an engagement.

Calden

They should talk.

They're going to talk.

They're talking. They really are talking: saying things to each other that they haven't before, raising thoughts and concerns and, yes, sweet little imaginings that they've never mentioned before.

It's just that -- in the course of all that, he's also urging her a little closer. She's also moving closer still, crawling over him, all that glorious golden hair of hers tumbling over her shoulders and onto his skin. She comes down to him, and in the same breath he flexes up to her; they come together as though drawn by gravity, by electromagnetism, by the basic forces of the universe. His hand is in her hair and he kisses her, sudden and warm and drenching,

brings her with him as he sinks down on the bed again. She kisses the side of his neck. He tilts his head to accommodate her, sighing,

panging as she confesses what she does,

closing his eyes as he imagines it all in a flash, the string quartet and the long walk and the smiling faces, all long-boned and fair-haired on one side of the aisle, all husky and ruddy on the other.

He gasps as she does. They both draw sharp breaths from the air when she touches him like that, with such unhesitating familiarity. His hand joins hers and he was going to tell her maybe they should talk first, he was going to laugh and ask if she didn't want to shower, if she didn't want to eat, he was going to do all these things but what he does is take himself in hand, guide himself to her, kiss her hard, moaning into her mouth, as she sheaths him in her body. And they're off again.

Avery

Oh yes: the long aisle and the white flowers, the tulle, the train. The guests of Falcon blood and Stag blood and a number of others, in particular there would be a son of Owl here and a son of Thunder and his date, her scent resplendent of the black-coated, black-winged Pegasus of her tribe. Her father, silver and bright on her arm, and a slender young woman with cotton-candy hair looking terribly nervous to stand on the dais.

Everyone there would understand the presence of a priestess of Gaia, ordained by human law, and the comingling of earthy pagan rite with mortal vow. Everyone there would understand, even those who might be bothered.

Well: the photographers and the string quartet and the caterers might not really understand, but they will have all been to stranger weddings with brides dressed as Daleks and grooms dressed as Darths. A bride looking like the blessed child of sun and moon marrying a distractingly handsome rancher ten years her senior, no matter whether they handfast or broom-jump or simply exchange rings or what: this will not raise eyebrows.

Avery so likes the thought of the string quartet. But not as much as she likes the idea of marrying him. In front of everyone. It makes her shiver just as profoundly as the sight and feel of that growing lust in his body.

--

Calden does not answer her. She moans that she wants it, wants this fantasy of hers, wants this body of his, and as she's touching him she's unerringly guiding him to her. They've gone so many rounds already this evening; she finds him sliding into her so easily now, so smoothly, though her body still tightens up, her breath still catches in a gasp as she bears down on him a bit. The sensation makes her groan.

She buries the noise of it in his mouth when she kisses him, her hands slipping up to his shoulders, his chest, touching his face. They are filthy. She is rolling around in the scent and feel of that filth, though, reveling in it. All that feeling is rising up in her, overtaking her, and she breaks from that kiss for a moment only to exhale, saying again:

"I want to marry you,"

only it isn't again, is it?

Avery tips her head back, lifting her body up, hands spread over his chest, momentarily losing track of all thought and word as his cock shifts inside of her. Her eyes are closed, her expression beatific. "Oh -- god. I want to marry you."

Calden

Calden's heart

skips in his chest when she says it the first time. Skips under her hand as it passes over her chest. She rises with her sensation, her emotion; her head falls back and she looks beatific, sainted, divine. He thinks she is celestiality sometimes, divinity; so bright-burning, so illuminated and intense. Her hands spread and beneath her palms his chest flexes; he reaches up, his hands following her body to lift her breasts, his hands passing her shoulders to grip, gentle-firm, around her upper arms.

She says it again. And he comes up as well, sits up and wraps his arms around her and she is no shrinking violet, no crushable little fae thing, but even so she disappears into his embrace. He is all around her and he is within her and he envelopes her, kisses her neck roughly, mutters the words roughly:

"Come here,"

as though she had gone someplace. He goes back down, back hitting the mattress. He's brought her with, holds her close to his chest as he drives up into her; a series of athletic thrusts that brush the edge of savagery without crossing it because: he remembers. Even to this day, the memory scars him, the time he went too hard, the time he hurt her.

It is a passing thing, though, and not a thought that casts a pall over the moment. He kisses her again. He is always kissing her; you'd think he loved her or something, my god. He is laughing into that kiss, low and -- yes, this is a rough sound, too. Laughing into it, and then dissolving into it, his eyes closed and his brow furrowed, the kiss falling apart into panting as she moves, or he does; resetting that rhythm, finding it again.

Avery

She laughs, breathily, as he's sitting up to her. And she likes that, settling herself on his lap, kissing his mouth, touching his face. She resists laying back down, though, still laughing after that kiss breaks, as he is falling backwards. Avery does lean over him, her arms braced with hands to either side of him, her hips moving, looking down at him as their bodies wind together and as her hair hangs between them, drawn by gravity to him the way that all of her is drawn to him.

Her eyes are open now, and for a while she's smiling, her eyes and laughter equally bright, watching him as they make love. Watching him as they find their rhythm again, panting.

"Say yes," she exhales, grinding down against him, the sensation blowing her pupils out. "Tell me -- oh, god -- tell me yes."

Calden

He laughs -- it's a pant -- he reaches up because she won't come down and his hands ride her hips, his hands cover her breasts.

"I thought I was supposed to ask the question," he says, and there, there's that lazy grin of his; there's his thumb running over her mouth; there he is, coming up to steal another kiss from her. "Don't you want -- mmph -- don't you want the fancy proposal, the, oh, the whole down-on-one-knee thing?"

