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

Her answer of "Oh Ellis," has a distinctly chiding tenor alongside how hitched it is, as if she means to tell him You can't say that. Only he can, and he has, and yes actually, that is what she'd wanted from him—to know how he would like to see her, to be given instruction so she might show him clearly how ready and able she is to follow it.

So practically at his direction, she shudders against him—her hand at his cheek falling to brace at his broad shoulder for the unconscious leverage with which she might press in tightly to his hands on her. The sound she makes is sharp and small, briefly bowstring tight, and then at once louder and more pronounced the moment before she does as he'd asked her to: letting go, the line of her spine lengthening as that liquid heat of pleasure rises through her from his hands and sparks through every part of her bright and golden and very like what she imagines the good sort of magic done by proper magicians must be like.

Which is a ridiculous and insensible thought, but she thinks it all the same and finds it still there at the edge of her fingertips like a hungry little beast eager for scraps when she eventually comes back to herself, and to Ellis. Her breath out is very long, and the easing of her grip on him (with both fingers and knees) slowly done.

Still, he is touching her. All through the arch of her body, the sounds she makes, the way she does come apart, the rapid, unsteady pull of her breath under his palm, it is near blinding. He cannot stop looking at Wysteria anymore than he can stop touching her, answering the shivering cinch of her body until all the tension flows out of her and Ellis is obliged to relocate his hand from beneath the stretch of satin fabric to her hip.

"Wysteria," comes so softly, hand lifting from the line of scarring on her chest to cup her cheek. She is so close that it is no effort at all to draw her into a kiss.

They might kiss for some time. It is open and lax; Ellis has left no time for her to catch her breath. His fingers dig in at her hip, gentle pressure without any particular insistent bent; Wysteria has gone nowhere, remains satisfyingly close.

"You," he says, thick against her mouth. "You are so beautiful."

A stand in for many other sentiments. Some that would perhaps draw that same scolding tone from her, should Ellis wind his way towards working them into proper sentences.

She's very pliable in that state, and drawn easily into kissing him. Not that she often challenges him on the subject, save perhaps when it comes to matters of propriety and there can be no question as to that when they're here, alone, behind a firmly locked door (nevermind that sound has the potential to carry, and the landlady makes a point of being fully informed when it comes to all business that occurs below her roof—).

And he is so warm, and his hands are so sure where he lays them, and she dearly loves the way he sounds when he says her name like it's the only one he knows. You says Ellis, and never has that word been so particular or so sweet.

"You're beautiful," Wysteria repeats back at him, just as close and half as thick as she catches her breath and the sparking dregs of that pleasure flickers through her. She is distantly aware of his fingers leaving slick marks on her hip and the sweat prickling between her shoulder blades under her undone chemise, but far more immediate is the pulse in Ellis's neck as she moves her hand to touch him there, and the heavy sound of his breathing rumbling so close.

She kisses him again. "I love you." Another, softer press of her lips. "You're so good to me." And another. "I told you, didn't I?"—because again, he answers so well to scolding—"That you ought to tell me what you wanted."

"I thought I had."

As if there can only be one thing, a singular request put to her at the very last moment, when he has sufficiently distracted her.

He'd had some intention of putting his mouth to Wysteria's throat, or her collarbone, or lower. But it is a wrench to even consider anything else but kissing her. Even the space between these kisses, where they trade these murmurs of conversation, feels like a significant delay.

"Do your legs hurt?" is a very practical question, divorced from the concept of which of them might want what. It has occurred to Ellis that he's kept her in his lap for quite some time, and all desires aside, they might take stock of their respective states before considering any other courses of action.

Her breath is a laugh, and then the sound she makes that follows is low and humming—a murmur of objection pressed to his mouth. In the interest of arguing the point—yes, alright, he had; but consider the benefits of repeat requests, Ellis—makes for a fine reason to drape herself more fully against him.

"No, I'm quite comfortable." Sitting in his lap may not be quite like riding in a saddle is, but it's not so far removed either. "Though if you mean for me to remove my stockings, then these are less than ideal circumstances for that."

But obviously that's only the case if he wishes for her to be bare legged. Oh no, how terrible! A decision directly in need of making!

"Am I too heavy?"

"You're perfect."

