The Neapolitan Question

'Let me in. I promise you it will feel good.'

She exhales deeply and relaxes around me, enough to make me grit my teeth to contain the urge to fuck into her deep. All sound zeros in on our breathing; me fighting for control, Janey fighting to relax. I pull back, rotate my hips a bit, slipping and circling through her slick juices, watching her eyes fluttering.

'God, let me in, Janey.'

She shifts under me, her hand moving over herself, fingers splayed then curling between us. I flex and retreat, trying to work with her fingers, feeling her gradually widening out for me. Inside and around me she's fluttering and pulling at me, an incredible mix of hard and soft. I've not felt anything like it, truly. We inch closer, fitting ourselves together; tight; closer. Her fierce heat consumes me until I can't get any deeper. I drop my head to the crook of her neck, breathing out, kissing her smooth skin.

'You have all of me now, Jane, can you feel?'

Something like a whimper escapes from her. 'I didn't know it'd feel like this.'

I close my eyes. Is she ok? Did I go too fast? 'Janey?'

She contracts around me; tight bands of pain and pleasure.

'I didn't know this was what's been missing all this time,' she half whispers, half laughs, and I tremble with relief.

There's no going back now. Not for either of us.

And push both my arms under her, around her waist, to press us tighter to each other, murmuring to her to hold on as I turn us until Janey's on top. It's going to give her more control and stop me from coming too soon.

She adjusts to our new position, working her hips until we're fitted tight again, but stays lying against my chest. Her moles feel as delightful as ever and I stroke over them with the flat of my hands, over and over, as we both pick up a slow, luxurious rhythm to match. I feel smothered with her. The drape of her body over mine; of her hair around my face and neck. She smells fantastic and feels even better. I still can't get enough of her. We couldn't be closer. Yet it's still not enough. I want everything of her.

She sits up, her hair swinging across her body until she pulls it back and twists it around a hand.

'Is this how you imagined it with me?'

'No,' I smile back.

'Oh?'

'I don't know if I had this much imagination back then.'

'Really?'

'Yeah really,' I imitate her raised eyebrows and lift my hips into her, trying to distract her.

She breathes into it. I slide my hands around her waist, drawing a path along the gentle curve from waist to hip. I love the exquisite shape, and the feel of it. It feels like infinity, it's in such balance.

But the biggest turn on is watching Jane feel her way around her body and mine -- how we are fitting together, how we're responding to each other.

I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. Something more awkward, or just downright uncomfortable? I don't know -- and I don't know how to put this without it sounding a bit crass, but I've never had sex with a virgin. Aside from myself, if you count all the wanking. I'm digressing, obviously. Just trying not to get too close to the edge. Because the feel of Janey all around me is really too good. Tight, as if we were made to fit together like this. Like home.

'Is this what you imagined?' I ask, partly to distract myself.

'No. Nothing like it,' she smiles. Tilting her hips over me, making me catch my breath. 'I didn't think I'd like the feeling of something inside me.'

She gasps as I lift up into her again, her eyes half-closed now. I'm almost at the edge of my control but I don't want to hit the drop, not yet.

'I thought it'd feel uncomfortable -- an intrusion,' she continues, breathing deeply, then contracting around me so hard it takes me considerable effort not to force her onto her back and fuck her into the mattress.

'And I didn't think it'd feel this -- um -- alive,' she breathes out, her muscles rippling over me.

'Come back down here,' I urge her, wrapping my arms around her back, running my thumbs down the length of her spine, tracing the dips and ridges, feeling her squirm. I use my hands to push her hips down harder to me and she gets the idea, taking up the rhythm instinctively. It's starting to really burn from the back of my brain and spine. Soon there's going to be no way back.

I find her mouth; warm and soft and loving.

We work it up -- the rhythm, the heat, the intensity. Her breath pushes over my face, her hair all around me. I'm overtaken, again, with disbelief that this is really Janey. That this glorious feeling is being shared with her. I'm staring at her when she opens her eyes. They look almost black, shaded from the morning sun as we are by her hair all over us. She pulls her mouth off mine. I don't know how to put this into words, but it's like the world's suspended itself. An infinite moment where the only thing to see is Jane, the only thing to hear is Jane and the only thing to feel is us. I don't know if it's as if we're flying or falling, but it's an irresistible force and we both go with it, letting it carry us to somewhere deeply intimate.

