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He stands undecisive in her foyer, fedora in hand. His fingers press into the soft brim, catching and releasing, almost fraying the material in his anxious reluctance. He casts a glance at her. She’s sitting in her chair, already pouring over the scrapbook of her adventuress’ club, mind occupied by things that have little to do with him. His presence has been mentally dismissed for the night, his company replaced by her analysing thoughts.
By all accounts, he should be leaving her house and heading home—should really be drowning his feelings in his mediocre whiskey by now—but something stays him. He stands rooted to the floor in her foyer, unable to move without granting voice to the pressure in his lungs, without clarifying, explaining... without giving her a piece of his agitated mind.
The fedora and coat find their way back onto the coat rack, and Jack Robinson—a serious man; a man of sound principals, of unyielding morals—wills his legs to move towards her again, and commands his hands to reach for the doors to her parlour and close them behind him. The pressure in his lungs yawns wide and endless and threatens to burst as he stands isolated in her silent parlour. His arguments are likely to get spirited; he’d rather not wake the entire household with his disagreements.
Phryne raises her head from her scrapbook at the soft sound of the doors being closed, a look of surprise on her beautiful face. And quite suddenly, his chest feels caved in, and his abdomen twitches. He really should have left her to her pictures and thoughts.
“Jack,” she begins, her voice quiet and almost intimate – and he can’t bear it, he can’t endure the familiarity in her tone, the hint of fond curiosity in her throaty timber. Feeling the loss of his trusty fedora, his left hand flexes at his side, as he raises his other one to stop Phryne from speaking.
“Before I go, Miss Fisher,”—he rushes in, afraid of losing his momentum, worried that he’d misplace his wavering courage if he does not go on—“there is something I must say to you.”
She raises her eyebrows at him, indicating that he should continue, but he can tell that her body stiffens ever so slightly at his words.
Jack deflates a little, fear and grief and weariness creeping in, and nudging the grudging anger away.
“You take unnecessary risks, Phryne,” he says quietly, and the tone of his voice is assuredly not what he was aiming for; he does not reprimand, does not admonish – he states a fact, resignedly throwing his worry for her at her lovely feet.
Phryne’s face brightens a little and her stiff body posture relaxes into the cushions.
“Oh, that!” she cries, placing the scrapbook on the table before her, gently nudging her glass of wine aside. “Jack, you can’t still be thinking about the car crash!”
She’s flippant in her dismissal of his supposed concerns, and seems almost volatile to his weary heart in the late evening light. The soft glow of the fireplace behind her casts her coquettish smile into mild shadow, and pain blossoms in Jack’s hollow chest. He bristles at the sight, and colours, the anger rearing its head in the pit of his stomach. He’s affronted and heartsick, tired and wrathful in his fear for her.
“It has nothing to do with the car crash, Miss Fisher,” he mutters, barely managing to keep the lid on his bubbly, irrational ire. His lips stretch into a pale, almost bloodless, line.
“What is it, then?” she asks, her eyes suddenly sharp; and he notices, with great relief, that her voice has lost the intimate tone. He doesn’t know what he’d have done if her voice remained soft.
Jack takes a step closer, not really minding the laden table before him, as he all but stumbles over it in his haste to prove a point. The undrunk glasses of wine wobble dangerously, the deep crimson liquor in them sloshing from side to side, threatening to spill.
Phryne rises to her feet defiantly and crosses her arms.
“Why do you do this?” Jack demands, his voice shaking slightly with the effort of control.
“Do what?”
“Constantly disregard your own safety; the rules—”
“What rules , Jack?” she demands, rolling her eyes, making his blood boil in his veins.
“All of them!” he all but snaps, “Pepper can easily—”
“Oh, Pepper’s a pompous fool!” she cuts in irritably, her arms uncrossing and gesturing wildly; a trusty visual aid to prove her point. Somehow, in the span of their argument, they end up almost nose-to-nose, and Jack can scent her rich perfume as she moves her hands, can smell her wine-sweet breath on his cheek. Not for the first time in their acquaintance, her intoxicating presence threatens to drive him to distraction.
