Excuse

In the dark, her neck smelled like fading perfume and I watched 6:59 flicker over to 7:00. I pulled her nearer until her bottom was pressed into my thigh and I trailed my hand upwards to her belly, grabbed at her tits. Soundless, she laced her fingers through mine, squeezed.

"You're perfect, don't forget it." I whispered.

"You're a silly boy. I'm okay - I'll live."

"But, still. To me you're perfect. Ignore anyone who would dare think otherwise. You've more beauty and brains than any of those trophy wives."

The night before she had been fractious, tense in the cab on the way home from a dinner the agency had thrown for our biggest clients. The perfumed, plastic-surgeried wife of one of our biggest advertisers had casually mentioned that she should put her mind to better use, that her work was trivial. She had told me it hadn't mattered, laughed it off at the time but I could see it had wounded her. That after all her hard work, being called trivial was the last thing she needed.

"It's because they can't deal with you being so great." I said. "Plus, your tits look resplendent this morning."

"Really?" Her eyes were still shut and the word rose up from her like a whisp of smoke. "Is that it?"

"Yes." I was defiant in the face of her sarcasm. "You're everything."

"Listen to you saying all of those sweet things." She raised an eyebrow at me as she twisted around, the first slivers of dawn slicing across her face, an insult, a reminder that soon I would have to leave this bed and the woman in it for the slow grind of real life. I sighed heavily, switching positions so that I could lay against her chest, her soft woman-ness against me.

"All part of the service." I kissed her belly, worked my way downward. "Would you like me to?"

"I'm touched you'd ask." She said, her hand running though my hair, pushing like a breeze.

I rolled my shoulders, kissed her thigh, "Well, you know, I thought I'd better check in."

"I couldn't think of a better way to wake up," she said, her smile rising on her features, imbuing them with all the glitter of sunrise on water.

I pressed my mouth against her soft folds, her labia opening up to my tongue, licking the length of her until I reached that nub of hardening flesh and sucked gently, her fingers winding into my hair, pulling me closer. I moved lower, focusing on sliding my tongue into her with relish that I had no qualms in showing. I was desperate to make her happy, to show her with my words and my body that her happiness is mine, too.

After Paris, I began to understand what she had fought in her youth, saw just how it affected her and the idea that I could change that seemed too tantalising to ignore. It was a goal I had to set myself to. I developed a new kind of vigour in the way I cared for her, I left more notes, made her more cups of coffee, told her everyday that I loved her and wanted nothing but her happiness. Most of the time, I would arrive home from work before her and try to make things easier for her by starting dinner (which she always tried to take over once she arrived) and pouring her wine, offering her foot rubs. As the months went on, she blushed less when I offered these things and began to sink into the habit, open up to the idea that I did these things out of love not for any other reason.

It wasn't the first time I'd woken her for sex, we were well accustomed to the habit, but it had taken on a renewed meaning after our time apart. I noticed myself becoming more protective of her. For a while, I had the crawling suspicion that it was possessiveness, jealousy that sought to enclose her as she tried so desperately to break free. I told her as much and she laughed in my face, told me that I shouldn't be so absurd and that the very reason why she would always come back to be was precisely because we didn't need each other. I understood what she meant, but then there seemed very little else apart from oxygen that I did need. Even then, the thought of being crushed between her thighs seemed deliciously appealing.

I pushed my face into her wetness, her hips jerking upward to meet my mouth. She pressed her hand into my shoulder, moaned as I returned again to sucking her clit. My fingers were pinned into her thighs trying to hold her in place as she wriggled under me. I lapped and sucked, my tongue flickering with the tiny movements which I knew frustrated her, worked her into the kind of ecstatic spasms that made me hard. More slutty thoughts about being locked up and focusing only on her pleasure slid across my mind again and I felt my cock twitch.

My cheek was against her thigh again, her legs pushing together like she'd read my mind and was fully prepared to suffocate me between her legs, drown me with her wetness. I pulled back, smiled in the shadows at the sound of her ragged gasping, her fingers gripping my arm.

"No."

The tone was definite, the order delivered with a firm push to the back of my head, her fingers receding from my hair as I returned to my dedication. I kissed her again, felt her tiny muscles spasm and leak, the tension in them building. Her moans came louder, suspirations that hit me hard, collected between my shoulder-blades and pulled at my own member with enough feeling that she may as well have sat up and done it herself.

I was happy to forgo my own pleasure, saw the wait as more than worth it. The submissive circuitry in my brain was crackling with energy as I drew sighs from her; making her happy became the only thing I was focused on. It was no longer just some woman any more, the abstract bitch-goddess from my youth, but her the woman I loved and lauded and would truly die for should it be needed. It was her and it was perhaps the first period in my life where I had no sense of restlessness. I liked the idea of being with her. It appealed in a way it never had before. With her, it was easy.

She exhaled, hooked her leg over my shoulder. I met her grinding hips again, working harder the longer I mouthed at her. Soon, she rested, her hips becoming still. My hand was splayed across her belly, holding her down. She ran her fingers over mine, knotted them together, but soon flashed away again, her fingers gripping the pillow hard. I shifted again, my own desire revealed, dripping, desperate for her, my hands returned to her thighs as I licked and sucked at her, my fingers pushing into her, curling upward to beckon forward her rising desire. She wailed at the movement, her muscles clenching around my slickened fingers, her juices on my cheeks as orgasm shuddered though her.

Hair tangled across the pillow, she lay for a few moments, panting hard and I crawled upward to meet her gaze, the sheets kicked away.

"You want to bunk off work?" she smiled, "I'm sure we could find some excuse."