I sweep a hand up her back, noticing the damp of her skin, feeling her undulate under my touch. Watching her eyes looking back at mine, unwavering.

'You really like this,' she laughs, laughing at herself I think, but I can hardly concentrate. Her muscles seem to be dancing a jig around my cock, and it's eye-wateringly good.

A little frown puckers her forehead. 'Are you going to come, Frankie?'

She stuns me, this woman.

'I think that's a given, Jane,' I half grunt, half laugh, watching her frown dissolve and her smile widen.

'Good,' she whispers.

I reach up and tuck her hair behind her ear.

'It's only because I've been reciting the new CDM regulations for principal contractors that I haven't come already,' I confess to her, enjoying the mix of reactions playing themselves out on her face. 'You feel amazing, Jane.'

Before she can reply, I'm rolling us until Janey's on her back again.

'And, honestly, I'm not going to last out much longer,' I further confess.

'Ohh,' she breathes and moves, and it's as though she's pulling me even more deeply into her. 'Good.'

She winds her arms around my back and lifts her mouth to mine. I lose myself in her; totally lose myself. She's the only thing I can sense. All of me is consumed with her soaring heat constricting then relaxing around me; her hot breath quick and urgent across my face. The surprise in her eyes as it overtakes her too.

And that's it.

We drop.

Together. Hard and fast. She cries out -- from somewhere deeper, this time. I give her everything of me. After that, it goes hot, hot bright white. I know nothing except I only ever want to be in this place. With Jane. If she'll have me.

My next conscious moment is me staring up at the ceiling, dazed, still fighting for breath; one arm underneath Jane, using my other hand to pull the condom off.

The bed moves as she turns towards me, tucking herself under my chin.

'Where did you go, Frank?'

'Uh -- needed to get this clear of you,' I mutter, dropping the condom to the floor.

'I miss you already.'

I groan. How can she be this sexy? I reach around her and pull her closer, stroking my hand through her hair and down her back.

'Thank you.'

'Don't thank me, Janey. Remember what I said about the pleasure being all mine?'

She levers herself up until she's looking down at me. The eyes are on full power again, made all the more noticeable because of how gorgeously flushed and ruffled she's looking.

'That's not true. You shared it -- your pleasure, I mean.'

'That's the idea, Jane.'

She runs a finger along my lips, studying me. My spine crawls and shivers.

'It's not charm, is it? It's love. You show your love easily, don't you?'

Have I said how much this woman's intelligence attracts and terrifies me? I curl some of her hair around my hand.

'No. Not that easily.' I hesitate. 'Not recently.'

'Since Cate?'

'Maybe.' I gather more and more of her hair up in my hand, winding it together, a thick, dark band of silk.

Her eyes flick away from mine, then back.

'Even more reason for me to thank you, Frankie. For sharing --,'

'Shh, Janey,' I grab her into my chest, the anxiety suddenly and violently acute that she's only thanking me to soften the blow of telling me this was a one-time thing after all.

I can't bear to hear it. But she fights free of my arms -- of course she does. What right have I got to stop her from saying it? I bite down on the inside of my cheek. Better to get it over with, I force myself to think. No point prolonging the agony, even if all I want is to lie here with Jane forever in the lemony yellow sunlight forcing its cheerful way in through the old window shutters.

I start from the feel of her hand pressing against the side of my face.

'Where are you, Frankie? I can see you disappear into that other world, you know. I just wish I could follow you there.'

I blink.

'Your heart's going nineteen to the dozen,' and I flinch when she moves her hand down to my chest where, it's true, I think I might be about to have a small heart attack. That little frown is back on her face.

'Just say it, Janey.'

'Say what?'

I take a deep breath. 'I dunno -- "thank you but goodbye" maybe? I can't read your mind either, but if it's a "goodbye" then do it quickly.'

She stares at me for a moment.

'Well -- that isn't what I thought you'd say at all.'

I wait. And nearly break when I see tears well up in her eyes.

'No, don't cry, Jane. Please don't,' and wipe her cheeks with my thumb.

'Oh hell,' she sniffs. 'I'm all over the bloody place. But l've never felt like that before. Never felt so -- uh -- loved. It's the only word I can think of that does it justice. It was -- it made me feel beautiful, Frank.'

More tears spill down her face, and I rub those away too.