“It’s not like you to be so twisted over such meagre issues, Jack,” she adds, almost conversationally.
“It’s everything but meagre, Miss Fisher!”
He’s fuming; pent up rage bubbling dangerously on the surface. How can she be so cavalier about all this? So nonchalant about her safety, about his deep regard for her wellbeing? He’s never known her to be so cruel; surely, she knows how he—
She must know.
Surely .
Phryne finally notices the shift in his mood. No doubt imagining that this outburst must stem from something a little bit different, she tries to diffuse the situation by smiling coyly, by touching the lapel of his jacket with teasing fingers.
“I’m heartened by your regard for my wellbeing, Inspector,” she flirts, the light in her eyes bright and buoyant. She tries for easy-going and simple, attempting to reach that good-natured, ever buzzing equilibrium they keep between them, but it’s too late. Her palm on his jacket is warm, her perfume heady and maddening; she’s infuriating and vivacious, and exasperating, and altogether so alive ... and Jack snaps and breaks and crashes against her shores like a shattered ship amidst a storm.
“Damn it, Phryne!” he curses, grabbing the back of her head with his left hand, his fingers brushing against her raven locks as he pulls her towards him and crushes his lips to her astonished mouth.
The sound she makes into his demanding kiss can only be described as a squeak. She’s astonished, no doubt taken aback at this rather unexpected turn of events. Jack’s hand tightens on her nape, spasming against her skin in urgency. In his haste, he bites at her lower lip a little harder than he intends, and as she shudders and gasps into his open mouth, he can taste the copper of her blood. Horrified, he flinches and attempts to move away, profuse apologies already forming in his throat, but Phryne moans in protest and buries her fingers into his jacket, pulling him back into the kiss.
Her mouth is hot, and willing and a little bit bloody; his is demanding, and wild, and full of bitter regret. She presses into him, panting against his lips in a way that drives him mad with want and bad decisions. He shouldn’t be doing this; they shouldn’t be doing this, but her body is warm, and her flesh is soft, and she seems to desire him almost as much as he can’t help but desire her. And maybe—just maybe—he can make her see, make her understand.
He’s angry, and heartsick, and desperate, and wild. He drops to his knees before her like a man fit for the gallows; like a sinner seeking holy redemption.
Her eyes flash and darken as he reaches for the fastenings at the side of her trousers, her eyelids flutter as he pulls them down her lovely stockinged legs. Her breath hitches as he flicks the buttons at the crotch of her French silk knickers open, as he buries his face in the bare axis of her pale thighs.
He sighs into the cluster of dark curls, breathing in the scent of her musky desire, feeling the moisture of her want against his chin. She shudders above him, and gasps, clutching at his shoulders for support as he lays featherlight kisses to her holy of holies, as he rests his forehead just above her pubic bone.
One of his hands is splayed at the small of her back, the fingers nudging into the soft skin there. He presses his open mouth to her hip bone, breathing overwhelmed puffs of air against the slickness on her inner thigh as she keens and digs her fists into his shoulders, arching impatiently into his face. He obliges her by pressing forward, his tongue and lips doing Antony’s work; the fingers of his free hand dancing up her quivering thigh. And when she, straining and tittering, cries for him and God, he rises to his feet and lets two fingers take the place of his exploring lips, reveling in the startled gasp that blows against the flushed skin of his neck.
Jack leans closer to Phryne’s ear, his lips wet with sin and desire. “I wanted to see your face,” he breathes, and she tightens around his fingers, and cries just a little as she arches her graceful throat.
He marvels at the feeling of her around him; it’s been a good few months since he had the chance to experience a woman near-climax, months since he had his hand on the most intimate part of a woman’s anatomy. Not since that last, remorseful tryst at the courthouse loo, between him and his weeping ex-wife. She tightened around him then, too, and cried in his ear, sobbed into his mouth, and came rather prettily, despite her puffy eyes and runny nose; though Rosie always was exceptionally comely in climax.
