heorte | when i go towards you it is with my whole life.

His hand returns to her thigh. There is a slight pinch in his brow, assessing, as he casts about for a question.

"When did you decide you intended to marry me?"

It would be rude, maybe, to borrow her question and turn it back to her. So this, an idle query. Ellis has wondered whether it was simply that terrible cat and her mistress that tipped the scales, or had she already made up her mind before that.

She opens her mouth to reply, an answer clearly ready just there behind her teeth— and then she stops herself, the sound of it like a breath split in half. She closes her mouth. Purses her lips. After a moment of consideration, Wysteria adjusts the line if her calf in that narrow space between them and shifts her boot out from under the shadow of the chair. She prods his knee with the shoe's toe.

"The other boot if you please, Mister Ellis," says says, drawing her hands from his face. It's a very petty sort of revenge, made more so by the fact that she doesn't wait for him to comply before asking—

"What did you think of me when we first met?"

Ellis sighs as she lifts her hands away, but protest begins and ends there. Without the bracket of her palms, he settles by degrees, the angle of his head coming down as he sits back on his heels to attend to her boot.

"I liked you," is the beginning of an answer as he hooks his fingers into the laces. Ellis voice dips low and fond over those three words. They carry weight. He'd been surprised then. Ellis shakes his head, continuing, "I liked hearing you and Tony talk, very much."

Looking back, it is hard to map out exactly what had hooked into him. Like Tony, their friendship had simply settled into place without any question or effort. Caring for her had come easily.

"I thought you were very clever. And that you could use better protection than standing fifteen feet back from whatever dropped out of rifts."

'Clever' is fine.

"Not that I was very pretty?"

She has moved her hands to the arms of the chair, but it still leaning slightly forward—ready to twist her foot free once the lacing of the boot has come loose and Ellis makes to remove the shoe.

"Don't answer that. It wasn't a proper question, and we're playing by the rules now."

"I liked to look at you," Ellis answers, ignoring her instruction. He has to kneel up again to cup her face, catch a stray lock of hair to twist around his finger. "I don't remember when I realized why."

Whether why is because Wysteria was very pretty or because he was very much in love with her—

Well, this is a contraband question. He doesn't need to make himself very clear. With her help, the boot comes free. Ellis sets it alongside it's mate, nudges them carefully beneath the chair and out of the way.

"I'll let you have both for one kiss."

"Only because I told you not to answer, and so it isn't my fault the you didn't let me retract the question."

Apparently the removal of her second boot has done nothing to rescue them from arguing semantics territory. But at the very least, she does bend partway for this: tipping her face down toward him, and leaving some part of the distance for him to close. It's meant to be his kiss, after all. And if he can't tell her what it is that he wants from her, then he will simply have to find some way of showing her.

It's fair enough.

Or Ellis is content enough to kiss Wysteria without arguing the finer points of the rules as he's heard them so far.

Here, his hand cups her face. He slides his fingers into her hair, heedless of the hastily reapplied pins. Ellis is not thinking as to what might be instructive. He is thinking about how much he wants to kiss her, and that he misses her hands on his face.

It is a slow, coaxing sort of kiss. There is a scrape of teeth at her lower lip. His hand is very gentle at the nape of her neck, keeping Wysteria close as he kneels up to her and stays there. His kiss is very open. And with Wysteria above him, she can do with that as she wishes, draw back when she pleases.

It is, in effect, the sort of kiss designed (intentionally or otherwise) to inspire impatience. Is there nothing more infuriating than having one's little display of vindictiveness met with methodical patience? To offer something as simple as kiss me how you like and be given this opportunity instead. It's like having a question answered with a question.

With the same impulsive urge to never let go of an argument (no wonder Byerly Rutyer finds her so exhausting), Wysteria stubbornly sways in under the shape of Ellis's hand. All at once, her hands do return to him: catching Ellis once more by the soft curls of his hair, only less gently. From this vantage she may take that sweet, yeilding kiss and make it insistent. Take the openness of his kiss and impetuously fill it with a little sound of exasperation and some impromptu, uncalculated press of tongue.

She can't very well throw him over her shoulder. But this is near to an equitable alternative. Stupid, well intentioned man.