Avery

Her cheeks are bright with color, her skin lit up where he touches her. She rides him almost eagerly now, an unbroken pattern. She likes when he lifts himself up: the tightening muscles in his core, the flex across his chest. She kisses him, hard, in return.

"I want you," she says, sinking against him finally, kissing his throat. "I want to marry you."

Calden

His eyes are open when she kisses him. Open, watching her, lowering when she's too near to focus. His eyes are open when she draws away, when says what she says, when she rides him like that, eager and fast and hard, but

when she sinks down, when her body touches his, when her breasts press to his chest, her abdomen to his, Calden's eyes close. His throat vibrates under her lips -- a muffled sound, a moan caught before it escapes.

"Let's get married, then," he whispers. He kisses the side of her face, nuzzles her, urges her to raise her mouth to his. "Let's get married, Avery Chase. I'm saying yes."

And: eyes flickering shut, brow contracting; she rides down on him again, he loses his train of thought --

"Yes. God, yes."

Avery

Nothing -- really, nothing -- after that compares to what Avery feels when he says yes. Formally, which is so incongruous in the moment where they are in dust and darkness and sweat and pleasure. She knew he wanted to marry her a long time ago, knew he wanted to be her mate, knew he would take her to his home and keep her there or come live with her if she asked, knew that he would wait for her, live with her and live apart from her as she needed. She's known, and it has worried her for him, worried her about herself, wondering not if she deserved such affection and devotion but wondering if there was something wrong with her for not being equally flexible, equally willing, equally generous.

Right now she is not thinking about that, or worrying about it, either; she has known for a while that Calden would love to marry her, and she's avoided all hints of such a conversation until tonight. The word vows. The question about discussing whether he would like to be her mate. The fear of details; the burden of them on her mind. The decision, which was not really a decision, to simply tell him that she thinks about it, she wants it, she wants him, say yes, this is what she wants.

Everything is clarified, somehow, by this.

Avery knows, and yet it doesn't make a difference: when he tells her yes, when he realizes she doesn't care about the one-knee, the ring, the nice dinner, any of it and just tells her yes, he agrees that they should get married and want to get married and yes, yes, something inside of her explodes. It's a sunburst, an opening, it's light, and it's warmth, and it floods through her all golden and sweet. She makes some noise, unfettered and joyous, quickening her pace without even thinking.

She doesn't say anything else for a long time. Nothing more than exultations that have little meaning on their own. She does say his name when she comes, says it over and over as though she's trying to warn him of some oncoming disaster or revelation or both, but even his name falls apart in her mouth, becoming just cries of ecstasy at the very end, when all of her is soaring rapture. It is glorious. And it still does not compare to what she felt when he said yes.

Calden

This time they hit their climax together, or so nearly together than Calden cannot tell the difference. Can't tell the difference between his orgasm and hers, his pleasure and hers, his voice and hers, his body and hers.

This time, he wraps his arms around her and holds her, holds her against the bunching musculature of his torso, the hammering of his heart. This time, when she keeps riding him in the aftermath, when she keeps moving on him and writhing on him and driving him quite out of his mind, he turns, he rolls her under, he weighs her down beneath him and kisses her, laughing, gasping, shuddering and jolting through the last mind-melting shockwaves of their lovemaking.

And then they are still. Or near enough. And then he is lying atop her, sprawled and heavy; he is nuzzling her slow and lazy and now, now he is well and truly spent.

"I thought we were going to order food," he murmurs after some time, smiling. He rubs his face against her shoulder. He feels like an animal, instinctual and thoughtless. "I thought we were going to shower."

A kiss finds its way to her skin. He lays a small trail of them along her collarbone, and he has to be careful, he has to be careful because her breasts are right there, so close, and if he's not careful he might start all over again.

"I thought you wanted to talk," finally, a gentle tease. No, he can't resist: he kisses her nipples. One and then the other, methodically, like checking boxes. He laughs at himself. "God, I love your tits."

Avery

That's how he chooses to keep her still, to make her stop, god, Jesus, stop. And it makes her laugh as her back is hitting his mussed but still-done bedspread. Avery can scarcely breathe but she tries to laugh anyway, panting and gasping as her legs wrap around him to hold him close. He's hers now; she rubs her face heavily against his, kisses him intermittently, making soft little noises of happiness. She doesn't think she can go another round but she thinks: if he wants to I'll try, because she so desperately wants him to feel as happy as she does.

Also, because she certainly doesn't mind Calden wanting her, rubbing himself against her, urging her to open to him.

But she's a little pleased, too, to see how spent he is, how sweaty and worn down, how limp his body becomes as he lays over her. Avery lets herself drowse. She catches her breath. After a while, he murmurs, and she opens one eye, peering at him, and just shrugs one shoulder. He kisses that shoulder, kisses her chest and avoids her breasts because that will just make his poor dick hard again,

totally fails.

Avery laughs as he kisses her nipples; she shivers. "Stop," she whispers, her voice raspy beneath the chuckle. She lifts his face to hers with her hands, kissing his mouth softly. "We can still do all those things," she murmurs. "We should talk." Avery nuzzles him. "You'll just have to stay in town longer so we can have plenty of time to talk."

Calden

Stop, he is bidden, and stop he does. His cheeks are warm and scratchy under her palms; a little sticky from the sweat trickled from his thick hair. He laughs into her mouth as she kisses his, and when he is released he slumps gratefully, exhaustedly to his side, beside her, half-atop her still. His head is pillowed on his bent arm. The other hand: well, it can't help but graze over her body. His palm smooths along her abdomen. He takes her breast in hand, covering it, like he wants to keep her warm.

"I love you," he repeats. It is every bit as reverent and warm as his previous exultation of her charms, with the same warm humor beneath. He turns his head, finds the round of her shoulder near, kisses it. "I'd stay in town forever for you, if you asked.