'I know we probably started in the wrong place with all this, which is my fault entirely, but I don't want this to be the end and --,' she gulps for air, but I've heard enough.

'I don't either, Janey. Far from it.'

'Don't you?'

'Nope.' I smile up at her. 'I want you. For as long as possible.'

And there -- her brilliant wide smile breaks out all around us. My heart unclenches and my lungs open up to let in the air.

'Come back down here and kiss me some more, Beautiful.'

+++

The next morning has the feeling of a dream repeated, except this time as I walk through the open kitchen doors to see Jane standing so still over the stove, I don't hesitate so much and bend my mouth to kiss her neck with as much passion as if I'd been gone for weeks, not just an hour. And as she reaches her arms up and around me and I hold onto her waist I still cannot believe my luck, to be this close to her.

'I'll just run upstairs for a shower,' I tell her, kissing the top of her ear.

But she turns off the gas ring.

'Me too,' she smiles.

I bless my sister for insisting on modernising all the bathrooms in this house, because it means the en-suite bathroom for Janey's bedroom has a generous walk-in shower. Room for two.

She looks a little bit self-conscious again as I peel her clothes off but laughs when I back her into the shower kissing her all the way, until the water is spattering over both of us.

We start out with some actual soaping and washing and rinsing. She lets me wash her hair, which turns into something far more sensual, as I can't resist tracing the length of it all the way down her back, making her shudder and giggle and lean back into me. I kiss the top of her head, about to shut the water off, when she turns to face me, raising up on the balls of her feet to kiss me. And runs her hands over my chest.

'Where else do you like to be touched?' she murmurs.

'Anywhere, Janey, pretty much.'

I surrender myself to her hands, surprised again at how quickly she raises my pulse -- and -- well, the obvious. She's had me in her firm grip long enough for me to be panting pretty hard when she bends to my ear and whispers, 'Frank, are you reciting CDM regulations?'

I nod.

'Don't. Come in my hands.'

'Oh fuck.' I nearly lose my legs from under me, it's so intense.

She presses up close to me, getting my come all over her belly. I nearly pass out when she licks at her hand.

'I don't know what you taste like,' she explains, catching my look.

I think she's only now getting an inkling of the power she has over me. Her smile definitely has an impishness to it. We wash my spunk off our bodies and down the drain before shutting the cooling water off, getting dressed and making a start on breakfast.

It's as we're sitting outside on the terrace finishing the coffee off that we hear a car pull up outside the front of the house.

'Who's that?'

I shake my head. Get out of the chair.

'I'll take a look,' and wander around to the front.

'Oh my God, Frankie, so you are alive! I've been calling and leaving messages for the last twenty-odd hours. Just where the fuck have you been? I've been sick with worry since we landed and I still wasn't able to get in touch with you. And where's Jane? I can't raise her, either.'

'Mum!' Charlotte is doing her best at looking indignant not delighted at Ellie's cursing as I watch them all tumble out of a big taxi van.

'Cat got your tongue? Whatever's the matter? Frankie, speak to me'

But I'm rendered speechless. How has this happened? It's not even close to the end of the week, so how is it that my sister and all her kids -- Frankie included, in a cast -- are right here in front of me?

'How are you here?' I ask, ridiculously.

I'm rendered even more speechless as both George and Charlotte bowl into me with the kind of force only small children possess, George clambering onto my back and Charlotte and now Sophie too, clinging to my legs, jumping up and down and clamouring for kisses and hugs.

Ellie's eyes glint with amusement.

'Is your phone actually broken, or what? I've been messaging you since Mike's boss told us she'd lend us her private jet to fly us over here last night.'

'Mike's boss?'

'I know. Bloody brilliant of her, I have to say. She couldn't have been kinder to us since Frankie fell out of that tree.'

'Mum! Bad words!' Charlotte's looking even more affronted.

'Sorry Charlie, you'll have to block your ears. Anyway -- your phone?'

Just then, Janey appears.

'Ellie?'

'Jane! Wow, look at you, you look brilliant. Has Frank been looking after you? Wow, really, you look great.'

They hug each other, but I catch Jane's look and we both widen our eyes at each other, and then share a small shrug.

I pick up Sophie (she's the youngest of the girls, so that qualifies her for the first lift in my book; next time it'll be one of the others because they are who they are, so it all evens out) and try again to address what's happening.