But Phryne is not Rosie. She does not weep, or sob, or regret; her beauty is all pale skin and flushed cheeks, parted lips and gleaming teeth. She’s close—so very close—and he can feel it with his sliding fingers, and hear it in the desperate high-end notes of her breathy moans, can see it in her furrowed brow and wild eyes. And when her time comes, she chokes on his name and sags against him, her breath loud and rapid in his ear.
His heart is pounding against his ribcage, rattling the bones and loosening the muscles, in its haste to relocate from his chest to his sleeve. Phryne’s shaking fingers smooth down his tie in a desperate attempt to appear unaffected; he tries not to allow himself to be too smug about that.
“Come upstairs, Jack,” she whispers urgently, her lips swollen and red, her voice breathy. “Come upstairs, darling.”
He shouldn’t, he really shouldn’t, but he finds himself mute and dumb as she steps out of her crumpled trousers and tugs on his hand, leading him into her boudoir. He imagines himself almost shell-shocked as she strips of her blouse and her undergarments, as she lies bare before him, like an offering, or a demanding Goddess, anticipating tribute.
“Come here,” she sighs, raising her naked foot to dip into the waistband of his trousers and pull him towards her.
And he follows—God help him, he follows—and he shrugs the jacket off his shoulders, unbuttons his waistcoat, and removes the rest of his clothes under her hungry gaze. Then he watches, transfixed, as she parts before him and fixes her family planning in place with deft, swift fingers—unabashedly, naturally, without a hint of shame—as if she didn’t just invite him into the most intimate part of her toilette; and he wonders if any of her other lovers were ever privy to this blessed sight.
Phryne rises to her knees, and places her warm hands on his hips, her fingers pressing deep into his hard flesh as she pulls him towards him.
“Jack,” she whispers appreciatively, and heat blossoms in his chest and in his ears, blood rising in his cheeks. “I believe you’re blushing. Don’t be shy, Inspector, you’re amongst friends.”
She’s teasing him, trying to reel him back into the version of himself that’s best known to her, and it has the desired effect; he rises to the challenge, gently shoving her backwards, his heart beating a little faster at her delighted cry.
“Was it something I said?” she purrs breathlessly as he leans over her pale body, his fingers ghosting over her parted thighs. “I can never tell with you; you’re always so stoic, Inspector— ah !”
She gasps and grabs at his shoulders as he sinks into her for the very first time, and the rest is silence.
She is life itself beneath him - vibrant and writhing, gasping and arching; her soft cries and breathless mewls almost too hot in his ear. They seep into his skin, settle into his flesh, and crawl into his bones, and he suddenly imagines himself full to the brim with her broken sighs in this near silence between them.
He’s overwhelmed again; vanquished by her warmth, overpowered by the softness of her flesh. And her spirit, her soul, her being—so lively and full of vim—engulfs him and pulls him under, cradling him in a searing embrace.
Jack stills with an abrupt jolt; he’s suddenly reminded of the wartime thrill of survival, of the thrumming blood in adrenaline-fueled veins. An image of himself between his ex-wife’s thighs after a very close call from a few years back lodges firmly in his mind, and he gasps at the intensity of the comparison. He recognises the tell-tale signs, the fierceness with which Phryne kisses him, the urgency in her shifting hips – and suddenly, it all seems so very clear to him.
The woman beneath him—reckless and brilliant and a force of bloody nature—is no stranger to close calls and near misses. She’s no doubt left a trail of broken hearts in her wake, back in the days of that bloody war, in her quest to reassure herself of her own vitality. This—them—it’s all familiar to her; a kindred spirit, a fellow brother in arms, hoping to prove that the blood still flows interveinaly, that the guts and the heart and the spleen are still very much on the inside, that the breath ghosting over heated skin is breathed in pleasure, and not in dying anguish. His heart clenches, his stomach tightens, and suddenly he knows with utter certainty that she believes he’s trying to reassure himself that she’s still here—still very much alive—by shagging her senseless atop her exquisitely embroidered doona.
