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

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."

"You'll be prepared next time," is a certainty, requiring his mouth to lift only briefly away from her skin, return directly after. Wysteria is rarely caught empty-handed twice. Perhaps when next they lay down together, she'll have a small presentation of pages with which to instruct him. Ellis would hardly be surprised.

And it isn't a hardship. He is so partial to her. He always has been. He has always been pleased to give her all that she might ask after. This, the patient, insistent work of his hands and mouth, the press of palm at her back, all comes from the same part of him that has been content to lift and carry whatever she may need, to entertain all manner of requests. To restore and tend her garden, sand the splinters from the stairs of her home. Patch the leak in the roof and repair the loose window frame.

All this, these things he would happily give up to her, live in his chest. Easily tipped into her hands.

Good she says with her fingernails catching at his shoulder, her breath catching in her throat, and Ellis feels a juddering kind of satisfaction and pleasure for all of it, all things in combination.

How good it is, to give Wysteria all things she might want. To draw these reactions from her. It is enough on its own.

If there is any motivation in the world substantial enough to strip Wysteria's approach to certain literature of it's natural mortification, then certainly a rigorous academic system of notation and excerpting seems the likeliest bet. That she might expect some dividends to return to her in the form of his affections is arguably merely a (most) charming bonus.

—So yes, she probably will be prepared to present him with all the notes for a short paper or lecture sometime in the not too distant future.

In the present however, there is a sense of trusting him entirely to indulge her in some fashion that should satisfy her. Rather like all the weight she happily gives to the hand at the small of her back, she doesn't think to request for more or less because the heat of his mouth and the work of his hand is so immediately rewarding.

Again after, he'd said. How promising that is I'm whatever shape. Maybe if she didn't have the reassurance of that sentiment or of his easily given concessions, she might cling to the hum building under his skin in a more miserly fashion. Think of the wolf's corpse in the woodshed, or the paperwork stacked in the Felandaris office back at the Gallows. But he is so reliable, and so very good, and there's no reason at all not to simply give over to it.

So if giving her what she asks is the thing that satisfies him, she makes it clear enough without having to actually say much. In the minutes that follow, Wysteria flexes in the most pleasing fashion between Ellis's touch and his mouth. Her hands grasp after him; the cant of her breathing thins in answer to his diligence; all that impulse to chatter incessantly slides sideways into encouraging sounds too soft to carry and too sharp not to be telling.

He doesn't need to instruct her on this point again. When she feels how close she is this second time, she chases directly after it until it unravels all through her like daylight.

The potential of again, after carries Ellis past the urge to linger in this moment as well. Wysteria is so beautiful, caught in his lap. It is overwhelming. It may be overwhelming regardless of how many times they do this. The sounds she makes scatter like coals; Ellis can feel them on his skin, the way he flushes impossibly warmer for every reactive noise that falls from Wysteria's mouth.

How rare is it, to find her at a complete loss for words. Maybe he will be a little proud of that, when there is any room to think on something other than Wysteria coming apart once more.

He is still touching her, lightly, idly, when he lifts his head to catch her mouth. Kisses her as if he could taste the noises she's making.

I love you, he wants to tell her. But there's no space for it just yet, when he is so intent on maintaining this clumsy, open kiss he's coaxed her into.

It is clumsy. She's not even caught her breath yet, but she's glad for the encouragement to sway forward into him rather than bonelessly sloughing in some other, arguably more comical direction. Her arms gather loosely about him almost without her intending to, so automatic and natural is it in response to his beautifully heated mouth. How light and half assembled her laugh is as it's breathed warm into the very shape of that kiss. That it's followed by a pleasant shiver under that idling arrangement of his fingers and a sweeter sigh is as impulsive as her arms coiling in about him are.

(How very solid he seems between her knees and elbows in contrast to how very unwound she feels.)

"I love you." Wysteria has no compunctions against mumbling it eagerly across his lips. The nip of teeth that underlines the sentiment is very gentle. And, agreeably disjointed: "Entirely distracting."

His smile only amplifies the clumsiness of the kiss, but it doesn't diminish the warmth of it, how good it is regardless of all poorly fit aspects of it. The loose drape of her body across his chest, her arms about his shoulders, is terribly satisfying. Despite all assurances as to his intentions, he finds himself stalled over all of this: the run of his fingers through the heat of her, the light sting of her teeth at his mouth, all the newly bared skin between them, his hand splayed open across her back.

"Entirely," is echoed back after a long moment in which he makes some attempt to kiss her properly, settle his attention solely there rather than on how her chemise has come apart, the unfocused murmur of her voice. "I'll remember it for the future."

For when he is inclined to distract her, as unlikely as it may be as a tactic in those moments.