"But I'd miss my cows," he admits, a little later. "And my horses, and my dogs, and even those unwashed barbarians that call themselves my cousins."

Avery

In answer to that warming, covering hand, Avery turns on her side, draping her leg over his him, snuggling closer. She will warm herself quite nicely that way, thank you. "Mmm," she says, satisfied and self-pleased. Her eyes are closing. She listens to him telling her he loves her again, spreading through her, even until he tells her he'd stay forever, if she asked.

But he would miss his home, and his land, and that pangs through her deeply.

"And I need to be with my people," she says softly, her eyes opening slowly again, looking at his skin and where the moonlight through the window washes over him. It aches so terribly, suddenly, the hurt evident in her voice: "Oh, darling."

Calden

He feels her pain as keenly as he would his own. Then again: it is his own. Their separate lives; their separate lands, and the demands each places upon them. That hand upon her breast becomes an arm around her shoulders, her back; he gathers her to him, pulling her close.

"Shh," he whispers. "It's all right, love. It's nothing we can't work out."

Avery

To be truthful, there are also separate wants: he is so tied to his land, to his business, to his family. And she doesn't want to live hours away from the caern, the sept, her post, her pack, her family. Not yet, she thinks, already anticipating a time in her life when she might want to retreat to the relative wilderness of his lands. But not yet. Not now; she's only in her twenties. She's only a Fostern. She can't, she -- wouldn't. Even if she truly and deeply wanted to, she wouldn't. She would be too far away to guard the places she has sworn to.

It makes her very sad. She presses herself to Calden as though trying to staunch a wound with his body, his nearness, his embrace.

"It's just that... I do want to live with you. And come home to you. But I don't want you to leave your land."

Calden

"I want that too," he says, soft. His arm around her is tight, and warm, and strong. The beat of his heart, too: strong. Slow now, a deep thrum in his chest, against which she is pressed. "I want to see you over the dinner table every night. And in the bathroom mirror, brushing our teeth. And in bed, turning out the lights.

"I couldn't ask you to leave your Caern, though. Or your two Septs. It's ... your vocation, and your duty." Calden sighs, his hand sweeping her back. "Wish I could open a moonbridge in my house."

Avery

That makes her laugh. A sad, almost tearful huff of laughter. She can't cry right now, though. She is so effervescent from making love to him, over and over like that, and that closeness does, indeed, staunch the wound. She's engaged -- sort of. There is no ring on anyone's finger and no one really said will you and no one said I will.

Just I want and Let's. Which, to tell the truth, she actually likes better.

Avery runs her hand over his side, achingly slow and just as tender. She kisses his chest, over his heart. "Maybe... there's a gift, or a fetish. Something that would let me move more quickly between the two." She turns a bit in bed, opening her eyes to look at him. "I'll look into it."

Calden

"Do," he says softly, his hand cupping behind her head as she kisses him over his heart. "But until then, we'll drive back and forth. And I'll spend time down here. And you'll spend time up there.

"We should tell your father tomorrow," he adds, the thought occurring to him. "We're making honest people out of each other. I suppose we'll have to tell my father, too, even if he grouses about it. And then my brothers, and yours, and all the cousins and aunts and uncles. We'll have to pick a date and a venue, and..." he laughs quietly. "I don't think I've ever thought about how much work goes into getting hitched."

Avery

She nods, aching at the thought of it, but surviving that ache. There have been worse pains.

None that she can readily bring to mind at the moment, but there you are.

She huffs a laugh. "Oh, darling. Nothing so slapdash. We'll host a brunch. Up at your house, if your father won't travel. Just close family. After that we'll have announcements sent out regarding the engagement. After that we'll need to decide on a date."

Her hand pats his body softly. "It will all go much smoother if you just follow my lead. I'll need to make sure you have my steward's number in your phone, since she'll be managing the wedding planners."

Calden

Calden, shall we admit, smirks.

"Oh, you have been planning it in your head, haven't you."

Avery

She is quiet a moment. "Well, some of this is just etiquette, darling." Her hand moves. "I always knew I would marry. Even after I changed, I..."

thought I was going to marry someone else.

Avery goes quiet. She just touches him, stroking his side, silent now.

Calden

It does not have the intended effect, his quip. And Calden grows serious as well, his hand finding hers and covering it, moving it, taking it to his mouth where he kisses her palm warmly.

"You didn't know it would be me," he finishes for her, softly. "But it is me. And I am ... so happy and so honored, Avery."

Avery

She didn't know. She certainly never thought she would marry out of her tribe, though marrying someone quite a bit older wasn't beyond the pale. Calden's finish for her sentence is euphemistic. She forgives it, because now is not the time to be talking about the young man who was never really her ex because he was never really her paramour because he never really chose her, even when she changed and he could have, freely.

Avery hugs Calden tightly. She closes her eyes again, letting the ache leave her. "Oh, don't be honored," she says softly, laughingly. "It's not a gift." Her head tips back, eyes opening, finding his as her arms embrace him. "It's just what we both want."

She smiles, tenderly. "Kiss me. Then let's order food and take a shower."

Calden

"I know," he says. There is poignancy in his smile. "But sometimes you feel like such a gift, and I don't know what I've done to deserve you."

Her arms go around him. She slips easily into his embrace, as though she was born there, belongs there. She hardly needs to ask; he kisses her, tender and soft.

--

They make their way out of bed at last. They decide on dinner -- something hearty, something solid, something steak-and-potatoes. He calls one of the restaurants he supplies and he puts in an order for more red meat than two people should logically be able to consume, but then: his lover is a wolf. A glorious, sun-blessed, moon-beloved wolf.