It is an argument, yes. There are ways Wysteria does things, even when she's silent, that telegraph her rebuttal as clearly as if she were speaking aloud at her usual clip. The exasperation is so clear. He can almost taste it.

The chuckle it draws from him might be an infuriating thing too. But it's gone quickly. Wysteria is making a demand of him, and Ellis can do nothing but answer it.

His teeth nip a second time at her mouth. He arches up under the tightening of her hands in his hair. Wysteria is obliged to part her knees for him, the pressure of his hand at her thigh coaxing so that he might fit himself into that new-made space. Fabric rustles as he leans further in, further up. Insistent, that's what Wysteria brings. Intent is what Ellis answers with, that same patience lingering even as heat kindles between them.

There is still that same element of those early kisses in the attic of a small tavern after they'd fought off a handful of bandits. A sense of something held in check, even as he fills the space, grip tight at her thigh, pulse beating hard in his throat.

There is the soft rasp of her tartan skirts and the quiet sting left behind by his teeth. She is aware, very distantly, of the heavy shape of his hand and how it spans across her thigh and the intent press of his fingers. Were she less fixated, she might take greater notice of it. It and the way her knees must part to allow him to shift closer could easily fluster.

But she is fixated—frustrated and impatient, made bold by that restraint she can sense lurking in him. How long has she been asking him to do as he likes? Weeks. Months. Eternities, surely. And yet here he is, patient and steady and bending only when she asks him to.

So she draws him into that space, as pointed as she is stubborn. If he is restrained, then she is not that. Her fingers have tightened into fists in Ellis' dark curls and these are not the delicate, breathing kisses from out of that book on the chevalier. She kisses him very hard, and tastes the heat of his mouth on her tongue, and is only faintly aware of the heat brimming in her middle because of it, and—

Wysteria gives his hair a brisk tug.

This nets her a low, startled groan, breaking the kiss. Ellis' breath hitches against her mouth, in that narrow sliver of space between them.

Ellis has a passing thought: they have perhaps reached the end of the game, as he'd anticipated. And even if they were to count this kiss as one thing, Ellis is already swaying back to her under the tight flex of her fingers in his hair.

The second, hard-drawn breath seems as if it may precede something spoken aloud. All that restraint is drawn thin, but it holds. When he sets his mouth to hers again, its still there, despite the shuddering urgency of the kiss. He can do nothing but kiss her. His mouth opens under hers. He chases her upright, to the point where he can stretch no higher, press no closer into the space she's ceded him.

In the course of their kiss, his hand has left her neck. Ellis sets his palm over her other thigh. His fingers grip there, ten points between both hands, flexing hard. All the disparate, muddled impulses keep his hands there for a long moment as he answers her, firm and intent and—

"Wysteria," comes softly, ragged against her mouth. Teetering between requests, even as he considers the inevitable: there is no part of him that believes Wysteria has finished arguing her point.

But it breaks a kind of hold, that sound he makes and the sigh of her name, and so all at once she says, "You were supposed to ask me more questions. And that way I could refuse to answer them and then you would have to help me undress. I'd decided on it already. Ages ago. Oh, I dislike how good you are at being cautious. It's truly dreadful. You are meant to have done something by now, you know. I shouldn't even be kissing you at all, but I am and yet here you are, being so—"

So—infuriatingly measured.

Wysteria makes a snitting, scoffing sound against the shape of his mouth. She squeezes her knees about him. Please, Ellis.

"I took off your boots," is not the same as undressing. It's barely even a protest. It ends in Ellis kissing her again, spurred by the pressure of her knees. There is still lingering urgency in it, as if it is an absolute imperative to draw out their kiss until—

Well, the end point is some hazy, uncertain thing. Ellis considers walking outside and sticking his head under the water pump to dispel some of the heat that's gathered and spread through every inch of his body, ticking hotter when she'd put her hands in his hair, ticking hotter still when she'd pulled, when she'd insisted.

"I can do something," Ellis says, in that same low, ragged tone. It doesn't necessarily promise anything; Ellis has helped her out of her clothes before. When Wysteria says something, his hands flex at her thighs but nothing more, because Ellis continues, "I thought you'd wanted to wait until after the vows."