Not a determination as to whether or not he intends to remove her stockings, or her undergarments, or even her chemise.

With Wysteria cinched so close, Ellis occupies himself with nipping her lower lip. Laying another kiss there, then another, as he nudges her chemise from one shoulder on the way to running his hand up and down her back.

"I've a mind to keep you here. As long as you'd indulge me."

Well, so long as she is perfect.

Like a cat stretches toward a sunbeam, Wysteria places her other hand there on the headboard—bracketing him there between both her knees and arms—and settles in so flush that she can feel his breathing as his hand wanders.

"I enjoy indulging you."

She does. It's among her very favorite things even outside of circumstances like these. It helps to that it's often so easy to grant him what he wants. Take for example here and his she also would prefer to remain as she is, right like this where he's so shockingly warm and she can wrap herself so easily about him.

The answering smile is pressed to her temple. Ellis' palm is smoothing slow circles across her back, along the wings of her shoulder blades.

"I'm lucky."

Lucky that she ever entertained any of this, that she kissed him back that first night in her kitchen, that she wanted him for a husband. Ellis is very aware of all the ways in which he is exceptionally blessed.

"Wysteria," is only a murmur, aimless and fond, as Ellis puts a soft kiss to her jawline. There is some vague intent towards her bare shoulder, the line of her throat, but Ellis is content to wind his way there slowly.

She answers him with a low hum of satisfaction and by turning her face very faintly to press a kiss to his bristled cheek. It will be a small miracle, she thinks with some pleasure, if tomorrow her face isn't tender from kissing him with all this hair on his face.

"Only as I'm very selfish," she says after a time, in no more hurry to rush him along through charming banter as he is to progress south with his mouth. "And had become very jealous at the possibility that anyone might think you weren't mine."

Her knees close briefly about him for emphasis.

"And I am," he reminds her, a murmur against the curve of her neck. "I have been."

For a long time. Years. It is truth stitched into his sinew. Even before there was any proposal, before there was any kiss in her kitchen. He was hers. It would have always been true.

His hand slides down her back, along her thigh, the rucked hem of her chemise, then back upwards again.

"You feel so good," comes as a breath, pressed against her skin.

In answer to this praise, Wysteria shifts in his lap—a cheeky little twist of hip, the shifting of knees, and some alteration to the line of her shoulder under his warm mouth as if to make herself more comfortable there. Yes, he has been hers. But what a pleasure it is to hear him say it so plainly with his voice, and his mouth, and his hands all at nearly the same time.

"You may thank our landlady for the washtub tomorrow then," she says near his ear, breath very warm in the narrow space and the precursor to a gentle and impulsive set of teeth there at tender cartilage.

The last thing Wysteria likely wants to hear is that Ellis wouldn't have minded a little mud.

The catch of teeth draws a ragged sound in return, his grip at her waist tightening. He turns his face against Wysteria's neck for a long moment before lifting his head up, creating just enough space to look at her. Ellis lifts his hand, brushes the tendrils of curls back from her face.

"It's nothing to do with the tub."

She is, after all, perfect. Tub or no tub.

He looks at her in that narrow space and oh, it warms something low in her as air over embers does. How beautiful he is. How striking his attention. How easy it is to decipher him like this.

Her hands draw down from the headboard and together move to touch his face: fingers to the wide set of his jaw; thumbs tracing cheekbones, and the lines drawn from his nose to his mouth; running across the prettily swollen shape of his mouth and pressing a thumb softly into the divot below his lower lip.

"I want you," is so sweet and plain. "I want to look at you. I love looking at you like this. I mean, I love looking at you always, but like this—"

If he's only hers, then this way he looks now is among the most exclusive things in the world.

"Oh, especially."

Under her hands, the draw of her thumb across his lips, Ellis' mouth had parted. There are moments where he looks at her and thinks that he might burn to ash if he cannot kiss her. And he feels that in this moment, despite having been kissing her for what seems like hours.

He's nearly light-headed with it, wanting her. As if Wysteria is not as close as she could possibly be. As if she isn't touching him now, telling him such sweet things.

"Then we'll arrange for it often."

Often. A reminder: they are married. She might have him whenever she wished.

"You can look at me until you've grown tired of it."

