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

[heorte]

You came to the side of the bed and sat staring at me. Then you kissed me—I felt hot wax on my forehead. I wanted it to leave a mark: that’s how I knew I loved you. Because I wanted to be burned, stamped, to have something in the end— I drew the gown over my head; a red flush covered my face and shoulders. It will run its course, the course of fire, setting a cold coin on the forehead, between the eyes. You lay beside me; your hand moved over my face as though you had felt it also- you must have known, then, how I wanted you. We will always know that, you and I. The proof will be my body. — louise glück

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[heorte]

Self-consciousness comes prickling to the fore at Wysteria's compliment. Ellis doesn't contradict her, but he does reach down to catch her hands up in his own, draw them up as he bends to kiss her knuckles rather than answer.

"Come here," he says, with a last squeeze of her hands before releasing his grip on her, though this will well and truly disrupt the comfort of their present position. "I'll stand up, so it'll be easier to manage."

Especially as she's already done away with his bracers.

It is a wrench to extricate himself fully from between her legs. His hands pass briefly along the outside of her thighs, rest at her knees, before he is straightening up beside the bed.

[heirring]

She rolls over to follow him, fully and unabashedly a half measure as she is loathe to actually leave the bed. But the post of her attention does follow—keen and bright and very intent on him as Ellis extricated himself from the confines of the bed. She sets her chin on her hand, and stares at him expectantly. The hem of her chemise is still rucked high; nearly the entirety of her leg is bared to the lamplight.

"You ought to take off your tunic first," is a benign but entirely heartfelt instruction. "Your shoulders are one of your finest features, you know."

[heorte]

Were he not setting himself to a specific task, Ellis might have been distracted entirely by Wysteria's bare leg. Even with all they've done in the course of the evening, he's seen very little of her.

He'd like to fit his hand to the bend of her knee, a habit that he has developed over the past months.

But instead, with a slight grin working at his mouth, he begins obligingly tugging the hem of his tunic from the waistband of his trousers. It's easy work. He's already rumpled, and the shirt had been pulled loose at the back, so it comes free easily. The laces at his throat have been undone already.

Ellis has not gone far from her. He takes a single step forward, as close as he might possibly be to her without returning to the bed itself, while he draws the fabric up over his shoulders, over his head, so that he might turn the garment out over one hand before raising his eyes back to her.

Wysteria has seen him before. It is not new, except that they are alone in this room together and he has spent most of the night with his hands on her. The shift between them feels palpable in the moment.

[heirring]

She is very patient, pleased to observe him from her post in the depths of the bed. For a young lady who has recently been quite satisfactorily manhandled, she is rather keen and chipper and very lacking in fatigue. Indeed, she makes a small noise of approval for the shedding of his tunic. See? She said so. His shoulders are lovely.

"And now you must do the trousers, Mister Ellis," is innocently prompting. "Then fetch the book and join me, of course."

[heorte]

At the fastenings of his trousers, Ellis pauses to look at her.

This is not their home. This is not their bed. But he can see the shape of what their life will be, and it is such a sweet picture. More than he had ever thought his life could be.

Ellis does not say again, I love you, but it is there on his face as he looks at her, works loose the fastenings and shifts the fabric down his thighs, down his calves to step out, one foot at a time. He straightens, drawing up with discarded garment in hand. A slight raising of the arms, all of him, scars, markings, on display for her.

And then he turns, crossing back to where he'd left his satchel to retrieve the book, bank the fire, fetch a candle against the dim light, before making his way back to bed.

[heirring]

By the time he returns to it, Wysteria has insinuated herself under the bedclothes and folded back the edge for the coverlet to welcome him in. The pillows have been rearranged and the wild cloud of her hair has been tamed into a more reasonable fistful of curls across one shoulder, and she has arranged herself there amidst the bed in a mockery of patience.

And when he joins her, she is very ready to tuck herself in tightly at his side and lay her head at his shoulder so she might read along in the open book. It's simply done, the closeness as instinctive an urge as the hand which she lays low on his belly and the way she tips her face to breathe in the smell of his skin.

