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“I wish someone would have told me that this life is ours to choose
No one’s handing you the keys or a book with all the rules”
— P!nk, “All I Know So Far”
“Hello! I am here! You may bow!” Jane’s voice greeted him before he even reached the door, and he smiled to himself as he pushed it open and stepped inside.
In the foyer, his daughter stood at the bottom of the stairs with her head turned towards the ceiling and one foot on the first step in a victory pose. She was holding a very small green-and-yellow crochet blanket around her shoulders like a cape, albeit a rather pitiful one that only fell down to about mid-back.
He could hear Mrs. Collins’ soft laughter spilling out through the open parlor door and knew that she must have just finished it. She had been stress-crocheting ever since she had gotten pregnant and was probably already working on the next one. At this point, there must be either a secret stash of baby blankets hidden somewhere at Wardlow, or every surface at her and Hugh’s cottage was covered in them. He was glad someone was finally putting them to good use.
Jack took another moment to observe the scene, feeling warmth settle into his bones as he forgot all about his long and tedious workday. He was home, safe and relaxed in the company of his favorite people.
Jane still hadn’t noticed him and he smiled at what he knew was about to happen.
“I’ll refrain from bowing if that’s alright,” he said. “Though I am very glad to see you.”
His smile turned into a huge grin as his daughter whipped around at the interruption. “Oh.” Her rigid posture deflated as she recognized him. “Sorry. I didn’t hear you come in.”
Jack’s heart warmed as she abandoned her post and dutifully joined him by the door, wanting to greet him properly. Taking his cue, he turned and hung up his coat and hat before turning back to her so he could give her his full attention. Jane giggled at the mock-serious expression and stiff stance he adopted for her benefit.
“Did you have a good day? You look happy,” he observed as he took in her bright eyes and the blanket she was still playing with as her body hummed with barely suppressed energy.
“Oh, yes!” She grinned widely. “I got my results on that paper you helped me with and I got full marks!”
“Oh, that’s wonderful news, Jane.”
They had spent many long afternoons going over her class notes, looking for a topic Jane was passionate about. He had wanted her topic to be not just educational but also fun. Afternoons of work had quickly devolved into her talking his and Phryne’s ears off at the dinner table, so he was pretty confident that he had succeeded.
Jane beamed at his honest praise. “Do you think this means Miss Phryne will finally let me get those new books I’ve been looking at?”
He barely managed not to laugh at her wide eyes and pleading expression, her lower lip pushed forward in a way she’d clearly picked up from Phryne. “Hmmm…” He shook his head from side to side, considering. “Are you sure you finished the last batch of books we bought you?” he asked her seriously, knowing full well that she hadn’t.
“Well…” Jane paused, tilting her head innocently from side to side. “Almost. And reading the books you already own is so much more fun when you have new ones to look forward to,” she defended knowingly, having seen the state of his bookshelves.
When he had moved in, Jack had moved an entire shelf worth of his favorite books to Wardlow and it had barely made a dent in his considerable collection. He had more books than one person could read in a lifetime but now that he had a partner and daughter he couldn’t possibly get rid of them, now could he?
“Is it? I must have been doing it wrong my entire life,” he commented anyway and smiled when Jane huffed. “We'll talk to her this weekend, alright? I need to go and say hello to Mrs. Collins,” he relented.
Jane nodded eagerly and bounced off into the parlor, taking the blanket with her. Jack stared at her retreating back, wondering what had just happened.
When he followed her, he found her sitting in one of the armchairs, covered by a large fur throw and lost in the book she had presumably been reading before her little excursion. A very pregnant Mrs. Collins was smiling at him from the chaise in front of the fire.
“That’s a lovely blanket,” he nodded at the crochet blanket Jane was still holding before glancing knowingly at the new pink and purple granny squares already piling up beside her.
Dot’s smile turned pained. “I’ve made so many of them I hardly know what to do with them all. You wouldn’t have use for a baby blanket by any chance?” She paused. “Or five?” she added, more realistically.
“No, but if you ever wanted to make a scarf…”
Dot smiled. “Noted.” She returned to her current granny square.