Phryne’s fingers press frantically into the skin of his shoulders—the motion bringing Jack back to the here-and-now—and her eyebrows clinch together in a frown.
“No, no,” she pants, her pale, dainty breasts rising rapidly with the force of her breath. “Why did you stop? I’m… so, so very close, Jack— don’t—!”
And suddenly, he’s all too wild and all too desperate, and he hitches her thigh upwards and pulls her delicate knee to his chest.
“Touch yourself,” he grunts lowly, and Phryne gasps and reaches between them and presses right there , and—
“Your voice!” she breathes, her hand moving almost frantically between them. “Jack… I need— keep talking! ”
For all his infinite knowledge of Shakespeare, it’s not the Bard who sneaks into his ribcage, and stabs at his already ailing heart. Another man, whose love for one, inspiring woman derailed his days and waking nights, shares a sympathetic glance in Jack’s overactive imagination, and he squeezes his eyes shut, ignoring the blasted mirage.
“ How many loved your moments of glad grace ,” he rasps almost forcefully, sweat beading his brows and slicking his belly and canting hips. “ And loved your beauty with love false or true.”
And she tightens and gasps, and cries, and his name is broken on her wet lips; her trembling thigh slips from his grasp, limbs soft with climax, her eyes closed, mouth smiling.
“Jack,” she breathes, her fingers sliding down his back, pressing into his backside. “ Jack .”
He shifts his hips once, twice, and kisses her smiling mouth with intense conviction. It doesn’t take long for him to spend himself deep within her, a low grunt escaping his dry throat.
Phryne kisses at the corner of his mouth, her hands warm on his sweaty hips.
“Still waters, Inspector,” she purrs, her hot breath against his ear making him shiver in something other than delight. Her body is soft and slick beneath him, her small breasts pressed against his heaving chest. He’s almost delirious with love for her.
He wishes he wasn’t.
Jack wants to say something witty, something dry enough—like exquisite whisky—but his words and his wits and his heart fail him, and he remains silent, offering her a self-deprecating tilt of his lips instead.
She kisses him again with wide lips and gleaming teeth, and pushes at his chest half-heartedly. Jack gets the message and shifts off, rolling onto his back and throwing his arm across his eyes. He senses her hot breath on his chest, and feels her moist mouth on his belly.
“I’ll be right back,” she says, getting up, her fingers trailing on his naked thigh. He can hear the door closing softly behind her; the sound of her retreating bare feet barely registering in his ears.
Jack allows himself two minutes of rest before he rises from the luscious bed and dives for his discarded clothes. He’s in the process of pulling his braces over his shoulders and smoothing the straps over his shirtsleeves, when Phryne saunters back in. She pauses in the doorway, her dressing gown open and concealing nothing; Jack swallows thickly.
“What are you doing?” she asks, clearly astonished and confused at his behaviour.
Jack looks around himself, searching for his waistcoat. Anything to turn his eyes from the pale skin, from the soft planes of her naked body.
“I’m getting dressed,” he says, stating the obvious.
“I can see that,” Phryne replies quietly; from the corner of his eye, Jack sees her pulling on her gown and tying the sash around her waist. “But why?”
She crosses over to him before he has the chance to reply. She looks almost small without her heels. Her palms slide up his chest, her lovely, clear face upturned.
“What’s wrong, Jack?” she murmurs, her eyes tender, and he can’t help the slight tremor in his muscles, can’t stop his hand from cupping her cheek. Phryne leans into his touch and kisses his palm.
“Nothing,” he lies, his fingers sliding into her hair. He has a fleeting thought that he must treasure this moment; cherish the briefness of intimacy between them. “It’s just— it’s late, Phryne, and I have an early shift, and you have the race—”
He’s babbling, he knows it, and he suspects that she knows it as well, from the way she presses up against him and slides her fingers under his braces.
