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Psmith had wanted Gretna Green for the honeymoon. He had argued in favor of its historical significance, as the first town over the Scottish border where eloping couples could go to marry without a license. However, Eve, while she liked the idea of Scotland, had refused to spend her first night as a married woman in a town of fugitives and blacksmiths' broomsticks. They had compromised on a charming town in Scotland by the sea. "The first of many sacrifices I shall make for your sake," Psmith said. "The next shall be my bachelorian solitude. The third shall be my--"
"Your virginity?" Eve asked.
This left Psmith silent, blindsided. Sometimes Eve could do the impossible and surprise Psmith. Usually he was the one surprising others. Was this how other people felt whenever he opened his mouth, he wondered?
"As Colonel Redfeather says in The Wild Knight, I too have my virginity."
Psmith was never silent for long.
The wedding was magnificent. A small affair, but tasteful, and well attended by their quality assortment of friends. Phyllis was matron of honor, of course. Mike was best man, of course. Psmith was impeccably turned out, with one of Lord Emsworth's best carnations in his lapel. And Eve glowed like the sun.
Psmith's oceanic vocabulary being limited to "I do" and the few associated vows, the ceremony proceeded without incident. Psmith was given permission to kiss his bride and did so with decorum (and a secret hint of passion in the brief but insistent pressure of his barely opened lips).
Once all tongues in question were loosed, Mike stumbled through a brief speech, which was all the better received for his shedding an inadvertent tear at the end. Psmith embraced his friend before the happy couple were sent off to the train station in a rain of rice and rose petals.
When they were safely installed in a secluded compartment on their way to St Andrews, Psmith assisted his wife (he had used the word no less than thirty-seven times since marrying her that morning) in brushing rice from her golden hair. "It would be a shame to spoil this charming arrangement before tonight," he said, "though, if the dreadful truth be faced manfully, I do look forward to taking it down. Do you know, I've never seen your hair down?"
"I've never seen yours anything but slicked back properly," Eve told him. "I thought of you in the bath the other day and it nearly made me drop my tea."
"Were you in the bath?" Psmith inquired solemnly.
"No, I was wondering what you looked like in the bath, with your hair unruly...Why would I have tea in my own bath?"
Psmith carefully removed the last grain of rice from her hair. "I have often taken tea in my own bath. It stimulates the ganglions."
"Shouldn't it be ganglia?" Eve asked, thinking as she did so that the conversation was veering far from the romantic.
"Oh, well, perhaps it should. Perhaps it should."
As the train rattled on toward St Andrews, Eve reflected on the prospect of conjugal love. It was a subject they had never discussed, unless one counted a bit of slow and lingering kissing in the woods at Blandings. The thought of sex intimidated her a little. Not because it was frightening or distasteful, but because it was so...much. She loved every bit of him, though. She always wanted more of him.
It struck her that Psmith had not been talking for some time. Almost thinking something was wrong, she looked away from the sea-bound sunset outside the window and saw Ronald Eustace Psmith gazing at the sunset colors on her face. His expression was more open and wondering than its customary solemnity. Like a child looking at a glowing Christmas tree. She could practically see the light reflected in his eyes.
As soon as she looked, he blinked, replaced his monocle, and turned to the window. "A fine prospect, is it not?"
Eve sighed, disappointed not to see more of him. He was so...English. It occurred to her that Psmith might like Mike's reticence of emotion because he himself was the same way. Sometimes it seemed that he could express anything except deep feeling.
But the arrival at St Andrews was welcome and timely after the long afternoon's travel, under an evening sky artfully painted and hung out specially for the occasion. After a light supper, they found their way to the honeymoon suite. Eve felt quite at home unpacking beside Psmith, setting her toothbrush beside his, turning back the covers. Living with him felt familiar and yet new. Like coming home. When he pulled the hairpins from her hair and spread the golden waves over her shoulders, his fingers brushed her head and neck with something like a small electric shock. Her whole body shivered.
Psmith absented himself to the bathroom to clean up and change. She usually thought of him as Psmith; the unorthodox name would have suited him even if he hadn't made it his own. She couldn't very well call him Psmith, could she? It was bad form to call one's husband simply by his last name. It might feel strange to call him Ronald...though she had whispered that name alone in bed at night.