Jack’s heart gave a small thump at how much better he’d come to know Phryne’s family in the months since their return from England. He had only been living at Wardlow for a few weeks and as of right now they had no plans to sell his bungalow, and yet it still felt like he had been part of her household a lot longer.
That was probably because he had been, it dawned on him and he suddenly wanted nothing more than to see the person at the center of it all.
“Is Miss Fisher home?” he asked Dot, knowing that she probably wasn’t. She always greeted him in the parlor if she was.
“Oh, yes—she’s upstairs,” Dot said, bringing his musings to an abrupt halt.
Unfortunately the same could not be said for his worries, which had taken root in his head rather without his permission. He didn’t care if she was at home when he returned from work, but if she was, her absence tonight was definitely unlike her. He told himself there was no reason to worry, and besides, Dot was having a lovely evening and he didn’t want to disturb her.
“Ah.” He nodded as nonchalantly as he could. “Then I’ll just…” He tilted his head in the direction of the stairs.
Dot smiled and nodded as her hands continued their work automatically. “Of course.”
His mind went through all possible explanations for Phryne’s absence on his way up. He ultimately decided it best to check on her even if there was a chance that she wanted to be alone. They rarely spent the night apart and so far they had needed far less alone time than expected, but there was a reason they’d decided to keep his bungalow.
He knocked softly on her bedroom door and opened it just enough to peer through the crack. He could see that the lights were on, so he opened the door fully and stepped inside. To his surprise, he found her sitting against the headboard with her legs stretched out in front of her, wearing his pajamas from the night before but no make-up, and reading a book. She rarely took off her make-up this early, but she was out of bed and wrapping her arms around him before he could figure out what it meant.
“Hello, darling. Did you have a good day?” Phryne greeted him against his lips, keeping his heart contained in his chest through the sheer force of her weight against him.
“I am now,” he replied honestly, delighted that she seemed so happy to see him. “And you?” he asked her casually with a squeeze to her waist. …Alright, perhaps he was still a little worried. He wouldn’t bring it up directly as long as she seemed fine though, which she seemed to be.
“Mmmh,” she nodded. “Jane and Dot looked like they could use the parlor for themselves,” she shrugged in explanation for her absence downstairs.
“That doesn’t explain why you’re wearing my pajamas,” he pointed out. Jack felt the fabric shift under his palms as his hands found the small of her back, stroking the curve of her spine greedily after a long day of being away from her.
He reached under her shirt to touch her bare skin just to see if he could get away with it. It seemed that he could, because Phryne reacted by simply pulling the shirt up and off over her head.
“They were there and you weren’t,” she continued their conversation with a shrug.
His mind was far too busy drinking in her soft flesh to react to either her words or her invitation and when he didn’t immediately make a move, she reached for his hands and lovingly placed them on her small breasts. His hands closed around the slight mounds of flesh automatically. “Come to bed, Jack,” she purred, smug to have gotten a reaction from him. “I’ve been keeping it nice and warm for you.”
“Mmmh, isn’t it a bit early for that?” He finally remembered their banter after several long moments of staring at his hands on her sweet flesh.
“Well, we’re already in our bedroom,” she reasoned. “First we’ll make love, slow and close, and then we’ll spend the rest of the evening curled up with our respective books like an old married couple.”
“Perhaps we’ll even fall asleep before ten,” he continued her perfect fantasy with interest. There was no space left for his worries and he was hesitant to break the spell they were in.
“See, I knew you’d get it. Come on, then.”
His hands slid to her bare waist as her own arms wound around his neck so she could pull him down into a long kiss. Right before her lips met his, his eyes dropped down to where his too-large trousers barely clung to her hips, revealing the soft pale curve of her belly to him. It had been a small glimpse, but together with the vulnerable reveal of her fantasy, it burrowed itself into his heart alongside hundreds of other moments exactly like this one. She had turned his heart into a treasure chest of love.
His mouth never breaking contact with hers, he walked her backward until her calves hit the edge of the mattress. She sat down and he yelped as she pulled him down with her by the back of his neck, continuing to kiss him. Jack dropped down to his knees at the last second so he wouldn’t crush her, but he couldn’t bring himself to break their kiss.
