their eyes rather than their other and keener senses. Perhaps there was no one who chased you about in windy Manhattan. Probably they were all too foolish to try to get into your literary skirts and find what sort of wild thoughts fly around beneath your dark curls and ruddy cheeks!"
She cocked a sardonic eyebrow at him; perhaps he hid less from her than he thought. "Weren't you the one telling me that I was underestimating my charms? Aren't you the one doing that presently?"
"Er..." he began and then, cleverly, found a way to circumvent her great and terrible wrath, which he generally enjoyed but when directed solely at him. (Although that little rap on his thigh had been quite...) "I don't meant to underestimate you, dearest. Rather, I underestimate them! Stupid young men, with their stupid young eyes and their utterly insipid lack of interest in what ought to interest them. I suppose," he added hopefully, "that you didn't meet many of them anyhow? All your publishers and editors must have been older men. Usually very married older men. Worn before their years and with not much too offer such a talented young lady!"
"Well," she replied, smiling slightly in a way that he did not quite trust. "There were men like that, of course. But then, New York is so very large, Teddy. And I met my share of eligible young bachelors."
Thankfully, before his eyelids could start twitching unattractively, she smoothly went on. "Only they had a terrible habit of disavowing me for much better writers after they set themselves through my manuscripts and realized my plots were never up to par. Horrible editors, those young men. I hope you're much better, dear."
"I shall be," he promised gallantly, smiling properly now that he knew the threat was over. "And that's very good to know, Jo. Because if they were any better and-- worse yet-- even more amorous, there would have been a lot of dead bodies afterwards for me to dispose of. Would have made quite a mess on city streets."
She grinned at him in response-- sharp, bright, fierce, ferocious, the girl he had adored and the woman he now loved. But then, before he could go on by amusing her with detailed descriptions of his plans to dispose of all who had done her wrong, she smiled again in that shy, awkward way of his that could have broken his heart. "Although... to be honest, there was also... well. Somebody."
That old professor, he remembered Amy saying once, who had seemed to be courting her wild, bright, rash older sister. And given that Laurie himself had courted Jo's own flesh-and-blood, it was hardly fair of him to feel a flash of sharp pain at knowing what could have been, to hear of who he could have lost her to, to know his present happiness could have been washed away from him through a simple quirk of time and meeting and illness and art.
"There was someone," Jo was saying still, her voice a little tender after all this time. "Someone who was... kind to me, even in my darkest hours. Someone who was sweet and firm and loving and intelligent, who knew what I ought to writing and who was... was simply...."
German, Laurie distinctly remembered, and was suddenly seized with a sudden passionate hate for sausages and sauerkraut.
"...Brilliant," Jo concluded on a sigh Laurie could not like. "But he and I... we never really... well. We never even kissed, let alone came close, and I was probably deluding myself. I do that, don't I, rather a lot?"
Only the better angels in Laurie's nature forced him to tell her no and then led him to say, very softly, that it sounded as though she had cared very much for this man and if he were in the least bit sensible, he ought to have felt the very same for her.
It was a good thing to say. It was the right thing to say, even as he had to fight back a sharp flash of panic to see the soft tenderness that still lit up Jo's great gray eyes at the thought. But in another moment, he got his reward for good behavior. And when Jo leaned forward to press her lips in a tender kiss, it was one for him and it was his, just as she was.
She leaned forward and he leaned as well, their lips meeting in a collision of sweetness and delicacy and under that, hot little coils of desire, drawing against his skin until he thought he could die of sheer wanting and pounce on her again. One of her hands found his curls again; one of his nestled deep into the fabric by her hip; their bodies languid but full of raw need as they pressed against each other once again. His fingers roamed down her body, stroking curl, crevice and curve with expert care, as though to make sure the bride he had wanted for so long was truly still with him. And his control only broke when she began making soft, impatient, powerless little noises and twisted her mouth against his once more until he could feel her very desire-- hidden only momentarily beneath her terror-- rise into his own skin.
He could feel it and he knew that this was his-- all his-- her dark hair suddenly coiled tight against his fist, her mouth opening up under his greedy lips, her impossibly soft breasts pressing once more against his bare chest, the cleft between her thighs innocently firm against his own desires, one of her ankles hooking around his own as she meshed herself shyly but ardently against him in a way that only felt premeditated.
