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

The little scoff she makes in response to kissing you says exactly what she thinks of this list being devised in retrospect. That's not how this is meant to go, Ellis.

She shifts a little closer too, narrowing that space between them. Not over him, no, but set near enough that they're aligned and bending to face him is very easy to do.

"Are we speaking literally or metaphorically? Because I believe you have made it something of a point to give me every advantage in this, and so I can hardly surrender it even if I wished to."

It's all good cheer and in a tone that's quite conversational despite their nearness as her hand, flat on his chest and under his curving palm, shifts faintly—fingertips scuffing very absently at the thatch of chest hair. She has laid her arm across him like this before while he's been without a shirt. There is little difference between that and this, really.

"Aye," is only a little amused. Yes, he has been deliberate in how he has given over to her in this.

Banter back and forth as to the existence of this list or that aside, Ellis is treading carefully around the question of what might be wanted, what he might once have been accustomed to. The rise and fall of his chest beneath her hands is steady, his skin warm, lingering dampness from the swipes of cloth evaporating in the space between their bodies.

Some of what might inhabit any list Ellis would write, he suspects she has already gleaned from him. Wysteria is very keen in her observations, when a topic holds her attention. (Her hands caught up in his hair, insistently tipping his head back, eyes bright and watchful.) There are things Ellis has not made much attempt to withhold from her, even if he could have.

"I haven't forgotten what you asked before," he tells her. On the subject of dancing, of needing to be led in some fashion, if they are to continue talking around the thing in all its forms. "I think I can manage it, should you maintain your present vantage point."

So literally speaking, as the metaphorical positioning was never in question.

This close, it must be obvious when the width of her smile flickers. It's not a failure of humor, only a brief kind of flexion—the broadly comfortable shape of her focus narrowing and sharpening. She studies him for a moment there, the curve of her expression shifting as her gaze flickers to his mouth and then back up again.

(No, actually. There is some difference between her hand here across his chest like this.)

"Very well. Easily done," has the tenor of a declaration, a point of punctuation on some page in her field journal. It's underlined further by a brisk kiss pressed suddenly to his mouth and when she sways up after, it's on the hand he hasn't caught with his own.

From that higher vantage, she leans down and kisses him again. And then once more for good measure, something methodical in its shape as she studiously moves to lean properly over rather than merely against him. It does lend something in the matter of leverage, doesn't it? It makes it very easy to make make demands on him with the gentle edge of her teeth and some tentative, goading openness.

Easily done.

Whatever answering chuckle Ellis might have breathed back to her is caught up in the kiss she applies.

His fingers had held at her jawline, offering unnecessary guidance. But as she applies herself more fully to the kiss, Ellis cedes that touch in favor of first cupping the nape of her neck, fingers slipping in at her hairline, and then drifting down to her hip. It is a particularly pleasant thing to be so pinned (if pinned is even the word, when he might free himself so easily) by her, encourage the light scrape of her teeth with a nip of his own.

At her hip, his grip has become a firm, fixed thing. They might do this for some time. He has such an appreciation for kissing her. It is only absent impulse that sees him lifting his hand from where it had laid over hers on his chest to reach up and seek the combs holding her hair in place. There is no urgency for anything other than this, which echoes back in its way to that little room in Markham, his hands so careful in her hair as she'd asked him questions.

His hand moves and so does hers—creeping up to the sweep of his clavicle, fingertips soft at the hollow of his throat. It's a delicate little thing, and more careful than her other hand is where Wysteria's planted it alongside his shoulder to support herself. Not shy, though. Only mindful. Gentle, as if he's some skittish creature that might spook otherwise despite what that playful scrape of teeth might otherwise imply. Yes, says the methodical and studious shape of how she pursues his mouth. They could do this for some time. She is in no hurry, and he needn't be concerned with the possibility that she's being at all foolish.

Indeed so gradually does she shift over him that it would seem hardly noticable at all if not for his hand at her hip and the altered angle of her kiss, until that supporting hand shifts and the angle of her elbow closes again. It's surrendering leverage in favor of closeness—not bold enough to outright insinuate her leg over him, but pinning him far more properly between her hands and under some measure of her weight.

He's broad enough that it's easy to do. And there's something inherently pleasant about the warmth of him felt through the layers of her shirt and chemise and bodice and stays. And how fond she is of him when he's like this, gentle as a lamb. It begs to be tested or teased; her fingers shifting from Ellis's neck to push back into the dark curls behind his ear.