"Oh, Ellis," is all exasperation, and punctuated by the flex of her fingers. A less blunt tug. Some huff of breath exhaled very close to his mouth. "Everyone says—"

Wysteria straightens abruptly. Her face is warm; pieces of her gold hair have come unpinned and become fully flyaway and her grip on his temples hasn't relented in any particularly measurable fashion.

"You're not going to leave me, are you?"

That question is baffling enough that it dispels the hazy urgency that had hooked into him, kept his focus on her mouth and where his palms have settled over the tops of her thighs and her fingers in his hair. It's a shock, curtailing the minor upwards strain to follow her mouth even as she straightens out of easy reach.

"No," is instant, if confused. "Is that what everyone says?"

The latter question carries some narrowing of focus, as if Ellis intends to note the responsible party. To do what, exactly, he cannot yet say, but—

He will leave, someday. He's told her as much. He will grow old and he will have to die somewhere far from her, if he doesn't die in service of the organization he'd pledged himself to. But Wysteria knows these things. They must exist in some separate sphere from this question, wouldn't they?

"No, that's not—Well, yes. Everyone says that if you don't hold until then that your suitor will be a scoundrel, and take everything from you and then just go away. But that's not— Everyone says they have been the very picture of discretion and sensibility, I mean. But surely no one actually is, you know?"

She squeezes him again between her knees. Flexes her fingers in his hair.

"They're not." Almost sounds like a question. Are they?

"I wasn't."

Another ghost to hover at the edges of the room. Ellis was engaged before, and they did not wait until any vows were said. (And he and Cathán had already made vows, but not to each other.) He cannot speak for the rest of Thedas, but he can give her this truth. Once upon a time, he and his betrothed hadn't waited until vows were said.

His focus remains trained on her, even if his breath goes briefly shallow at the twin pressures she exerts. This is too important to lose track of what's being said.

"I won't leave you," he promises, though it has a slightly absurd ring to it. Is it really necessary to say aloud? "No matter what we do or don't do tonight or any other night."

The truth remains the same: he will adhere to whatever pace she chooses.

Ellis' hands lift from her thighs to her hips. He is so close to her already; there is no possible way to lean further into her. But his hands settle at her hips, thumbs moving along the seam there as he looks up into her face.

"You said it mattered to you," is posed like a question too.

Something behind her ribs clenches for that little truth. It's a complicated shape. Not resentment—she can hardly begrudge him his past or be jealous of a woman who helped to make Ellis as he is for her now. But—

"It does. Matter to me. But—" Here, finally, her grip on him relents a little. "I have placed my trust in you."

At her hips, Ellis' hands shift, slide higher to the bend of her waist.

It is very obvious when he is thinking, Wysteria told him once. He remembers hearing her say such a thing as they were lying in clover, damp after having spent their afternoon in the water. His thumbs follow the pattern of her dress, up along the structure of sturdy fabric over her stomach, her ribs, as he lets the weight of that settle.

Her trust. Ellis has tried so very hard to be worthy of it.

"When I take you to bed, it will be when you've asked me to," Ellis says slowly. "You needn't give up something important to you on my account. I'm content to wait, as long as you wish so long as you intend to kiss me in the meantime."

Even this is mutable. When she's asked, Ellis tells her. But it's important that his desires remain a separate thing. He can wait. He has insisted upon it, after all.

His thumbs stroke along the fabric of her dress, palms set over her ribs as he speaks. She has loosened her grip and he'd ask her to hold on tighter, only there is only so long a man can remain in such a position without needing to attend to certain difficulties.

Still—

"Do you want me to undress you?" Ellis asks, and then more quietly, "Do you want me to touch you?"

Two questions. The game is long over, but.

What if she didn't intend to kiss him? Imagine if she were strictly cold. Or if she only told him how much she would like to him, were she allowed to do such a thing. Surely that's what she is meant to do. If she were very sensible, it's how she would have treated him for all these months. That first kiss he'd stolen from her in the little kitchen of the Hightown house— she might have allowed that. But only because it was cleverly done, impulsive and secret. But the rest? She has held his hand and laughed in his company and let him set his teeth to her lower lip. He has seen her in little more than a shift, and she has seen him in his clinging wet clothes.

Those things. Those are things she shouldn't have permitted if she were being very strict about the whole business.

