st_illunsmeared | [For Jack] I'm longing to linger till dawn, dear

More comfortable for Phryne, in the past, often meant more trying for Jack. Comfortable for her tended to accentuate her assets, which had only grown harder to politely ignore with time. Certainly, now he didn't have to ignore them (as much), which meant that 'something comfortable' tended to be something he looked forward to.

For himself, the level of comfort he aspired to was removing his jacket. After a few seconds of consideration, he took off his tie as well. Phryne seemed to enjoy loosening it, but... well, a nod or two in the direction of being comfortable himself seemed called for, somehow.

Finally, before she returned, he poured them each a drink. Simple whiskey, since he was no Mr. Butler to have cocktails ready in his mind, but it would no doubt be good enough.

True to her word, Phryne didn't linger over her change of clothes. She took precisely long enough to give Jack time to pour them drinks and--she very much hoped--get a little more comfortable himself.

Not lingering didn't mean not mean not taking care, however. A quick wash-up, a brush through her hair, a spritz of eau du toilette, and terribly important, moisturizer for her legs, since they were now bare almost to the hip. She'd considered something with more of a plunging neckline, but she fully intended to end up in a compromising position of some sort this evening (really, it was long past time), and long, bare legs afforded a temptation even Jack wouldn't try so hard to resist. Surely.

A last look in the mirror to touch up her lipstick, and then Phryne glided out of her room to join him. On impulse, she stopped and posed very briefly at the door with one leg raised and foot against her calf, flashed him a teasing smile, and then came to settle on the couch.

Only long practice and the experience of having seen Phryne mostly nude both in life and in paint kept Jack from reacting obviously. He did join her on the couch, though, because it was easier to hand her her drink that way, and because it would make other things easier, later on.

If Jack didn't react obviously, Phryne didn't doubt that she'd had an effect. Jack had chosen the couch instead of a perch nearby. It was all the acknowledgment she required, and yet, it was very tempting to lay her legs over his lap. She did want the feel of his hands on her skin, so badly. But she did try to respect his rhythms as much as he respected hers.

She took the drink from his hand, but let her fingers linger on his wrist, stroking it softly. "I would never put you in the position of having to sit with another man I'd taken to my bed. I hope you know that."

It had, of course, happened before, when Phryne attached herself to a suspect in one of their cases. Or, since she never suspected the gentlemen in question, a personality in one of their cases. But that wasn't, after all, what she was talking about. "The Inn's a small place, Phryne. I don't imagine you'd be able to help me coming face to face with them forever. And it seemed faintly possible that you might think it easier for me if I socialized with them." It wouldn't, but he and Phryne thought differently enough on the topic that she might think it would.

Phryne frowned and glanced down at the drink in her hand. "No, I don't think that would be easier for you. I imagine it would be excruciating." After what she'd felt seeing him kissing River, she couldn't. "I saw you decide not to come over, and I wanted you to. I wanted the pleasure of your company and to introduce you to Alcuin because he's felt terribly lost since he arrived..."

Oh, it hardly mattered. She shrugged it off.

"There's no one to keep away from you, Jack. There's been no one else since we arrived."

Jack raised his glass in an acknowledging not-quite-toast. "For now, anyway." Phryne had her freedom, which meant that at some point there would be a someone else.

It seemed pointless to argue something that would, quite likely, be true at some point, and so Phryne merely lifted her shoulders briefly. "Even so, unless you truly wish to know, I don't plan to alert you to when and who. I also wouldn't with someone you consider a friend. As you say, it's a small space, and I won't have you embarrassed."

That was... new. Jack had assumed she'd consider herself completely unbound. Certainly, not bedding anyone he considered a friend simply meant that all he would have to do was befriend someone to....

No. That was terrible. "I don't wish to know," he confirmed. "Unless the information is somehow relevant."

"Then I'll do my best to see that you don't learn." Phryne lifted her glass to her lips and took a small sip to steady herself against the storm of emotions this conversation provoked. "But I won't lie to you, either."

Another sip, another pause to steady herself. She found this very unsettling, more especially because, "As I won't pretend you're not dear to me, and don't plan to make a secret of our involvement, I imagine the desire and the opportunities will be limited."

The desire and opportunities, both? That was rather surprising - not about opportunities, God knew there weren't very many people in the Inn at least at present, and likely not all of them were to Phryne's taste. But the limited desire was a surprise. "I'd... imagined that you'd make something of a point of exercising your freedom, at least every so often." To prove that she had it, if nothing else.

Phryne ran her finger around the rim of her glass while she considered her words and her feelings on the matter. She glanced up to meet his gaze, her own softer than he might have expected. "I won't refuse a lover if I want him, Jack, but it has never been my practice to take one man to bed when I want another."

