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It occurs to Elizabeth, as she’s lying in bed later that night, that she could do the same thing to Jack. Or at least, something similar.
She’s heard of it, of course, schoolyard taunts and her own childhood, women on their knees. She thought—well. She thought only loose women did that sort of thing, prostitutes. That it wasn't a godly endeavour for a man and wife. It certainly isn't aimed at the production of children, be fruitful and multiply, but then neither was what Jack did to her. Elizabeth thinks his warm mouth between her legs and how achingly private it felt, sacred in the pre-Christian sense of the word, hallowed and not to be spoken of aloud. She shifts her hips against the mattress. Finally she rolls to face Jack, telling herself she’s just going to look.
His eyes are open in the dark, unearthly black mirrors. Elizabeth feels as though they’re subterranean, the pair of them, animals bedded down in a den. Oh, but she wants to clamber on top of him, to bear children or hibernate for winter, all of her desires shockingly base.
“All right?” he murmurs, reaching out to touch her waist.
Elizabeth hesitates. She has no idea how to begin them again. If she kissed him now, would he know what she meant? Would she need to speak?
“Yes,” she says finally, closing her hand chastely over his. “I’m fine. Go to sleep.”
She’s still thinking about it come morning, sneaking glances as they dress for the day, trying to see him. She hasn't examined that part of his body in any detail. Touched, certainly. Watched and observed from a certain distance. But not up close. She wonders if he’d even let her do it. She wonders if she’d even be able to suss out how. As they leave the house she eyes at the deep bookshelves Jack built her in the sitting room, sighing at the knowledge that not a single one of the thickly bound volumes holds any information that would be remotely useful in this particular endeavor. Books never failed her until she became a wife.
It’s a busy day, a new set of spelling words for the children and a lesson on cartography that Elizabeth designed mainly so she could send them outside to draw maps of Hope Valley. She stands on the porch of the schoolhouse to watch, shawl wrapped around her against the chill of the spring afternoon, telling herself she isn’t scanning the horizon for a sudden flash of red.
In the end Jack turns up to carry her books at the close of the school day, striding into her empty classroom like a man on a mission. “Mrs. Thornton,” he says, doffing his hat rather dramatically, and oh, the thrill of that has not worn off yet.
“Constable,” she says, lifting her face so that he’ll kiss her hello. The thrill of that hasn’t worn off yet, either, the idea that they can kiss or touch whenever they want to, that there’s nothing inappropriate about it at all.
Jack kisses her a touch more boldly than his usual in public fare, all confident mouth and hands. Elizabeth wonders how much of it has to do with what they got up to yesterday evening. She winds both arms around his neck and kisses back, letting her books fall to the floor with a theatrical thunk.
“Elizabeth!” Jack laughs against her mouth. “Goodness.”
“I’m saying hello,” Elizabeth tells him, unrepentant. He’s letting the whole of his front press against hers, serge jacket to breeches, so he can't be too bothered. She can even almost—no, she can definitely feel him against her lower belly. They both realize it at the same time, identical flushes colouring their cheeks.
“We should start home,” Jack says quietly, but he’s still smiling, warm and personal and oh, Elizabeth likes that smile, likes how confident he looks, how he isn't pulling away from her even at all. She curls both arms around his neck and kisses him again, then again, then a third time, feeling him grow stiffer against her belly all the while. She’s so absurdly pleased with him, Constable Jack Thornton and his hat and his book-carrying. She wants to rub up against him like a cat.
“Enough,” Jack says finally, laughing and grasping her shoulders to push her back slightly. “I have to be able to walk home.”
“It interferes with your ability to walk?” Elizabeth asks before she can stop herself, craning her neck to look. Jack actually covers his face for a second, a smile flashing through his fingers. She likes that almost as much as the confidence, his pinked boyish ears and lowered lashes, how for a moment he’s almost prettier than she is.
“It can,” he says, before reaching out and physically tilting her chin away. “Elizabeth, stop looking.”
“Why?” she asks, bending to scoop up her books. It brings her eye-level and this time she looks deliberately, making sure he sees her do it before raising her eyes to his face. Jack turns right around and walks out the door. Elizabeth laughs and follows, delighted.
She finds him at the edge of the porch, staring determinedly at the horizon with a beet-red neck. It’s a long, long minute before he holds out his arms for her books.
Dinner is split pea soup and a pot of roast beef, none of which Elizabeth burns. Jack takes seconds without prompting, even, and by the time Elizabeth clears his empty bowl she's feeling quite taken with herself, truthfully—with the two of them and what they have here together, like a secret no one else can ever know about. Like they're the cleverest people in the world. When she glances over at Jack he's leaning back in his chair to scratch Rip behind the ears, relaxed, his long legs spread wide like an invitation. Elizabeth swallows hard.
