Emma: The Wild and Wanton Edition (65 page)

She suddenly became aware of something hard and insistent prodding her hip, and her insides turned to hot, molten liquid at the knowledge that her George
wanted
her. Wanted them naked and lying close, so close that he could place that part of himself inside of her. She moaned wantonly and moved her hip against it on instinct.

He pulled away with a rough curse, closing his eyes and biting his lip harshly. Emma was fascinated at his response, and so, repeated the action. Immediately, his hand fell to the outside of her thigh, stilling her movements with minimum effort. “Emma, no,” he begged in a hoarse voice. “You — You cannot do that. Please.” He groaned and opened his eyes, pinning her with a pleading glance. “I am riding the razor’s edge of control, dearest.”

Emma understood him perfectly clearly — But, she discovered she was riding the razor’s edge of control as well, and she was ready to teeter over. Her body was thrumming. The area between her thighs was burning hot and felt strange. Her George began to remove her from his lap, to sit her beside him again, and Emma grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket. “Please don’t stop yet,” Emma begged softly, unwilling to look him in the eye. Embarrassment flooded her cheeks. “Please — I feel so
odd
. I cannot — I do not know what — ”She trailed off lamely, sure she would die of mortification any moment.

Mr. Knightley’s hand clenched against her thigh, and his breath left him in a rush. Then that clenched hand rose to her face. He grasped her chin gently and raised her face to his. He waited several seconds for her to meet his eyes, but when she did not, he said, “Look at me, Emma.”

She forced herself to meet his eyes, sure that he would tell her — again — that he disapproved of her behaviour. But what she saw stopt her thoughts in their tracks. His face was a mask of love and passion. His eyes were soft and warm; his lips were parted around his quickened breaths.

He smiled. “You do not ever have to beg me to ease you, dearest,” he said gravely as his grip on her chin turned into a caress that drifted down her neck. “That privilege is always my honour to carry out.” His fingers met the flesh at her décolletage, and Emma gasped, her head falling back against George’s shoulder, as he placed her firmly in his lap once more and set to running his fingers back and forth across the exposed skin of her bosom.

“You feel
odd
, hmm?” he asked softly.

His fingers were leaving behind trails of fire, and Emma wished they would dip below the fabric more than any thing in the world. She nodded at his question, burying her face in his neck.

“Where do you feel odd, my love?”

Emma gasped against his skin. The question was so bold; She could never answer it. She dug her face deeper into the space where his shoulder met his neck.

He shushed her gently, his fingers leaving their game amongst the top of her breasts to press against the back of her head. He kissed her hair. “Oh, Emma,” he whispered. “So innocent.”

She blushed furiously as he pulled away from her slightly to look at her face. “It is nothing to be embarrassed of,” he said softly, brushing a kiss across her lips. “I had no idea you would be so passionate,” he said, almost as though to himself before deepening the kiss.

It took only seconds for Emma to loosen her grip on Mr. Knightley’s lapels and return to her earlier frenzied state. When she began kissing him back as ardently as she could, when she started to moan with every breath, Mr. Knightley’s hand started a trail down her side, over her hip, down her thigh and calf to the hem of her dress. At the first glance of his fingertips against her ankle, she gasped into their kiss. He took the opportunity to deepen the kiss, and Emma’s thoughts fled from every thing except the hot brand of his fingers as they slowly brushed up her leg beneath her dress.

His tongue began a rhythmic movement inside her mouth. A thrusting in and out that Emma found entirely exciting. When his fingers reached her knee, she felt the silent request behind the slight pressure he placed on the inside of her knee, and her legs opened slightly.

“Mmm,” Mr. Knightley moaned into their kiss, letting her know without words that her movement pleased him.

Emma found herself scrambling impossibly closer to him, crowding into his chest as his fingers continued their movement upward. She craved being close to him, had to find a way to be closer. Her nails started to dig into the muscle of his chest through his shirt, and when his fingers finally slipped into her drawers to brush across her most private flesh, Emma jerked back from the kiss and cried out.

He quickly covered her lips with his again, absorbing most of her cry with an earthy groan of his own. “
Emma
,” he spoke into her mouth with wonder. “My dearest, I had no idea I had gotten you into such a state.” He moved his fingers again, and they seemed to glide easily against her flesh. Emma realised in mortification that she was very nearly drenched between her thighs.

