Learning From Love (learning to love again sequel)

Part 11

The house was cool when Paul woke. There was fog outside and the chilly spring morning had settled wetly around them, creeping in silently to condense on the windows and moisten the still air scented heavily with sex and contentment. Beside him, you were snuggled deeply into the heavy blankets, your eyes fluttering softly under the fanned sweep of your dark lashes as you dreamed.

Paul was tempted to touch you, but he didn't want this first morning to be anything but slow and easy. There would be many other mornings to come to unravel each other's intimate secrets.

You were sleeping deeply, your nude body tangled in a sheet on the far side of the bed. You both woken in the predawn hours, drawn into consciousness by the warm sprawl of tangled limbs. Both of still were used to sleeping alone, unfamiliar with the soft breathing and quiet comfort of curling around someone in the darkness.

It felt good. Right. You'd whispered and touched and the soft sleepy caresses had become urgent and searching as the need to join their bodies rose sharply. He'd been less gentle, driven and focused now that the dam had finally broken after too long a wait. Paul had needed to feel all of you that time. Every bit of your skin. And he'd needed for you to feel every bit of him, too. Your camisole and stockings lay pooled on the floor, pulled from you in a moment of passion and carelessly discarded in your urgency.

You had both fallen back asleep afterwards with his body wrapped around yours and the sheet reluctantly pulled between them, but you'd stirred and eventually rolled away. Clearly still issues with your past were not going to disappear overnight but Paul was glad you'd been able to bare all of yourself to him, even if it had been in the dying light of the fire.

Beside him, you shivered and snuggled deeper into the covers and Paul realized that he was going to need to be more aware of your comfort. Shaking his head, he slipped silently from the bed and pulled on a pair of old jeans. Nature called and he needed to rebuild the fire.

His motives were hardly altruistic. He wanted you naked, not wrapped up and shivering. You were his sanctuary and he wanted you to feel that same sense of belonging in this place with him, safe and secure and free to let go and just be at peace in your own skin. That was what you gave to him. Hell, it had been that way with you right from the beginning. He couldn't say why. You both just fit, somehow.

The fire was crackling in the hearth and he was padding through the kitchen when she finally stirred.

"Mmm....." You stretched luxuriously and he wondered if she always did that or if she was just sore after the night they'd shared. "Mornin', handsome."

Paul leaned a hip against the dresser and nodded your way. He didn't want to make assumptions or pressure you by appearing too eager to rejoin you in the bed, despite the overwhelming urge to lie down with you in the warm nest of blankets. "Mornin'."

He watched as you rose from the bed, gloriously nude, and you fidgeted a little under the weight of his stare as it flicked from your face down over her body, lingering on the marks he'd left. Flushing, you pulled his button-down shirt from last night off the floor and slipped it on. "I need..." your eyes flicked to the bathroom.

"Sure."

That answered that. He'd wondered which woman he'd wake with this morning. The wanton y/n from last night would have flirtatiously showed off the marks boldly instead of covering them up. And she'd have likely invited him into the bathroom to watch, as well.

Paul went downstairs and was making coffee when you emerged, smelling of wintergreen toothpaste and of him. Your morning hair was still big and wild. He liked it. That you hadn't tried to tame it spoke to their newfound closeness. You hovered at the living room for a moment, unsure, until he held out his hand in silent invitation.