The tracing, lingering slip of his fingers on her skin has resumed. Slick over her hip, down her thigh beneath the rucked up folds of her chemise. There is such a scarce amount of room between them for it. He can't bear to sit her back, and so they make do as they are now.

"Don't say that," is the most gentle form of scolding she's capable of, soft and not at all serious. "I would be far too busy to sleep, or to eat, or to write anything down ever again. And eventually your Commander would come scold me for keeping you away from the war."

But gods, how much she cares for him. How much she likes his hands about her and to be cinched in so close so that he might easily touch her however he wishes to. That she might do the same—

With his face between her hands, Wysteria seeks his mouth out again with hers. The resulting kiss is very warm and very open, not tentative but slow and achingly thorough.

He gives up to her so easily, sinks into the kiss. His hands still as his attention narrows down to Wysteria's hands on his face and the way she's kissing him. His grip loosens, fingers falling to her hips.

"You would write things down again," he murmurs. "I wouldn't distract you for so long as that."

How long could he hold her attention? Ellis has marveled that he's managed as long as he had, all shortcomings acknowledged. His thumbs rub back and forth along the inside of her thighs, following the wrinkles of fabric where it's draped and wrinkled over her legs.

"Will you let me distract you now?"

Again. As if they are starting fresh, rather than retreading familiar ground.

"Yes," is an exceptionally easy answer to give him. Her knees are soft at his sides. She has a sturdy callous between the first and second joints of her right forefinger from holding a pen that scuffs there against Ellis's cheek now.

(Funny, how ready that humming sensation which blooms under the skin when he sets his hands on her is to return despite being so recently satisfied.)

"Very happily."

Despite all this kissing, it is still a wrench to break fully from her. He is only putting his mouth to her collarbone, but even in that shift of attention there is the immediate urge to return to collect yet another kiss from her again.

What means does he intend to distract her with? It is easily discerned, in the rearrangement of her chemise and the path his hand is taking under her hem. The intention of touching her while his mouth tracks warm along her skin, telegraphed by the return of his hand to hanging laces of her chemise, encouraging it down her shoulder in tandem with the slip of his fingers along damp satin so recently allowed back into its place.

Later, maybe, she will come up with some objection to this particular method of taking up her attention when she has otherwise been so very pointed that he ought to show her how best to distract him in return. But no argument occurs to her at present as Ellis invites the neck of her chemise lower, and his hand returns to the barely concealed heat between her legs.

Save, maybe: "Wait," she says, on the tail end of a thrilled little inhale over the touch. "Let me just—"

It's not stop, but she does withdraw a hand from him in favor of fishing up under her own shift's hem, blindly seeking out the fine little ribbon and two small buttons that see her smallclothes secured. Thin as the fabric may be, there's very little give in it and if those are undone he may be afforded considerably more space to—

Do whatever he likes, one assumes.

"Clever."

Ellis might have attempted the ribbon or the buttons, but there is no reason to assume it would have occurred to him now when it hadn't occurred to him earlier. She would have been very cross if he'd torn it, and Ellis has had that in the back of his mind, weighing against the wrench dislodging her would be.

What he likes, in this moment, is apparently to return his fingers to their earlier work, to press into her, reapply his thumb to run in circles over her. Slow, methodical work, as he crowds her, hand held tight at the small of her back for support, to encourage her lean but not allow her too far, all in service of setting his mouth to newly bared skin.

He is more than satisfied to retread this ground, while he considers the rest of the night. How they might spend their time. What else their present position lends itself to and if they wish to entertain it.

There's no urgency in the contemplation of it. Wysteria is so pretty like this, obliging him this way. Without the cut of her smallclothes against his wrist, he is afforded better range of movement. That is surely an improvement over the first time.

It feels very correct, this business of being pressed between both his hands. How pleasant it is to be subject to that flat span of his palm so close against her lower back. How satisfying the slide and press of his fingers and thumb are. Her sigh sounds like agreement. Yes, thank you. She is in fact very clever, though its so kind of him that he should notice—

It's strange how quickly she warms in answer to him a second time. It would make more sense, wouldn't it? To be in some sense sluggish to this attention. Instead, it's as if it takes no time at all for him to key her back up. A hand has found its way to his shoulder, warm skin and the plain lay of muscle, and she allows herself to lean in the direction he's suggested for her. If it means enabling Ellis's wandering mouth or—it's possible she imagines this, but—a deeper slide of his fingers, why resist?

