“You’re just making me hotter for you,” he said thickly, then thrust his hips again, making her gasp.
Mina regarded him speechlessly. Her words were inflaming him? “You’re mad!”
“And you’re tight,” he groaned. “So bloody tight, I’m going to lose my mind.” Suddenly, his hand was at her knee, urging her to lift it.
“Wha-?”
“Wrap it around my back,” his words were tersely spoken. She had only just rested her heel against the small of his back when he thrust again with a loud, shuddering groan. “Red stockings,” he gritted.
Mina was telling herself it did not hurt so much now. She felt alarmingly full and stretched to capacity but not in pain precisely. She frowned. “Red stockings?” she repeated.
“I want you in them.”
What? “Why?”
“And lace,” he grunted as he settled into a bruising rhythm. “Lots and lots of lace.”
Mina’s head bumped back against the pillow as he labored above her, grunting and groaning, doing his best to bounce her off the mattress. His hands settled once again, beneath her bare bottom, urging her closer still every time he surged into her.
Broken words and phrases fell from his lips, but she decided not to press him for any meaning. She still hadn’t recovered from the prospect of red stockings. The bed swayed and creaked and the brass bedstead smacked against the wall.
Mina was suddenly profoundly grateful it was early. That meant neither Edna nor Ivy would be a-bed to hear the racket they were making. Finally, with a bellow, Nye collapsed on top of her. Without thinking, she closed her arms around him, and the only sound for several minutes was their mutually labored breathing.
Finally, Nye rolled off her with a groan and flung an arm across his face. Mina lay there a moment, her body still trembling in the aftermath. With a sudden curse, he sat up and grabbed her nightgown off the bottom of the bed.
“Don’t you dare—” She managed to get out before he leant over and wiped her with it between her legs.
“It’s really all it’s good for,” he said with a twisted smile and slung her poor maligned nightgown over the side of the bed. She eyed him with as much annoyance as she could muster, which admittedly was not much.
Even he seemed surprised. “Come on school-teacher, is that all you’ve got?”
“Pass me the bedsheets,” she huffed, too tired to even make a grab for them.
To her surprise, he reached down and drew them over them both as he shifted into her. “Reach down and take off your stockings.”
In truth, Mina had forgotten all about her stockings. To her surprise, Nye did not relinquish his hold of her while she bent her leg and slipped them off. As he did not let go, she was forced to simply ball them up and throw them similarly over the side of the bed. She wondered if he had been serious about the red stockings and blushed.
Nye yawned on the pillow next to her and Mina angled her head back to try and look at him. “I thought you didn’t sleep,” she reminded him.
“I don’t. You’ve worn me out. Demanding woman.”
Mina huffed and faced back forward again. Ridiculous man. Nye’s body was warm against her back and the weight of his arm around her waist strangely comforting. She would just close her eyes for ten minutes, she told herself as her eyelids dropped down. Just ten minutes and she would get back up and see about those bathroom tiles.
13
When next she woke it was to the sound of raindrops on the windowpane. Persistent raindrops. Raindrops that must surely be hailstones, she thought as one pinged violently off the glass. Then she sat up, dislodging Nye’s sleepy embrace. Someone was throwing stones up at the window. Mina hesitated, then turned and shook her husband’s shoulder.
“Nye!” she said in a low urgent voice. “William Nye!” Once again, he was out cold. She raised her voice. “Nye, wake up!” She looked around vexedly as a shower of stones struck against the window this time. “For goodness’ sake!” Sliding out from under the blankets, she remembered belatedly she was nude. Clicking her tongue, Mina crept over to the chest of drawers where she had a spare nightgown and retrieved it. A loud ping from the window had her drawing in a sharp breath and hurrying over to draw back the curtains and fling the casement open.
“Stop that at once!” she hissed down to the dark courtyard below. “Just stop it!”
A single torch burned in the courtyard below and she could make out a few shadowy figures huddled round it. They looked to have scarves pulled over the lower parts of their faces.
“We need your man down here now,” a rough-sounding voice harangued her. “Send him down, woman.”
“I am trying to wake him,” Mina answered coldly. “Once I have roused him, I will be sure to send him down. Kindly refrain from throwing stones at my window.”
A grunt which she took to be of assent answered her and Mina slammed the window shut. Uncouth louts, she thought, pursing her lips. Bandying words with her at this time of night! Groping for the matches on the side, she soon struck a flame lighting the candle in her holder. Picking up her father’s watch, she found it to be half-past two in the morning. With a startled exclamation, she turned back to the bed and found Nye had not moved an inch.
Really, once he was asleep, he slept like the dead. She crossed to the bed once more and commenced shaking him like a dog with a rat. “Nye! Will Nye! Wake up this instant!” She was forced to bawl in his ear when nothing else made an impression.
His eyes flickered open at last. “Mina,”
