The Lion's Courtship: An Anna Kronberg Mystery (21 page)

She looks up at him. Her feet surprise her by taking the first step forward.
 

To him, it feels as though he soars. To her, as though she’s lost her balance, falling forward and relinquishing all her power and control. His arms engulf her, and his face pushes into her hair. She smells his sweat and the spilled ale on his shirt. Memories of the dance make her smile. Pictures of the woman slapping Garret’s behind. Had he not realised what this gesture meant? She picks out other scenes from her memories. Women smiling at him, encouraging him to invite them for a dance or a chat. He had appeared oblivious to them all; he was talking to friends and only raised an eyebrow or two over those giggly females.
 

Anna grins into his shirt. Her tension runs down her spine, and down her thighs. She wiggles her toes to chase away the itch of fear and leans against his warm chest, wraps her arms around his torso, inhaling his aroma.

‘Come,’ he breathes into her hair, then lifts her up and carries her to his bed. Too late, he sees her face. ‘I wasn’t…’ He stammers and sets her down onto her feet. ‘I’m sorry. I know nothing about all this.’ He makes a sweeping gesture with his arm, including her and the bed. ‘I just thought that… I wished I could see your face,
and caress you and hold you. Somehow, it felt awkward doing that upright. Your neck will hurt when you have to look up all the time.’

She tries hard to hold back the snort. Pressing her face against his chest, a quiet huff escapes her lips.
 

His apparent naivety calms her nerves. She gazes at the small mattress and the large man, her mind analysing all available data: her one night with three violent men weighs against the unknown. One could extrapolate previous experience in two ways: either the three men are an exemplification of all male of the species, or they are but one example of a species’ broad range of behaviour patterns. The probability of the latter was high, considering that some women appeared to have married kind men. On the other hand, no matter how many respectful encounters she’d had with Garret, it could all turn violent once she let him take off all her clothes. And yet, hadn’t he already seen her half-naked? The probability of him forcing her appears low, yet too incalculable. Her analytic mind is blurred with fear — a more than unacceptable state.

She comes to the conclusion that statistics won’t help her now. Two individuals in one room; a breadth of unknown outcomes. Only one thing she knows for certain — the terror of one night long past has a grip on her she isn’t willing to tolerate much longer. She makes a scientific decision: an experiment is in order. Running away would prove her spineless.

She tips her chin at Garret.

He sits down on the mattress and his hands feel like foreign objects to him. With puppy-eyes he gazes up at her, wondering how many times he would do or say the wrong thing. She steps forward and kneels on his bed. Neither of them know what to do next.
 

‘Lie down?’ she suggests after a moment, not wanting to be the first in this weak position.
 

He obeys and drapes his arm across the bed, offering it to her. Awkwardly, she nestles close to him, her head on his shoulder.

‘Tell me about you,’ she whispers and Garret begins his tale, all the while caressing her short curls, her cheeks, her eyebrows. Well past midnight, she falls asleep in his arms.

Anna’s hand is still resting on his warm chest. The gentle up and down of his breath, his arm around her, and his fingers trailing through her hair spread a warm feeling in her stomach. Her eyes flutter open and meet Garret’s.

Her cheeks blush. She stretches out her hand and begins to trace his lips with her fingertips, wondering how it might feel to kiss him. How it would feel to be kissed.

Garret waits, marvelling at her soft touch, her face, those dark eyes. He’s hit by her determination when her nose touches his. She inhales his aroma and, not quite ready for his mouth just yet, kisses his brow.
 

A soft hiss escapes his nostrils. He tips his face towards her, eyes begging. She commands all her courage and lays her lips upon his, her mind blaring warnings, her legs ready to run should the need arise.
 

Garret, knowing nothing of her inner battle, slides his hands up her back and holds her face softly. Anxious not to make a wrong move, he is all ears, eyes, and fingertips. He sees her freeze, so he caresses away one fear, hoping the next won’t follow too soon.
 

He watches her eyes, the tilt of her mouth, the softness of her hands when he opens the first button of her dress. She freezes again, her breath stumbles, so he retreats to her face and hair.
 

They dance together, one step forward, one back, two steps forward, one back. When he touches her bare breast and hides it in his large hand, Anna begins to shiver severely. She feels she stepped across a line, or somehow drifted over it, and there seems to be no return.
 

Shocked by her reaction, Garret lays his face to her bosom, his voice heating her skin. ‘Forgive me,’ he whispers, feeling like the brute he is.

Angry with herself, Anna buries her fingers in his hair and pulls him towards her. ‘Kiss me,’ she whispers, and he obeys.
 

Her hands tremble as she unbuttons his shirt. She knows she’s standing in her own way. She slaps at her fears and takes a plunge, using his naivety as her safety net.

Garret — surprised and confused — takes her sudden decisiveness as arousal of some sort. He rids himself of all his clothes and presses his body to hers.

Anna’s courage flies out the window.

He feels the rigidity of her body, sees the paleness in her face. Suddenly, he feels very inappropriately naked.
 

He sits up and moves a few inches away from her, covers her with the blanket and uses his pillow to hide his privates.

‘Anna, I…I wish I could be close to you, but the closer I get, the more I scare you. And…I don’t know how to do any of this right.