This was his, all his. She had entrusted him with this. And now that he had it-- had her with it-- he knew he couldn't bear to let it out of his arms again.
He was going to do something rash, he knew. Worse, he was going to press her to do something she wasn't ready to if she didn't interrupt him. And though he knew-- of course he knew!-- that she could have no real idea precisely how she was testing his self-control, he almost felt ready to snap if she wouldn't-- if she couldn't-- give him some clear signal that she didn't--
Her face was flushed with both love and embarrassment as she finally pushed him away, both their eyes shining, both their lips stung and red. It was nearly a wonder that she could speak afterward with such a swollen, kiss-flushed mouth, although as Laurie pressed his panting face to the back of the settee, he silently blessed her for it.
"I liked him," she said, her eyes intense and sincere on his. "I liked him quite a bit. But to be honest, even if I hadn't been wrong about what he might have wanted, it wouldn't have mattered, even in the slightest. There was never a point where I wanted anybody else the way I want you right now, Teddy. There's absolutely no room for comparison here."
It took a monumental act of will not to roll himself upon her and atop her and into her just then. But with every bit of will power still left to him, he angled his suddenly trembling hand to her hair and followed the line of a curl down to her flushed cheek and her full lips, her trembling chin and her shivering neck. His thumb pressed forward on the seam of her damp lips until she parted them for him and he felt the delicate flicker of her tongue against his jaded calluses.
"I want you so much," he said, his pianist hands running down her candle-lit beauty once more, as though she were another set of scales he needed to master before he could find peace of mind again. "I want you so much that if I were to consume all the world with you absent from it, I still wouldn't be sated. Do you feel anything like this for me, Jo? Do you feel what I feel knowing you'll be mine and mine alone? And knowing that I'm yours, because you've chosen me out of all the men you could have had?"
Pressed against the pillows, as he had pushed her backwards, she seemed impossibly delicate and precious and startlingly unprotected, although he knew from the gleam in her gray eyes that his fair opponent would not be so easily taken in. "I think you exaggerate, Teddy-- clearly under the influence of my potent feminine charms! I suppose you'll tell me now that you've felt like this for ages?"
He didn't know what he enjoyed most about being with her: fashioning ways to penetrate her armor or watching her do her best to patch it up. "Oh my but yes," he almost purred, leaning his body forward until he was almost draping over her, her ankle still hooked around his. "Don't you remember, Jo, of that one Christmas morning where your father came home-- and you, dear girl, became so overwrought I had to drag you to a nook in your house and doctor you with as much tenderness as I could handle in our half hour?"
She shivered slightly under him, though to be fair, it might just have been because of the way his hands now roamed across her chin and neck. "Oh Teddy, you didn't! That's-- that's so-- so very--"
Unfortunately, her command of adjectives seemed a little lost when faced with his fingers trailing lightly down her breast, coming to cup the sweet, full curve of it. Terror certainly wasn't part of whatever flickered past her face just then.
"Oh," he said lightly, still touching her so gently she had to arch her back into his hands to feel it, "I hate to admit it but I did. And the fantasies I had about being properly thanked for taking care of you in that little nook thereafter went quite a long way as compensation. It kept me virtuous through my college years, Jo, and that's nothing to shake your head at!"
She was shaking now, and not just with her head. "Theodore Laurence," she whispered instead, holding herself weakly up by her hands, "I ought to really upbraid you now for your conduct, do you know that?"
"Then why don't you?" he asked playfully, as playfully as he ran his fingers down her trembling form and circled the planes of her stomach with his calluses, until she gasped and arched to him. "I don't think I'd mind so very much. Especially if you get creative with my penance."
"Thirty days of bread and water," she whispered, her eyes all irises as they fixed on him.
"I thought you'd be crueler," he said, grinning, one of his hands finding her ankles and securing both around his waist.
"It'd be hypocritical to be since... since I didn't exactly... well. I didn't exactly come away from that episode without some of my own... fantasies..."
Oh.
Oh.
Oh ho ho. Clearly, all was far from being hopeless here.