He joins her in the shower, after. She is already halfway clean, and he makes her somewhat filthy again when he wraps his arms around her from behind, kisses her all along her neck. They soap and they shampoo. He grins at her as he waits his turn under the shower. She catches him looking at her assets; there's a gleam in his eye and he considers another go-around, but truth be told

they're both a little worn out, and really: it's getting ridiculous.

They emerge into a steamfilled bathroom, wrapping thick towels around themselves. At some point he bought bathrobes for the both of them, fluffy white. She looks golden. He looks husky and ruddy and oaken and earthy. He rinses dishes and utensils while they await their food, and when it arrives she answers the door. They unpack their dinner on the dining table, which is small, built for two but with space for a crowded four. He gets a bottle of wine from the cooler.

The food is still warm, almost hot, when they sit down to eat. And eating, his legs brush hers under the table; his shin crosses hers, resting there.

Avery

Avery's brows, such a dark contrast to her fair skin and pale hair, tug together, her forehead wrinkling between them. "Darling, no," she murmurs, ducking her head a moment to rub her nose against his chest. The gesture is self-comforting as much as it is reaching out to him to reassure him of her affection despite the negativity of the word. The hair on his body holds his scent and gives it back to her, relaxing her limbs and slowing her heart just as easily as, often, the smell of him quickens it.

"I'm not... a gift, my love," she says quietly, holding her arms close around his upper body. "I'm not something to be deserved. Or earned," she adds softly. "It makes me feel strange when you say such things. It makes me feel quite far away from you."

Her lips touch his chest, beneath his pectoral muscle, across the hard curve of his ribcage. She kisses him where popular mythology would suggest she herself was taken from him, before the world knew its own name. She kisses him where goddess and evolution both gave him hard armor to protect the powerful -- but vulnerable -- core of his being.

"I just love you, Calden. As you love me. That is why we are together." She smiles to herself, memorizing this little patch of skin she is currently staring at, nuzzling, kissing. "That's why we're going to get married."

Calden

A subtle little shiver steals under his skin when she kisses that small part of him. She has ways of uncovering secrets about his body; finding nerve endings he never knew he had. Sensitive spots that tickle, that arouse. His breathing changes a little, just a little, and then he releases a breath and hugs her against his side.

"I know," he says, and he does. He does know. As much as she sometimes feels like a goddess to him, like divinity, like something above and beyond himself to whom he is glad to offer himself as tribute, as pledge, as sacrifice -- she is not. She is his lover, and his love. She is mortal and human and fallible and flesh-and-blood, right here, right now, immediate, visceral.

She is tangible. She is touchable. She can, if she chooses to, give herself to him.

"I'll try harder to remember," he promises, and urges her back up, up to where he can kiss her mouth. "It's just that I love you so."

Avery

Avery does slide up beside him, closing her eyes when she kisses him. She smiles. "I love you, too," she murmurs, close to his mouth, when they've parted.

--

So, yes, they make their way out of bed. She is lolling about, lazy, even after she has shooed him off. Something about moving him off the bedspread and then rolling into the warm hollow where his body was. She smiles at him from there, grinning, teasing, til he grabs the bedspread and yanks, hauling her towards him over the mattress, making her yelp.

And perhaps he has to toss her over his shoulder to get her up, which only makes her laugh harder. And perhaps he swats her ass, light and affectionate. Or bites her. Or kisses her, this man whose first time literally kissing Silver Fang ass was the night they met. But they do get up. And go to the bathroom, discussing what to eat. Calden smooches her before he goes to order, or Avery catches him and smooches him before he heads out the door so she can use the bathroom and start her shower in ladylike peace.

The water is running when he gets back, steam filling the room. Avery is humming something, massaging conditioner into her freshly-washed hair. It makes her a tad slippery when Calden gets in, wraps himself around her. She just smiles at him over her shoulder, tips her head while he lays kisses over her throat. She hums something else, lower, softer. She wiggles her bottom against him in greeting, handing him the shampoo. There's no need for her to catch him at anything; while his hands are busy lathering his hair under the water, Avery is pressed up against him, chest to chest, and has no qualms about palming his ass, kissing his chest, nipping at his skin.

But they're both a little worn out. And it's getting ridiculous. And more than anything, Avery just wants to be close. All that touching and kissing and wiggling and nipping doesn't add up to the need to have sex with him again; just affection. Just piles, and hills, and mountains of affection.

--

Avery takes longer to skim and scuff water out of her hair than Calden does. She is wrapped up in the bathrobe he keeps here for her, much smaller than his own, humming again. While she's drying her hair he's getting plates ready, opening wine; she's passing the door on her way to the kitchen when the delivery arrives, but she has no wallet on her and they're both in robes so there's some searching through the clothing that Calden tore off piecemeal on his way to the couch where his naked, soon-to-be-fiance was awaiting him.

They eat, seated at the table. Steaks and potatoes on plates, red wine in glasses, feet touching under the little table.

"Do you think it would be terribly cheap or tacky to have small plates and hors d'oeuvres at the reception rather than a sit-down meal?" she asks him. "It seems like such a lull in the spirit of things. Everyone suddenly going staid and motionless, planting themselves in chairs they're stuck in because of some chart, eating dry salmon or over-salted fish when they should be dancing and mingling and moving about." She is slicing into her steak as she discusses this. "No one would go hungry, of course, I'd never permit that, but a full catered meal for that many people, all the same or with just a few options -- it just seems so dull."

Calden

Fiancee. Such a strange, tender, sweet new way to think of Avery: no longer merely girlfriend but fiancee, wife-to-be,

mate-to-be. Or perhaps they were already mated.

Their legs touch under the table. He rubs his shin along hers sometimes, casually, thoughtlessly, just-because. They eat steak and they eat potatoes and he refills her glass when it becomes empty. She wants to know his opinion on another one of those tiny details of wedding planning that he's never really thought about thinking about -- let alone thought about, period.