Yes, she was quite... honest, in those dealings. Refreshingly so, if Jack had to admit it - while Miss Fisher was quite fond of games, they were rarely of the cat and mouse variety unless the mouse in question enjoyed the role. But that was also the fear, wasn't it? How long, in fact, would she want him once she'd had him? For a certainty, Phryne Fisher would be as straightforward in that eventuality as she was otherwise.

But... she had already spent what amounted to years with him as nothing more than friends. At times, they hadn't even been that much. And at least once she'd abandoned one of her flirts to go out with him. And then... by her own admission, she'd not taken anyone at the Inn to bed, and they'd both been here three months. Instead, she'd been - ahem - not sleeping with him. "One thing at a time, then?"

Were Jack literally anyone else, she might have replied flippantly, commenting on the possibility of two at a time. But she wouldn't risk Jack taking it amiss, not now. He was already inclined to think of himself as boring and dour, which couldn't be farther from the truth. He'd already held her attention longer than any man she'd ever known and meant far more to her.

Her stomach twisted in knots, more from stress than arousal, but they had been behaving like untried youths for several months. Even sitting on the couch with him had her skin flushed and her skin pulling tight over her breasts. She wanted him, badly.

But conversation first, because he was a cautious man, her dear, dear inspector. "One man at a time, anyway, when that man is you," she said, affection warm in her voice and her eyes. "When that man is also one of my dearest friend."

And that was it, somehow. Those were the words that loosened a knot somewhere, one that Jack hadn't even been aware was tight. It wasn't Phryne's tone, warm and affectionate, he'd heard that many times before. And it was warming, yes, but... this was as close to a declaration as Phryne was likely to get.

Her saying that, on the balance, she didn't think she'd want other men much, if she had him. That it was safe. He didn't have to wait for the other shoe to drop, that it wasn't the beginning of the end. He could want her, even have her, and not have to pick up pieces afterward.

Most likely he'd have to think about that, but... later. Definitely later, because now Jack could let himself notice how very short the negligee Phryne had on was, the faint flush of her skin... without further hesitation, he set his glass down on a nearby table and crossed the short distance on the couch to pull her into a kiss.

It wasn't anything so obvious as his shoulders letting down, or a sigh, but Phryne was aware of a shift in Jack's presence before he set his glass on the table. The air shifted around them, too, charging and growing heavier. Her breath caught on the thickness of it and the heat in his eyes as he came to her, and every nerve in her body flared to life as his hand closed around the back of her neck and drew her to him.

He kissed her now as though whatever had held him back had fled, as though he had every confidence she would answer in kind. And she did, allowing herself to fall under the sway of the sensation with a soft cry. Always before she had resisted letting herself be overcome by it, but not tonight.

As always, they were in sync. Phryne let herself be pulled, let herself respond more strongly than she had done - they'd both been holding back, which was an oddly comforting thought even if it was nearly lost in the sudden rush of long-suppressed desire. As they had throughout this long courtship, they were in the same place together, albeit from different angles.

The negligee was short, and Jack let his free hand slide up her thigh and under that scandalously short hem almost immediately. Her skin was soft and warm, and he needed to touch her, needed to have more than her mouth and the back of her neck as points of contact.

Honestly, Phryne could have wept for the feel of his hands on her bare skin. It ached from lack of touch, from lack of his touch. In all her life she'd not waited so long for the caress of one man's hands. "Jack," she whispered against his mouth, affirmation, invitation, welcome, and slipped her hand into the back of his hair.

She could have slipped out of her drawers and onto him without so much as a stroke, but it would be over far too quickly, and Jack Robinson was a man to be savored. Appreciated. So she would. But first, she needed to be closer still, and slid up into his lap, straddling him.

Previously, that move would have signaled the beginning of the end, so to speak. That they would need to separate to maintain... sanity, he'd thought, but for the life of him Jack couldn't imagine now why that had been important.

Much more important was how easy it was to keep moving his hand, feeling warm skin under that ridiculously short nightdress. IT was even easier to get impatient and peel it off completely, even if he had to stop kissing her to do it.

It wasn't like Phryne to be impatient about having her mouth on her partner's, but everything about being with Jack was different. Kissing stopped functioning as a means of sharing sexual sensations and became a necessity, a means of breathing. So that when he pulled away from her, a quiet protest slipped from her lips, until she realized he meant to extend his attentions rather than cease them, and then she could scarcely be stopped from removing the slip herself.

Scarcely, but she did allow him the pleasure of undressing her, as there seemed no point in abandoning his timetable now, after all these many months. That was not to say, however, that she remained passive under his hands. Whenever his attentions permitted, she attended the removing of his shirt, and between heated breaths drifted among wisps of wonder that his chest beneath her hands and lips seemed more erotic than entire past encounters.