In short order, Wysteria's breath has begun to thicken. Some hitch of her hip and the rise and fall of her breast is entirely encouraging. Moreso is the hand that has moved from the fastenings of her small clothes to the neck of her chemise. After all, if he took so well to her interference with the one garment then why not here too where she may help along the baring of certain skin to him?

(See. He's plenty distracting.)

It would be such a wrench to lose her weight in his lap, or else he would think more seriously about laying her out across the mattress. This is a good middle ground, where he might keep her supported while he runs fingers through the heat of her, attentive to all the ways she responds to him.

"I had thought," he says, low against her skin. Mouth pressing soft, lingering kisses over the swell of her breast. "I thought we might do this again after."

The way Ellis might have proposed a walk, or an alteration to one of her experiments. They might do this again, and again, until it were impossible to continue. They have all night.

He'd said it before, hadn't he? He always wants to be touching her. It is a broad description. It hinges as much on the lacing of their fingers or his hand at the small of her back as it does the deep press of fingers into her, the insistent circling of his thumb.

It is about being close, in whatever what is permissible.

Wysteria unravels some lacing. The fabric gives for it, and Ellis breathes out a sound near a laugh. Appreciative.

"Again after," Wysteria repeats back, prompting both her own little breath of a laugh and a distinct clench she feels low in her middle. "That's certainly a thought."

She's very studious about seeing all her all lacings undone, pulled slack enough that all it requires to shift the fabric further is the pluck of fingers and a little motivation. That part though she leaves over to him, hand fluttering down to the joint of his elbow. There's something fascinating about the subtle flex of muscle and sinew there, and how it travels up into his shoulder shoulder where she might feel its echo there under her other hand.

She follows that end point in his shoulder with pressing fingertips. Some motion of his hand transforms it into an impulsive and experimentally light dig of fingernails, and briefly interrupts:

"You are going to"—that hitch of breath; it's very easy to sink her weight between his hands—"Going to let me have you eventually, won't you? Or do I need to find some lines in a book first?"

This is, strictly, not at all a criticism of his current occupation.

The gauzey drift of her chemise momentarily upsets the distribution of Ellis' attention. Split between the work of both hands and his mouth now following the ever-lengthening drape of her neckline, there is a moment where the full weight of the words doesn't entirely register. Or not all at once.

A long moment, stuck on the uneven quality of her breath and the sensation of her nails and the downward arch of her hips, before Ellis lifts his head to her.

"Yes," because no is impossible. How rarely does he deny her under more ideal circumstances? His hesitance isn't erased, but it is eased, an outcome determined beyond any doubt.

Eventually is not a specific word. Ellis could have teased her about that, if he weren't so preoccupied otherwise.

"Like this first," is a murmur, as his hand lifts only long enough to hitch her chemise downwards, bare her breasts so he might continue the downward trajectory of his mouth. She is obliged to lean just a little farther, allow him to take just that much more of her weight as he bends into her. "Then you can have me however you wish."

Like this, it all almost seems like her own idea to give him those additional degrees—to melt back under the heat of his mouth, skin pearling not from some chill of in the air but from the teasing whisper of fabric sliding away from it; to sigh, a shiver rolling through her in answer to the deepening sense of his fingers and how bitingly hot his mouth is and how promising Ellis's assurance sounds to her ear.

He is spoiling her. Or she's being very greedy. Or some combination of both those things, she thinks, because she wants him exactly like this and exactly like that other way (she presumes) and in every other fashion. Wysteria is so satisfied with the thought and the results, both immediate and pending, that she can practically taste the impulse to be smug.

"Good," she says, and it's impossible to tell if it's an assessment of his stated intentions or the present arrangement of bodies and hands, her grip on his elbow and shoulder flexing restlessly. A soft press of fingernails to emphasize the point with. A sudden sharp draw of her breath sounds very like one of those tell tale precursors to a hurried monologue but ends up held high behind her ribs instead so that by the time it resolved into words, the lines have been considerably consolidated:

"Not as if there's a shortage of available passages on the subject, of course. I just"—he feels good; her knees tighten possessively—"Don't have any with me."

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