When Psmith emerged from the bathroom in flawless sea-green silk pajamas and saw Eve sitting on the bed, his monocle fell out of his eye.
"My dearest and only wife," he managed to say, never lost for words for very long, "what is that?"
Eve smiled. "It's a brassiere, darling. What else should it be?"
Her husband delicately replaced his monocle and squinted through it at the pretty arrangement of rosy gold silk, with a little ribbon rosebud at the center. "I must confess, I have not been brought abreast of this latest development in women's unmentionables."
She giggled when he said abreast. "They've been invented for ages, but they've caught on since the war. The steel in corsets was said to be a waste of money." She shifted a little, feeling his gaze on her legs and midriff. She felt quite safe with him, but being so undressed still gave her a pleasant nervousness.
"I can see little to no steel in this most pleasing of constructions. And the matching drawers, I assume, are also in vogue?"
He still appeared most pleasantly rattled, his eyes widened a little, his solemn mouth softening and hinting at a smile in spite of itself. Eve saw a hint of the look he had had in the train. "Do you like them?" she asked him, watching his face and loving the effect she had on him.
"I do," he said, as solemnly as he had done at the altar. "The color with your golden hair and sea-blue eyes...it makes you look like a sunset." He came to her and admired her for a moment, perhaps unsure what steps to take next. "Eve...what do you know of conjugal love?"
She laughed lightly. "I know what bits go where. What else is there to know?"
Psmith thought for a second, baffleghasted, and shook his head. "I can think of no information so important as that."
"Ronald, I wish..." Eve stopped.
"What do you wish?"
It was hard to explain. "I wish...you wouldn't be quite so sure of yourself all the time. Like an actor reading lines." At Psmith's concerned expression, she hurried on. "Oh, it's one of the things I like most about you, but...it's like your clothes. You're always so well turned out, both in the way you dress and the way you talk. But...always talking in the language of witty banter, not showing much feeling...it's like wearing a suit all night long, even to bed. I wish I could see more of you." She reached up and laid her hand on his cheek. "Because I love you. I'd like to feel...well, that your love is bigger than your words sometimes."
Psmith smiled gently, reassured, and turned his cool lips to her hand. "Well, Eve," he said, "I find it hard to express myself in any other way. Who am I without my impeccable shirting, my blameless trouser crease? But for your sake, I will try. What style of lover do you desire?" He sat beside her on the bed, leaning close to her. "The palely pleading supplicant? Or the masterful hero?" A subtle change came over his expression like the shadow of a cloud, sending a shiver over her body... "Which one would you prefer?"
The truth hit her like a sack of bricks that he was willing--no, offering--to play either part.
"I suppose..." she said slowly... "that you can be whichever one you like."
Something changed in the atmosphere. Psmith's breathing slowed and deepened, and Eve's heart beat harder and slower, as if to the tune of slow music. Her tall, dark, suddenly silent lover took his monocle from his eye and gently set it down on the bedside table. He knelt down beside the bed and looked up at her with his solemn owlish eyes. She realized that she'd never once seen him without his monocle. His face looked almost naked without it. Younger. He had a slight lopsided squint around the eye that used to hold the glass.
"Very well, Eve," he murmured. "Do your worst."
With her hand on the back of his neck, she ran her fingers through his dark hair until the sleek smoothness was gone and he was crowned with wild ruffling wings. An incredibly endearing embarrassed smile glowed up from within Psmith as he thought what a mess he must look like. But he wrapped his arms about her warm round waist and breathed in the nearness of her pretty underthings. The fashions of the time did not fit closely around the bosom, so he had never seen this part of her so clearly, so close, and so soft. He swore they smelled like summer roses...looked like them, too...nothing in the gardens of Blandings could even come close...
Suddenly she leaned forward and his face was deep between them. The soft closeness and scent overcame him. He was vaguely aware of her hands undoing the buttons of his pajamas, but he was floating in a heady sea of rose-gold. Psmith fell a little forward with a sigh.
Eve's breath trembled at the soft helpless sound. As his head fell against her chest, her heart knocked hard in answer. She had only leaned forward to unbutton his shirt, so eager to see more of him that she had not foreseen the trajectory of her breasts. His mouth opened over them instinctively, regardless of the thin layer of silk.
