Work Text:
Journey’s End
Trip no further, pretty sweeting;
Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man's son doth know.
William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
He’s laid out on top of the covers, shoes off, waistcoat, shirt, and tie hanging on the chair by the bed. He’s already asleep. After she had embraced him on the station platform, she took one look in his weary eyes and insisted he spend the afternoon resting. She stands in the doorway of this bedroom, in this borrowed flat, in a city foreign to both of them, watching him breathe. Taking in the rare sight of Jack Robinson relaxed and at peace. The weight of years, of stress, and grief, drop away from his face and he looks boyish. She hasn’t seen him in nearly six months; she feels as if she is seeing him, truly, for the first time. She steps out of her shoes and crawls next to him on the bed, curling around and placing a hand on his shoulder. He sighs, and she smiles.
They wake up slowly some time later, each roused by the stirring of the other. She stretches, feeling the vertebrae in her back pop. He yawns, hand over his mouth. The sound, so domestic and unfamiliar, makes her giggle drowsily, and he turns his head to look at her. He grins at the sight of her, hair mussed and sleepy eyed as she knows she must be. His gaze drops to her mouth and she holds her breath. This next step must be his. She could kiss him, so easily, could have seduced him from the very beginning. But she has always known that for what she truly wants, he must come to her. It must be his decision. She watches him carefully, sees the moment he makes his choice, smiles as he presses his mouth gently to hers.
It is only the third kiss they’ve shared, if you don’t count the incident at the Cafe Replique (which she doesn’t). It is by far the most chaste, a still press of lips, almost hesitant. His lips linger on hers and she savors the sensation. Her heart thumps at the sweetness. She wonders, briefly, if their kisses will ever grow perfunctory, stale, and dismisses it as impossible. She thinks of him in his office, upright and solid under layers of respectability, of his unconscious lanky ease in the waves at Queenscliff, of the way his mouth shapes her name, how he quietly regards her from the doorways and mantles of the Wardlow. She feels her abdomen tense with a subtle, thrumming heat, as they lay next to each other with only their mouths touching. She has never experienced a moment more intimate. She sighs, and her lips part, she hears him take a breath and his hand is cradling her face, his mouth pressing more firmly as his tongue slides against her own. It is a slow, intense echo of the kiss at the airfield, a kiss that left her knees weak and her head spinning precisely when she needed it solidly on her shoulders. She remembers saying some nonsense about a whole world, and worries. She ought to have scolded him for jeopardizing her ability to focus. She is grateful she isn’t standing now. Jack is sucking on her lower lip and her new French silk underwear is soaked. He has snuck his left hand under her head, stroking her neck, and she wraps her arm under and around his shoulder, drawing him closer. Her right hand is pressed against his chest, she can feel the heat of him radiating through the soft cotton of his undershirt. Her arm is awkwardly caught between them and he isn’t close enough. She wants to feel the weight of him against her whole body.
She breaks the kiss and whispers, “You’re too far away,” pulling him over her. He’s leaning against her now, his face pressed against hers. She can feel the flutter of his eyelashes against her cheek and she’s filled with an indescribable tenderness for this man who sees the woman behind the money, fashion, and cheeky bravado. He has no fear of that woman’s strength, or her pain. She runs her hands slowly up his back, feeling the muscles under the fabric, runs her fingers through his hair and takes his face in her hands, kissing his eyebrows, his nose, his jaw. He watches her silently as she does this. She looks back steadily, then takes his hand in hers, pulls it down her body, under her skirt and presses it against her crotch. His eyes close and he releases a shuddering breath when he feels her wetness; his cock presses against her hip and she gives him a beguiling grin. He answers with the lopsided smile she adores and presses his mouth to her throat, cupping her sex with his hand. He begins to rub her slowly, his mouth licking along the tendons in her neck in tandem. She gasps and threads her hands through his hair, holding him in place. Her nipples are tight between the press of their bodies, and she can feel the pressure of his fingers against her swollen clit through the lingerie. She tilts her head back and groans in delight as she realizes that he knows exactly what he is doing there. His mouth is on her ear, then nuzzling at her jaw. She thought their first time would be fast and frantic, a desperate coupling (she put her diaphragm in place this morning on that assumption). She didn’t expect it to be slow, and deliberate. Her hands clutch at his shoulders as she curls forward. He is always surprising her, and she wonders how long he has considered making love to her. The tension in her abdomen intensifies and her legs begin to squirm, hips rocking against his hand at that thought – that this is lovemaking. It is more than satisfying their physical desire for each other, which has been present from the start. His hand is on her cunt stroking steadily, relentlessly. This is irrevocable.
