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

Oh, how good his laugh sounds so broken up and close against the skin like that. The shape of it sends a warm flush through her, pulse rabbiting quick in answer. How hot her neck feels; how all at once heavy and brittle he seems over her and under her fingertips.

"I think so," is a very candid answer despite the reedy quality of sound and her preoccupation elsewhere. It's punctuated by some restless press of heels into the bed; a faint shifting of her hip that's equal parts instinctive and experimental as Wysteria looks to settle herself about him. That small measure of friction is—

"You? Are you all right?"

All right is not the same as good.

There is no answer for a long moment, only the uneven draw of breath at her neck, the tremor working its way through his arms and shoulders, the answering alignment of his body to the movement of her hips beneath him. Not proper movement, but some shadow of it.

In this moments with her, somewhere far off in his awareness of himself and his place within the world, is the knowledge of how fleeting this will be. That he cannot stay. This is a small measure of what might have been their lives, and it will end before its time.

But it is such a bleak thing, this knowledge, that it remains cordoned off at a distance, too far to take root, so he might lift his head and kiss her and tell her, "Yes," without it being untrue.

"Are you ready?" might seem like an absurd question, considering their position. But though the small movements between them tip towards an obvious trajectory, there is still that breath of a pause in which they are acclimating. Where she is considering all this new sensation. Where he can afford her the time with which to do that.

Were she a mind reader—what a fearsome prospect—, she might have the wherewithal in this moment to dredge Ellis closer and demand that he stop thinking. Only for a little while. In the morning, which isn't so many hours away and so clearly hardly requires any self-restraint at all, he can remind himself of whatever terrible things he sees lingering so very far off from all this. Stop thinking, she might tell him. You do entirely too much of it.

(Rich, this notion, from the likes of Wysteria.)

But failing the gift of telepathy or any other significant Talents, she is perfectly content to rely on every other discernable part of him. Yes, he tells her, and it isn't untrue.

"Yes," is an echo. Followed by clear headed clarification: "I think it might help, actually. Were you to move."

See. He may rely on her to always to be very honest even when she's naked and flush. How reliable she is!

This draws another laugh, deep and fractured and breathless, pressed against her jawline.

"Aye," Ellis obliges. The present moment comes into full focus. He emerges from her neck, looks down to observe her laid out beneath him. Not the movement she had requested, but surely he is due this brief span of time in which he might look at her. Observe the flush spread all along her skin, the fan of her hair across the pillow, the color high in her cheeks.

"I love you," he tells her, and thinks it is fortunate that he has spent so much time telling Wysteria so before this. The sentiment has been so well-established that it can't be diminished by their present entanglement. He loves her, regardless of where they find themselves.

His hand finds her hip, encouraging the tilt of it soundlessly as he does, finally, take her direction. Rock his hips into her, this too a slow, measured movement.

It's a very unfair order of doing things, really. Here she is still feeling the ripple of his laugh against her throat, and then she's expected to combat the flush of pleasure that unfolds in her chest every time Ellis says 'I love you' if she's going to manage to reciprocate the sentiment before he does anything else.

That it's an impossible battle goes without saying. And so she hasn't yet worked her way past it to saying anything like 'I love you,' or 'Tell me again', or maybe even just a cheeky 'I should hope so,' before he chooses to do as she'd instructed. The result is that the slow rock of Ellis's hips is met with an involuntary soft, aching sound that might have originally been designed as something else entirely otherwise.

Lest he find it discouraging, she's quick to tighten her hands on him. To breathe out and not tremble through the exhale as she mentally sorts the parts of this which are good, and how pleased she is that he's done as she'd asked, and what will fade so long as he continues to be so deliberate. It takes a few, slow strokes for her to do it—get her bearings, to recall the dig of her fingers and loosen them, to flex experimentally into him in the way that seems obvious rather than simply feeling what he might do.

It's gratifying to be correct; it does help.

He does continue, deliberate and slow, attentive to the tension in her body. To the grip of her hands at his shoulders and the rhythm of her breathing, take his cues from the sum of all these things. This close, there is nothing but her. And even when Wysteria's grip on him eases, the motion between them continues steady and unchanged. For the moment, at least, while they settle into the newness of this thing.

"Better?" he breathes, so low it's more the shape of a word than something vocalized out loud.

Her "Yes," is immediate, clear despite the fuzzy shape of his question and the buzz of sensation spreading through her. Yes, it is better. Yes, it—she sharpens, then gives, thumbs pressing at his skin only to relent with a soft sigh—feels like the slow flex of a sore muscle, aching and not unpleasant at all.

It seems very natural that her hands should find there way to his shoulders, and his neck, and wander back into Ellis's dark hair.

"Is it—" No, he'll only reassure her if she asks that. "Please tell me," she says instead, knees tightening by reflex. She thinks of it so rarely—those other people he's loved like this, and how much she would prefer to be his favorite of them. "If I'm not as you like."

