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

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.

To think, there had been a point where Wysteria would have been mortified by Ellis' hands under her skirts about her calf, nevermind the rest.

Ankle in hand, Ellis attends to the little bow at Wysteria's thigh. Hitches his thumbs beneath the delicate fabric to ease it down her leg as he had done before. He puts his mouth to the newly bared skin here too, laying a kiss to the inside of her thigh just above the bend of her knee.

"You," he says, a murmur without lifting his mouth. "You are so lovely."

Praise easily applied. His hand draws down to her ankle, sweeps the stocking off and away. Freeing Ellis to lever himself upwards, to kiss her properly.

That laugh is live again on her lips by the time he reaches her, breathed warm and rich into his mouth as Wysteria's hands move to greedily clutch Ellis to her. The temptation to wrap him up in her arms and refuse to let him up again is real and persistent, present in the way her fingers press at his shoulders or biceps and how cheerfully she returns his kiss. Nevermind how pleasantly ticklish the inside of her thigh is under the scuff of his stubble, or how fascinating his hands about her thigh are, or how rampantly curious she is with respect to certain dimensions of his anatomy. There is a version of this evening where she's quite content to wrap him to her and stay exactly like this for a considerable length of time, and it isn't even remotely a waste of time.

"I like that you think I'm pretty," she says to him close against his lips. It's an obvious thing to take joy in, of course—what young lady doesn't like to hear that her husband (or anyone else) finds her attractive? But the point stands. She does like it.

"I think you should think that I'm also witty and charming and very funny as well. I'll have you know, although clearly you must already be aware, that I tell excellent jokes and generally have a very high, convivial sort of spirit that anyone would be pleased to have for company. But particularly," she says, kissing him for emphasis. "Very serious Wardens."

It is a near thing. Ellis would be content to simply kiss her until they tire of it. He imagines at some point Wysteria will grow tired. It is a logical end point, isn't it? That they fall asleep.

He is in no hurry. There is never a destination in mind. Kissing her is enough. In this moment, it is even a balm, settles the erratic beat of his heart as her fingers climb up his arms. Wysteria tastes of sweet cider still, some lingering note that Ellis chases after for long moments before she begins to speak.

"Yes," he agrees. "You are all of those things. And intelligent. And very, very kind. Especially to me."

Is now the moment for Wysteria's list of virtues? (Is Wysteria very, very kind? Well—)

She is obliged to make way for him, part her thighs enough that he might settle between them. Ellis is deliberate with the allocation of his weight. He is not truly intending to spend the rest of the evening kissing her, but he settles over her as if he is.

(No. But he says she is, and so she must be. And in any case, she thrills to hear him say it. So, yes. Maybe she is very, very kind. Especially to him.)

Regardless of whether it contributes to the arrangement she's levered out of him, there is something so satisfying about the shape of Ellis's weight over and about her. How fine it is to feel herself pressed into the crinkle of the mattress, so know the bend of the pillows and the bedclothes and the fur about her as it all gives so admirably under him. And how specific the heat of his skin is, shockingly vibrant in all the places where there is ordinarily fabric (thin or otherwise) to act as a barrier between them.

She kisses him or is kissed a half dozen times, unhurried and quite pleased with herself and the shape of him in her arms, before volunteering—

"I'm also quite enamored with this, you know. You're agreeably heavy."

Yes, thank you, she has in fact taken extensive mental notes.

In the course of kissing her, Ellis' intentions of holding his weight over her had given way by degrees. He'd had some inclination to avoid bearing her down into the mattress fully, but the welcome of her arms and the languid exchange of their kisses had dissolved any resolve apart from giving over to her.

"Am I?" is an absent murmur of a response, as his mouth moves down the line of her jaw to her throat.

It is still somewhere in his intentions, removing her chemise. And her smallclothes. He hasn't forgotten.

But perhaps Ellis finds their present position agreeable too, because he's made no real effort to sit back up again to resume his work. Instead, he's laying kisses across her collarbone, as he slides a hand back into her hair where it fans across the pillow.

Yes, they might take some time doing just this.

"Yes, you are." She helpfully tips her chin higher, lengthening the line of her neck available to him despite his mouth having roved lower already. The sense of his fingers moving through her hair is very pleasant. "And I think it's very charming that you use yourself so very carefully. It makes everything you do seem quite deliberate and well considered, and that's rather flattering all things considered."

