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Anne Lister needed sleep. She managed now with less than when she was a girl. She could be asleep at midnight and up at five. Her verve required no more, but it could not be sustained on less.
She picked up her watch from the bedside table, attempting to read it by the moonlight that flooded through the window. Just passed two o'clock. She'd be miserable tomorrow at this rate.
Sighing, she turned to lie on her back and swung her dark brown braid out from under her head. She adjusted the covers, taking back for herself what her wife had stolen. With another sigh, she closed her eyes.
The room was still. If only she could fall asleep during this brief intermission.
She felt on the verge when Ann mumbled. Anne tried to ignore it, only to be roused by more mumblings, and a snore so loud and grating, Anne could hold her tongue no longer.
"Ann," she hissed, pushing gently on pliant hip. "Ann," she tried again, louder.
Finally her wife rolled towards her, humming happily and reaching out, her hand sliding across Anne's stomach. "Not tonight," she murmured, eyes still closed as she tucked in and made herself comfortable on Anne's shoulder.
Anne shook her head. "No darling, you're snoring is keeping me awake."
Ann didn't seem to grasp what she'd just been told. "Tomorrow," she murmured.
Anne shook her head, but kissed her wife's mass of blonde hair. "Tomorrow I shall be very disagreeable, if I don't get my sleep. Perhaps if you rolled over, the snoring would cease."
In that instant Ann's eyes opened. "Snoring?" She asked groggily. "Who's snoring?"
Anne sighed and brought her free hand up to scrub her weary eyes. "You're snoring, darling."
Ann's brow furrowed. "I do not snore."
"I would beg to differ."
Ann pushed up on to an elbow, now wide awake. "A lady does not snore," she insisted.
"Then you madam are no lady," Anne countered. Her wife's mouth gaped and promptly Anne felt a firm slap to her chest.
"From my own wife!" Ann exclaimed, half aghast, half smiling. She was quick to get up and throw a leg across Anne's waist, pinning her, so that she might rain down blow upon blow.
By now Anne was laughing, mirthful. She brought her hands up to shield her face.
"Say I'm a lady," Ann demanded, pulling her wrists free as Anne tried to grab hold. "Say it," she repeated.
"I surrender, I surrender," Anne laughed. "You are a lady. My lady," she added. "The mistress of Shibden."
Ann was giggling now. Her face bathed in moonlight, hair mussed, she'd never looked more beautiful.
Anne began to creep her hands up smooth thighs, to the hem of her wife's rucked up night dress. She drew patterns with her blunt nails, until Ann sighed and ground herself down against a firm abdomen.
"Oh yes, most definitely all lady."
Ann shuttered, and pressed her palms down firmly, on her wife's chest.
"I thought we were waiting until tomorrow," Anne quipped, one eyebrow going up with a smirk.
Ann only moaned as she rocked. "Well," she gasped. "We are awake."
Anne hummed. "I've been awake for some hours."
Ann had the decency to blush. "May I show you how sorry I am?"
Anne pretended to consider it, as her hand crept between milky thighs. She gasped. "You are very sorry indeed."