He had found that not every insecurity was worth sharing. When his brain fired indistinct alarm bells at him he would often keep it to himself, but she was a detective and would usually figure it out anyway. Now though, she had no idea that she was dispelling hundreds of worries with every swipe of her tongue and it was strangely refreshing.
Phryne was the one who pulled away first. “Would you like to do the honors or shall I?” she asked him breathlessly as she pushed his hands down to her waist.
“After leaving you alone for this long, it would be terribly rude of me not to,” Jack replied diplomatically as he tried to pretend her open desire for him wasn’t going straight to his heart. It could be easy to miss what was right in front of him when he got tangled up in his own worries. When his world came back into focus, the reality of her love frequently threatened to overwhelm him.
He sat back on his knees, and Phryne’s legs fell open as he pushed the trousers down to her feet. Her legs parted more and he groaned in torture as she revealed the beautiful flesh between her thighs to him.
“Dare I ask what you’ve been thinking about this whole time?” he growled as he traced her wetness with a single finger.
With a shudder, Phryne closed her legs, the motion effectively trapping his hand against her wet folds. “Just you on top of me, and inside me,” she revealed softly.
“Scandalous. I like it,” he teased. It was the only thing he could say, too busy being flooded with the urge to hold her and bury himself in her until he forgot why he had ever been worried.
Phryne chuckled softly. As he stood up to begin undressing, the sight of her sitting naked on the edge of the bed nearly undid him. She was leaning back on her hands and looking up at him, and there was something vulnerable about her position paired with the obvious love in her eyes.
She looked serene with the knowledge that she was exactly where she was meant to be and Jack barely knew what to do with that. The possibility that he might mess up had kept him up at night more than once, but he was coming to learn that no one was judging his every word or keeping score of who leaned on the other more. He hadn’t been trying to be perfect when she had fallen in love with him and he didn’t need to be perfect now. They just needed to put in the work. The knowledge that the other was doing the same was worth more than anything else he could think of.
Phryne watched with interest as his clothes began to litter the chaise and Jack wondered how this could really be his life. As he reached his smalls, she moved to her side of the bed and lay down in invitation. They didn’t quite reach the chaise as he slid them past his aching cock and threw them vaguely behind him. She laughed at his disregard of his own rules. Again he was overcome with love for her.
He moved over her, needing to remind himself that she wasn’t fragile even if her heart was the most precious thing he had ever held in his hands.
He spent long moments rediscovering each small breast with his lips and tongue and even sucked a small bruise into the underside of one. It wasn’t exactly to claim her, he just wanted some kind of physical evidence of his love tonight. Phryne threaded her hands into his hair enthusiastically as he soothed the newly sensitive spot with tiny licks of his tongue.
Jack pulled back to admire his work, skimming his hands down the perfect curves of her waist and belly. Her hips tilted up to meet him as he passed by them, and he paused to stare at her pointedly. Phryne shrugged, and his heart gave a frankly ridiculous twist in response.
He knew what she wanted, she had told him so after all, so he reached between her legs to test her wetness again. She was dripping for him as expected. Phryne cackled at his tortured expression and wrapped her legs around him as he positioned his cock at her opening. They groaned in unison as he began to move inside of her.
She was tight and perfect around him. Her love was obvious in the way she was drinking in his every move, and he drank her in in return. She had opened him up to so many ways he didn’t even know he could feel loved.
He wanted to bask in her but of course, Phryne being Phryne meant that she was flipping them around and climbing off him after only a few minutes.
“Phryne, what…?” he asked disorientedly as he suddenly found himself on his back with her looming over him.
“Shhh. I want to taste myself on you, Jack.”
“Oh my god.” Jack’s world spun as she climbed his frazzled body like a tree and her perfect behind appeared in front of him.
“Is this alright?” she asked, her tone surprisingly vulnerable.
The words were the last thing he heard before her thighs closed around his head and he was surrounded by her heavenly scent from every direction. She stroked his thighs hesitantly, and Jack wanted to give her the same comfort and security she had given him, albeit subconsciously.
