Work Text:
“I’m sorry…”
He’d almost spoken those words aloud while they were making love, breathed them really, perhaps they were actually whispered, he can’t be sure. He’d been too overwhelmed by the welcoming lushness of her body beneath him, her womanhood claiming him completely as her passion crested and took him along with her. His emotions had been flowing unbidden, like waves crashing over rocks, smoothing the ragged edges of all that had come before in the days since he'd learned of her being Lady Whistledown.
But now, in the quiet come down, with each pass of his finger as it traces the soft skin between her breasts, he finds himself wanting to say the words loud enough for her to hear.
The fingers of her hand still trapped between their bodies flexes against his chest and he finds her gaze in the candlelight, her beautiful eyes looking up at him with obvious confusion.
“You’re sorry?”
Needing to quell her concerns, he shifts down the bed slightly until he can find her lips with some assurance. With his thumb on her cheek, he kisses her slowly, treasures her in all the ways he’d been holding himself back from for far too long. When he pulls away, she chases, a slight groan escaping her throat in protest that fills him with such joy that he laughs loud enough to fill the quiet corners of their bedroom with life.
But he needs to say this, so he gives her another quick kiss and shifts, turning her so she is facing him on the pillow. Their hands find one another in unison and he tucks her in close, joined fingers pressed tight against his chest as tries to find the words to explain himself.
“I am sorry that I…that I couldn’t…be like this.” This is hard, embarrassing really, but he forces himself to maintain eye contact as he continues. “With you… intimate …while we were at odds.”
She blinks and looks down, but he doesn’t want that. He needs her to see.
“Pen,” he whispers, drawing her back to him, back with him. He gives her hands a reassuring squeeze once she has returned.
“It was not due to a lack of desire. The thought of you, all of you, was never out of my mind. It just felt…like it would have been a betrayal. Kissing you, touching you while my thoughts were swirling with confusion and anger. I was afraid you would feel it and I never want it to be that way between us.”
His vision is growing cloudy with tears of relief at saying all of this to her, but he continues despite the emotion constricting the words in his throat. A hot tear falls against the side of his nose as he feels her fingers tighten between his in silent encouragement.
“I always want it to be this way, Pen…love finding us like this, love… ”
His words are silenced by soft lips and he sighs against her mouth, letting go of her hands so he can cup the back of her head and urge her forward. But she leans her forehead down almost immediately, creating space between them that he desperately wants to erase.
“Colin, there will always be love,” he hears her whisper against his lips and in that moment, another part of him breaks wide open. Her mouth finds his once more and her soft hands begin their work of putting him back together again.
He shudders at the touch of her fingers skimming down his side to his waist, confident hands urging him forward until she’s on her back, legs opening wide and welcoming the weight of him everywhere.
Leaning on his elbows, he slides his hands under shoulders and sinks his fingers beneath her head, holding her steady as he takes her mouth with all the passion he’d been storing up these past weeks, pouring it into her with every swipe of his tongue and nip of his teeth. He can’t hold back the groan of pleasure as their bodies begin to move out of instinct and need, the hot slickness of their earlier coupling between her legs already driving him to near madness. He’s not sure if he imagines her whispering “please” against his panting mouth, but he heeds the command anyway, sinking himself without further hesitation as far she can take him in. It takes him a few moments to recover from the rush that overcomes him at the sheer relief of it. But as he begins to move, he keeps her head in his hands, ignoring the strain in his arms if it means he can keep her locked in his gaze.
“Like this, my love,” he whispers, “always like this.”
“Always,” she practically cries, hands finding purchase at the small of his back, dragging him down further until they are pressed as close as two souls can be pressed. He moves one of his hands from beneath her head and slides it down the length of her, pressing his thumb into the soft skin along her side until he draws a smile from her lips. He loves that he knows this spot already, smiling devilishly back at her as he continues his exploration down, moving to cup her buttocks before urging her to lift her thigh up and over his hip. Her smile changes to an open mouth as the angle of him changes just so and he allows himself a moment of triumph at being the one to give her this. The only one who ever will.
That thought is enough to have him moving again, his hand finding the mattress to steady himself as he picks up speed, needing her to find her pleasure before he’s completely lost in his own. Her skin is growing slick from sweat where their hips and bellies are finding delicious friction and it’s the most sensual of sensations, his mouth suddenly dry at the thought of lapping the saltiness of her up with his tongue.
“Colin, I…Colin…”
Her pleas drag him from his heated musings and he finds her waist again, holding her tightly as he drags his hips up hard and deep. It’s what she needed, and as she constricts around him he quickly rolls her onto her side. The new position has her gasping into his mouth as he kisses her, his hand finding her knee to drag her thigh up even higher, his pleasure searing them both as he lets himself go and spills himself fully.
Spent is not a big enough word to describe how he’s feeling, every muscle in his body limp and thought in his brain gone as their limbs tangle together into the mattress, lips brushing as they breathe ragged pants against the sweat soaked sheets.
Just as his heart is finding a more manageable rhythm, he feels her fingertips press sweetly along his temple, her thumb finding the apple of his cheek.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course,” he whispers after finding enough breath to speak, remembering a very similar conversation in her garden those few weeks ago.
“That night you found me on the street, there was anger…but you…”
Turning his head, he catches her thumb against his lips and gives it a playful peck.
“Penelope Bridgerton, you told me you loved me, shouted it at me in fact. There are limits to a man’s control.”
Her giggle is the sweetest sound and he seeks out that spot at her waist, pressing at it until she’s wriggling in his arms. The candles by their bedside slowly reach the end of their life to the sound of laughter between lovers and friends, forever and always.