"Tell me how your legs feel," he prompts, after further long, easy kisses have been exchanged, time blurring down to the heated quality of each kiss, the heat caught between their bodies. After his hand has stolen upwards from her back into the loose tumble of her hair. Finally, something resembling new-settled intention resolving itself in his mind.

It's a very unfair thing to expect her to answer such a sensible question in a timely fashion, particularly when he is so warm and has both a hand still pressed comfortably between her legs and fingers idly tangling at the end of her hair. So instead of answer him directly, Wysteria kisses him a further handful of times—half open and half not, half punctuated with teeth and half not. It's only after, cinched in so very close yet, that she laughs and tells him,

"If I say 'like jelly' will you turn me out of your lap and take off my stockings?"

Hopefully. Because that's more or less true.

A breath of laughter in return, low at the corner of her mouth.

"Why would I ever turn you out of my lap?" is only allowed a moment to hang in the air before he continues, more sensibly: "If you say your legs are paining you, aye. Or that you'd like your stockings off, then aye."

But what a wrench it will be to do it.

He has hardly taken stock of his own body. Ellis' attention is narrowed so intently on her, still considering the promised third time they'd spoken of.

There have been other promises, he knows. Eventually, he will have to dredge her out of his lap to make good on them.

"Then yes," she says. "I would like my stockings off if you please."

Why, it's even possible that he may be convinced to resent the rest of her clothes if he observes her from a vantage further than the distance of a few paltry inches. Who can say?

That said, Wysteria is very grudging about peeling herself out of his lap. Her arms must untangle from about hik and become functional limbs again, and she must convince her thighs to support her so as to sway back from over him—

Ellis does not quite make himself useful.

For half of this process, he is only chasing her mouth. But Ellis can only arch so far up off the bed, so it is eventually better, more expedient, to catch her around the waist with both hands and tumble her into the pillows to his right. Here, he might follow her down, turn in alongside her and flatten a hand over her belly, the sheer fabric there.

Consider that he is meant to be removing her stockings. Bend to kiss her anyway, as if to complete some earlier thought.

"Here," is unnecessary, thick in Ellis' mouth as he rearranges her hems and turns his full attention to the stockings in question. Hands curving round her thighs unnecessarily before attending to the ribbon, beginning to draw the fabric down.

Ellis puts a kiss to each newly bared inch of skin along her leg. It seems he is no longer content to map her legs with his hands.

The sudden tilt of the world and consequential fhwump of pillows makes her laugh, unexpectedly loud and bright in the little firelit room. Its quick tempering has less to do with deference to the hour but instead may be entirely attributed to keeping Ellis when he bends to kiss her. And its shape persists after, lingering vibrantly in the slant of her mouth even after his lips have taken to roving elsewhere. It tickles—that scuff of his beard at soft skin, the shift of calloused fingers and how lovely and warm his mouth is.

"Thank you, that's very helpful."

Coaxed by that series of kisses and firm hands and the very fascinating curve of his shoulder and how remarkably attractive his being so intentional is, Wysteria is all too happy to helpfully alter the line of her leg in order to expedite the stocking's removal. That she must paint a somewhat ridiculous picture with her shift in such blatant disarray (carefully sorted hem not withstanding), undone hair wild across the pillow, and now eagerly squirming after his mouth is of little concern to her. He's so very startlingly handsome like this in this new light that it comes far more naturally to be interested in examining the shape of him as he bends than to think much about her place in the bed.

(He may not have taken stock of his body, but she has been sitting in his lap and is more than content to continue the study.)

"Do you suppose that after the stockings"—it's a trial not to laugh again as his mouth passing over some sensitive patch of skin produces a shiver—"You may wish to have the rest of my things off as well?"

See how considerate and thoughtful she is!

What Ellis has learned in the course of all their association, romantic and otherwise, is that Wysteria sometimes puts questions to him that are more suggestions than anything else. The expected answer is clear.

And helpful, in a sense. It keeps Ellis from balking. He might well have kept her chemise in place, if left to his own devinces.

But in the moment, though one stocking and it's accompanying ribbon have been dropped over the edge of the bed to the floor, Ellis has put his mouth back to the bend of her knee. He doesn't lift his head to her immediately, instead finishing the soft application of a kiss before considering the question.

"I think I might," he tells her, reaching over for her opposite ankle. "I thought I'd start with your smallclothes."

Before she is bidden to sit up again. It had felt like a loss to dislodge her from his lap, but observing Wysteria with her hair fanned out and her mouth curving into a smile has its charms. He's more interested in joining her than anything else, but Ellis takes direction well. He can do what's being asked.

"A fine place to begin," she concurs, some spark of bright, broad humor living in her face for it. Were she not already so thoroughly flushed pink under the pleasure of his attentions, it might be the sort of remark fit to make her blush. Well. If that's where he would prefer to start—

Wysteria helpfully delivers her other ankle into his possession.

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