“All the more reason for you to rest in my bed, Inspector.” She sighs and presses her nose into his neck, lowers the suspenders off his shoulders slowly.
“Phryne,” he attempts, Adam’s apple bobbing. Her clever hands reach for his shirt buttons, slide to the fastening of his trousers, catch on the waistband of his smalls.
He’s naked again in a matter of seconds, and she sighs as she takes in his lithe form, the appreciation avid on her open face. The deep hum of her admiration makes him colour almost comically, and he inwardly curses his compromised position. As a senior Detective Inspector, as a man who’s been on the force for twenty years, Jack Robinson has seen his fair share of bare flesh and lustful vice. But the carnal fascination with which Phryne Fisher regards his body—the sort of fascination that’s been absent from his life for some years now—seems to bring out the young, wet-behind-the-ears constable in him. Phryne’s eyes and fingers find all his marks and scars; shrapnel ghosts across his left hip, the nick of a sharp knife just under the ribs, a bullet wound to the right thigh. She presses her lips to a pale scar running over his heart; a gift from a badly aimed broken bottle of oozing bear at a pub brawl.
“How beautiful you are, Jack,” she sighs, almost painfully, almost wistfully, as if his physical attraction is something to be considered with longing. It inflames the blood in his veins and sets his innards on fire.
Jack kisses her to avoid answering, and it’s not soft or gentle, not sweet or full of promises. It’s open and raw,full of slipping lips and clashing teeth and guttural moans, of fingers clenching and bodies pressing. She’s fire in his hands, bright and lethal, and he—unable to resist the flames, despite his misgivings—surrenders fully to the conflagration.
Her cries linger on his tongue, slip into his ready throat, and nestle in his gasping lungs. She leans into his touch, the apex of her legs pressing into his thigh. She’s hot and ready, heady with desire, canting her pelvis a little against his leg. He groans at the wetness on his skin, chokes on a trapped breath at the slight coarseness of the short curls on his muscled thigh. Phryne clutches at his hand and brings it to her centre.
“I want you again,” she pants against his lips, as his fingers slip and glide against her, slick and warm with her want for him. She’s almost pliant in his hands, breathless with desire, her hands now fisted in his hair as she rises on her tiptoes and angles her hips just so ...and he doesn’t want to dishearten her, doesn’t want to dissatisfy, but he’s soft and spent, in more ways than one.
“I’m afraid I must disappoint you, Miss Fisher,” he sighs in her ear, kissing her temple regretfully, “but I’m still to recover the complete use of my faculties. I’m not as young as I used to be.”
“Jack, you’re thirty-eight, that’s hardly geriatric,” she huffs as she kisses the corner of his mouth, and her laugh is sultry and interwoven with little hitches in her shallow breath. “Besides, I can help with that.”
Before he has the chance to refute her claims in his usual, self-deprecating way, she drops to her knees, level with his naked thighs. She takes him in her hot mouth, humming appreciatively through her closed, wet lips.
Jack draws breath so fast that spots appear before his eyes. He reels with the shock, reaching out to steady himself on any surface available and, finding nothing, he staggers backwards to land on the bed, and slips out of her mouth. This turn of events doesn’t seem to deter Phryne in the slightest, however, and she slides closer to him in a matter of seconds, kissing her way up his inner thigh. And when she’s back, with her moist lips and her welcoming mouth, she chuckles around him and glances upwards, amusement clear in her eyes.
“Miss Fi— ngh !” he chokes and props himself on his palms, his head falling backwards at the onslaught of the long-forgotten sensations. He bites at his lower lip—almost hard enough to draw blood—as he stares at her ceiling, wheezing and gasping, determined to strictly leave his gaze off her face, lest this whole affair be over far too quickly. His hands are shaking—to his utter mortification—and his heart is racing in his heaving chest; the muscles in his abdomen strain and clench with renewed vigour. Just then, Phryne does something particularly clever with her tongue, and Jack screws his eyes shut, rolling his lips together to stifle the groan that threatens to climb up his throat, and almost suffocates at a final tug from her sinful mouth. She rises from between his trembling legs, her smile wet, and red and smug, and she leans into him, her hands high on his spread thighs.