He had to clear his throat as he scooted a little closer to her, she now fully on her back with him hovering above her, her body already pressed intimately to his own as her legs opened up so he could occupy the space between them. "You're very good for a man's ego, my Jo. Although..." And here, he couldn't help suppress the mischief in his voice, or the chance to unburden at least a few of the secrets of yesteryear. "I suppose it's interesting to know that both my conduct and my imagination were far more scandalous than yours in recent years. Ah, the things I used to imagine about you when you were merely my dear friend Jo, walking in those filmy nightgowns of yours in front of your candled windows..."
This time, Jo did hit him good and solid, although her loving little paw didn't make nearly the impact as it could have given her body tightened next to his in her wrath, in a manner that only made the sting she left on his upper-arm ache pleasantly. "Teddy, you didn't!"
"I did," he answered cheekily, leaning down to kiss her good and proper so that she couldn't be tempted to hit him again. And only when he knew he had her under him, good and breathless, did he let go, the taste of her lips all but imprinted on his. "I very often did. Every hour of the night that I could stay up for. Ol' Brooke should have stopped me but by then, he had other worries."
Jo looked both frightened and intrigued by the time his confession ended, although she still drew her chin up bravely to look at him. (She never turned back; it wasn't her way.) "Should I ask for any other perversions? Or have we finished up with them?"
"I think I'm done," Laurie announced thoughtfully. "I mean, unless you want me to run through the entire gamut of fantasies. Your attic features quite prominently, as well as all the interesting haberdashery you made me put on."
Despite herself, Jo laughed, and looked a little touched by his thoroughness. "Well, it may be insane and morally dubious in the most disreputable way but... honestly, Teddy, that's rather sweet. It's just that..." And how she could look worried when their bodies were all but melting into each other like bread slathered with hot butter he didn't know but Jo was managing it currently.
"I just," she finally whispered, eyes wide and tender on her flush face, "don't want to be a disappointment to you Teddy. I know you love me-- of course I know you love me! You chose me when you could have had... well, probably a lot better than me. And-- don't interrupt dear, I'm speaking-- I know you love me and want me, mentally and physically. Only--"
Disregarding her instructions, he lightly raked his nails down her neck to emphasize the latter; she cried out sharply and then opened hazy eyes to look at him afterward. "I love you," he whispered, only his elbow and the arm that he had against the settee's back keeping him from descending fully to her. "And I want you in every way possible. Whatever else you believe, believe that with all your being."
"I don't think I have the choice to do otherwise," she said, her eyes dark even with the candle-light shining in them, and he knew that if he were to touch her intimately just now, he'd find her already damp and ready for him. "But I also know that even if you find my figure-- which, by the way, looks like a wet noodle with a few uninspiring lumps attached-- insatiably attractive, it doesn't change a few key facts. After all, I know that... that..."
Blushing so hard he could feel it against his own body, Jo made a sort of snaking movement with her hand that resembled on a caterpillar on a conga line. Blinking hard, Laurie momentarily felt so confused it distracted him from his own passion-- a blessing in disguise, he was sure, but one he couldn't quite understand.
"Er," he finally said, once he felt quite sure it hadn't been a hallucination from him actually going mad from wanting and desperation, "is that supposed to stand for, ehm, se--"
Panicked, Jo slapped her hand against his mouth before he could add the 'x' to the last word. "Please don't say it!" she begged. "Oh, I'd feel so wanton if you did!"
Given that their current position with him draped sans-shirt on her half-naked form, Laurie found it a rather curious request to make. Still, though his considerable eyebrows shot up at her words, he subsided it. "So... what shall we call it then?"
"It will suffice," she mumbled, suddenly looking bashful, as though they hadn't been doing things that were a little unorthodox even for newly married couples. "Yes, even if you want me, even I'm not... inexperienced to know that... it can be... disappointing. And that some men, for all that they're supposed to be beasts, don't like..." She made her ridiculous hand-movement again and it was a tribute to the gravity of the moment that he didn't laugh. "...With some women. And I don't want to be a disappointment to you. I'd do anything not to wound you. But I simply don't know enough to know how to avoid it. And I feel like a complete ignoramus when I know I should be thrilled with everything I presently have!"
