A Suitable Companion

Chapter 23: Permission

A/N: A warning - this chapter contains mature content. If you don't like smutty, stop reading once it starts getting heated and you will not miss any plot except closeness between the two.

The summer evening is warm, the kind where the heat of the day lingers and there is a lazy calmness about everything, but it may still be difficult to sleep because one will likely toss and turn overheated between the sheets. I have spent this Friday evening, after I quit work, in the garden with a book and a glass of cool white wine with the smell of roses and honeysuckle surrounding me. It may seem like I have been relaxing, but on the inside, I have been far too impatient and expectant to find true calm. I'm waiting and yearning for Charles to come home.

During the first months after we became a couple (and I still must pinch myself sometimes to convince myself this lovely life is true) it was like we kept the routines we had since before, but we added all sorts of lovely new things to them. When we hung out in his room in the afternoons, we did not sit in separate armchairs anymore. Instead we cuddled up in the sofa together and every now and then interrupt our reading or playing cards by snogging, and sometimes had to interrupt longer for a tour to the bedroom. When we went to the park we always held hands (still do). When I drove him to Headley Court he often put his hand on my thigh, sometimes just hold it still there and sometimes let it wander further up until I had to tell him to stop if he did not want us to end up in the ditch. And in the evening, I did not say bye and go home around five like I had done before. We had dinner together, watched TV or a movie (rarely all of it because we could not keep our hands off from each other) and when it was time to go to bed, we went together, still smiling mischievously at the novelty of it. It kept feeling a bit forbidden for several months, but it is not, it is just lovely, lovely, lovely.

It was agreed that he would start working again in April but already in March he was in such good physical condition that he was beginning to get restless and decided, without me having much of a say, to add something to our routines.

"I think we should start jogging together" he says one morning.

I cough, nearly choking on my tea. I'm so not a jogger, or athlete of any kind. I have always considered biking around Bath the perfect amount of exercise and as I never had a problem with overweight that has not been an incentive either.

"It will be fun" he declares and cocks an eyebrow. I so doubt it will, but he is insistent, so two days later after a shopping tour to buy me new trainers we go.

He is such a pain in the arse! I understand he uses to run PT sessions with his soldiers and now he seems to think it is an excellent idea to apply that on me. That will have the benefit of getting us both in shape plus he seems to think he will get warmed up in this role before going back to work. I can tell he has been missing this part. Problem is I do not like him bossing me around. Some days I hate him.

"Come on Dawesy, you can make it! Faster!"

He shouts at me from the top of a long and steep stairs going up a hill, or rather a mini-mountain. It feels like he made it to the top minutes before me and now enjoys tormenting me fighting to get there. When I finally reach top he says, panting;

"You can do better."

"I hate you" I manage to get out between my forced breaths while gritting my teeth.

"No, you don't."

"I do hate you! This is good only because I will be thrilled when you start working so I don't have to put up with this shit anymore."

He comes to stand very close to me, so I feel his radiating body heat and far from unpleasant smell of fresh sweat. That is one of the amazing things about him, he always smells good.