“There,” she coos, and he jumps a little at her touch, at the whisper of her lips. “I kissed it better.”
And then she’s sliding into his lap, and straddles his straining thighs, and takes him inside her welcoming body, and moans into his open mouth.
He’s gasping into her smiling kiss—silent, greedy gulps of air; choked-up bubbles of oxygen—and his hands anchor at her shifting hips, shaking slightly under the smoothness of her dressing gown. He can’t seem to draw enough breath—can’t quite shake off the light-headedness that plagues him now—and he feels a little like drowning, like being buried alive under hot sand. Overwhelmed again, conquered and bested, he fixes his eyes on her face, and dies just a little. Her robe is now open and loose, and it slips off her shoulders and gathers around her upper arms almost lazily, shuffling a little with her languid movements. She’s not smiling anymore, not laughing or teasing; her eyes are heavy, her lips plump with blood, her chest rising and falling rapidly.
And Jack Robinson is a lost man.
There’s a roaring chasm in the pit of his stomach; it gnaws on his bones, floods his veins, and cracks his bleeding heart wide open, leaving him oozing devotion and haemorrhaging longing.
He wills his hands not to shake as they unmoor from her flesh, as his fingers skid up her arms to divest her of her robe, as they glide downwards to her thighs after the thing pools to the floor in a shower of dancing silk. He compels his eyes not to close, commands his lungs to draw breath, and orders his heart to carry on as it were. He’s senior Detective Inspector Robinson to his sinews and bones, to his veins and his guts; his authority over his body every bit as legendary as that over his constabulary.
But even in this, Phryne’s one step ahead.
“You’re awfully silent,” she whispers against his cheek, breaking him out of his overthinking mind, her voice breathy with desire.
He’s not much for talking in bed, as a rule—usually perfectly content to let his body and subtle intensity do all the talking for him—and this encounter is leaving him even less verbal than usual. But he recognizes the soft statement for what it is, reading the hints of reluctant worry between the lines, and finds himself unable to resist the temptation to put her brilliant mind at ease.
“Perhaps I’m just overawed by the situation?” he replies, aiming for his usual dryness, but he ends up delivering the line with far more than a fair grain of truth behind it.
Phryne smiles and caresses his sharp jaw with the tips of her fingers.
“Do you like my body, Jack?” she asks quietly, even though she must be aware of her charm, must be privy to his admiration, must have realised by now the effect she has on him and his resolve. She reaches for his hands and drags them up her ribs, past the planes of her belly, and places them on her dainty breasts, holding them in place. Jack hums and she sighs, pressing into his warm palms.
His eyes drag from her live, undulating body to the painting of her on the wall; the pale, oil-brushed flesh glinting in the low glow of the subdued bedroom light.
“You’re a work of art, Miss Fisher,” he replies, looking back at her, his head cocked towards the painting, the corner of his mouth tugging slightly upwards in wit. He’ll hide behind puns and quips if it’ll reassure her.
Phryne rocks her hips forward and leans into him; his hands drop from her breasts to the small of her back.
“Cheek,” she breathes, seemingly satisfied with his response, and bites him playfully on the nose. Jack’s breath stutters and his arm tightens around her middle, making her squirm delightfully in his lap.
“I’ll show you cheek,” he grunts, with newfound confidence he wasn’t aware was in his arsenal tonight, and pulls her with him further unto the bed, flipping them over without leaving the sanctuary of her willing body.
Phryne shrieks, delighted, as they roll, her thighs pressed tightly to Jack’s hips. She doesn’t seem to mind discovering herself beneath him for a second time tonight, and he finds himself emboldened by this strange occurrence. Jack always imagined Phryne Fisher to be the sort of woman who enjoyed mounting her men.