"You know," says Calden, sawing expertly into dry-aged beef fed and raised with his own two hands, or at least the hands of his close kin, "when I was a kid we used to have blizzard parties on the ranch. Whenever a big storm was blowing in and we weren't sure if the power was even going to stay on, we'd empty out our freezer and invite all the neighbors over. Had them bring their perishables and cots and bedding, and then we'd grill or bake or salt all the food. When the storm hit we'd hunker down and play cards, make music, light fires in every hearth. People'd be over for days, sleeping in every corner of the house, until the storm was over. Then we'd all go shovel snow together and go our separate ways.

"Maybe instead of a reception we can have a house party. Blizzard not necessary, but -- maybe we can just have fifty people over, feed 'em a whole cow, and let them stay for days. Set off some fireworks again, maybe. Or if you want a real reception, we can do that after."

Avery

That...

is not even slightly what Avery had in mind. Has in mind. When he looks up from his meal, perhaps, she's staring at him, not in horror -- nothing so dramatic as that -- but with her eyes slightly wide and her face otherwise quite still.

Fifty people makes her eyes widen a bit more: not that Calden would consider bringing fifty people into his house, which is roomy enough, but that he is suggesting that only fifty people be invited to their reception which isn't even a reception and is a thousand miles (more or less) from places she is considering for a venue in her head and, and, and

he says something about doing so after a 'real reception' and she exhales a quick breath of laughter that sounds at least partly relieved. "Oh."

Avery picks up her wine glass and takes a long drink. "Well. I had imagined we would depart our reception and... have a honeymoon."

Calden

"Well, of course we'd have a honeymoon. We could just go on our honeymoon after the house party and -- oh." The penny drops; he looks a little crestfallen. "You don't like the idea."

Avery

She reaches over to him, even though their feet are resting together -- the soles of her feet warming and warmed by the tops of his feet -- and touches his hand. "I don't, darling," she says gently, but honestly, and clearly, without hedging or fluffing, and also without flailing. "Not for this, at least. It sounds very fun. And warm. But... it isn't the sort of thing I had in mind for our wedding celebration, that's all."

Avery squeezes his hand. "It's all dressing and pomp, anyway, all these details," she says. "And I don't want to fixate and fuss over those things just to avoid the questions that really matter, funneling all our ache and fear into things about catering and decoration instead of talking about... where we will live. And when -- and where and how and whether -- we have children. Or how I feel when your father says something that makes you angry. Important things. Not all of which will be hard, or painful, to talk about, obviously, but... they are difficult questions to find answers for. And they matter far more than what style of party we throw."

Calden

The truth is, it does make him ache a little, and perhaps even worry a little, that his very first suggestion toward this marriage is one that she ... is less than enthusiastic about. It makes him think of her shining home, her elegant family, her lineage, her bloodlines, and how sharply each of these things contrasts with his own.

Yet what he feels overwhelming right now, when she answers him with such gentle honesty, is respect. True, deep respect. He lays down his fork. His hand turns over and his fingers wrap around hers.

"Thank you," he says quietly. "For being honest. And for being gentle."

And anyway -- she's right. There are so many other things far more important than where they have the reception and what color the bridesmaids wear. They both recognize that. Perhaps they only approached from this angle because the others were so much more fraught.

"Let's talk about them, then," Calden says. He takes a swallow of wine, sets the glass down. "Let's start with where we'll live, and when, and how."

Avery

It would be so easy to worry over these details, these differences in some of their fantasies about their future together, even what amounts to just one day of their future together. It is easy to stop there and feel the pang and twist of it, the fear of it. What if he wants a boot-stomping party outside of a barn and she wants champagne and canapés? What if he wants something vibrantly colorful and noisy and she wants something serene and all-white? What if they can't agree on a cake, or an officiant, or even a location or a date? Doesn't that indicate that they shouldn't even bother, that they just fundamentally want different things in life?

It doesn't. He wants to marry her, and belong to her, and love her, and be mated to her, and he will work for and accept what he needs to because that is what he wants. And she wants to marry him, and be with him, and love him, and be mated to him, and she will work for and accept what she needs to because that is what she wants. Ultimately it comes down to that: the willingness to place that one wanted, desired, worked-for thing ahead of passing desires for this flower or that cake flavor.

They are very different. Their backgrounds, their bloodlines, the ways they were brought up, the things they find beautiful or important or appropriate for expressing a particular kind of joy. But the joy itself is no different: she is honest with him because of that, and because of how easily it comes to her to feel it when she's around him. Even at her worst. Even on the hardest days.

"Of course, darling," she murmurs, to his thanks, as though it touches her heart that he would even want to thank her. Why, after all, would she be anything but honest with him, or anything but gentle? She loves him.

Avery slips from her chair, losing his hand in the process, circling the small table and coming around to his side. She holds her robe carefully around her legs and, if he should be so accommodating, sits on one of his thighs, her legs between his, perching on his lap. With one arm looped around his shoulders she leans over, pulling her plate and her fork and her wine glass over to the now-crowded side of the table that was once his alone. She does, if he has not noticed at all tonight, want very much to be close. If she were in another form she might be circling his legs, getting constantly underfoot, following him from room to room as though to make sure he doesn't Go Away For A Long Time again, her eyes bright and adoring.

Well: in this form her eyes are bright and adoring, anyway. And she may not be following him or tripping up his feet but she is certainly unapologetic and unhesitating in her pursuit of nearness. Especially if she knows the conversation is about to turn a touch painful and difficult. Especially she is not sure what the answer will be or what they will do. Well, then, absolutely: she will sit herself in his lap to discuss this.

"Yes," she says, almost primly. "Because that's about the marriage, and not the wedding."

Different things, really.