She shudders violently as the tension releases, quick and unexpected. She moans into his neck, inhaling the scent of his skin, his aftershave. His hand is still on her cunt; she squeezes her legs together to keep him there. It should feel strange, perhaps; they have touched each other so sparingly until now. But it feels natural, normal. His hands belong here, on her body. He is stroking her hair as she catches her breath, feathering kisses on her collarbones. She tugs at the hem of his shirt, pulling it out of his trousers and up his back. Her release has left her more urgent, needier. She aches inside. He pushes up on his hands and leans over her, his hair falling loose over his forehead. She smiles at his look, so contemplative, and brushes back his hair, drawing her hand down his face. He turns his head and kisses her palm. She presses her thumb against his lips and he takes it, briefly, between his teeth. Sitting back on his feet, Jack pulls his undershirt up and over his head. Phryne sits up and grabs his neck, kissing him wantonly, running her hands over his shoulders and up and down his torso. His hands tangle with her arms as he fumbles with the buttons on her blouse. She climbs into his lap, wanting him closer, and slips her arms out of her sleeves as he pulls the silk off of her. He wraps his arms around her back and holds her tightly. He murmurs “Phryne,” against her skin and she thinks of every time he has used her first name, how intimate it has always sounded in his mouth. He reaches up and unhooks her brassiere; she leans back as his mouth follows the silk down her shoulders. There is a moment of heightened clarity, when she feels as if she is outside her of her body, floating. She sees herself and Jack undressing each other on the bed, and realizes his hands are trembling. Hers are as well, and she grips his waist, feeling the expansion and contraction of his ribcage, grounding herself back into her body. She slides her arms out of the straps of her underwear and tosses the garment to the floor. Jack stares at her breasts, his breathing remarkably even, as he brushes the sides of them with his fingers. She scratches her nails gently through the hair on his chest. He has made her come once already but the slow unveiling of their bodies feels more personal, more precious somehow. She pushes off his lap and, kneeling, undoes the buttons of her skirt. His hands cover hers as he helps her slide it down her hips. She leans back on the bed and reaches out, threading her arms around his neck as covers her body with his own, resuming their languid kisses.
She thought she would be leading this particular waltz. She had plans. She had considered the matter at length and felt it best to take charge, if they ever found themselves here. But his mouth is on her breast and she only wants to luxuriate in the feel of his skin against hers, at last. And his every action is so measured, quiet and assured that she finds herself letting go. Letting herself be loved. They have hardly spoken, and when he takes her left nipple between his teeth, it is done with such sweetness, such tenderness, that the sharp sensation flies through her. She grits her teeth as her cunt throbs in response. The heat from his mouth and hands flows through her body and she lets out a guttural moan. He looks up at her through his lashes, then, palming her breast firmly, he drags his hand down her body. Slowly, but without hesitation, he pushes his hand under her knickers, pausing briefly at her entrance, then slides a single finger inside her. She gasps and her hips buck, her hands digging into his shoulders, her back arching, pushing her breast more firmly against his mouth. Jack raises his head and she whimpers at the loss of his lips. He watches her as he adds a second finger inside her, stroking the soft, swollen ridges just behind her pubic bone. She might have known he would be serious in this, as in so much else. She trembles under the intensity of his focused regard, her hands twisting the bedcovers as her body shakes. She has been here many times before, touched this way by many other men, each time different yet the same, exquisite in its familiarity. Never before has she felt cherished, as she does now, as Jack moves his long fingers inside her. She has watched his restless hands for a long time, captivating her attention when the rest of him is so still and restrained. Her body is tight and ready but she decides, not yet. She puts a hand on his wrist to stop him, and says “Wait.” He removes his hand and his face clouds with anxiety.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
She sits up and kisses him softly, peels the stockings from her legs. “I want all of you. Now, Jack.” She brings his hand to her mouth and sucks his fingers. She moans at the salty-sweet taste of her own arousal and he breathes in sharply. She puts her hands on the fly of his trousers and starts undoing the buttons as he kisses her deeply, frantic now with wanting. He drags the silk of her underwear down her legs. She leans back and he follows her down, mouth never leaving hers. She pushes his trousers and his pants down over his hips, caressing his ass as she does so. He moans into her mouth and she can feel his voice all through her, down to her toes. He kicks off his trousers and she cradles him between her legs, knees bent, hands everywhere, on his ass, his torso, his hair, his arms. He rubs his hardness against her slick cunt, teasing, her wetness covering them both. She is both desperate and relaxed, joyful in the feel of his arms around her, and panting with anticipation. She reaches down and squeezes his cock gently in her hand. “Jesus Christ, Phryne, please,” he begs in her ear, and she pants “Yes,” guiding him into her. She cries out with overwrought pleasure as he sinks into her fully, she wants him deep and steady and now.
Her pleasure is exquisite, excruciating and only partially derived from the pace they have set. Love, for Phryne, has always meant loss. Men’s declarations of love (and there have been more than a few in her life) have always been a prelude to plunder – of her time, her energy, her safety, her very self. Jack has never said the words. He has shown her in a hundred small gestures how he feels, followed her halfway around the world, laid himself naked and shaking in her arms. Love from Jack has meant a succession of tiny gifts, each more unexpected than the last, and as he grips her leg and buttock firmly and shifts their angle, she knows she is ready at last to accept them. The friction between them increases to an unbearable pitch that she hopes never stops, wanting to prolong this moment where finally nothing separates them. She presses his ass firmly, holding him tight against her as she rocks and tumbles into ecstatic oblivion. She senses him falling after her with a hoarse cry. One word reverberates through her mind: bliss.
He lowers himself down to her side and she follows him, keeping her leg wrapped around his hip, not wanting him to leave her body yet. He runs his fingers up and down her neck, slowly, as he did once before many months ago. Their breathing slows. She puts a hand to his face. “I love you, Jack,” she states simply.
He looks at her for a long moment before saying, “I could not stay behind you. My willing love set forth in your pursuit.”
“Is that …Shakespeare?” She’s puzzled, but also delighted.
He grins, and kisses her. “Police code.”
The penny drops then, and she laughs and laughs.