At present, he has very little space in which he might conceal something from her. Wysteria's hands and tentative allocation of her weight over him as she presses soft, insistent kisses to his mouth. Ellis' hands have fallen into familiar pattern, tightening and loosening by turns where he has settled his grip at her waist, the small of her back, over the sturdy fabric of his dress and the stays beneath it.

They wind their way to the point where Ellis might usually call a halt. Break them apart, send them to bed or to respective duties, whatever is nearest to hand to interrupt the flow of the proceedings. This time, when the moment comes, it isn't a full break but a minor check. Ellis drawing a breath, chest rising beneath her hands, as he realigns his attention to focus on her rather than on her mouth.

"Do you intend to keep all of this on?" he asks, looking up at her and thinking of how long it typically takes to get all of Wysteria's many layers off. There's no expectation one way or another, just an easy inquiry that she might decide however she pleases while his hands run up and down her back.

That minor check nearly prompts a sigh from her, a little sound that might have developed into a frustrated one given the motivation to. But it isn't, and so it doesn't. Instead, her breathing comes warm and gentle across the corner of his mouth and Wysteria looks at him as he looks at her. She thinks she will kiss him again, though the scuff of his beard prickles at her when she does. She thinks it would be a pleasure to answer his question in the way she wishes to—'Do you want me to keep all of it on?'

But she knows what kind of response that is likely to be rewarded with. I want what you want, Wysteria, her husband would say. So instead she answers him, "No, I mean to take all of it off," before kissing him once, brisk and brief at the corner of his mouth.

She levers herself directly upright after, untangling her fingers from his the curls of his hand behind his ear and drawing out from between his hands on her. Moving to sit upright and drawing round so she might sit with her legs underneath, she prudently arranges herself beside where he lies in the bed with her knees pointing toward the headboard. That way she might face Ellis directly rather than otherwise.

"But you're not permitted to help undress me," has the air of a prim instruction as her hands set at the lacings of her bodice. "Agreed?"

(He's far too slow at it.)

"All of it," Ellis echoes, not necessarily questioning but settling the prospect between them. One hand had come up, touching his mouth briefly, as he acclimated to the absence of her. Having taken this very minor stock, said hand drifts to settle lightly at her knee. A small, easily displaced touch that has the air of holding place; it is a hardship for contact between them to be severed.

She has not gone far. Just far enough that he cannot easily kiss her, and apparently cannot do anything that might slow down the process of undoing all her many lacings and buttons.

"What am I permitted to do then?" he questions, a slight smile working across his face. "Bank the fire? Read a passage from your book of archeology accounts?"

The strength of her scoff is rather remarkable. The force of it, and the absurdity of his suggestions, turn what might have been a halting answer quite bold as she begins loosening laces:

"Oh really, Ellis! You're entirely impossible. Don't you know you're meant to watch me undress and formulate an opinion? I would think that you of all people, who are so fond of saying so little while you take account of everything about you, would find the prospect appealing. 'Would you have me put something back on before I come out, Wysteria?,'" she paraphrases in her best burred imitation of him, which is poor but affectionately rendered. "I looked at you when you came along entirely undressed, and now you wish to read a passage from one of my books!"

She scoffs once more for good measure. With an abrupt tug to the two sides of the bodice, the ribbon lacing loosens to such an adequate degree that she might wriggle it up over her head and so extract herself from it.

Within this span of time, where Wysteria's vision is momentarily obscured by her own bodice, Ellis has shifted from prone along the mattress to seated more or less upright. A change in position that puts him closer, well-placed to put hands on her thigh and hip and stall her with a light kiss.

"Forgive me," does not sound contrite.

And it is wholly separate from what comes after: a second kiss, quick on the heels of those words. A lower, fonder profession murmured into the corner of her mouth, "I love you."

Blunt and unadorned, no endearments to underscore the sentiment. He has been telling her this for years, in all manner of ways. None of them have been lovely or eloquent, most have even been silent. But he says this to her now, a reminder, as his lips move along his jaw.

He has been told to stay out of the way, but she might remind him. Just once more.

He's quick when he cares to be, promptly there with his hands and his mouth the moment she's escaped from the bodice. It might make her laugh, or maybe prompt some scoff of mock offense were it not for that sweet, lovely thing he says aloud. It's a very simple phrase, she knows. It isn't like in books, or poems, or even like she sometimes pretends it might be when she's very bored or he's been taken very far away by some demand of Riftwatch's work. But, plain as it is, the satisfaction derived from it is sharp and full—sticking somewhere behind her ribs and clutching there.