Avery spears a neatly-sliced cube of steak from her plate with her fork. "At least regarding the time we spend together in Denver...there's a part of me that wants to get a new place: for this to be your spot, all your own, for me to have my penthouse, for my family to have their home, and my pack the house near the caern, but then to have another home here in the city that holds our marriage bed." She chews neatly, quickly, shaking her head. "But as much as I adore real estate, even I know that's absurd." Avery smiles, her lips together. "Maybe I will move out of my father's house completely. Naturally we'll have a suite there, for visits and the like, but in spirit it won't be 'my' home any longer, if you understand my meaning. It will be, but not. Symbolically, I mean."

She leans over, rubbing her nose against his cheekbone, his temple, his nose -- whatever.

"I do love my penthouse, though. And I don't really want to give that up. Nor do I want you to give up this place. I did work so hard to make it something you would like. But I would like, at least for the times when we are together in the city, for us to have a home we share, even if I... have to run away, sometimes. She leans onto him, touching the back of his hair with her fingers. "Do you have a preference?"

Calden

Calden has, in fact, noticed that Avery wants to be close tonight. That hardly surprises him, or even strikes him as unusual: he wants to be close, too. When she gets up he sits back, smiling already, widening his stance already in anticipation of -- well. Exactly what she does. She slips into his lap, careful with her robe, and he slides his arm around her waist. Her plate grates lightly along the tabletop. He wipes his mouth on his napkin, nuzzles her robes aside, deposits a kiss to her shoulder.

Truthfully, even in this they are different. He does not have her love of real estate, of gift-buying and gift-giving, of new shiny things with which she can make her friends happy. Which isn't to say he doesn't enjoy giving gifts, because he does: but Calden likes old things, things with roots, a single home passed down and added to and expanded and remodeled endlessly over the generations. Gifts like bottles of wine from the cellar of that very home, saved up over decades. He is a little amused by her mention of getting yet another home in the city, and more so when she confesses even she knows the absurdity. He hides his smile behind his wineglass.

Which he sets down a little later, while she's touching his hair, while he's tilting his head into her touch.

"I'd love it if you moved in here," he says. "If you made this our shared home, instead of just my little place in the city. You should keep your penthouse, though, in case you need a place to run away to. And as for moving out of your father's house -- that's entirely up to you. I know all of us, your father, your brother and I, would support whatever decision you make."

Avery

They keep nuzzling. She twirls her fingertips in the hair above the back of his neck, smiling. Her robe stays a little off-shoulder after he kisses her, and she doesn't reach to adjust it. She is already smiling but it grows as he says he'd love this to be their home, she should absolutely keep her penthouse.

She rubs her nose on him again, kisses his cheek. "Well, it's traditional. Leaving my father's house to go live with my husband, tra la la." She grins, kissing his jawline again because the word husband tickles her so. "I would love that, darling," Avery says, almost sighing it. "I thought about it, but didn't want to presume."

There's a pause. "If we entertain we should do it at the penthouse, though. Just for the room if we have lots of guests. This place," she smooches him yet again, "can be our private little nest. Just ours and only for the most intimate gatherings."

All this kissing -- all this robe-askew nuzzling and smooching and words like husband and intimate -- has Avery snuggling closer to him. It has her touching him with her free hand along the collar of his robe, close to his chest. Surely some of that is the wine, too. Even though the thought of making love again wears her out a bit, she simultaneously grins to imagine it, giving him these teasing caresses and suggestive glances and earnest smooches.

"But... your ranch is your real home," she says, slowing a bit. Teasing a little less. Growing more serious as that thought sets like the sun in her mind. "And it's so... you." Her hand traces the skin on his chest now, more thoughtful, less coy. "Every square foot of it. That's part of why I like being there with you."

But, she does not say. But, she avoids.

Calden

"It is," Calden agrees. His voice is quiet. There's a certain gravity in it: the unspoken truth that lies behind those statements. The ranch is his real home. It is him, it belongs to him, he belongs to it. And it is very,

very,

far away.

He rests his chin gently on her shoulder for a moment. He kisses her earlobe, rubs his face against her skin. She smells clean and soft and new, like herself, but also like him and his shampoo and his bodywash and his sheets and his city-home. When he raises his head, when he leans back in his seat, he exhales softly.

"But?" he prompts. It's just as soft; just as quiet.

Avery

That aches for her the way her honesty about not wanting a blizzard party for their wedding reception made him ache; they are different, and when they feel so close, when they perhaps feel at their closest, they are strangely vulnerable to these shadows of schisms between them. They are differences that threaten to wound and sunder, not differences to be appreciated, celebrated, reveled in. It's a human thing: the fear that accompanies intimacy when that intimacy is, in truth, not entirely mature.

"But," Avery says softly, since he either cannot or refuses to guess at reading her mind, "it does not feel like mine." She touches her foot to his calf, sighing softly, though more thoughtful than worried or lonesome. "I have always felt there is room for me there as a guest, because of your excellent hospitality, but... I am not sure there is a place there for me as lady of the house."

Calden

Lady of the house. The very phrase makes Calden happy; kindles a warm glow inside him. He covers her knee with his palm. He bows his brow to her shoulder, nuzzling again.

"Do you want there to be a place for you?" he asks gently. The question is not rhetorical. "I wasn't quite sure if you wanted to share that home with me too, or if that'd be ... too much for you."

Avery

Avery ducks her head a little. She rests her brow against his temple, which means she leans over and nuzzles his head up from where he was nuzzling her shoulder and there is something profoundly animal about this, profoundly emotional. She wants his scent all over her, even though she's already washed in his soap and shampoo, was naked on his leather, has been covered in the dust of his living space, is wearing a robe washed alongside his. She cannot get close enough to him tonight, it seems.

As she nuzzles, she thinks. She considers the question.