"You are."

What else could he ever say to her in this moment? Of course she is as he likes. His head has been so full of her for such a long time. What else is there?

There is some real effort involved in maintaining the pace he's set. But he's a long way from his youth, when he might have come apart so easy under the trip of her fingers at his shoulders, the nape of his neck, the slide of them along his scalp.

When he kisses her, it's a little absent. Unfocused, dropped to her mouth because he needs to be kissing her as much as he cannot draw his attention away from her knees at his sides and the meeting of their bodies, all the gathering heat flushed along his skin as they move in and against each other.

"I love you," might be mistaken as a throwaway thing, a repetition of sentiment surely unnecessary by now. It isn't. It never is. Even in this moment, applied as if in unconscious rejoinder to the motivating thoughts behind her request.

It seems like it should be very difficult to flush any more than she already is. Every part of her seems so warm. But for all that Ellis's refrain maybe very familiar, it still serves to send heat spreading through her. It's rather like the sensation of watching something molten be poured into a waiting mold, running into all the channels and filling it. If she required reassurance—not that she does; obviously she is perfectly confident in this and her part in all of it—that might certainly serve to bolster her.

"That's good," is too scattered to be shameless cheek. It might just as easily be in answer to the press of him, or his bulk between her knees, or the wound tight line of his body.

Must be, for a moment later she presses more decisively up—or draws him down by her hands in his hair—to catch his mouth again. Sets her teeth at his lip like she might prove her enthusiasm that way. Laughs there, eventually, and insists, "Oh, I love you too," as if she's just heard him.

"Tell me again."

Selfish.

But he only human. How can he be anything else but caught between helpless, desperate pleasure at hearing those words from her and drenched in guilt for the reception of it?

He loves her so dearly. It is like drowning, whenever he tries to think of it, take an accounting of it. His love for her runs in all directions, hooks into every part of him. Hearing it mirrored back fires all things in gold, scorches him for the realization of it.

This pace, it's slow, considered rhythm, had been meant to keep them here as long as possible. But how long will he last with her saying such sweet things, with her hands tight in his hair?

If it were such a selfish request, surely it would be more trying for her to answer it. But it's very easy to hold on to him; to move gently up into the press of him; to breathe very thin and say "I love you too," exactly as asked in the narrow gap between kissing him.

She's spent all evening encouraging him to ask for the things he wants, and this is the easiest thing in the world to satisfy. Indeed his pace is so measured and so slow that it's simple to fall into some similar rhythm without any thought at all:

A kiss. An endearment—"I love you." A kiss. "I love you, Ellis." A kiss. "Ellis."

The impulse that follows these declarations is entirely counterproductive to what they are in the midst of accomplishing. He can certainly do better than bow down into her arms, putting his face into the bend of her neck, and waiting until the overwhelming sweetness of hearing these recitations resolves itself into something more manageable.

So the pace is maintained, even if his breath is hitching and ragged still against her mouth.

"Wysteria," might be the prelude to some query or request. Or it might just be Ellis saying her name for the pleasure of it.

Regardless, it's accompanied by his hand trekking down between them to touch her, resume the circling press of his fingers over her in as close to a steady rhythm as he might manage with so much else drawing his attention.

It's not as if his moving in her, that slow deliberate coiling and uncoiling of muscle, hadn't been rewarding. But there had been something in the almost-pleasant ache of it, or or how ragged his breathing is, or the way she can feel his restraint through every part of him, which had served as a sort of keen counterbalance. They've sharpened her attention past the point of gratification. How will she mark all his little sounds if she isn't paying close attention? How will she be able to give him what he wants if she isn't waiting to? With all these little details in need of cataloging, how is she meant to feel anything so broad as—

The sensitivity to his touch is a shock. She shudders under him. Presses, abruptly, into the heat of his fingers. And she'd been talking—some affection syllable still ready in her mouth. The combination of his hand and his body prompts it to spill out of her as just sound. It briefly interrupts her equally slow, tentative counter rhythm. Or seems to. She certainly forgets to put any effort into it, and it takes her a moment to recognize how promptly her body has answered this encouragement by beginning to rock more purposefully to meet him.

"Ellis," is as reflexive as her fingers tightening in his hair.

Hearing all her words fall apart, collapse into pieces, is very gratifying. Wysteria is so rarely inarticulate.

The way she says his name now, that too is very pretty. Maybe it's a byproduct of being so often assigned a title ahead of it that hearing Wysteria say his name alone has an immediate effect. The twist of her fingers in his hair only underscores it, drags a low, desperate groan out of him as their hips move together.

"Please," he murmurs, a blurry kiss following after. "Wysteria, tell me it's good."