He is so intentional about how he sets his hands at her waist. Meanwhile, her hands rove about the bare skin of his shoulders without much forethought beyond curiosity. He's so broad, and there is some impulse to map the effect of his shape with her hands. To press a hand up the back of his neck and into the thick thatch of his hair. To shift the arrangement of her thighs about him.

If it's at all impatient, it has very little to do with not liking the current arrangement of bodies and limbs and weight.

He is so careful in how he touches her, the way he links their bodies together.

But Ellis has half a lifetime of using his body as a tool. That has made all things easier; he is detached from himself in a way that makes it easy to narrow his focus on her, hold back all other things. Yes, his skin is flushed fever-warm with wanting her. It is the most clear sign of the effect she's had on him, laid into the parts of himself that are beyond his control.

His teeth scrape lightly over the swell of her breast. With his mouth so devoted to this trajectory, there is no answer for her for a long moment.

Then, slowly, "I've been thinking of this. Of you."

Of what their wedding night might be, without fully predicting it would come on the heels of a rift and the corpse of a fade-touched wolf. He might have guessed at some similar circumstance. He's known Wysteria for such a long time now.

"Lift your hips," is trailed by his hand at her thigh, his body shifting up by degrees to give her space to do so.

His voice is something felt as much as heard, rumbling thorough his chest and into her. If the soft scuff of teeth hadn't been sufficient to prompt some flexing line in her beneath him (it had), that pleasantly low vibration of his murmur might manage it. Certainly something low in her belly goes light and turns over, flocking butterflies for I've been thinking of this.

How promptly she follows his direction, eagerly pressing up into the space afforded to her.

"Ellis," is softly scolding and entirely encouraging. "That's a very bold thing for you to say."

Fingers hook her smallclothes; she had unfastened those meticulous little buttons on one side, and Ellis draws the delicate fabric down by the other. It is an excuse for his palm to run hot over her skin, all the way to her kneecap, down to her ankle, where Wysteria might kick the item away if she so chooses. He is already reclaiming that space, flatting back over her to remind, "I am your husband."

He has been hers for a very long time, title or no.

"Don't you know how long I've wanted you?"

There had been something in the way she'd prompted him there. He can offer her this reminder, even if it is hardly so straightforward. If Ellis allowed it, all the complications would seep in like the icy cold that frosts the windowpanes behind the curtains. He has to keep it at bay, pare down this sentiment to it's most base truth: of course he has wanted her. Of course he has thought of her.

His teeth scrape along her breast, soothe the sting with softly laid kisses. The thudding beat of her heart is impossible to miss when he stretches upwards to kiss her throat again.

"No," she says. Yes, the thud of her pulse is very loud, quickened sharper by that scrape of teeth over sensitive skin and the gentle kisses that have chased after it. "I don't know. You ought to tell me when first you thought it."

Bold indeed, as blunt there under his mouth as his weight is and his teeth have been against her. Her hands chase after him, fighting the impulse to simply wrap Ellis directly up in her arms again. Instead, Wysteria grasps at his shoulders and twists faintly under his lips. Scratches very carefully at curving muscle and flexes under him as if that invitation for her to raise her hips weren't specific to the removal of her smallclothes.

And she does—kick that lingering scrap of cloth from off her ankle. Where it goes after may be a concern for some later hour.

He should. He knows the first moment. Remembers how his heart had seized in his chest, twinned by a tug in his belly.

But he doesn't tell her this.

Wysteria had asked for her chemise to come off too. Ellis is not sold on the necessity of it, though it pricks at the edges of his thoughts even as he puts a hand into the loose drape of her neckline to thumb over her breast, the peak of her nipple, while he lifts his head to kiss her. He will have to take this off her, even if their present entanglement is so pleasant as to make moving a second time unbearable.

"As long as I have loved you," is not an answer. He has not been specific about this either and doesn't intend to be. It has been such a long time. Wanting her came second, slower in the wake of acclimating to the revelation of all this feeling. He loves her so deeply it steals his breath. His mouth moves along her jawline again, finds the thud of pulse in her throat to kiss there as his weight shifts over her.

"Let's have this off before I tear it," is not an answer either, and not even a serious threat. Ellis is a long way from the time when he might lose control of himself in that way. But it might delight Wysteria, to hear that he wants her so urgently that there is a danger of it.