“What?” Jack asks, when he catches her looking.
Elizabeth shakes her head. She can't very well tell him, can she, I was imagining what might happen if I knelt in front of your chair at this very moment and— “Nothing.”
He's onto her, though, her warm cheeks and what she suspects is a rather telling expression. “What?” he asks again. He's smiling, looking just as fond of her as she feels of him—fonder, even. It’s delicious, to be looked at this way. “Tell me.”
Elizabeth shakes her head. “I feel…” She feels like they should go to bed, frankly, but when she glances out the window the sun has barely sunk behind the barn to the west. She wasn't expecting this about being married, the sweetness of anticipation coupled with her own trademark impatience. “I feel as though I should wash these dishes and then perhaps we should play a game of Gin Rummy.”
“Oh, is that what you feel?” Jack asks, laughing and reaching for her. Elizabeth dodges his hands with a little flounce, carrying the empty bowls to the sink.
“Constable, I never,” she says, twisting on the faucet and plunging the dishes into the water. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” She wonders how bold he’ll be. Chase me, she thinks, feeling part-wolf, feeling like she wants to take off at a dead run across the meadows and see if he’ll follow.
Jack takes the bait. “You never, huh?” he asks, the scrape of his chair and his steady steps, two arms sliding around her waist. “I’m not so sure.”
His front is pressed against her back, chest to thighs; Elizabeth reaches for the soap cake, letting her hips round out just slightly. “You don’t like cards?” she asks innocently, glancing over her shoulder with lowered lashes.
Jack is grinning. “I like cards fine,” he says, bending to put his warm lips on her nape. “I just don’t think you really want to play.”
“Don’t I?” Elizabeth leans out of his reach to start scrubbing at the roast pot, which has the added effect of jostling her against him, rhythmic. “Because I’m pretty sure that’s what I want.”
Jack reaches for her chin, turning her head so he can see her face. Elizabeth can tell from his expression that he’s wondering if she honestly means it, his eyes asking the question; she raises her eyebrows slightly, just a quick jump, oh come on, constable. It’s enough.
“I think you’re a liar,” Jack says, reaching for her waist and then—oh, yes, he is bold today—sliding a hand up under her dress. It takes him a moment to get under her skirts, but then his palm is on her bare thigh and sliding higher and then— “Elizabeth.”
Oh. She didn’t quite realize how damp she was before, but now he’s cupping her through her small clothes, the whole of her sitting full flush against his palm, and there’s no way to be polite about it: she’s completely soaked. “I’m a liar,” she murmurs, and Jack’s hand tightens against her convulsively.
Elizabeth drops the dish she’s holding.
“Elizabeth,” he repeats, hauling her back against his body. He’s gone hard again, the length of it pressed against her backside, heat seeping straight through their clothes. Elizabeth cannot get over that phenomenon, the idea that without doing a whole lot of anything, really, she can have a physical effect like that on a body so separate from her own.
Although, she thinks as Jack rubs her through the cotton, the wetness slicking all down her thighs and a quiet sound escaping her lips before she can stop herself, she supposes it works both ways.
“All right,” she concedes, turning to face him, winding her wet, soapy arms around his neck. They got up to some decidedly un-culinary activities in this kitchen last evening and while Elizabeth rather likes the slightly scandalous nature of it as a venue, a big warm comfortable feather bed was on her wish list for this house and Jack gave her one. It seems a shame to waste it. “Let’s go to the bedroom.”
Jack kisses her once and pulls back again, all mischief. “Better light for Gin Rummy?” he asks, raising his eyebrows.
Elizabeth raises hers back—and then, with a boldness she wouldn’t have thought she possessed before this morning, she slides her hand down his front and palms him firmly through his trousers. Jack’s eyes go desperately, impossibly dark.
“Take me to bed, constable,” Elizabeth says, enunciating every word.
She has never seen Jack move so fast.
They trip over each other on their way there, kissing messily, off-target and opened-mouthed and blessedly, deliciously indecorous. Jack slides his hands back up under her skirts as they go, stroking her so firmly her knees buckle. “Does it interfere with your ability to walk?” he murmurs against her cheek, all tease; Elizabeth nearly chokes on her own panting breath.
“Jack,” she gasps, shocked in spite of herself. They’re looking straight into each other’s faces when he strokes her again, which means he’s watching as her mouth opens on a silent whimper and her eyes flutter closed. When she opens them again he’s staring back with a hunger so undisguised it nearly makes her knees buckle all over again.
