Her first instinct is to insist that she can walk on her own power, but before she can even think to voice such a thing she finds herself swept up into his embrace, carried in his arms with the same ease he's always borne her. Inwardly, she finds that she does enjoy this, being plucked off her feet and carefully taken from one room to the next, her arms reflexively resting atop his shoulders even though she knows there's no chance of him dropping her or his hold weakening.
She hadn't worn anything intended to be seen elsewhere, and the simple day dress she's in, paired with stockings and slippers, is an indication of that; the buttons down the front enable her to remove the outer layer swiftly, followed by the latter, and she finally climbs in between the covers in only her slip, settling in a recline along her side as she beckons outward with an arm for him to join her.
Once they're both tucked in, she arranges herself in a position well-known to both of them at this point, her head tucked into the cradle of his shoulder, her arm draped across his midsection, one leg slightly hitched up at the knee to rest over his thigh.
If anyone had told him he'd ever find joy again in heading into torpor with another vampire, any vampire, after his loss in Paris, he'd have thought them sorely mistaken and entirely too optimistic. This is something he'd choose every dawn if he didn't know both of them still had separate lives and a good reason at times not to awaken together at the next sunset.
With dawn a couple of hours away, it's just as good. He's done talking for now, appreciative that she isn't the sort who insists on filling every waking moment talking, especially when he's in a melancholy or somber state of mind.
It's enough just to have her weight against him, have her where he can touch her with slow strokes and finally let his hands still. His mind. Everything. He instructs the phone app to kill the lights so that they're lying in relative darkness with only the ambient street light spilling through the sitting room windows beyond the open double doors of the bedroom.
Deciding that's too much for him for now, he closes them with a telepathic nudge. As he turns his cheek against the top of her hair, he has one final thing to say. "Thank you." It's less a matter of feeling that he has to and more of wanting to.
There had been nights before this she had not spent alone — evenings when she had drawn Morgana into her bed and taken full advantage of their contract to allow herself the simple pleasure of not sleeping alone, even though she and the other sorceress had long favored more vigorous pursuits. There was something about the mere notion of simply holding someone else, of permitting herself to be held, and when her lover and dominant had departed, a piece of her had considered the possibility of when or if she would have it again.
She can safely reach the conclusion that, for all that occurred between herself and the one who holds her now, she had never imagined it would culminate in something like this.
She sighs quietly, a wordless agreement to his sentiment; it may not be entirely altruistic, her reasons for lying here with him, not when it brings her just as much comfort to have him this near, but she also doesn't suspect he'll have any complaint to voice about it. Instead, she simply nestles against him further, closing her eyes and letting herself fall into the stillness that night brings.
no subject
She hadn't worn anything intended to be seen elsewhere, and the simple day dress she's in, paired with stockings and slippers, is an indication of that; the buttons down the front enable her to remove the outer layer swiftly, followed by the latter, and she finally climbs in between the covers in only her slip, settling in a recline along her side as she beckons outward with an arm for him to join her.
Once they're both tucked in, she arranges herself in a position well-known to both of them at this point, her head tucked into the cradle of his shoulder, her arm draped across his midsection, one leg slightly hitched up at the knee to rest over his thigh.
no subject
With dawn a couple of hours away, it's just as good. He's done talking for now, appreciative that she isn't the sort who insists on filling every waking moment talking, especially when he's in a melancholy or somber state of mind.
It's enough just to have her weight against him, have her where he can touch her with slow strokes and finally let his hands still. His mind. Everything. He instructs the phone app to kill the lights so that they're lying in relative darkness with only the ambient street light spilling through the sitting room windows beyond the open double doors of the bedroom.
Deciding that's too much for him for now, he closes them with a telepathic nudge. As he turns his cheek against the top of her hair, he has one final thing to say. "Thank you." It's less a matter of feeling that he has to and more of wanting to.
no subject
She can safely reach the conclusion that, for all that occurred between herself and the one who holds her now, she had never imagined it would culminate in something like this.
She sighs quietly, a wordless agreement to his sentiment; it may not be entirely altruistic, her reasons for lying here with him, not when it brings her just as much comfort to have him this near, but she also doesn't suspect he'll have any complaint to voice about it. Instead, she simply nestles against him further, closing her eyes and letting herself fall into the stillness that night brings.