Getting clothing off was definitely the next order of business, but helping too much with that process by, say, pulling his arms out of sleeves meant taking his hands off Phryne. Being skin-to-skin with her was a worthwhile reward, yes, but not taking full advantage of a mostly-naked Phryne writhing against him still felt like too high a price.

Still, once his shirt was off, an actual thought managed to intrude. Was he really going to allow his first time with Phryne to be a desperate-if-satisfying encounter on her couch? When the full space of her bed was so nearby? No. Obscurely, it was important that taking Phryne to bed involved an actual bed.

Fortunately, that was a simple enough matter. He slid his arms around her and supporting her, incidentally encouraging her legs (bare legs, God, soft skin and firm muscle) to wrap around his waist, before picking them both up.

Phryne needed very little encouragement in the matter. In fact, when Jack's designs became apparent, she showed him a delighted (but small, intimate, true) smile and wound both arms and legs around him. "You're surprising me again, Jack," she accused breathlessly while her hand smoothed through his hair.

And why not? The nipples of her high, firm breasts pebbled against his bare chest, nothing separated him from her but her very fine silk drawers, and nothing separated her from him that couldn't be promptly dealt with provided he removed his shoes. Nothing touched her but air, Jack's clothes, and Jack. This was as fine a state of affairs as she could imagine, and one she'd ceased permitting herself to imagine would happen any time soon.

"I'll take any opportunity that comes to me in that respect," Jack replied, not even remotely as evenly as he might have in other circumstances, since in this circumstance his mouth had better things to do than frame words. Such as trace her jawline and down her throat with kisses.

And further down to her collarbone and breasts once he actually got her on the bed. For a second, whatever parts of him weren't occupied reeled. Even here in the Inn, even after they'd had more than one near miss, he couldn't quite believe that he was really in Phryne Fisher's bed.

Fortunately Phryne read "Jack" far more fluently than she spoke him, and when her mind ceased whirling for a moment, she had no trouble translating words, deeds, motions into Jack incredulous and... happy, she thought. Maybe surprised to find himself in this position tonight. Less fortunately, body aflame with his kisses--not tentative but exploratory, her disfluency with "Jack" made speaking more difficult.

So she spoke "Phryne" instead, not content to be the passive subject of his worship, and drew her toes up the back of his leg in an exploration of her own. She'd waited as long as he had, after all, and doubtless had the more vivid fantasies of moving beneath him, over him, beside him and in every other possible alignment of their bodies. She did manage to translate for him with the caress of her fingertips against the side of his face and jaw and a murmured, "You may have all the opportunities you wish, as long as I don't have to pretend I don't want this with you anymore."

"Never." Had they really pretended? Jack hadn't thought so, but perhaps to someone like Phryne wanting something and deliberately turning away from it was the same thing as pretending not to want it at all. Either way, the prospect of having all the opportunities he wanted was enticing enough not to seriously consider arguing semantics.

And there was plenty of bare skin to taste, which he did with what he hoped was acceptable finesse while toeing off his shoes with far less care than he usually took with them.

Jack's lips and tongue ghosted over her skin and her body arched into him without need for her conscious direction. That was, in all, rather fortunate, since her brain had lodged somewhere between wanting and having and seemed rather firmly stuck there.

She did manage to place the twin thuds as his shoes finding the floor, and greeted the event with a heated sigh. "I've grown tired of satisfying myself with thoughts of you, Jack." And as she spoke, she stroked her fingertips down the cut of his hips and then between them to his belt. "I'm afraid nothing but the genuine article will suffice."

Jack actually chuckled against her skin. How Phryne could make him laugh, in a moment as serious as both of them getting what they'd wanted for who knew how much of their acquaintance, was a mystery. Not one he felt compelled to solve, to boot - it was simply Phryne, as much so as her moving to meet his mouth as perfectly as they finished each other's thoughts at times. "You say that as though I've some intention of leaving."

"No, darling--"

Her voice dropped off as she got his belt open and finally got a hand around him. For a few very heated moments, she could only breathe against his neck and jaw while she learned the intimate feel of him. Strange that she'd held so many men this way, but none had ever provoked such a storm of arousal and emotion that she had to take shelter in kissing and mouthing bare skin and finally in sealing their mouths together again.

At length, she released him from the kiss (without releasing him from her intimate explorations) to finish her earlier thought. "I say that as though I refuse to be dreaming again."

God, just her hand was heaven. Somehow, in the (usually guilty) fantasies he'd entertained in the past he'd never actually tried to imagine what any part of Phryne Fisher would feel like: not hands, nor mouth, nor any part. He'd known, perhaps, that any imagining would fall short of the actual feeling. "If you were dreaming, love, you'd have had my trousers off long before now."