There are all manner of things he wants to hear, really. He can't tell whether Wysteria will have an exhaustive list of her impressions or simply nothing at all once they're finished. But he needs to know that this is something close to what she'd been hoping for, what she'd wanted when she'd closed the door behind them earlier this evening.

That sound he makes is so rich and low. She can feel it in her chest. Or lower, in the pit of her stomach where it prompts a clench as if from the same influence as his hand or his hip.

Good? The sound she makes into his mouth is some slanted combination of a laugh and cry. It seems like an absurd question, and sweet, and so very vulnerable—an absurd notion when he's so heavy over her and knows every part of this. But it seems right. His desire to please is something sweet and melting in her mouth.

"It's good," she promises him. When did one of her hands stutter back to his shoulder, thumb at his neck and his pulse so full there? When did she hook her heel about the back of his thigh? She kisses him, off-center. "It's good. You feel—"

Inarticulate, maybe. But not particularly quiet, the rasp of her breathing so reedy that it probably qualifies as something else.

"Aye."

If Wysteria cannot put it into words, then there is little hope for Ellis.

But it matters so much more that she feels this inarticulate, overwhelming thing. It is her first time. Ellis has felt the weight of wanting to give her every part of what is due to her, to satisfy even the things Wysteria doesn't exactly know to ask for.

There is sweat prickling at the nape of his neck, in the space between his shoulder blades, along his hairline. They move so easily together now, and he is so well-guided by her hands, the dig of her heel.

"Go ahead," is thickly said, a murmur against her mouth between one absent, clumsy kiss and the next. "I'll follow after, but I can't..."

Sustain this forever, whatever his intentions. The winding build of heat and pressure in his body can't be slotted neatly away, not with her flushed so warm beneath him, making soft noises into his mouth. It is impossible not to give over to her. It feels miraculous to have held out so long already.

"Oh, then don't," she blurts out, selfish and wanting. For all that sparking sensation and sensitivity under his fingers and weight, that headrush of climax seems obscure; and if she can keep it that way, then she might see him—

"Please," is also a small, desperate noise into his mouth. Only there is her hand working at his shoulder, heel of her palm finding his collar. Pressing there, urging some distance between them so that when he can't, she can mark it in more than just his dark eyelashes or the scrape of his cheek.

"Please, Ellis. Just let go."

Ellis yields by degrees.

Levered upwards under the pressure of her hand, Ellis parts from that close alignment of their bodies. His mouth trails along her jawline, drops a parting kiss to her mouth as the dig of Wysteria palm creates and demands space. It holds him there, over here, with only the line of his arm to keep him so suspended.

The impulse to protest is clear in his face. What Ellis might argue, were he not so completely occupied by her: what he won't be able to do after, not for some time, what might be left undone and how intolerable the thought of it is.

But it is impossible, especially in this moment, not to give her what she wants. Even if what she wants is to look at him while he comes apart in quiet increments.

So that protest breaks, turns the start of something (I—) into a wreck of groan. Held at such a distance, however narrow it may be, he is kept from blurring and muffling any part of the sound by kissing her. The cycling rhythm between them hitches, urgency seeping in at the edges. Faint, but not all-consuming.

It is a slow shattering. When Ellis can't, he comes apart slowly, with tremors in his arm and his fingers pressed down firmly over her and involuntary, jagged sounds pulled softly from him as his head drops. When all breaks apart, all motion coming to an end, Ellis bows into her, that drop of his head bearing him back down into her. This too happens slowly, this collapse, this reallocation of his weight from one shaking arm to draped over her body once more. It puts him back close enough to kiss her as if it's the only instinct left in his head.

It makes sense. Watching him, washed through by the wracked quality of his pleasure—all those aching sounds break something open in her—, is it any mystery why he should have been so fixed on seeing her this way? She would watch him be like this forever. It rings in her like a note does a bell, the whole of her shivering in sympathy to his trembling arm and uneven touch. Yes, she can imagine wanting to do this to him again quite easily.

How handsome that slow collapse is. It pulls a sharp, hitching sound out of her. Prompts the hook of her leg to tighten in a way that's only half unintentional and the eager crumpling of her braced arm. How ready she is to meet his mouth when he founders down.

Winding fingers through his hair and her arm about his shoulders, Wysteria is all too happy to guide that insensate kiss. It's slow and rich, panting warm. The gentle application of teeth, relishing in his mouth, and the heated press of his body over and through her, and the sensation of all that tension she's felt under her fingers come fully slack.

For some measure it's just breathing loud into that narrow space, shifting her fingers through his hair and kissing him. The shape of her limbs slip to gradually less motivated tangles. Eventually, warm and in the shape of a laugh against his prickly cheek—

"Will you survive?"

"No."

Ha, ha.