She clumsily struggled to free him of the shirt, pushing it down and back over his arms. He allowed this, distracted, breathing deeply in the scent of her with his eyes closed, his lips finding their way in the darkness. The back of his neck revealed itself, then his pale back; she felt the shapes of his spine and ribs as her hands ran down over them. Psmith knelt there, welcoming her hands.
When the sea-green shirt slipped to the floor, she took him by the shoulders and moved him back to admire his lean chest, his slender collarbones, his tense neck. He looked half dreaming, half hypnotized. He was beautiful.
"There hasn't been much of the palely pleading yet, has there?" Eve held his chin gently and raised his face to hers. "Well?"
"Eve..." His voice sounded choked and strange to him. He swallowed. "Mrs. Psmith, will you please kiss me?"
She obliged him generously, wetting her lips with a flash of pink tongue and leaning into him to hold his lips with hers. They had kissed before, but never on the same bed, never in this state of undress, and never quite so deeply and warmly. Eve surprised him by pushing her tongue between his lips. Her arms locked around his neck, and they swayed a little back and forth as they kissed, their tongues and lips moving in a gentle rhythm.
Psmith broke the kiss for a moment to shuffle off his trousers; Eve took this opportunity to move back on the bed and recline upon a heap of pillows. Her husband...oh, dear. Her husband had neglected to wear drawers beneath his pajamas. She swallowed.
When her beloved husband noticed her parted lips and startled eyes, he had the decency to look embarrassed and hold his bunched-up trousers before his nether regions. "Oh. Do excuse me."
Eve lost herself in a fit of giggling. As soon as she could get her breath, she gasped, "I'm sorry. I'm not laughing at you..."
"Then what exquisite joke has caused you to lose yourself in merriment, my dear wife?" Psmith inquired haughtily, still holding the sea-green pajama trousers before him.
"It's...so much b...well, I've never seen a real one, and the ones on the statues are so much, well, smaller..."
He nodded solemnly, pacified. "I understand. You are nervous. Do not be afraid. Perhaps I did not choose the best of moments to disrobe."
"It was as good a moment as any..." Eve stared at his open chest, his long bare legs, the slender fingers grasping the bunch of green silk. "I'm sorry. I don't want you to be embarrassed."
With Eve's rattlement came Psmith's natural instinct to soothe and pacify with his charm and wit. "Is not my ready wit your favorite part of me?"
"Your...wit?" As soon as she said it, she remembered that in Shakespeare's time, 'wit' had been slang for..."Ah."
"Is it not considerable? Is it not inexhaustible? Has it not brought you pleasure time and time again?" He moved easily onto the bed and knelt over her, all that bare skin illuminated by the soft lamplight like a marble statue come to life. He was pleased to see her smile again. In spite of his near nakedness and her pretty underwear, she felt more exposed.
But Eve was nothing if not determined, and she reached for the handful of cloth and gently tossed it to one side. Well, that was a man. And his naughty bits. She touched gently and was startled to feel it twitch against her fingers. Psmith leaned over her, bracing himself on the headboard, breathing lightly and letting her get used to him.
A moment later he descended swiftly down upon her, pressing her down into the pillows and kissing her hard. This rash and sudden act did not seem characteristic of the Palely Pleading Lover. Neither did his grasping of her wrists when her arms moved about in confusion.
Psmith withdrew his tongue from her mouth, but kept his head close above hers, speaking softly into her mouth. "Do I satisfy you, Eve?" His eyes glowed brightly, as they always did when he mastered a situation by virtue of his unpredictable wit.
"You...surprise me..." It was hard to string words together with his kiss going to her head like strong wine. "This doesn't seem like...Palely Pleading Lover..."
As her verbosity declined, his increased. "My dearest one, you did inform me that I was free to play either the palely pleading supplicant or the masterful hero. Well, I have seen fit to change my role. I enjoyed being your suffering servant enormously, but the siren call of power commands me and I must answer. Allow me to relieve you of your interesting lingerie."
He seemed to draw her control and self-possession out of her and take it for himself. Eve was not one to be overawed against her will, but perhaps...she didn't mind him taking the reins. What was he doing?