He knew how reassuring gestures could be and he leaned forward, lovingly licking a stripe up her dripping cunt. Her thighs twitched around him as he applied himself to shutting up both her and her racing thoughts. At the same time, her mouth descended on his cock and her hand began a tantalizing rhythm up and down his inner thigh.
Jack felt incredibly close to her as the rest of the world gave way to her sweet flesh and the blissful sensation of her mouth on him. It was the perfect balance of give-and-take and exactly what he had been craving. Still, it was far from the only way she’d shown him she loved him tonight. There were a thousand more, and probably countless he wasn’t even aware of. He looked forward to spending the rest of his days uncovering them all.
As Phryne took him all the way into her mouth, he spilled down her throat with an agonized groan. At the same time, the rhythm of his tongue faltered, and Phryne shattered as his groan washed over her oversensitized flesh.
They stayed like that for long moments, each drinking in the scent of the other’s skin. Eventually, though, the sweat drying on their spent bodies made it impossible and they both got up, locating their pajamas. Phryne won the unspoken battle by simply picking hers up off the floor, and she slipped into bed several minutes before him. His heart stopped as he realized that she looked exactly like she had when he first entered the room. It stirred up his worries all over again.
“Was there any particular reason you went upstairs today rather than waiting for me in the parlor? You can tell me if you ever need some alone time. I can always go back to my place for a night or two,” he questioned his standing again as he joined her in bed.
“Don’t you dare.” Phryne glared at him as she flung an arm across his waist possessively. “Do you know why I came up here tonight?” She paused for a moment, making sure she had the right words. “So much of our relationship was formed in my parlor, and for that, it will always hold a special place in my heart.” She held his eyes in silent confirmation that her words were true before cuddling down into his chest. “But it occurred to me tonight that there are other places we can see each other now too. Now that we’re together, now that you’re officially part of the family, we’re no longer limited to just the one room.”
Jack blinked rapidly as his eyes began to water at her sweet words. He had been in love with her for so long that it had become second nature, and he knew his past self would combust if he could see them now. Even so, his past self had not yet known the glorious reality of her, so much better than anything he had imagined. She was radiant and vulnerable, wonderful and imperfect. They didn’t show love in exactly the same way and some confusion was to be expected, but they were both trying and could always talk about things if the need arose.
He must have been silent for too long, because Phryne lifted her head from his chest to regard him suspiciously. “Jack darling? Are you alright?”
“Yes, I…” He wiped at his cheeks. “I think I just have something in my eye.”
“Ah.” Her fingers slipped between the buttons of his shirt to stroke his skin and he accepted the offering gratefully. “Would you like me to have a look?” she asked innocently.
“No.” Jack shook his head, overflowing with love for her.
“Is there any chance that you are perhaps crying?” Phryne asked him softly as tears began to pool in the corners of her own eyes.
“Definitely not.” He examined her. “Are you?”
“I would never.”
He cupped her cheek, dabbing at the incriminating evidence with his thumb. “Good.” He smiled, wanting her heart to remain safe and sound in her chest.
His own heart exploded as she nuzzled his palm like a contented cat. Her hair was already messy again even though she had just brushed it and her eyes were sleepy. Her immeasurable beauty frequently hit him like a ton of bricks, but tonight, above all, she just looked happy.
“God, my love, just look at you,” he looked at her in disbelief. “I was an idiot for thinking something was wrong, wasn’t I?”
“You’re an adorable idiot, though, and you’re my idiot,” Phryne reminded her happily. Jack snorted. “And it’s always better to ask than to assume that something’s wrong,” she recommended, knowing better than to think that this would be the last time.
“We’re good at this,” he complimented them as he saw the future stretched wide open before them. Whatever life threw at them, they would face it together. He didn’t have to be perfect. He just had to be committed and they would find a way.
Phryne nodded enthusiastically. “We’re being all mature and everything. Really, it’s an outrage that it actually works,” she grimaced and they both laughed.
They were still laughing as he pulled her in for a sweet kiss.