This too, is gradual, the way Ellis begins the process of spooling himself back together. For all he is still draped bonelessly over her, some of the lax quality has begun ebbing away. There is some intention, for instance, in the way his mouth moves against her cheek, the line of her jaw.

"Let me—" is more grounded, practical rather than desperate. There is a realigning of his hips, lifting and resettling between her thighs. He is still touching her, two fingers holding his place while Ellis remembers his place within the universe.

He kisses the high point of her throat, opposite hand lifting to cup her cheek.

"Good?" he asks, rooted less in the physicality of the moment and more about her expectations, what she had wanted to see and asked so directly for.

She does laugh—No; Ellis, please—, warm and sweet against his skin. It turns into a catching noise only as he adjusts between her legs, the dregs of her laugh scuffing out of her as a thick exhale.

"Yes, thank you." In that close knit space, she turns her face into his palm. Kisses the heel of his hand; he must be able to parse the curve of her mouth. Her smile lives in the hot air of her breathing and the incidental catch of teeth. "Well done, Ellis."

How smugly satisfied she is to say it, praise like an affectionate pat. Her own audacity makes her laugh again, lighter and undirected as her legs sag free from about him. The whole arrangement is so distinctly satisfying. His weight and his hands, and the low rasp of his voice, and the naked heat sandwiched between them. Imagine the luxury of lying here like this for some time. Maybe some of that slack quality which is already draining out of him could be coaxed back—

"Thank you," she says again. The tenor has gentled. Her second kiss to his palm is considerably softer.

Thank you draws a low, soft laugh out of him.

An absurd thing, Wysteria thanking him. If anything, he should be thanking her.

"Aye," comes as a rumbled murmur at her throat, before his lips drop a trail of kisses from collarbone to shoulder, back again.

What else is there? He is content to remain here, draped over her in place of the furs and blankets set out for them. Even with awareness of their position, the unfocused looseness of his limbs slipping away like the tide drawing out, Ellis is still aware of how pleasant it is to be arranged in such a fashion.

"I love you," he tells her, though Ellis has said it so many times since the door to this room closed behind them. A great rush of sentiment, as if to make up for all the times he hadn't said it aloud.

It has been such a long time, holding this emotion in check.

"Is it what you expected?" he tacks on, one hand groping blindly for the furs and blankets. Some minor concession to practicality, their eventual tilt towards sleep.

Her 'Hmmm' has a slant that's both satisfied and considering, so pleased with the shape they've made at the soft prickle of the fur against her bare skin as it's drawn near in bunches that it seems foolish to say more at first. But given a moment's consideration—

"It's not a very thoroughly discussed subject in Kalvad, you know. Or," she amends. "Well I suppose it might be. If you have sisters or aunts or girl cousins to whom you're very close in age. But I think what I expected was—"

Her fingers at the back of his neck are soft, idle. They meander through the curls at his nape, drawing thoughtless loops as meandering as her answer is.

"Significantly less collaborative, let's say."

Turning her face toward him is a matter of degrees, not significant save for the already general narrowness of the space.

"I rather like it when you ask for my opinion. Broadly speaking. Not just when we've all our clothes off. And I like how different your saying that you love me sounds depending on when you choose to say it. It's very charming. It makes me think of—" hm "—Collecting coins."

All of them more or less the same object, just different shapes and sizes and colors and denominations.

A pause. A breath. It's only a little reedy.

"You're not sorry, are you? To have been badgered into all of this."

She's only very marginally serious. Hardly at all, really.

The question detours away from these things Ellis is committing to memory. Things she likes, separate from the physical. Things he might remember to do again, often, because he is aware they please her.

But the question.

"No."

Solemn.

Wysteria may be only marginally serious, but even a modicum of uncertainty must be met and answered without hesitation. Ellis' face is still turned in against her skin, breath coming slow and steady under the draw of her fingers through his hair, but his voice weights the word seriously anyway.

"I'm not sorry to be your husband."

It is as he told her once: he was always hers.

If he is sorry for anything, it's for all the things that he cannot change. The ways he will inevitably fall short.

How very serious he is. It makes her laugh, that solemn tolling note coloring his timbre. It's too tender and too sweet that he should be so completely concerned with his answer to what is, she thinks (hopes?), a very unnecessary question to begin with. If Ellis truly were opposed to something, she has difficulty imaging that she could convince him to shift his opinion on the matter even at her most persistently persuasive.

"That's good," she says, smiling against the warmth of his cheek in that secret little space between them. The shadows of his form as thick here, the light from the intended fire failing to penetrate this far. Her nails scuff gently at the scruff of his neck. It's an affectionate scratch like one might afford a dog behind their shaggy ears. "As I enjoy spending a great deal of time in your company, and if you ask me then us being married makes for a very convenient excuse to do so."

As if they hadn't monopolized one another's time before.

"And I think it's very romantic, you know. That we should both end up in the same place like we have."

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