How sweet he is. How very delicate and gentle. How very good he is to her, not just here as his mouth roves but all the time. It makes the heart sing, and the back of her neck burn hot, and—

She squirms and laughs, prickled by the scrape of his beard or by maybe by the tingle of her own flushing skin or the perception of her pulse under his lips. After, a hand clutching reactively at his bare shoulder, she turns her face in toward him and can't help but smile against his cheek.

"You make me so very happy."

This, presumably in addition to temporarily having successfully distracted her from shedding layers to match him.

"I love you," is unnecessary repetition. Not a request for any elaboration on her part, for anything beyond what Wysteria has already offered. There's no need to hear more. The bright glow of her voice tells him enough.

So why not say it again? Here, in this shared bed, when he has laid himself bare in nearly every sense of the word? Is there no better time than this? The words come easier now, and Ellis knows to seize these moments. He has loved her so long that there is no distinguishing the feeling; it is enmeshed so deeply in him, coloring everything he does. It is so vast that three words hardly feel sufficient, but he gives them to her again.

"I always want to make you happy."

This too, is obvious. Obvious to the point of comedy, perhaps.

His hands are coaxing her closer, where he might put his face in against the curve of her neck, kiss the bend of her shoulder. Loosen the ties of the skirt, an absent nod to Wysteria's goal even as he hinders her in accomplishing it.

It is obvious. And it does make her laugh—not because it's funny (or not only for that reason), but due to some flush of high spirits and satisfaction. If that's his goal, he's done such a fine job of accomplishing it.

Warmed to her center by all of it, holding I love yous like notes folded in her skirt pockets, Wysteria allows herself to be drawn in without protest or indeed even second thought. Her hands are willing too, finding their way to his bicep and up the back of Ellis's bent neck and into his dark hair.

There's more purpose to it than there is to his picking at her overskirt's laces—her smiling at his temple, and kissing him there, and winding her fingers into his curls so as to distract him from her neck and shoulder. That way she might look at him when she says, all fond and flush and loving him, "Thank you for being so patient with me." If she exerts a little leverage, she can kiss the corner of his mouth, unserious and smiling. "But say it to me again, won't you? That you love me."

As it turns out, they're perfectly sufficient words.

How easily bidden he is, face lifting at the first tightening of her hands in his hair. Having her close again, settled in his lap and near enough that he might kiss her as he likes, answer the coaxing of her hands so immediately, is hardly incentive to give her any space to return to her earlier task. The ties pulled loose at her hips, Ellis' hands are freed to circle round her waist, press a palm to the small of her back, lift fingers to brush a few errant locks of hair back from her face as he tells her, "I love you."

Words made sweeter and more tender for how long he's kept them caught behind his teeth. Hoarded for months, years, polished smooth and shining like river stones for all that Ellis has lived through in the course of it.

His hand cups her cheek. He kisses her again, because there is no reason he shouldn't.

"I love you," a fourth time, unbidden, in the space between one kiss and another.

How happy he looks under her hands in the warm glow of the firelight, those practiced lines in his face and the slant of his brow bent in the fondest directions. Yes, he loves her. And yes, she is pleased with it. And yes, his hands are warm and his mouth is sweet as pressed cider. But the thing that warms, for which she seems the most fortunate for having so near, is the look in his face and how diminished the scar on his throat or his poorly set fingers or any of those other hard marks on Ellis's person seem in its shadow. How good it is to see his affections so powerfully in his face; how satisfying it is to hear him say so, not just as the object of it but because she loves very little more than she loves to be told true things.

It's very difficult to kiss him properly rather than simply smiling wide through the pleasure of having her requests so readily met. "Good," she tells him, a laugh in the note of it. "Because it would be"—she kisses him or he kisses her—"Very unfair and not at all equitable if you didn't. I'm far too fond of you for you not to feel the same."

When she does manage to kiss him correctly again, she is all enthusiasm: high spirits and good cheer, unvarnished in her affections and failing entirely to play at any bit of coyness. Is it chaste? No, certainly not. But delight comes far more naturally to her than any overthought attempt at being sensuous does, and the desire that stems naturally out from it is far more self-possessed and doubtless. It's important to me that you be satisfied, he'd said. It's difficult to imagine a state in which she might be more content than this one.

Fond of him.

Ellis' smile widens to hear it, the terms she uses to describe her affection. It is good, as is all the feeling behind her kiss. They are linked so tightly together. Ellis might have set shoulders against the headboard if he had any foresight, but he had come to her without any thought other than wanting to kiss her, and he tightens his hold about her waist propelled by that same wish.