“Elizabeth,” he whispers, voice like she’s a holy relic. Then: “Come here, come over here.” He leads her to the bed and helps her off with her dress, then her petticoats and corset, then finally her drawers. “I want to see you,” he tells her, looming over her on the mattress. “I want to watch your face when you—”
Well. Elizabeth nods helplessly as he reaches back between her legs, his fingers warm and rough and good. He makes a soft sound of surprise when he touches her again, no fabric between them. “Elizabeth,” he says, whispering the words right into her ear like a secret, “you’re so wet.”
Elizabeth makes a noise herself, throwing an arm up over her face. Jack drags it out of the way without a second’s pause, twining their fingers together. “Don’t you dare,” he tells her, and oh, now he’s sliding one of his fingers inside her; Elizabeth claws at the bed. “That means you like it, doesn’t it?” Jack asks, so quiet he’s barely speaking out loud. His face is so close and so focused. “That you’re so—”
Oh God in Heaven. Elizabeth throws her other arm over her eyes and arches her hips, barely able to stand it. “Yes,” she chokes, uncovering her face before Jack does it for her. “Yes.”
It happens fast this time, more quickly than before—coming on all at once when she isn’t even expecting it, that feeling of careering toward the edge of a cliff. “Jack,” she gasps, her hand tightening in his as all of it overwhelms her—his body and his smell and his fingers but his eyes on her more than anything, a hundred thousand adjectives beyond dark. Elizabeth keeps her own eyes open the whole time it's happening, watches him back.
“Oh,” she says when it’s over, swallowing thickly. She feels wrung out like a damp dishrag, the last dregs of pleasure still buzzing in her fingers and toes. “Oh, my.”
Jack looks like she's hit him over the head with her frying pan. “You’re beautiful,” he murmurs as he slides his finger out of her slow and gentle, hot mouth ducked toward her jaw. "My God, Elizabeth, I could watch you do that for the rest of my life."
Elizabeth makes a wordless sound in reply. She wants to burrow into his chest and stay there; she wants to get as close as she possibly can. One flesh, she thinks vaguely, reaching for the buttons on his work shirt. It doesn’t feel like nearly enough. “Let me,” she murmurs, peeling the cotton down off his broad, freckled shoulders. His skin is very, very warm. Together they shuck his suspenders and breeches and boots, undershirt and drawers. When Jack makes to lie down Elizabeth stops him, forcing him to wait by the bed a moment longer.
“Elizabeth.” He scrubs a shy hand over his face. “Is this really necessary?”
“Yes,” Elizabeth tells him, not even bothering to smile. She lets herself stare, at his chest and his stomach and between his legs, where he’s stiff and straight and flushed a deep, ruddy pink. Something in her expression must give away the game, because he stops looking embarrassed and starts looking keen. He steps closer, reaching out to touch her chin.
“Are you going to tell me to look away again?” Elizabeth asks, ducking her head to nip at his fingers. Jack’s flesh jumps.
“No,” he says. He’s watching her face in fascination. “Elizabeth,” he says, reaching for her shoulders and pushing gently, trying to lie her back on the mattress. “Really though, if you’re going to look at me like that, please let me—”
Elizabeth stops him again. He’s eye-level like this, him standing and her sitting. It would be very easy. “No,” she says firmly. “I want to try something first.”
Jack straightens back up, looking alarmed. “What?”
Elizabeth laughs. “Nothing bad,” she reassures him, reaching out and taking him in hand. He’s so warm here, so much warmer than the rest of his body, an excess of blood beating under the skin. Elizabeth wishes her biology textbooks didn’t skip this part; she thinks she’d rather like to know about all his veins, about how he’s put together and why. She rubs her thumb over the tip and Jack makes a low, desperate sound.
Elizabeth looks up. She wonders if she should warn him somehow, about what she’s planning to do. Which would be difficult, since she doesn’t quite know herself. She looks at him again, trapped in the circle of her fist, and bends to place a kiss on the tip.
“Elizabeth.” Jack’s hand is in her hair suddenly, dragging her head away from him. “That’s not—sweetheart, I don’t think that’s a thing we should do.” When she glances up his face is absolutely gobsmacked. So he knows what this is then, Elizabeth thinks, and is immediately twice as dead set on doing it as she was before.
“Why not?” she asks, staring up at him with wide eyes, pouting a little in the way she learned from Julie that has, historically, helped women get what they want when they want it from various men in their lives. Elizabeth finds she’s not above it. “You did it to me.”
“Yes, but—” Jack loses the rest of the thought in a noisy breath as she ducks her head, kisses him again. “Elizabeth.”
“Elizabeth nothing,” she murmurs, squeezing experimentally; Jack groans. He’s got one hand wrapped around the bedpost as if he’s trying to stay upright, head turned into his arm like Adam hiding in the Garden hoping God won’t find him. She’s never noticed the sharpness of his jaw before, the muscle twitching there as he struggles to keep his composure. Suddenly Elizabeth doesn’t want him to keep it at all.