Three ideas shot through Laurie's mind just then. The first was that he really oughtn't have given her that book on the six wives of Henry the VIII before. Clearly that had given her terrible ideas and may have made her believe that Anne of Cleaves' fate might well be hers, though he wasn't (thank God) nearly as big or obese as the king himself had been. In the future, Laurie would have to be far more circumspect about his presents.
The second was that this entire scenario could have been worse: she didn't seem at all afraid of him accidentally injuring her, which was what he had been most afraid of when he had run through the scenario in pleasant dreams before. Hopefully, it wouldn't be so terribly difficult to make Jo understand that if disappointment was to be found, it was probably-- sad though it was to admit-- only on her end at this point.
And finally, he had to wonder at his own perversity, in how even when she was being the strangest being that he could contemplate, he would love her all the more dearly. Clearly, there was something to that idea she had once floated past him, that he loved her at least partially because he had been exposed to her young and when she had been able to imprint him with her image before he had learned of just how much an oddity it truly was.
Not that it changed anything, of course. In all the world, if he had to choose, he'd have still chosen her.
Finally, after a moment of contemplation, he leaned down-- although he ignored her hopeful pucker to kiss her tenderly on her brow as though she were a child. When he looked at her again, it was with vast tenderness, with love and laughter dancing in him, temporarily subsuming his want. "Jo, dearest Jo. You are the very best creature I've stumbled across, did you know? You... of all the people to worry about, you should not worry about me. Or about..." He made her hand movement but added a little twist so that her caterpillar seemed to be jousting about a bit. She laughed softly beneath him and he smiled even as he felt his desire stir once more. "Or about it either. It can be brutal and disappointing, Jo-- I won't lie to you about that presently. Think of all the pirates you've had maraud across your fair maidens in your adventures so far."
"And believe me," Jo said sadly. "I'm now regretting it."
He kissed her on her forehead again, laughing as she arched up to try and capture his lips, only to be eluded. "Do unto others, dearest. It'd be good for you to remember that. But even so, it doesn't necessarily have to be that way, Jo. It isn't always the stuff the nightmares. It can be intimate, dear. Sweet and gentle and loving and intimate. Even beautiful, if you're with someone you care for very, very deeply."
He made sure to linger on those last few words, as he let his elbow slide down and his grip on the settee's back relax so he could melt more easily into her, until the tip of their noses were pressed against each other's gently. This close, he could feel her blush as it pressed against his own cheek, her brilliant eyes coming to meet his own almost shyly. "Have you... ever found it to be that way for yourself?"
Well now. Talk about territory to tread cautiously. "A bit," he began, his voice a little wary. "Perhaps with a few women I admired, for a short time-- although next to you,they meant nothing. And now that I'm with you..."
He had meant his sweet words to be reassuring but rather than doing so, it seemed to unsettle Jo, and she began fidgeting under him until he had to retreat into a crouch over her, lest he embarrass himself against her completely. "Oh no!" she cried, not nearly as happily or wantonly as he would have liked. " I know you and I know what that means for you! Theodore Laurence, you've probably spent so much time dreaming about this moment that now that we're about to get to it, you're likely to be-- be disappointed or let down or embarrassed or-- or something--"
Dear God, she really didn't know much about sex, did she? Although knowing his stubborn darling, she'd probably been too embarrassed and prideful to go to her sister Meg for help. She was impossible sometimes, honestly.
He made her pause with another light kiss and spoke before she could interrupt with mad talk presently. "Believe me, dear Jo. I've had experience and I know that men are fairly hard to disappoint in bed. Don't worry about me unduly. If anything--" And here he had to wince, even as he knew he spoke the truth. "--I'm more worried about your disappointment."
Jo looked about as startled as he would have been had he pulled a mackerel out of his pocket and asked her to immediately make a meal with it. "Really? Why? What do you mean?"
He stared at her, suddenly unaccountably nervous. "You... truly don't know anything about the... erm... anatomical wrangling of the marital bed, do you?"
Nothing embarrassed Jo like ignorance, and though she had done it enough times that he had wondered if she'd forever be inured, she flushed again, all over her delightful little body. "No, not really."