She tries to swallow, but her mouth and throat are too dry. ‘You do nothing wrong,’ she whispers and sits up, too. ‘The only thing that scares me about you is that you are a man. You have a cock.’

Nonplussed, he looks at her. ‘What do you want to do now?’

A master of simple questions, she diagnoses. ‘I don’t know what I want to do at this very moment. But I’m very certain that I don’t want to go on being scared of you. Because that’s what I am, and this realisation surprises me. I hadn’t expected to still be afraid of men after all this time.’ She bites her tongue, so as not to let the entire truth slip out. ‘Would you show me how it is done properly?’

‘Show what?’

She opens the last few buttons of her dress, pushes it over her shoulders and down to her waist.
 

Garret’s brain clicks. ‘I’m clumsy,’ he stammers, suddenly too aware of his bulk.

‘I am, too.’

He stares at his hands that always appear too crude to him when she’s near. He’s afraid he might hurt her with those paws of his. He tries to see himself with her eyes, but nothing special or appealing reveals itself.

Her slender hand sneaks into his strong one. ‘You know,’ she begins. ‘Perhaps neither of us is clumsy. I’m really good at treating gunshot wounds, and you are the best burglar in the neighbourhood. I bet you can pick the most delicate locks.’

He chuckles and pokes her ribcage. After a while, he moves closer to her.
 

‘Here?’ he asks as he touches her neck.

‘Yes,’ she answers. ‘Here?’ she asks in return and lays her fingers onto his chest.

‘Yes, please,’ he hums as he lies down next to her, and they continue their dance; two forward, one back.

When he pulls her dress down her outstretched legs, she follows his moves with wide open eyes. His hands curl around her ankle and slide up into the hollow of her knee. She flinches when his fingers dip into the black curls atop her pubic bone.
 

‘What are you doing?’ she asks when he moves away from her.

‘Kissing you.’ His mouth is already covering her thighs. She quivers, nervous and a little amused about the mere thought of his lips touching her there.
 

A jolt arches her back when he takes a taste of her. Images scamper past her eyelids — those of a lion sending his coarse tongue across her most sensitive parts.
 

Her brain is rattling away, busy analysing her own reactions to his touches, scrutinising his moves and moans. Somehow, she is still waiting for a turning of the leaf, for him to lose his senses and force her. At least she’s tried. She isn’t a coward.

But slowly, gradually, with every small kiss and and every soft caress, her body demands more attention. The pulling and yearning someplace behind her navel, the heaviness of her sex, the quickening of her core. Her mind makes one last attempt at sharp observance and control. Then, Garret sighs softly, and her desire to taste his lips is too overwhelming. She grabs a fistful of his hair and pulls him towards her.
 

He follows her order, then stops, and traces a scar from her left hipbone to her right. ‘What happened there? Was that him?’

‘Yes.’ Not quite a lie.
One
of them. ‘I’m unable to bear children.’

His face falls into his hand, his breath staggers. ‘If only we had met before this,’ he whispers, placing his palm on the old injury. He covers her belly with kisses, then pushes himself up to her, caresses her face, whispering soothingly. Her throat constricts, her stomach aches, half with pain, half with longing.

‘Garret,’ she whispers in his ear as her hand moves from his chest down along his belly. ‘Show me.’ Tentatively, she touches him. It feels foreign; like a weapon on a man too gentle to know how to use it.

He guides her on top of him, kissing her lips, her cheeks and earlobes, her neck and shoulders. She lowers herself onto him until she feels his touch on her vulva. Her eyes close while she tests a little more pressure, and a little more yet.
 

He trembles beneath her, his breath ragged against her forehead. Slowly she slides down further, senses how he begins to enter this one part of her three men had befouled and torn apart years ago.

Garret feels his control slipping. He tightens his grip, makes a sound like a wounded animal, and calls her name. His hips tilt forwards in one forceful reflex.

His eyes snap open. He takes her face in his hands and makes her look at him. ‘I am so sorry,’ he says over and over again. ‘I wasn’t… I didn’t mean to… I’m such an idiot!’ He searches her face for pain, shock, or disgust, but finds only puzzlement. His arms wrap around her, protectively and consolingly, trying to undo any harm he might have caused.

Astounded at how precious she feels in his embrace and surprised that the burning in her sex doesn’t reach her soul, a chuckle bursts from her chest. For her, one world had just collapsed and another was tearing wide open. She gazes at him, rakes her fingers through his orange mane, whispers, ‘Clearly, we have to practice,’ and continues her dance with the lion. Two steps forward, one back.

Sun

L
ondon is covered in thick September morning fog. The windows of Garret’s room seem to be made of dark-grey cotton, framed in white-washed wood. Anna blinks, rubs her eyes, and estimates the time to be five thirty or six o’clock. She catches herself wishing it would be a Sunday afternoon. The arm draped over hers and the warm body moulding itself against her back and legs make her want to remain where she is now.
 

Inch by inch, she turns around, hoping she doesn’t wake him. He crinkles his lips and exhales a sigh. She takes in his unguarded expression, the pale-blue tinge of his eyelids and the movement underneath, and the stubble on his cheek that set her skin on fire. The mop of disorderly orange hair spread on the pillow makes her feel as though the sun has dropped into bed with her. Why had she ever thought him threatening?

She trails a finger over his shoulder, tries to span its width with one hand. The tip of a faint red line peeks through a gap between her fingers.