Jack takes a breath, deep and labored. “This isn’t taking little girls camping, or going down into the mine to make a point that you can.” His voice sounds choked. “This is—” He breaks off.
“Yes?” Elizabeth prods innocently. One more time, she thinks. If he stops her one more time, she’ll let it be. She’s curious, of course, and oh, she likes teasing him, but she’s not sure yet how far he’ll let her push him before this isn’t a game anymore. She’d be mortified to shame herself by mistake. “This is what, exactly?” At that she drops her face and kisses him open mouthed, her tongue sliding over the tip where he tastes like salt and skin and summer.
Jack doesn’t stop her. “Elizabeth,” he groans, both hands combing shakily through her hair. “All right, all right, I just, I need to sit down. Okay? I need to sit down.”
Elizabeth barely resists purring at him, she’s so pleased. “Of course,” she says judiciously, getting to her feet so they can trade places. He looks so nervous, his whole body shaking like a new colt’s. She just wants to eat him up with a spoon.
As soon as he’s seated he looks to her for guidance, his face uneasy and eager in equal amounts. “Are you going to—” He clearly can’t bring himself to finish the sentence. Elizabeth laughs.
“I am,” she says, and oh, she feels powerful now. She drops to her knees and Jack’s breath actually stops, a long long moment between one shaky inhale and the next. He has both hands laid carefully on his thighs like a schoolboy waiting for inspection, ready for her to turn them over and examine the palms for dirt. Elizabeth kisses his knuckles lightly, just a glancing tease. Jack gulps.
She could take him in her mouth, she realizes now that she’s kneeling here. Not just a kiss but truly inside, like eating ice pop at the fair. She wonders if that’s more or less scandalous than licking and decides it doesn’t matter, since anything she does at this point is equally sinful. It’s rather freeing. She leans in and closes her mouth around the tip.
Jack lets out a sound like a growl, head dropping so far back that for a moment Elizabeth thinks he’s going to collapse onto the mattress altogether. When she glances up the jut of his Adam’s apple is all she can see. It’s new and frankly thrilling, to be this intimate with this region of his body: the obvious, of course, but also his hard thighs and the slope of his belly, his warm, slightly animal smell. Mine, Elizabeth thinks to herself, rubbing the thumb of her free hand over the red ridge of scar tissue above his knee and making a mental note to get him to tell her the truth about how it actually got there. You belong to me.
There’s not much of a science to this, Elizabeth suspects, assuming of course that she’s even doing it correctly. She licks up the length of him and Jack’s hips twitch; she tries sucking a bit, and he groans. He’s watching her now, the expression on his face like she’s reached into his chest cavity and wrapped her fist around his heart, like she’s squeezing.
“Please,” he says, and his voice is so quiet. Elizabeth feels it right between her legs.
She hums at him in response, using her shoulder to nudge his legs further apart the same as he did to her in the kitchen last evening. Jack groans. Then, when she sucks on the tip, laving her tongue along the underside, he makes a sound she’s never heard out of him before, vulnerable and begging. “Oh, Elizabeth,” he says, bringing a shaky hand up to cup her cheek. “You’re going to need to stop that, sweetheart.”
“In a minute,” Elizabeth says, bending her head again. Jack keeps his hand on her face, thumb lying alongside her busy mouth; when Elizabeth looks up he’s staring right at her, openly fascinated. She holds the eye-contact as she sucks.
Jack curses. “Okay,” he says, making a fist in her hair and pulling her off him, his knee nudging her gently out of the way. Elizabeth doesn’t realize what’s happening until he reaches between his legs to uncurl her hand, and then she refuses to comply, tightening her fingers stubbornly so he splatters across both their fists instead of just his own. He pulses like a beating heart inside her grip, trapped and jerking.
“Elizabeth,” he whispers when it stops. He didn’t make a sound the entire time.
Elizabeth scrambles inelegantly to her feet. “I’m going to want to do that again,” she tells him, because he looks so shocked it’s heartbreaking, an expression on his face like he’s afraid he’s committed some unforgivable transgression. She crawls into his lap, pushing at his shoulders until he lies down and she can stretch her body out on top of his, raining messy kisses across his face until he laughs.
“Eliza-beth,” he says, sounding much more like himself.
“I liked that,” Elizabeth confesses to the whorl of his ear, wanting so badly for him to be sure of her. “I liked that so much.”
Jack closes his eyes. “I apologize for—” He loses his words in a gasp as she drops her hips, pressing herself against his thigh, wet and shameless.
“Jack,” she says, rocking herself. She’s going to reassure him every way she knows how. “I liked that.”
Jack brings a hand up to touch her mouth. “All right,” he says quietly, in a tone like wonderment. Elizabeth kisses his palm.