"I do."

It cuts so simply through every other complex part of this arrangement. All his misgivings, all his fears, the looming approach of a future in which he can no longer remain with her, the thing that cannot be shifted or diminished or waved away is this: he is so in love with her. It is in his blood; it cannot be sliced out of him.

He would say it again, and again, against her mouth between kisses. The urge is certainly there. Wysteria has her leverage, and he is content to give over to her, kiss breaking open as one blurs into another. His hand slips from her neck to the delicate ribbon at the front of her chemise, loosens it with some vague intention to apply his mouth to her throat and shoulder, should he find a point at which he could lean away from her kiss.

Despite the rule she'd made only minutes ago, Wysteria brooks no argument against having that ribbon undone by him. Instead, encouraged by Ellis's wandering hand, she gives his hair a prompting tug and then relinquishes her hold on him in favor of addressing the lacing at the waist of her overskirt. She does not, however, surrender his mouth—insisting he continue to kiss her by way of her own jocular, smiling kisses as she eagerly frees laces and buttons. There's some giggly, glad spirit in it—he loves her and she loves him, and the sensation is warm as summer light on the face—that doesn't diminish even when Wysteria does at last break back from the kiss so as to insinuate her hands between them in order to undo the plain single wrapped tie of her stays.

"Help me out of these things," she says, entirely pleased to be contradicting herself. He can kiss her wherever he likes and in whatever fashion he cares for in exchange.

(He can be quick when he wishes to be.)

"Aye," is easy, thickly-spoken assent, blurred slightly by the kiss following on its heels.

All the time spent undressing her, taking his time to do it all slowly and with great ceremony, turns out to have some unforeseen benefit here: there is no reason to take his attention fully from Wysteria to do as he's bidden.

Would it be easier if they were upright? Perhaps.

But there is charm in this too. How honest he is in his reluctance to allow her to extricate herself from his lap, keeping her cinched in close even as he makes brief clumsy work of the borrow skirts, seeks the next set of laces to work open and discard.

In the course of the process, he is eventually obliged to slow while working free the laces of her stays. The quality of the kisses change as Ellis' body folds in towards hers, laying kisses to her jawline, then her throat while he works at this set of laces, the sturdy fabric pulled tight over her chemise that would be better tossed to the floor.

It takes real effort not to repeat that Aye back to him, softly teasing. Indeed, thank the gods for his mouth at her jaw and neck. They serve as able distractions—prompting hitching breaths and laughing exhales both rather than some cheeky remark.

If he's seeing to her stays, then Wysteria hurries to address the fastenings of her underskirt. That way, by the time the one is ready to shed, she's prepared to dispense with both sets of woolen and calico skirts as well.

"Wait, wait," isn't actually asking to slow the pace of his hands or his mouth at all. Rather, it's strictly to afford her the space to wrestle free of the great bulk of undone fabric and boning about her person, good cheer and haste both in equal measure as Wysteria otherwise grudgingly extracts herself from his lap.

In remarkably short order, and despite the requirement rearrangement of limbs and bodies, she is successfully stripped down to her chemise, to her bright red stockings and yellow ribbons, and the array of combs and pins still seeing her hair more or less arranged.

The chemise, she might keep. Ellis isn't going to invoke Wysteria's modesty outright, knowing how absurd that will strike her considering their aims for the evening. But llis at least doesn't reach for the gauzy fabric outright.

Instead, his hands return to her hips. Doesn't lever her directly back to his lap, but runs thumbs along her ribs and stomach as his hands span over the dip of her waist. Looks up into her face for a long moment before leaning up to kiss her. Slowly, thoroughly, because presumably he will be less able to continue if he intends to make good on his offer of—

"I'll take your hair down."

For the moment, the red stockings are permitted to stay.

"Before we go to bed properly."

Is it uncomfortable to sleep with combs in? Wysteria has expressed dismay about all number of things, but not yet combs and hairpins. Perhaps she has simply not worked her way to them.

It's so fine and slow a kiss that is checks some of Wysteria's momentum, replacing some of that laughing and smiling quality in her being with something more tender and attentive both. Or maybe that's the radiant heat of him more easily felt along the outside of her thigh now that there's much less fabric between them. Or maybe it's that look he'd fixed her with before he'd even kissed her. Regardless, it prompts a softer breath across his mouth when the kiss breaks, and invites her hands to chase absently after his wrists—

"So not just this moment, then."

Ha ha ha, what an excellent joke.

"No, not just this moment."

Ha, ha.