"Wherever we are together, I know you will not fault me for needing... space. We could live with my father or in the penthouse or your house or here and I know you would forgive me my distance. It wouldn't make it less my home, or less yours." Her hand touches his arm, strokes over his wrist thoughtfully. "With you... it's often all right even if the only space between us is a few feed between the bed and the couch. And you are quite unique to me in that regard."

She is quiet a little, and smiles to herself. "The last time I was at your house, and I went for a run all those hours? I almost stayed out. There was a part of me that wanted to just remain entirely alone. But I also wanted to be with you again. I wanted to see you, and sniff you, and sleep beside you. That's... uncommon for me, in one of those moods."

Those spells. Those fits.

Avery takes a breath, lifting her head and smiling softly at him. "I think I want to, darling. I want to share all our homes. Because I know you will leave me if I can't bear your nearness. I know you will let me go if I have to run away. And I know you will wait for me until I can come back. But... what if I wanted to repaint a room or get new bedding? So much of your home seems... unchanged. Unchangeable. I feel wary of the thought of even suggesting alteration. I think that's what makes me feel a bit like an outsider."

Calden

It is remarkable, the nearness she allows him. The closeness she feels for him, even when she is not herself. Even Calden, who has never personally known madness, understands how remarkable it is, and how remarkable he must be to her, and how remarkable what they have together is.

They've all but forgotten their dinner. They have forsaken it in favor of supping on one another's presence instead. All those little nuzzlings. All the times they rub their faces together, kiss each other's bodies, touch each other's skin.

"If you want to share my home, all of my homes, then you're more than welcome, Avery. I'd love it if you shared them with me. I'd love it.

"And," laughing then, low and warm, "oh, Avery. If you only knew how many times that old pile of bricks has been rebuilt and remodeled and repainted and redecorated and sometimes even knocked down and built again. There's nothing about it that's untouchable. The whole purpose of that house is to be changed and changed again with every new generation that grows up in it. That's actually what makes it mean so much to me and my family. It makes it feel alive, like it grows and changes with us."

Avery

She laughs. Oh, she laughs, low and subtle. She is turning towards him, having only half-finished her lovely -- and cooling -- dinner though she made it all the way through a glass of wine. She turns on his lap, opening her legs, straddling him there, her palms touching his cheeks, cupping over his jaw.

"So you would let me brighten spots of it? A new spread here, a pillow there, flowers, some lighter colors?" She kisses his brow. "I will get your cantankerous old father a new present every month until he's nice to me."

Kisses his nose. "Or threaten to eat him like Red Riding Hood's granny if he isn't nice to you."

Calden

Oh. He is being straddled now. His hands stay on her body, gliding across her waist as she turns. There's a gleam in his eyes. She kisses his brow; his nose. He lifts his chin and kisses her mouth.

"It'll be your home as much as mine, Miss Chase. You can do as you please, and sooner or later we'll have an argument about the color of the drapes like a proper married couple.

"Now," his hands have settled at her hips, his wrists resting atop her thighs, "are we going to discuss the rest of the Important Things? Or are you about to drag me to bed again?"

Avery

That makes her giggle. Well and truly: arguing about drapes. She's never argued with anyone about drapes before. She can't even imagine it. She grins when he asks her if they're going to keep talking.

"Oh, darling," she says, teasing his hair again, tucking the nonexistent stray lock over his ear just to touch him. "We just did at least seventy-three per cent of one big discussion, and we got engaged tonight and we talked about not looking at me like a gift and you tacitly endorsed me eating your father if he's ornery. And we did roughly a percent and a half of all the reception talks we'll have to do."

She leans forward, nuzzling him, kissing his mouth. "We've done so much already. Can't we just... eat a bit more,"

she is hungry,

"and then go to bed and fuck?" The word itself is punctuated by a roll of her hips; she grins as she does so, wiggling the collar of her robe down her shoulders a bit more.

Calden

Calden meets that kiss in the middle, fiercely, smiling into it even as he eats at her mouth. When they pull apart, there's something a little heavier in his breathing, and that gleam in his eyes: well, it's kindled.

"Sounds like a plan," he says, "if you think you can handle another round."

Avery

Her grin only grows, glows, seeing his eyes glint. She's so triumphant, so eager, so amused. She sinks closer to him.

"I am one of Gaia's finest, fiercest guardians," she murmurs to him. "And all I want in the world is to fall asleep in a messy, post-orgasmic tangle with you, because I love you and you make me happy and you want to marry me and take care of me forever."

Avery kisses him again, her lips soft, her mouth lush as summer. When she parts, her eyes are half-lidded, dark lashes veiling her eyes. "So I shall have what I want."

a reunion.

Avery

She has hardly seen him since July. They passed the height of summer together for a few days while she healed, while they reassured each other of her survival, and while she stayed on to walk his land here and there, seeking out something worse, something more, just in case there were others. Then she left, and it was no different a leaving than any other. Avery held her hands on his face as she kissed him, and Calden held her at the waist and pressed her closer. Her leaving was eventual, not habitual: since the night they met, their goodbyes have often been attempts to delay the inevitable as long as possible.

Inevitable because he lives so very far from her. Because there is not a clear future where he leaves the home and land of his ancestors, the land he is a part of and the land that she loves as being a piece of him. Because there is not a clear future where she comes to live with him there, away from her family, her people, her packmate, the sept she serves and the caern she protects. Inevitable because she will always have to leave him. It isn't just the war. Even when she stayed with him those days in midsummer, Avery went roaming his land for hours at a time. Alone.

So she leaves then, kissing him achingly, deeply, til she pulled herself away. And they made plans to see each other in another couple of weeks, which they did, when Calden came to Denver with a pair of border collie pups to introduce them to Avery's brother and Avery's estate. And then they made plans to visit in another couple of weeks, which fell through. Then the next visit fell through. And nearly -- though not every -- time they have intended to see one another, something else has come up. A battle or a hunt, a sick member of the White clan leaving the ranch short-handed, an unexpected invitation,

an unexpected spell of madness.