It was times like these that made Laurie despair for the state of education in the States today. Surely it was better to allow young, soon-to-be-married women out in the world with some education on these matters than to force young and confoundedly longing husbands to have to run through the whole of human anatomy on the eve of their wedding! He had known Jo would be nervous, and had assumed that it would be primarily because she would be placed in a situation that she had never experienced before, given the apparent stupidity of the menfolk in Manhattan. But to know that she truly knew nothing about carnal congress and had been fumbling with him blindly all this time--
It angered up the blood and made him feel even more a knave than he had been previously.
Still, there was nothing to be done now but to do what should have been done earlier. And so, for her sake, he marshaled up his courage, boxed his embarrassment in enough mental concrete to make sure it would not escape just yet, and bent down to whisper a quick, highly edited and very metaphorical version of what she ought to expect to happen in the next few minutes-- hours-- days now that he had her body presently panting beneath his.
He thought he had done quite a fine job himself, given that he had vast waves of ignorance to combat here. But just when he withdrew from her-- though alas, not in quite the way he wanted!-- and was ready to congratulate her on a job well done, he saw the look in her eyes.
The look, to be frank, of profound ignorance.
...And cursed the American school system all over again, for failing him in his time of desperate need.
"Teddy," Jo said finally, "I don't know what a lady softness is. Are you referring to my elbow or my ear?"
All right. So this wasn't going to be easy. But. He could do this. He'd just... have to cut down on the metaphors and perhaps be a little bit more blunt about a man's... instruments. He could carry this out presently. He could, if only for the sake of marital harmony!
So he bent back, tried again with all his heart and soul, withdrew from her in a wholly unsatisfying manner...
And then tried not to cry tears of bitter sadness when he was confronted with Jo's blank face once more.
"Er," she said, looking deeply regretful. "I'm very sorry, Teddy, but that... that doesn't sound very anatomically probable to me."
One more time. One more time. He could do this one more time. For her. For his love! Like a knight errant off to save a maiden, although more from her own ignorance than any other dragon that might be!
One more time. One more time. And so, more intent on having a wayward pupil learn than ol' John Brooke had ever been, Laurie bent over to his task with feverish willingness...
...Only to see Jo almost glare at him when he pulled away, looking deeply unimpressed by his love offering.
"Oh come on now, Teddy," she said flatly. "Aren't you taking this the least bit seriously? I am this close to pleading a headache and retiring to bed if you're simply going to have your fun with me."
Ever the gentleman, Laurie did not howl. Laurie did not plead. Laurie did not haul himself off his radiant and brilliant bride to thump his head against the wall and wail aloud as to why fate wanted him to suffer so deeply and so dearly.
Instead, Laurie seized his wife by her shoulders and asked her, fervently: "Jo! I love you more than anything else in all the world! And so-- do you trust me?"
Looking a little worried for his mental health, she nodded cautiously. "I... yes, of course, Teddy! I'd trust you with my life if you needed to currently."
"Good," he said, with near military discipline, all traces of Lazy Laurence gone on a quest for his wife's satisfaction, as well as his own. "Because you must believe you when I tell you this. There is almost nothing you could do-- short of running off with my gardener-- that could displease me this evening. Nothing, absolutely nothing! Sex-- I mean, it-- it is a little awkward at first and God knows, we're not always the more coordinated people in all of humanity. However, I have faith that during the course of tonight, just a little trust from you would bring immense happiness to me. I want you so desperately it actually alarms me and every little move you make now feels like a bloody earthquake coursing through my body. I love you and I want to explore everything I can with you. I want to show you just how much you mean to me here, with everything I have to offer. So... if you will allow me a little of your trust to show you what I can share with you here..."
She was still for an instant, auburn and alabaster in his arms, the girl he had loved for so long and the woman who had accepted him into her life finally. But after a moment of excruciating deliberation, she finally smiled and all the world smiled back at him in her arms-- a smile that his heart beat fast against his ribs and made his whole body pleasantly ache.
"Do you mean it?" she said, even as she shyly took his hand to place it once more upon her breast, where he could feel her unknown heart beginning to beat quickly. "You won't-- take this back, you promise? You're being true and honest to me here?""
"Don't doubt this," he whispered in response, and his hand curved tenderly against her breast as his attention to her form, only momentarily diverted, rose up again in every way imaginable. "I may be a fool at times but I've rarely, if ever, been a liar. I want this more than anything.