"No, we had passed this part. Here," she says, reaching to paw through the pages. "Let me find it."

A year from now or two or three, maybe she will confess to making up the whole truth telling game. But in the moment, there is very little lingering shame for the subterfuge.

[heorte]

Though this might be more easily managed with two hands, Ellis prepares to balance the book in one while slipping his arm around her so that he might settle his fingers at the nape of her neck, or slip them along her shoulder and bicep, set over her shoulder blades or simply keep Wysteria held close to him.

He puts a soft kiss to the top of her head, book tipped permissively for her readjustment.

"You were going to tell me what you thought of the heroine's cousin," Ellis murmurs. "The one who looked so strangely similar to her in the right light."

By now they've read enough books together that they might guess at the twist approaching. His thumb slides along the curve of her shoulder.

"You aren't tired?" comes with some amusement.

[heirring]

"Oh, not at all. It's hardly so late as all that, Ellis— Why? Should I be?" This, chipperly asked as she turns pages and makes herself comfortable under the drape of his arm. She can hear his breathing very close enough her cheek, and the warmth of him is the most pleasant thing in all of the world.

"Ah. Here we are. This paragraph. As for the cousin, I don't care for her at all. I understand what the author is attempting to do with her metaphorically speaking, but I think it feels very much like a needless diversion from a narrative standpoint. Mark my words, she'll be revealed as cruel and conniving and dramatically killed off or imprisoned in the third act and I won't be at all surprised by it. I'm afraid the series has become entirely predictable. With the exception being that I'm very surprised by how much I've come to like Lord Richard."

Quite satisfied by the arrangement of limbs and having secured herself so neatly there against him, Wysteria surrenders control of the book back to Ellis.

[heorte]

They've been sharing a bed, in one form or another, for months now. But they're settled in so closely against each other, her hand set against his bare skin. Ellis is quiet in the wake of her recitation, fingers moving along the fabric at her shoulder.

"There's meant to be more books," he says finally, fingers hitching beneath the fabric. "Do you suppose Lord Richard will make it past the end of this one and into the next?"

This is not reading. And Ellis is ready to begin. Soon. After he hears her opinions on Lord Richard's chances. Between them, they don't always come to the right prediction, but Ellis has grown very fond of hearing how decisively Wysteria shares her opinions.

[heirring]

"Difficult to say," she says, her thumb sweeping absently at his middle where her hand has come to settle. "Ordinarily I would guess no, but as he's increasingly being cast as something of a fool I would say that his odds of survival are growing. Or that he will be given a very tragic and heroic death. But it must be one or the other."

Here, her restless thumb settles. Without drawing away, Wysteria raises her face to regard him.

"Are you tired?"

[heorte]

"No."

The light weight of her hand over his stomach is pleasant. How closely she has tucked herself is pleasant.

Comparatively, this bed is far less fine than the sprawling mattress they'd shared on Lady Paget's estate. But Ellis is fonder of this arrangement, of a bed size more naturally for two people rather than acres of space on either side of them.

"Even if I were, I'd still like to sit up and read to you," he reassures. "We'll manage a few chapters tonight, I think."

Which Ellis punctuates by a brief kiss, made slightly clumsy by the angle of their bodies, before turning the book towards the light and beginning to read. As tends to be their habit, Ellis will read until she tires of hearing the story, or until yawns between them break up the flow of his recitation.

[heirring]

Satisfied, Wysteria settles once more against him and lapses into attentive silence as Ellis begins to read. The rumble of his voice under her cheek and hand is soothing, and he is very warm, and the room is pleasantly close and quiet. And if she were bolder, she might easily put some small bend in her knee and so set her leg a little over Ellis's. She settles instead for the line of her leg merely pressed against his and for listening to the rise and fall of his speaking, and thinks distantly of lying there in the clover in the sun after swimming.

And despite all her insistence (or indeed, her own certainty), Ellis has hardly progressed farther than a few pages before the combination of all of these things has put Wysteria quite firmly to sleep.