Matthew’s hand slid down her leg, to her ankle. He lifted her leg and put it on his shoulder, kissing the inside of her knee. With his other hand, he caressed the soft flesh of her inner thigh, then sank his fingers into her folds and began to stroke her, driving Hillary to a madness she she’d never felt like this.
She fought for breath as Matthew transported her from Whitstone House, from the rain; from everything but the carnal pleasure he was giving her. She could feel the pleasure building in her, groaning with the intensity of it. His strokes grew fevered, his eyes intent on hers as he watched her succumb to his touch.
“Matthew,” she said, her voice rough and hoarse and strange to her own ears.
He whispered something, words she couldn’t grasp, as he moved his hand so intimately between her legs. And just as her body began to shatter, he thrust into her. Hillary cried out with the exquisite sensation, arching into him. She felt the waves of pleasure spilling over her, through her, until Matthew cried out, too, his body shuddering into hers.
In that moment, she knew what it meant to be one, to be loved by her husband. All her doubts about their marriage evaporated. Their lovemaking was surreal, ethereal, and powerful. It was, quite simply, the best lovemaking of her life. She stroked Matthew’s head at her breast as they both sought their breath, slowly swimming to the surface of some very deep emotions.
Matthew lifted his head and looked at her. Something swam between them, something intoxicating and uniting. “That was different,” she whispered.
“That was of some other plane, baby,” he agreed, and kissed her.
The rain continued to fall, lashing at the windows and stirring the trees wild with it, but Hillary and Matthew slept in each other’s arms, oblivious. They didn’t fear the apparitions. They both knew, in that way of knowing those things, that the ghosts were gone.
Matthew and Hillary never saw the man or woman, or felt the strangely unsettling energy in the house again. They finished their work on the house and headed back to the States, their marriage revitalized.
Two months later, Mrs. Browning sold the Whitstone House for two million pounds.
Matthew had enjoyed the work on the Whitstone House so much that he opened a renovation business and left banking behind. He began to renovate houses that Hillary would sell. Every once in awhile, Hillary and Matthew talked about what had happened in England the night of the storm, and the feeling of being inhabited by something unworldly. They privately joked about their ghosts, yet they never mentioned what had happened in England to anyone else.
But every time it stormed, they would look at one another and smile, and make love with the energy of two lovers who had waited one hundred years for that very moment.
The End