He loves the feeling of the silk-like skin of her inner thighs against his hard hips, as he moves within her with the same precision he applies to his cases. He enjoys the sight of her blood-filled cheeks and her sweat-bathed body rising to meet his own, as the two of them drift towards completion. He revels in her pants and her gasps and her sighs, and his name on her lips as she stutters and cries; as she laughs in delight at a clever twist of his servicing thighs.
Her hands stray to his buttocks and she presses her fingers into his skin, urging him deeper, and closer and more; and he complies with her wishes—her ever loyal servant—and presses farther, burying his face in the crook of her neck, inhaling the sharp scents of exertion and coitus, and the lingering remnants of French perfume.
The hands on his bottom glide upwards, dancing over the slick skin of his back, mapping the shifting muscles, and settle on his shoulders. He’s propped on his forearms, his fingers on her nape and at her jaw, fluttering softly against her heated skin. His firm abdomen is pressed to the soft of her belly as he moves deep and slow and long within her body, and Phryne’s hands slip downwards a little as she arches into him with some urgency.
“Stay like that!” she gasps, the grip of her fingers almost bruising on his arms. “Stay— don’t... I think I’m— oh! ”
She trembles beneath him and tightens around him, and her eyes are wide and mouth open as she greedily draws breath into her lungs, his name a whimper on her parted lips.
He takes her in with a gaze dark and wild and utterly besotted, and gathers her in his arms, pressing almost clumsily into her, as he grunts his release into her sweat-slick skin.
They lie entwined, gasping together, chests heaving with satiated lust. And Phryne laughs and laughs, and slides her fingers into his loose curls, dragging his lips to hers.
“Jack,” she moans against his mouth, her hips lazily pushing upwards into his pubic bone. “Oh, Jack. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed solving a mystery quite this much before!”
He bites at her lower lip and licks at her mouth, earning a shiver and an excited groan for his troubles.
“It’d be a tactical error to think you have me pegged just yet, Miss Fisher,” he repeats the old quip and slides out of her body, pressing soft kisses to her flat belly on his retreat.
She laughs again and arches into her pillows. To Jack she looks like a satiated cat—graceful and lethargic—with her one bent knee and her widespread thighs, her flexing fingers against her pale breast.
“I look forward to untangling you further, Inspector,” she croons and turns to press into him, kissing him on his open mouth. Her words are teasing, her manner flirting, but the soft skin of her body, and the warmth of her bare flesh against his chest are anything but, and in the pale light of her boudoir he dares entertain the hope of this meaning more than just succumbing to lust.
“Now, can I trust you to stay put? Or will I find you gone and the bed empty on my return?”
Jack watches her as she rises from the bed and stretches; she makes no haste as she bends to retrieve her dressing gown, the evidence of their joining evident on the skin of her inner thighs. He doesn’t blush; he reckons there’s not enough blood left in his body for such an action.
“I’ll stay,” he mutters huskily, as she ties her robe around her body, the movements of her hands sure and steady. “If you wish me to.”
Phryne turns to him, and her eyes are tender and focused, and clear of frolicsomeness.
“I wish it,” she answers honestly, her voice bare and genuine.
The kiss she bestows upon him when she returns a few minutes later is full of candid conviction.
Jack doesn’t sleep. There’s a restlessness deep in his bones; a buzz in his veins that’s boiling his blood. A quick glance at his wristwatch confirms the lateness of the hour; three hours past midnight, and still some to go before the break of day.
Phryne sleeps on her belly, her clean face turned towards him, one of her pale arms thrown possessively over his abdomen. She’s silent in sleep, her breathing steady and quiet, her natural pink lips closed and a little dry with rest. He slips from under her arm and freezes when she stirs a little, but she only sighs and turns away, moaning contentedly in her deep slumber, and Jack breathes a sigh of relief.
He dresses quickly, not bothering with meticulousness or order; it won’t matter at this hour, and he doubts there’s a living soul outside that would tsk at his less than presentable state at this time of night.