It does. Her laugh is bright and only half smothered in deference to how close the air between them is, thick in her throat under his mouth. What an image that is—and how catastrophic, as she has no replacement for the trip back to the lodge, and would have to explain herself to the lady of the house in order to borrow more than just a set of clean skirts. The pretend threat of that serves to distract her from the fact that, no, he hasn't answered her properly at all. But she hardly needs to know the specifics of what the answer would have been either. What does the exact point he decided he wanted her matter, really? Just that it was a long time ago, and now he's her husband, and tonight he still does.

With a giddy enthusiasm, motivated by his hand at her breast and his shape and the absurd novelty of being completely naked for his examination, Wysteria pries herself up from the pillows and the fur slanted across the mussed bed. She can't go far without his permission, given the arrangement of their bodies, but presumably he has every intention to give. And if he doesn't, she's happy to encourage him with little nipping kisses and a further laugh.

With everything so loose about her person, shedding the chemise takes so little effort.

The chemise vanishes over the side of the bed.

It's absence, though telegraphed clearly and insisted upon by her, insisted upon by him, is something of a shock.

Wysteria would hate knowing it, but as struck as he is by the entirety of her, his eyes go first to that great scar across her chest. Sat back as he is, set on his heels, Ellis is likely meant to observe her in full. But he is drawn back to her face, watching her as he leans in by degrees, so he might puts his palms back to her waist. They fit, just as always, warm to her skin.

"Lay back," he murmurs, softly. "I want to look at you."

As much with his eyes as his hands, thumbs already stroking back and forth across her stomach.

Months ago, the prospect of this would have turned her beet red and reduced her to scoffing. No—that's not true. Pinning the difference on a measure of time would be entirely misleading. In fact were he next week to suddenly and without preamble ask her to take off all her clothes and lay back for his observation, she might color and fluster all the same. But they've been here in this bed for some time. And her skin feels so very appropriate on her bones. Ad he's been naked for so much longer than she has. Any embarrassment she might have ordinarily felt over being seen in her entirely natural state has so reduced as to be inconsequential. Instead, she is just very bare, and very pleased with having gotten what she asked for, and thusly is delighted by the look on Ellis's face.

"Aye," she chirps—ha ha ha, how witty she is!—and lays obediently back.

Not flat. Not quite that far. In her eagerness, she can only bring herself to the level of being propped up on her elbows. Neither can she subsist on silence despite her best intentions to merely be an observed object of his attention. After hardly a moment's measure of restraint—

"See," is very proud. She presses her knees softly about him. "Nearly all my freckles have gone."

It's still very obvious which parts of her have often seen the sun and which nearly never do. This and that long scar are hardly the only evidence that Wysteria may be failing, despite her very best efforts, to be a respectable young lady. But surely they're among the most apparent exhibits.

No, not silent. Wysteria is rarely silent, and her interjection is such a welcome thing. It sparks a laugh in return, bright and clear. He has yet to put his mouth back to her skin, if only because he hasn't decided exactly where to apply himself first.

"Aye, I see."

Spurred forward by the press of knees, Ellis' palm runs across her belly. Up over her ribs, over the curve of her breast. Fingers grazing the edge of her scar, so brief that it might go unnoticed.

Suppose they do only this? Suppose he spend the rest of the evening touching her?

Ellis would ask, if he were not so certain of her impatience. There is one other outstanding request, and he'd promised—

"Are you comfortable?" comes as he catches hold of her knee, runs fingers along her thigh. His head lifts to look into her face, taking in her expression. "Is this how you thought it might go, when you asked to have me?"

How pleasant his laugh is! Of all things, that makes her flush—affection warm and bright in her cheeks even before his hand has begun to rove along the length of her.

"Yes." It's an unvarnished answer; she's smiling still. "—Well, no. I thought I might have to undress you first. Though I enjoy that I didn't have to, as I've been able to look at you for all this time."

For all that might imply, the point of her attention doesn't flicker from his face. How fond she is of the fine wrinkles about his eyes and the lines his smile presses into his cheeks and brow. How good it is to look at him in the diminishing glow of the firelight.

"But I knew you would be very careful with me and that I might have to persuade you to be less so."

Yes, this is very like what she expected. Yes, she is comfortable.

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