“Oh, George,” she said in distress, trying to hide her face against his neck again.

“No, Emma,” said he brushing his cheek against hers. “You are
exquisite
!” He moved his fingers again, and one of them brushed against a bundle of nerves so deliciously that Emma cried out again and jerked back to stare at him in amazement. “This is exactly as it should be,” he whispered with a loving smile, his fingers moving again so that Emma had to close her eyes against the stars flashing behind them. “
Better
than it should be. Than I ever hoped for,” he finished on a harsh groan. His lips found hers, a desperation tinting his kiss that she had never tasted before. “Oh, dearest, I cannot
wait
to marry you,” he said against her lips in a tone that sounded near physical pain. She moved to look at him, to question that statement, but his fingers began to move deliberately, one of them landing on that nerve centre again and brushing up and down in a tantalizing rhythm.

She moaned and returned his kiss as frantically as she could. He held her tighter, and she was thankful. Her body felt as though it were getting ready to burst at the seams. Within seconds, she had to arch her back or fall completely apart. She began to pant with such force, she had to pull from the kiss. His touch grew firmer as he stared into her eyes — He bit into his bottom lip.

Emma had to close her eyes at the onslaught of feelings too complex for her to sort through. She grew distressed. Her body seemed to be reaching for something. She moaned unhappily.

“Look at me,” he commanded gently.

Her eyes fluttered open.

“Let go, dearest,” he instructed. “You are nearly there. Let go.”

She frowned, not understanding his words, but then her body finally reached its peak. She stiffened and opened her mouth to cry out as loudly as she could, but his mouth covered hers, absorbing her scream.

His finger stopt its movement to press firmly against the bundle of nerves as she rode out the flurry of sensations wracking her body. His other hand was supporting her head, his fingers woven into her hair as his mouth swept back and forth over hers.

It was several moments before Emma was able to collect herself. Mr. Knightley’s fingers were no longer beneath her dress, but both arms were wrapped firmly around her, hugging her close to him. Her head rested against his shoulder; his face was buried in her neck.

“I love you,” she whispered, causing him to draw back and gift her with the most radiant smile she had ever seen upon his face.

“
You
love
me
?” he asked incredulously. “God above, I must be the luckiest man alive,” he said with a smile and a swift kiss before he slid her from his lap to the seat beside him. He kept one arm around her, and kept her tucked into his side as she came back down from the heavens. They sat in comfortable silence for several minutes until Emma’s mind returned to what they had been discussing right before — she blushed at the thought. They had been talking about Emma’s sense. Thank goodness it had abandoned her yet again so that she could talk him into that wondrous experience.

Emma grieved that she could not be more openly just to one important service which his better sense would have rendered her, to the advice which would have saved her from the worst of all her womanly follies — her wilful intimacy with Harriet Smith; but it was too tender a subject. She could not enter on it. Harriet was very seldom mentioned between them. This, on his side, might merely proceed from her not being thought of; but Emma was rather inclined to attribute it to delicacy, and a suspicion, from some appearances, that their friendship were declining. She was aware herself, that, parting under any other circumstances, they certainly should have corresponded more, and that her intelligence would not have rested, as it now almost wholly did, on Isabella’s letters. He might observe that it was so. The pain of being obliged to practise concealment towards him, was very little inferior to the pain of having made Harriet unhappy.

Isabella sent quite as good an account of her visitor as could be expected; on her first arrival she had thought her out of spirits, which appeared perfectly natural, as there was a dentist to be consulted; but, since that business had been over, she did not appear to find Harriet different from what she had known her before. Isabella, to be sure, was no very quick observer; yet if Harriet had not been equal to playing with the children, it would not have escaped her. Emma’s comforts and hopes were most agreeably carried on, by Harriet’s being to stay longer; her fortnight was likely to be a month at least. Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley were to come down in August, and she was invited to remain till they could bring her back.

“John does not even mention your friend,” said Mr. Knightley against her hair. “Here is his answer, if you like to see it.”

It was the answer to the communication of his intended marriage. Emma sat up and accepted it with a very eager hand, with an impatience all alive to know what he would say about it, and not at all checked by hearing that her friend was unmentioned.