Regardless, he's not made much attempt to escape her grasp. His wrists are easily captured. It doesn't prevent him leaning back in to her, seeking her mouth again.

Suppose all they do is kiss. It is certainly slowing the process of undressing, but Ellis feels no particular urgency. He has already grown used to the idea that he won't grow tired of kissing her. Even now, with him stripped bare and Wysteria in her chemise, with the warmth of her so readily apparent when his hands fit to her waist or hip or perhaps even her thigh, he still has more thought for the way her breath hitch or her mouth opens under his when he kisses her.

And she is in such good spirits. Ellis has a fair amount to say on this too, if he were ever asked or the sort of man who spoke at length about anything. He has grown so terribly partial to the way she smiles, and all the more attached to the moments when he's confident he's the cause of it.

The way her mouth shifts under his, slanting toward a smile despite his kiss, suggests Ellis's plan—are maybe just the easy, straightforward confirmation—has met with some approval. Good. Fine though it might have been to debate the semantics of the thing, she finds herself quite happy with a simple assertion and with the patient, unhurried reinforcement of his lips. Meanwhile, the fingers wrapped about his wrists are very light. Not restrictive so much as they are merely following—ghosting gently along bidden in whatever directions Ellis might be compelled to wander.

Yes, this is all very agreeable.

Indeed, Wysteria is content to stay so arranged for a long measure: hands light, aware of the warmth of his skin and his bare forearms and his bare everything else, answering his kisses in kind and broadly feeling more and more pleased by the arrangement with each one. How pleasant it is to sit in this little room with the heavy curtains drawn very tight against the window, with a fire full in the hearth and a heavy fur piled at the end of the bed which isn't large but is perfectly suited to feeling welcome to the space so close beside to him. And how good it is when Ellis wants things—to put his hands on her, to kiss her, yes, but also that he plans to attend to her pins and combs and has already undone the little ribbon on her chemise in spite of her strict instruction. It's very cheering to be so aware of his sentimentality, and to in some sense own it.

Though, no. She rather means to do more than just kiss him or be kissed by him. So on the heels of some slower and more thorough kiss, having forgotten her intention to strip out of her stockings and dismissive of the difficulty that shifting closer may present should she later recall it, Wysteria makes to insinuate herself back into his lap. It seems very rational to hike the hem of her chemise up to do so.

The intent of the movement doesn't register immediately. Ellis is more preoccupied with the slow-going process of working the combs and pins from her hair. With his attention so divided, it is all done by careful instinct, unraveling pins as he finds them, drawing out combs gently so as not to tug or snag. It is not especially efficient, but efficiency is an easy sacrifice when the alternative would be to stop kissing Wysteria for any measure of time.

Of course, by degrees Wysteria closes the space between them. Ellis is obliged to leave off his work to catch hold of her by the waist. Here, they realign. The lift of her hem sticks in his head, even if Ellis doesn't yet reach to put a hand on Wysteria's newly bared knee.

"Wait," is not Stop. It is only a request to move along with him as Ellis shifts retreats those last few inches up along the mattress, so he might finally set his shoulders against the headboard.

Which coincidentally puts him within reach of the little end table with it's ceramic bowl. Likely meant for washing up, it's now a depository for hair pins and combs.

He is keeping carefully focused on the practical. Not on where Wysteria has settled her weight, or the drape of her chemise across her thighs, or how close they are, or how he will have such difficulty letting her out of his lap now that he has full knowledge of how well she looks tucked in this close to him.

Wait, he says, and she's very obedient to being coaxed up the mattress after him—leaning in after his hands and his mouth, and only a little shy at the prospect of actually settling her weight in his lap once Ellis has propped himself up properly against the headboard. It's a slow thing, her hair coming down under his hands and her settling there with a knee to either side of him. For how shockingly warm he is against the narrow sliver of space where skin is bared between the top of her stockings and the twist of her chemise's hem. Not that she hasn't been so very aware of his nakedness, of course. But being aware and being something like involved are two very different things.

(She is, as it happens, not at all focused on the practical. Rather, her attention is fixed firmly on the points of contact between them, and the fact that she ought to be embarrassed to have situated herself so but isn't. She is thinking, all at once, of lying on her back in that Kirkwall boarding house and how pleasant his weight has been.)

Wysteria doesn't directly return to kissing him though. Instead, with her hands light at Ellis's shoulders and her braids slowly unraveling into uneven waves with each soft scrape of pin sliding to the bottom of the ceramic basin, Wysteria squeezes her knees unconsciously about him—

"Ellis—" she starts to say, and then stops herself.

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