"Yes," she says. Her thumbs are set gently at the high points of his cheekbones. "Very much."

"Somewhere other than your knee?" has the cadence of a joke.

But there are limits to what he is proposing. Or there is some undefined, hazy space that he is aware of them tripping towards.

It is difficult to deny Wysteria anything. And in this matter, Ellis knows already that it will be near impossible in the midst of this business to deny her if she wants—

Well, there are any number of things.

Ellis' hands shift by degrees, thumbs sweeping over the patterned fabric beneath her breast before falling back to her thighs. It will be a wrench to get to his feet. He is very fond of her hands on his face this way.

"Alright," he tells her, before catching one of her hands in his own, kissing her palm. "Come with me."

Which is when he does rise (slower, on account of stiff knees and the prickling ache of having been knelt for so long) with his hand keeping hold of Wysteria's to bring her up alongside him.

Come with me means no further than the soft-worn rug in front of the fireplace. It is where he kisses her again, folding down to her with one hand mapping out the fastenings of her dress along her back.

After saying so, it's the easiest thing in the world to let herself be brought up and out of the chair and to follow him to that rug before the fireplace. Even before they've traveled that far, Wysteria's spare hand has flitted out—touched absently toward his side and his tunic left wrinkled from the weight of the gambeson. She has pinched that fabric gently between her thumb and forefinger and felt the miniature rasp of the twill's weave—

She is very ready to set her fingers at his neck, and to sway faintly into the shape of his kiss. After all these minutes of reversed fortunes, the sensation of having to raise her face to him is almost strange.

Almost. Her fingers tucking beneath the edge of his tunic's collar. The line of her body shifted close in the loop of his arm.

"They starts at the bottom," she supplies helpfully. "The lacing ties do."

Perhaps this might go faster were he to break from her, give his full attention to the lacing. It is a small mercy that she is not wearing a dress fastened by a neat row of many buttons. Ellis might like tracing his fingers over them beneath the cover of her when they are sat side by side on the ferry or contained within a carriage, but it's a far easier business to undo laces than it is to devote himself to the unfastening of each tiny button on a dress.

Wysteria is so close that there is no reason not to bend to kiss her again as his fingers at her back find those lacings and the tidy bow securing them at the small of her back. A small tug signals the beginning: the lacing comes free, and Ellis begins to gently work the ties open as he returns to the business of setting his mouth to Wysteria's.

There is some low note of urgency, yes. But it is an unhurried kiss. Ellis is methodical in this, aware of himself as much as he is aware of her. Wysteria's fingers are warm at his collar and she is very yielding in his arms and the bodice of her dress is growing loose under his ministrations.

They've done this before. And Ellis has touched her before, yes. Hands on her bare legs. Hands on her hips and waist, her ribs, over the sheer fabric of her shift. There is some familiarity in the ritual. But the end point is less defined here. Ellis is attentive to that, even as he begins to think more of the easy pleasure of kissing her while he hands work her dress free, and the soft sound of her breathing and how little space exists between them, only the barest sliver necessary.

The growing slack in her bodice pricks at her attention, weighing keenly at the edge of her awareness despite what should be the wholly distracting shape of his mouth. But they are, all things considered, very mild kisses. So maybe it makes sense that she should be distracted from them by the shift and pull of Ellis' hands. After all, he has kissed her hundreds of times now (though he has rarely kissed her while also helping to remove her from her clothes—).

When there is space enough to warrant it, Wysteria briefly leaves off with the grasping shape of both hands so she might wrestle herself free of the sleeves secure to her bodice with yet another series of laces.

"You must tell me if I'm too demanding of you, Mister Ellis," is a fine thing to say as she presses back into his space. She hovers near the shadow of his kiss. "I don't wish to catch you unawares.

Too demanding.

Briefly leaving off his work, Ellis bends more fully to kiss her mouth, then her jaw, and then put the curve of his smile in against her neck. She is held close, drawn in and cinched up against his body.

They cannot quite stop here, with Wysteria half-undressed. But it is a fine moment to pause and set his attention to her throat, hands flexing over the loosened fabric over her hips.

"Tell me what you'll have off next," he murmurs there, against her skin. Like her undressing is a little game between them as well.

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