Miss Mannerly

"Richard..."

"No, if you do not mind, I only have a little more to tell you, or explain to you, and then you can speak your heart. Marion, will you come to me? Will you sit on my lap, so I can touch you? Because the next part is very difficult for me to say and I need to hold you when I say it."

She stands and walks around the two hassocks and he pulls her down to his lap, much as he had done the night before, as if he is cradling her in comfort. When he begins to talk she can hear tears in his voice and wants to comfort him, but fears he will stop talking if she does.

"The night I walked you home and pulled you between the buildings, I wanted to hold you and comfort you after you told me about the home where you grew up, without affection. I knew something was wrong with what I wanted. Or, perhaps I knew something was right. You felt right in my arms, as right as you feel at this moment. But it did not become clear to me until Chin began to talk about the swans. Swans mate for life and I have come to believe that I was matching myself to you, to see if we could mate like that. I watched Claire and Herbert and the love they had for each other. Ted saw it too, and I think that is why he has been afraid to say anything to Claire, believing he cannot keep her from grieving until her life is over, without finding another mate."

Marion watches his face as he stares into the fire. He looks down for a moment into her face, and then returns his gaze to the fire, "I am almost finished speaking my heart to you and being able to touch you gives me the comfort to say what I feel. I think you knew all along what my problem was, and you were waiting for me to understand that we could never have only a friendship. You may not have been able to put it into those words, but I believe your woman's intuition told you."

As he is speaking, he is rubbing his hand up and down her arm, now he takes her hand and puts it around his shoulder and kisses her. At first it is a searching kiss, to see if she will respond to him. Then it is a kiss like the one they shared yesterday, before either of them would admit they were other than friends. Then it turns to a probing kiss, asking for her response, leaving both of them breathing hard, their hearts pounding. His hand moves up her arm, goes behind her head to increase the pressure of his kiss. She responds to his kiss, slightly parting her lips and feels the tip of his tongue touch hers. He stops kissing her for a moment and picks up one of her hands and turns it over to kiss the palm, and then gently returns the hand to her lap. He looks into the fire for a while, with his arms around her, while thoughts go through his head. Marion says nothing, for she can see he is coming to some kind of decision. The small lines beside his eyes are becoming smoother and the sides of his mouth are softening. He is not really smiling, but he looks pleased.

She puts her hand on his shoulder and rests her cheek against him, listening to the beat of his heart.

He looks down at her and tightens his arms around her and gives her a small kiss, then stops kissing her long enough to say, "Marion, you must help me here. I want you. I want you with the desires a man has for a woman. I need you, so I can be whole. Only when I am with you do I truly feel strong. There is a house at my ranch. I want to take you there and close the world away from us. I want to take your hair down and see it falling on your shoulders, curling on your bare arms and down your back. I want to touch the softness of you, which no man has ever touched."

Richard is quiet for a moment, when he begins to speak again, his voice trembles, "You may not understand, or you may. I want to explore you and see you take the freedom to touch me as I touch you. There is a small corner of wildness in you. I want to capture that wildness and share mine with you. I believe you are my mate, like the other half of the monkey fist knot. I want to pull you to me. I need to share my heart with you. I want to marry you."

She kisses him back, needing no words, or any other type of affection, to speak with her heart.

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2Xwidderwoman