Well, the answer to that question was Psmith gently but firmly raising her from the pillows and slipping his fingers under the soft silk of her brassiere. This was pleasant in itself, but as he lifted it over her head and released her breasts to the cool air, she realized that the balance of power might sway yet further in his favor.
"Now," he said softly, stroking and lifting her breasts as if to comfort them after their imprisonment, "will you do as I tell you, my love? I can promise I will make it worth your while."
She felt as though she had run up against a wall. Ronald wanted to be in charge. She could think of no reason not to let him. He was gentle and kind and would rather see his best top hat shredded to bits than hurt or frighten her. But something about it simply felt wrong. Her instincts wanted...no, needed...to sit in the metaphorical driver's seat.
"I don't know," she whispered. "I would like to. But something's holding me back."
"Do you trust me?" Psmith asked, softly kissing her neck. "Have I not earned your trust?" He was about to say more, but held it back and gave her room to speak.
Eve had not expected to feel this way. It troubled her that she half liked, half mistrusted the idea of Psmith mastering her. Why didn't she want to let him? It was as if she had a warning voice in the back of her mind, telling her that she must keep both hands firmly on the metaphorical wheel, or she would metaphorically crash and burn.
"I've looked after myself for quite some time," she half whispered, thinking. "And I do trust you. But...I've never wanted anyone else to look after me. People have been kind to me, yes, but..." Her vision unexpectedly blurred with tears.
"But they could not protect you." Psmith took her emotion in stride as he always did. "My dearest of darlings, I commend your bravery and pluck in looking after yourself for lo these many years." His dexterous fingers lightly brushed a tear from her cheek. "I do not blame you for being frightened. But perhaps...you may be brave. Tonight, tomorrow, next year, next week, you may surrender yourself to my loving care and fondness for the English vice. But until that time--"
"The English vice?!" Eve spluttered. "You mean c-corporal punishment?"
"Well, er..." Psmith raised his eyes delicately to the ceiling. "Perhaps. Our stern English schools have perhaps given their alumnae certain tendencies, which are then swept under the carpet of society. Be thankful, my dear wife, that I emerged from Eton with only a little fashionable sadism to mar my otherwise perfection."
She shook her head and put off the strange and rattling (and perhaps exciting) thought of being corporally punished by her husband. "Well...I love you, Ronald, and I do trust you...You don't mind my calling you Ronald sometimes, do you? I feel silly always calling you by your last name."
He lowered his forehead to touch her own. "From your lips, it sounds as sweet as the song of angels."
Eve flung her arms about his neck and pulled him down to kiss her, knowing only that she wanted him as close as possible. Her mind was tired and confused, but her body seemed to know what to do. Psmith obliged her generously, kissing deep into her mouth, his bare chest lying on her own. That in itself was delicious. His cologne smelled like lavender, a familiar smell that always made her feel sleepy and at peace. But now it mixed with the scent of his body, blending peace with excitement and comfort with passion. She opened her mouth wide under his.
When he bit her lip, deliberately, as if to claim it as his own, something in her core melted into warmth and she relaxed under him. The thought of surrender frightened her a little less now, though it still felt dangerous. But the feeling of surrender called to her like the sea. His long lean body felt so solid and warm above her.
Psmith felt her melting and knew his moment had come. Between warm insistent kisses on various parts of her face, he murmured, "Shall I master you now, Eve? I have waited for so long..."
"I...never liked being told what I ought to do..." she whispered, still a little reserved.
A look of shock and scandal crossed Psmith's noble countenance. "Perish the thought upon a thousand swords, Comrade Psmith. (For you are my fellow Psmith now, you know.) Oh, I would never tell you what to do because you ought to, my dearest darlingest comrade in arms." She was in his arms at the moment, for he suited the action to the word. "No. I would master you to give you pleasure. Do you remember when I showed you about the castle grounds at Blandings?"
The memory was one of her best. "Yes, I do." Her voice seemed to have gone all soft and shaky. "You showed me all the nicest things...and you made me laugh..."
"Precisely, comrade." Psmith perhaps briefly regretted calling her something so friendly and unromantic as 'comrade' but soldiered on. "Exactly. You are right as always. Eve, I have yearned to summon your angelic smile, to wring such cries of ecstasy from you as no man ever has." He still held her and lay beside her, one hand wandering between her breasts as if trying to decide which was pleasanter.