She looked up at him, eyes shining, her face a portrait he would carry with him as long as she lived presently. "Then I want this too!" she cried. "I want to explore this more with you. Only..." And here she surprised him by biting her lips and looking away, hesitant suddenly. "Only... perhaps we can make this a little easier for me by... compromising on something?"
"How, dear?" he asked, tender and low, feeling his stomach muscles clench up to hear that sweet, unfamiliar note of longing stem from her long throat. "I'll do anything for you, Jo. Anything you please."
She wouldn't quite look at him yet, which her impending this request all the more intriguing, especially as she cleared her throat and looked away once more before speaking. "Well, I-- I have to admit to being speculative, Teddy. You know how I can be! And even though this might not seem quite... proper, I have to admit to being curious about precisely what goes on when people finally get to... coupling. So I perhaps wanted to know if we could maybe... only put out the candles... eventually...?"
Oh.
Oh.
Oh ho ho. And of all the oh's he had to give this evening, this was by far the most pleasing.
He interrupted with an eagerness that would, in nearly any other circumstances, be very embarrassing. "Oh, but it is! Or at least, it can be! We're married now, blessed by man and God, and we've got dispensations to do near anything we please!"
The lights would stay on. Lord God, yes. He had known being with Jo would mean leaving behind all the tiresome conventions that had dragged him down so far but he had no idea that things would get this interesting. He wasn't sure why his maker had blessed him so but he was going to be damn well grateful for it. He'd go to Church every Sunday, tithe at least some of his fortune away, and--
She interrupted him with a soft cry that ought to have warned him already. "I'm glad you approve!" she said. "I really like the idea as well! It's... you're beautiful, you know. Not that I'm with you merely because of your surface, of course. It's just... I've always liked the idea of... looking at you. Freely. And openly. And you seem so enthusiastic that I thought that maybe you wouldn't mind if I were just a little bit outlandish and..."
The pretty flush that had been playing on her face and collarbone seemed to deepen almost impossibly, until she was all but a scarlet flower of a woman splayed out enticingly beneath him. Laurie had to exercise rather more control than he'd be comfortable speaking of not to get on with exercising her trust already. "Yes, dear," he smoothly said instead, trying not to picture her writhing under him just yet and spoil the fun prematurely. "I understand your request! And believe me, I'd be happy to carry it out. After all..."
And though it likely wasn't playing fair, he couldn't quite help drawing the hand that had been demurely resting against her breast to just below the smooth, supple mound of it, to cup the tempting curve of it easily.
After all, she'd spent whole years tempting his self-control. Wasn't it fair to return the favor a little here?
"I live and die for your pleasure tonight," he whispered. "Make any request you please right now. I'll fulfill it gladly."
"That's good to know," Jo croaked in a shy little voice that made him grin like a cat that had caught the prized canary at last, and that sent the hand not occupied by her to undo his trouser buttons quickly. "I'm g-gratified to know you've pay so much attention to me..."
"Mmm hmm," he agreed, dexterous pianist hands already toying with one of her dark little nipples as they unbuttoned his slacks slowly. "Oh yes. A Laurence man always aims to please."
"I can see the truth of that right now," Jo weakly agreed, her legs tightening a little on his boyish hips. "Only--"
Only? Only? Only what? Laurie and his busy, busy hands didn't like the sound of that in the least.
"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?"
***
Author's Note: More than a month to write this and I end with yet another sex-cliffhanger. I really wouldn't be surprised if everyone who finished this chapter wanted to kill me currently! However, never fear. I'll try to get the next chapter finished before a month's gone by. Let's hope inspiration strikes me soon! And the next chapter shall be the last one so if you have any ideas for what Jo and Laurie should do as they get ready to deflower-- or possibly deforest-- one another, now is the time to let me know. ;)
And as always, please review if you enjoyed this chapter! I love comments and constructive criticism because they really motivate me and keeps me on track with my work. I'm trying to find a good fannish home for my imagination after leaving my last long-time fandom and I'd like this the Little Women series to be it. If you enjoyed reading this, please do drop me a note to let me know I have an audience out there to inspire me to keep writing.