"I'll have you know, I was very patient with undressing you in my dreams. Such delights are to be savored," she countered and proceeded to demonstrate by pushing him over to uncover him one inch, one kiss, one caress at a time.

When at last she had him stripped, that patience had run out. Every sense was replete with him, and she herself filled to bursting with desire. Much to his credit, Jack sensed it as it happened, as he often did with her other needs and moved to answer the ache in her core and her chest as confidently as he'd kissed her the first day she found him. And for the next several hours, neither mystery, nor crisis, nor even Dot intruded on the world they found together.

Much later, sprawled decadently and quite fantastically nude on her bed, she recalled his words about his trousers and, more particularly, recalled a particular word that hadn't distressed her at all. Smiling intimately against the skin of his chest, she murmured, "I'm convinced. This is no dream."

"I shudder to think what more proof you'd need." The word Jack used was 'shudder', but the idea of proving this wasn't a dream all over again was an attractive one. After a brief rest, of course. He kissed Phryne's hair, likely more relaxed than he'd been in... years, possibly. "Fortunately you're not that skeptical."

"I could be," she offered and propped herself up to smile down at him. Because she could, she trailed her fingers over his chest, caressing the defining lines of muscle. "If it would induce you to prove it again." The smile she gave him was soft, ineffably fond and intimate, and it curled with a sweet, forgotten warmth all through her. "Love, wasn't it?"

"I've every intention of proving it to you repeatedly." Over the long-term, though as repeatedly in one night as Jack could manage. They had been doing their seduction waltz for a long time, after all. "And it was, unless you prefer not." There were, after all, other endearments.

There was a vast difference, Phryne discovered, in hearing such words from Jack than in hearing them from any other man. Many men desired her, but Jack had been the unreachable pinnacle, the Mt. Kilmanjaro of men. That he felt comfortable enough to tease her with intimate promises sent a delicious shiver down her spine. And she felt no prospect of that peak being any less exciting to ascend now that she'd done so. In fact, she quite liked the view from here.

"If you'd asked me beforehand, I would have objected thoroughly." Which now seemed a curious and incomprehensible fact. "But I think I like being your 'love', Jack. If you mean it."

"Have I ever said anything I didn't mean?" Yes, but only when what he actually did mean was entirely obvious, and the contrary words just underscored it. This was definitely not one of those times. "I absolutely mean this."

Phryne went still and very quiet. It was one thing to tease, quite another to have him come so close to saying it. Her fingers trembled where they rested on his chest from a surfeit of emotion, and a wild surge of nerves.

It was close to a minute before she said quietly, "Do you know," voice lifting in half a question. "I haven't let a man confess that sort of feeling for me for..." The trembling in her fingers increased and she pressed them down against his skin to make them stop. "A very long time." He knew how long, or could guess at least. "I like hearing it from you, but you won't be hurt, will you, if I can't say them in return now?" God knew she loved him as much as she'd loved any man, but she needed time and much more of this before she could tell him.

Rather than answer immediately, Jack considered. It was a serious question, worth considering, and a quick answer would (rightfully) also be a suspicious one.

Almost certainly, the last man that Phryne had allowed the word 'love' from was the detestable René, who hadn't known or been capable of it. And while Jack was absolutely certain that Phryne knew he was nothing like that, it was still going to come up. The habits and instincts of years, particularly those born of self-defense, didn't disappear after one night. Jack had little doubt of her feelings, now, and the fact that she didn't squirm under his... "No, love," he said finally, punctuating the assurance with a kiss, "I don't expect or require words from you until you choose to say them."

This was precisely how he'd gotten under her skin in the first place, by knowing her even when she didn't reveal herself, by being observant enough to understand that courting her required every bit as much patience after the having as it had him before it. The answer she gave came first in kisses, warm and intimate against his throat and shoulder, then in the look in her eyes when she lifted her head, soft and shining, and then in the tender trace of her fingertips over his jaw and face.

Speaking took a long while, but when she did, it was to say simple, "Thank you for that, Jack."

Why would he need words when he had her mouth, and her eyes, and her touch? Even just before their marriage had ended, right up to the day she'd moved out, I love yous had been punctuation for him and Rosie - part of saying hello, or goodbye, or phone conversations. Jack, of all people, knew how little the words actually meant. The substance, which Phryne was more than willing to provide, was the important part.

Not that he didn't intend to tease her, occasionally and gently. "Of course. It gives me something to look forward to, you know."

Darling Jack. It was so like him to tease that she felt the tension of the moment receding, the sentiments still potent but without the fear. But if he would tease, she could also. "Darling, how long has it been since you've been with a woman? Trust me--" She drew her kisses down his chest and when she'd neared his belly, she flipped the blanket over her shoulders and grinned up at him. "You have plenty to look forward to."

[For Jack] I'm longing to linger till dawn, dear

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