Reaching for his discarded sock garters, he hesitates for a few seconds. He should leave her a note, explain his absence from her bed come morning – it’s the polite thing to do. He cannot stay, Jack knows that; the thought of Miss Williams coming into the bedroom with tea and toast and finding him there makes him queasy. No, staying is quite out of the question. Phryne will understand.
He looks about himself, searching for any sign of stationary—surely Miss Fisher must keep a pen and some paper lying about—when he notices some lovely cream coloured notes lying on the wooden bureau. Eureka , he thinks triumphantly and, slipping into his shoes with practiced ease, rises quietly to pick up the stationary.
It doesn’t take long for the right words to form; the well-remembered lines spring to mind like a well worn out jack-in-the-box. He frowns a little at the thought that the play they’re taken from may be a little on the nose, but the hour is late and he’s tired, and the beloved words seem so apt, so very fitting, that he puts pen to paper anyway and does his utter best in writing in a clear hand.
Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoes on the misty mountain tops.
And after a moment of thought, he adds, as if in postscript , More light and light — more dark and dark our woes.
Jack doesn’t sign his name—it is not needed—she’ll know who fled her bed this early in the morning, leaving her to her languid dreams. He does, however, lean over her shoulder, once he’s done writing, to kiss the hair that rests against her soft, warm cheek. And when this proves too little, not nearly enough, he leans forward and presses one more kiss against her skin.
It’s still very dark when he emerges from her house, slinking away like a man made of shadow.
There is no cry of a nightingale; no lark.
The night’s as silent as the grave.
The parlour in Jack’s two-bedroom flat in North Richmond is modest and cold. It consists mainly of two well-kept armchairs standing in front of the fire, a somewhat out of fashion, but well-loved forest green chaise, and a new Wertheim piano—an indulgence—by one large window. It is an eclectic assortment of furniture, perhaps unfitting to the small parlour; remnants of a fractured life and renewed passions.
Jack pours himself a whisky and drops into one of the armchairs; he doesn’t bother with taking off his coat, doesn’t bother with lighting a fire. The cold suits him now, and he finds the chill welcome and soothing.
He has her ruined stocking in his pocket, burned and shrivelled, twisted beyond repair. Much like my ticker , he thinks miserably, and takes a deep gulp of burning liquor. His chest is cracked and shattered, caved in and hollow; his heart is a mass of torn tissues. It’s all rather dramatic, even for his amateurish thespian skills, but the theatrical description somehow seems to fit the bill.
Their night of shared passion is eons in the past—discarded, forgotten; perhaps entirely imagined by him—and Jack finds himself full of regret, his hope for reciprocated feelings crashed and broken. Whatever happened between them, whatever they may have shared last night - it was clearly felt more keenly on his part. But try as Jack might, he finds that he cannot fault Phryne for it. She’s wild and free and brilliant, a force to be reckoned with, beautiful, and just so utterly alive , and he cannot bear the thought of her being anything but those things.
He is very much in love with her, he cannot deny it. Not to himself, and not to her; not anymore—that wretched motorcar accident saw to that—but he can try and remedy the dreadful predicament. He can keep away, guard his heart; give her up entirely, hard and impossible as it may be. The thought that her reckless nature will one day likely get her killed, is too much to bear. He cannot take more heartache, cannot keep failing the women in his life. It seems as if the only possible solution left to him is to fold; the stakes have become too high.
He was never particularly good with cards.
Jack’s not a religious man — he’s seen too much of mankind to know that the power of God can only do so much — but he is a man of poetry; long lost phrases from the Song of Songs, buried remnants of a studious youth, arise in his fevered mind. His heart is heavy as a fertile vine.
He runs a hand over his tired, aching eyes. It’s been years since they were moist with emotion. The defeated sigh leaving his blocked throat, full of resigned resolutions, sounds a little too wobbly to his ears.
The hour is late, their case is closed; she’ll be expecting him.
Jack downs the remains of his drink and rises to go. The ruined stocking is burning a hole through his pocket. It must be done.
He leaves the parlour without a second glance.