"No man ever has," she murmured, her head on his shoulder. She'd never been so close to him with so few clothes between them, but now it felt natural and easy to have so much of his skin against hers.
"No." Psmith kissed her forehead. "You have had to look after yourself for quite some time now...Have you perhaps given yourself pleasure now and then?"
Eve's face grew hot. She hid it in the hollow between Ronald's neck and shoulder, as if that would decrease or hide her embarrassment.
A teasing, admiring smile crept into his voice. "Yes, I see you have." He held her chin and lifted her head up. "Oh, there's no need to be ashamed of it, Comra-er, Madame Psmith. An earthly vessel as lovely as your own ought to be touched, and touched regularly." His dark eyes held her own in their sly and mischievous gaze. "Would you be so kind as to show me?"
"Sh-show you what?" Eve's heart beat against Psmith's bare chest. Was he asking...
"Show me how a girl pleasures herself." He kissed the tip of her nose playfully. "I must confess, I've always been quite curious about how the thing is done."
She had never felt much shame about lying back and thinking of England, but it was another thing entirely to admit to someone else (especially a man) that she had. Even in these modern 1920s, it wasn't easy. "Well..."
"Come now, I insist. Be wanton. Am I not thy lord?" Ronald's fingers played at the edge of her soft rosy underwear. "Educate me. How else am I to learn?"
At his shameless butchery of Shakespeare, Eve gave up and slipped her hand down underneath the silk. With Psmith lying beside her and her head resting on his arm, the ache low in her body was stronger than it had ever been. Her fingers found her clitoris and stroked it hard.
"Ah," he breathed softly. "So that's the way you do it. Yes, go on...Well done, Eve. Don't be ashamed. Don't stop. You're doing splendidly."
Her eyes half closed and her hand moving steadily, Eve felt easier with him telling her to touch herself. Easier, and a little embarrassed, but in a strange new way that made her flush and feel hot and ache perhaps a little more.
His long cool fingers slid under the edge of her pants and began to drag them gently downward. She gasped lightly and looked down at him.
Psmith raised an authoritative eyebrow. "Didn't I tell you not to stop for anything?"
Her usual composure and self-assurance deserted her like rats from a sinking ship as her cheeks turned pink and her fingers continued to move. Psmith dragged the tap pants slowly down, savoring the slow revelation of her curves. As they descended below the Mason-Dixon Line (as Wallis Simpson so elegantly put it) she instinctively covered herself.
He slapped her hand. Not even hard enough to hurt. Just quickly and sharply enough to open her mouth in shock and outrage. "Now, darling. Behave yourself."
Well...she ought to be angry. But she wasn't. Just a little bit nervous about showing herself to the man who was now drawing the pants past her ankles and tossing them aside without a second thought...Eve moved her hand a little and touched the small swelling bud again, feeling her breasts exposed, the soft pillow under her. Oh, he could see everything...
But so could Eve. She briefly glimpsed his manly bits in the shadows beneath him as he came up to lean on one elbow beside her.
"Go on," Psmith insisted, cool dark penetrating gaze moving back and forth between her flushed face, her chest, her trembling hand. "Oh, this is most interesting...Not even a finger inside yourself? Not one? I do hope you don't find the sensation of penetration distasteful. That would throw a devil of a wrench into my plans for the evening..."
"This way is easier," Eve murmured, looking up at him through half-shut eyes.
"Do you think of me when you do this?" he asked, studying the motion of her fingers. "Yes, I see from your faint and roselike blush that you do. Oh, I have done the same, Eve, though perhaps with a little difference in the motion of the fingers. I have thought of you as a bright angel coloring the light that shines about her, and I have gasped in pleasure...much as you appear to be doing now."
With lightning speed he took her hand away from her naughty bits. Her fingers kept moving in the empty air for a moment before she realized that he'd stopped her pleasuring herself.
Psmith's hand slipped down her body. "My turn."
He found her clitoris (which was easy, given its condition) and stroked it gently. More gently than she had, though her fingers had moved rather quickly. "Do you like this, my love? Yes, I see you do."
She restrained a soft sigh, but he would have none of it. "Louder, darling. Tell me that you like it. How can I please you unless I know what you like?" His fingers briefly stilled. "Well?"