“John enters like a brother into my happiness,” continued Mr. Knightley, “but he is no complimenter; and though I well know him to have, likewise, a most brotherly affection for you, he is so far from making flourishes, that any other young woman might think him rather cool in her praise. But I am not afraid of your seeing what he writes.”

“He writes like a sensible man,” replied Emma, when she had read the letter. “I honour his sincerity. It is very plain that he considers the good fortune of the engagement as all on my side, but that he is not without hope of my growing, in time, as worthy of your affection, as you think me already. Had he said any thing to bear a different construction, I should not have believed him.”

“My Emma, he means no such thing. He only means — ”

“He and I should differ very little in our estimation of the two,” interrupted she, with a sort of serious smile — “much less, perhaps, than he is aware of, if we could enter without ceremony or reserve on the subject.”

“Emma, my dear Emma — ”

“Oh!” she cried with more thorough gaiety, “if you fancy your brother does not do me justice, only wait till my dear father is in the secret, and hear his opinion. Depend upon it, he will be much farther from doing
you
justice. He will think all the happiness, all the advantage, on your side of the question; all the merit on mine. I wish I may not sink into ‘poor Emma’ with him at once. His tender compassion towards oppressed worth can go no farther.”

“Ah!” he cried, “I wish your father might be half as easily convinced as John will be, of our having every right that equal worth can give, to be happy together. I am amused by one part of John’s letter — did you notice it? where he says, that my information did not take him wholly by surprize, that he was rather in expectation of hearing something of the kind.”

“If I understand your brother, he only means so far as your having some thoughts of marrying. He had no idea of me. He seems perfectly unprepared for that.”

“Yes, yes — but I am amused that he should have seen so far into my feelings. What has he been judging by? I am not conscious of any difference in my spirits or conversation that could prepare him at this time for my marrying any more than at another. But it was so, I suppose. I dare say there was a difference when I was staying with them the other day. I believe I did not play with the children quite so much as usual. I remember one evening the poor boys saying, ‘Uncle seems always tired now.’”

The time was coming when the news must spread farther, and other persons’ reception of it tried. As soon as Mrs. Weston was sufficiently recovered to admit Mr. Woodhouse’s visits, Emma having it in view that her gentle reasonings should be employed in the cause, resolved first to announce it at home, and then at Randalls. But how to break it to her father at last! She had bound herself to do it, in such an hour of Mr. Knightley’s absence, or when it came to the point her heart would have failed her, and she must have put it off; but Mr. Knightley was to come at such a time, and follow up the beginning she was to make. She was forced to speak, and to speak cheerfully too. She must not make it a more decided subject of misery to him, by a melancholy tone herself. She must not appear to think it a misfortune. With all the spirits she could command, she prepared him first for something strange, and then, in a few words, said, that if his consent and approbation could be obtained — which, she trusted, would be attended with no difficulty, since it was a plan to promote the happiness of all — she and Mr. Knightley meant to marry; by which means Hartfield would receive the constant addition of that person’s company whom she knew he loved, next to his daughters and Mrs. Weston, best in the world.

Poor man! it was at first a considerable shock to him, and he tried earnestly to dissuade her from it. She was reminded, more than once, of having always said she would never marry, and assured that it would be a great deal better for her to remain single; and told of poor Isabella, and poor Miss Taylor. But it would not do. Emma hung about him affectionately, and smiled, and said it must be so; and that he must not class her with Isabella and Mrs. Weston, whose marriages taking them from Hartfield, had, indeed, made a melancholy change: but she was not going from Hartfield; she should be always there; she was introducing no change in their numbers or their comforts but for the better; and she was very sure that he would be a great deal the happier for having Mr. Knightley always at hand, when he were once got used to the idea. Did he not love Mr. Knightley very much? He would not deny that he did, she was sure. Whom did he ever want to consult on business but Mr. Knightley? Who was so useful to him, who so ready to write his letters, who so glad to assist him? Who so cheerful, so attentive, so attached to him? Would not he like to have him always on the spot? Yes. That was all very true. Mr. Knightley could not be there too often; he should be glad to see him every day; but they did see him every day as it was. Why could not they go on as they had done?