'Ellie, how come you're suddenly here?'

'Frankie! If you'd pick up your phone, you'd know. Where is it anyway? You're usually physically attached to it.'

I do feel a pang of anxiety about where it might be. Let's just say it hasn't been highly placed in my thoughts over the last twenty four hours.

'Oh well anyway,' she waves at me with her hand. 'Mike's boss cancelled some conference or other and it meant her jet was suddenly available for the rest of the week, so she offered to fly us here overnight, and Mike will catch up with us at the weekend.'

'Wow,' I try to say, but with Sophie and George competing for my attention, it's difficult to concentrate on what my sister's saying.

'How generous of her,' Janey takes it up, and she and Ellie chatter about that while Ellie starts opening the door for Frankie who's been sitting patiently in the taxi all this time.

I scoop all of them into my arms, one at a time, properly greeting them, amazed at how they've changed and grown since last summer. Already making silent plans to see them at Christmas, as a year's absence is just too long. Hugging Frankie for long enough that no one need see his quickly shed and quickly disguised tears.

'Anyway, it was really last minute, but I've been texting and calling you like mad. Oh anyway, come on, help me with all these bags, and then I hope the water's hot, because we all need a shower.'

It's uncanny, the way my sister can tell when something isn't quite as expected. I watch her catch my eye, taking in my guilty look, my still damp hair. And then at Janey, whose hair is also still wet. Her lips twist to one side.

I wait her out. Breathe a sigh of relief when she merely flicks her eyebrow at me. It's a stay of execution, but at least we're not having to play something out here and now, in front of my sharp-eared nieces and nephews.

She can't resist making just one comment, though, as we drag kids and suitcases into the hall.

'Nothing wrong with the actual boiler, though?'

'Not as such,' I'm forced to mutter.

And that earns me a narrow-eyed look before we charge into the logistics of making up beds and forcing the kids to unpack and wash and eat and not fall sleep until it's at least after dinner. At one point I remember to go in search of my phone and find it in my bedroom, forgotten, battery completely dead.

+++

I spend the rest of day either in the kitchen producing food for everyone to eat and catching up with Frankie as he's forced to sit still in a chair, his cast propped up on another chair, or at the pool admiring George's great progress. Everyone else flits in and out around me until it's finally just me, Janey and Ellie left around the big kitchen table -- the kids' excitement finally beaten into submission by jetlag.

Ellie and Jane are laughing and talking when I walk back into the kitchen after carrying Sophie up to bed and wonder if it's been broached yet -- at the same time remembering Ellie telling me she's never had that kind of conversation with Janey before. I catch Janey's eye. Her look is bland, which I take to mean the elephant in the room is still hiding in plain sight. I turn to put all the cups and glasses I've collected up from the random places they were abandoned in during the day onto the drainer.

'All ok up there, are they?' Ellie asks me when I sit down.

'Yep. They're all dead to the world - even Frankie with that great big cast on his leg. Although it took so much effort for him to get up the stairs I'm not surprised he's gone out like a light. I couldn't persuade him to sleep down here.'

'Stubborn as his father, that one.' Ellie takes a swig from her wine glass.

'I don't think he wants to miss out on being upstairs with everyone else, you know?'

She nods at me. 'That too, yes.'

We share a smile. I was the same when I was a kid. Couldn't bear to miss out on a single thing.

'It's good to see you, Ells.'

'I couldn't agree more, Frankie. It's been much too long. And such a hard year.'

I find her hand over the table and squeeze it.

'Won't be a minute,' Janey gets up, a smile in her eyes for me.

When I re-focus on Ellie, I'm left in no doubt the elephant is about to be well and truly examined.

'So?'

Ellie and me have the same colouring -- brown hair, olive skin -- but her eyes are a bright, piercing blue where I got the muddy left-over colours for mine. She's got them trained on me now in all their brilliance, sipping at her wine. I incline my head and shrug and perform all the other twitches that belie my discomfort.

'Yeah, sorry about the hot water, Ells.'

She bursts out laughing.

'Frank, I don't give a fuck about the hot water. What are you up to with Jane? Tell me.'

'Come on, don't say it like that.'

'Like what?'

'Like that.'

And we're instantly back to being siblings with a near seven year age gap; me at the lower end of that scale and automatically on the defensive.