Through her fog of pleasure and strong sweet embarrassment, Eve brought herself to say, "Please...more..."
His long slender fingers went back to work, slipping through wetness and stroking it around her clitoris. "Well said, comrade. Well said." His words seemed to glide over her as warmly as his fingers did. She let her soft sounds of pleasure grow louder, feeling herself slowly rising toward the climax. But her husband's fingers stilled again and moved away, leaving her cold.
"Ronald..." she mumbled. "Please..."
"Please what?" Psmith leaned over her, all lanky curves and unruly dark hair and knowing smile. "Tell me what you want."
"I want you to touch me again..." In her heady state it never occurred to her to touch herself. She wanted him to do it.
He shook his head in disappointment. "Oh, will we never learn? Are we ever doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past? My darling--" he set his forehead gently to hers--"you must ask me nicely. Politeness must not fall by the wayside in the wild transports of the marriage bed. We must uphold our standards, my love."
"P-please will you touch me again, Ronald? Please?" Part of Eve was astonished at herself for pleading to be touched.
"Well, since you ask so nicely..." Psmith smiled and began to tease her again. The mere fact of being touched by someone other than herself made her tense and hot. Her mouth fell open as two of his long fingers slid into her. Her whole body seemed to glow with the beginning of sweat and the tingling sensation that usually confined itself to her sex.
But after a few possessive twists and turns of his fingers, he took them away again. Eve rolled her head on the pillow in frustration. But before she could ask for more, those same fingers gently touched her lips, wet with her own wetness.
"Will you be so good as to clean these for me?" Psmith asked, his eyes glowing, pride of her in his voice.
"Don't you want to taste it yourself?" she answered back, part of her apparently still independent.
One dark eyebrow shot up as the other lowered in disapproval, and his fingers pressed between her lips and into her mouth. She couldn't speak or move. Any instinct to fight was drowned under the tide of hunger for him. She sucked on his fingers, because he wanted her to clean them, but just as much because they were his and she wanted him in her mouth, in her body, in her sight, in her hearing. Her own taste was new to her, soft and salty and sweet. She would have been embarrassed to taste it herself alone, but it was easier being told to. Her tongue moved hungrily around his fingers.
When he took his thoroughly cleaned fingers out of her mouth, her lips held close around them until they left, Eve wanted more of him than just his fingers. "Please, Ronald..." She felt so much that her eyes welled up and her voice wouldn't come.
"Yes, my love?" He leaned over her, eyes serious with a little concern, perhaps wondering what he'd done to her.
"Would you...please...kiss me?" A tear slipped out from one eye, gently stroking down her cheek until it touched the pillow.
"As you wish." His lips touched hers for a moment. But as she raised her heavy arms to throw around his neck, he disappeared.
She moaned, wanting him back, tired of being made to ask for his touch. But a moment later her thighs were held and spread apart by two familiar hands, and Psmith kissed her somewhere else. Deeply, with passion, and without hesitation. His mouth opened wide and greedily around her sex. His lips pressed against her, and his tongue drank deep of the slick softness he had summoned a minute ago.
Eve's thighs were held beside his head by strong fingers, but she rocked her hips, feeling his long aristocratic nose press against just the right place. She was half ashamed of being kissed in such a place, devoured as if she were an expensive French dessert. He showed no sign of denying her now. She lay back, naked, helpless and exhausted with being seen and touched and ordered. Ronald's tongue pushed into her. His teeth were on her almost painfully. Without her even trying, her climax came on her as sudden and strong as summer thunder. She gasped and trembled, shivering, arching her back, pressing herself against his mouth. Her breasts tingled, and there seemed to be a flame in her sex that flickered into all the rest of her.
When the devouring strokes of his tongue grew too hard on her sensitive sex, her gasps turned painful. Psmith heard this and hazily raised his head from his feast. With one last gentle kiss, he moved up to lie beside her. His free hand delicately touched the pointed tips of her breasts, which still felt heavy and sensitive.
"Does it hurt?" he whispered.
She tried to shake her head, failed, and whispered, "No...I've never come so hard..."
"I am gratified," Psmith said solemnly. "This is my greatest achievement since exposing a corrupt politician as the owner of a string of dirty tenements." He kissed her cheek. "But I'd much rather expose you."
"I feel exposed," she murmured.
"So do I," said Psmith. "Look at me. Stark naked as the Lord made me, the lower half of my face liberally anointed with that sweet substance of yours, and in a severe state of arousal--and I have never been happier."
It occurred to her that not all was as it should be. Something was missing. It took a moment to form the thought, and another moment to put the words together. "You...haven't...come...have you?"
He shook his head mournfully. "Alas, I have not. I have been hard on you, have I not?"
"Not yet," Eve mumbled.
He stared at her for a moment, then dissolved into laughter. Not loud, but relieved and happy. She'd never made him laugh so much, though he'd made her laugh that way a thousand times. It was lovely, seeing his head fall back and his composure break. The childlike silliness that came out in every word he said was visible now.
He had been nervous, hadn't he? Oh, he'd enjoyed himself, as he always enjoyed new adventures. But being so close to another, holding her heart in his hands, must have been strange to him.
She pulled him close to her, feeling his skin warm and soft on her skin. His body gratefully responded by rolling close against her, his arms wrapping around her back. Something very warm and hard pressed against her thigh. She liked the feeling of it before she realized what it was. And after.
"I still want that kiss," she spoke against his cheek.
"Oh, of course. Forgive my oversight." Psmith kissed her, his mouth open and soft. She opened her mouth as if to drink him in. Then his kiss turned hungry, his lips firmer, his tongue searching. She felt a hand grasping at her breast and another at her sex, feeling its way down. She was still sensitive, but no longer painfully so. His body was warm on her, but the bareness of it seemed to make his touch burn.
His lips left hers as she lay with half-closed eyes and mouth, unconsciously rolling and writhing a little back and forth with unsatisfied energy. She wanted him to kiss her hard or push her down into the mattress or roll her about or something.
The next moment, he fell onto her and into her with delicious pressure and a short sting of pain. It was enough to satisfy her. More than enough. Eve gasped in a great breath and cried out softly in shock and relief. Psmith hovered over her, lean arms braced on either side of her head. "Are you all right?"
She looked up at him hazily. He was so beautiful that she forgot to answer him.
He sensibly took the glow in her eyes as permission to soldier on. Eve's habit of touching her outside rather than her inside meant she came to the wedding bed more or less virgo intacta. So Psmith's princely efforts resulted in a little pain, barely distinct from the overwhelming ache of pleasure and pressure and love. His face above her seemed almost in pain, tense and bright-eyed, his fine mouth twitching as if in anger. His eyes intently fixed on her softness, her panting exhaustion, her desperation for release.
It felt strange to have another person inside her. But if the person was Ronald Psmith, she wanted him there. Every stroke wound her sex a little tighter, like a spring. Her breath came harder in small cries, since the weight of her husband made it so much harder and sweeter to breathe. She arched her back underneath him, her body tense and stretched tight.
Without warning Psmith came with a shout and shuddered against her as though in pain. His eyes shut tight, his teeth clenched, cheekbones standing out sharply. The raw feeling in his face--his whole body--was the most naked she'd ever seen him.
The final convulsion of his hard body on hers was enough to finally satisfy her. The heavy ache in her body resolved itself into a powerful shock of pleasure that was so strong it almost hurt. The shockwaves kept coming, tightening her legs around his legs, her arms around his neck, her whole body arching against him. Her voice shivered and cried out a musical string of sound like a violin gone mad. She had as much as she wanted and more.
The strong waves of shock echoed silently through her body. Her hips moved faintly on instinct, slowing gently. Her breasts and arms and legs tingled, as if a river of energy had been released all through her limbs. As her head fell back onto the pillow, Psmith's head dropped onto her chest and lay still.
A few long moments of silence, when their minds were too quiet to move or think or speak.
Then Eve managed to lift her tired hand to the back of Ronald's neck. His face felt heavy and warm on her breast.
"I love you, Ronald Psmith," she said. Her voice sounded sleepy and soft and different. More peaceful.
Her husband, who had done a little more work, took a moment to respond. He smiled slightly, proud of his work and of her.
"I love you, Eve Psmith."
Another quiet moment.
"I hope no one heard us." She yawned.
Psmith looked up at her slyly. "They may hear you when I spank you tomorrow."
She rolled her eyes. "If I let you."