--

They saw each other in late August, right as the season began to sear and fade from summer to autumn. Avery made it up to the ranch again and their reunion was ferocious and intoxicated. They locked the door. They put off eating as insistently as they put off sleeping, until they couldn't help but do both together, too. They went for rides, and they had dinner one night with his cousins, the air boisterous and tinted amber from the whiskey. They fell drunkenly to bed together, Avery curled and tucked against his side, her breath tickling his chest on each exhale.

And after she left, with all the kissing and laughing and long goodbyes and not-wanting-to-leaves that entails, it happened again. Things coming up over and over. Avery audibly holding back tears as she sighed, forcing a light little laugh, on the phone. Someone getting sick; promises made to one father or the other. The words I miss you, I miss you so much heard again, and again, and again. An animal hunger gnawing at her inside, assuaged somewhat by the presence of her father and brother, the growing puppies, the occasional chat with her equally aloof packmate, days and nights spent at Cold Crescent. She blanketed herself in duty every time plans fell through because of something on Calden's end.

She sent apology gifts -- a fine bottle of wine, new leather gloves, a gold-accented pen -- when plans fell through because of something in her own schedule. And did not permit herself to cry while on the phone with him, even if it caused an unduly abrupt end to the conversation. She sent pictures from her phone: selfies with the dogs, a sunset, whatever. It has not been a month (and change) of pure, unadulterated misery and depression, hardly. Primarily they have stayed in touch. But there is no way, in the gifts or texts or calls, that Calden could miss her frustration, her sadness, her ache. They stand out as clearly as veins of stone and grit through a clear gem or nugget of gold, raw and unrefined and constricting that which would otherwise be so bright.

--

There is no giving up, though. In early October, Calden makes plans to come to Denver, spend a few days, stay at his place in the city, spend some much-craved alone time with his lady love. And as the day gets closer, perhaps there is some anticipation of something else happening, something else keeping them apart, but nothing does. Nothing comes up. Nothing forestalls the visit or prevents her attendance.

Avery feels almost manic with glee the night that she is to meet him there. She slips into the apartment, feeling quite naughty. After all, this is not her home, she does not see it as her home and does not spend time here without Calden. She did eventually relent and take a key from Calden, insisting she would only really need it if he asked her to go over there for some reason when he could not. But right now she is glad she relented, she is tickled to sneak into his bachelor pad before he is expected to be there, and though she sneezes a bit on entry -- it is not thoroughly or disgustingly dusty, but there is a bit here and there -- she is glad to see that it smells still of leather and wood and Patches and Calden and Calden and Calden.

She leaves the lights off, letting the moonlight come in through the windows. And she locks the front door behind her.

--

When Calden does arrive, surely he can sense her before he turns the key in the lock. Feel the pulse of rage and spirit on the other side of the door. Perhaps he smells her perfume faintly, a trace of her left in the air to mark where she has been and where she has gone. Perhaps when he sees her, upon entering, he notices that she has trimmed her hair and that it falls in the soft and lazy waves it has when she's had it up but has let it down. Perhaps he notices that the moonlight turns her skin shimmering, a strange mix of mercury and gold. Perhaps he sees her shoes by the door or her purse sitting on a chair or wonders why the lights are still off, but

he can see her, and smell her, and whatever else he notices he cannot help but notice that she is laid out on that leather couch of his, drowsing on her stomach, her cheek pillowed on one hand. He cannot help but notice that she is naked, just as Avery cannot help but lift her head, slowly propping herself up on her forearms, her legs bending and cocking upward at the knees, ankles crossing, feet drifting lightly in the dark. She looks over at him, smiling an almost sleeping smile that is betrayed by the gleam in her eyes, shining fair blue even in the shadows.

Avery is, at the moment, quite pleased with herself for her patience.

Calden

In late August, when they met after a month without, Calden didn't think his longing could have grown more intense. It had been so long, after all, and they had already been through two, three iterations of the last-minute phone call, the apologies across long-distance and the wretched way both of them felt afterward, nevermind who was doing the apologizing and who was doing the forgiving.

Their reunion was ferocious then, and intoxicated. There were locked doors. There skipped meals and skipped showers; they barely even slept that first night, and then in the morning he rode out onto his land half-asleep in the saddle. She wanted to come with him. They ended up napping out on a tree-shaded bluff, only to awaken as the afternoon grew later and the skies grew stormier, only to come home half-drenched by a sudden thunderstorm, banging in through the side door laughing, slamming themselves into the guest room downstairs because the bedroom was too far.

There were nights with the cousins, whiskey and loud voices. They stumbled upstairs laughing, late late late, Patches sidling out of the way as they tumbled into bed. He was too drunk to figure out how to undress her properly and she was laughing too hard and they somehow managed to turn her shirt nearly inside-out without actually getting it off and she was laughing at him, laughing at him, calling him her silly man, why was he still so far away.

They part the way they always do,

bittersweet,

holding onto each other too long and sharing just one more kiss, and then just one more, and laughing, and bright, but when she backs down the driveway he walks with her, pacing her car until she gets far enough that she tells him to go back in, go.

She sees him standing there, hands in the pockets of his worn cattleman's jeans, the real deal, the classic. He is smiling, but his brow is lined. He lifts a hand in goodbye.

--

Weeks and weeks and weeks go by. There's always something, some snag, some problem, something rearing its ugly head to disrupt their well-laid plans. There are times when she sounds a breath from tears and then she hangs up. There are times he sounds frustrated, though he tries so hard not to be -- at the circumstances, at the events, at this incompetent business partner or that injured animal; at himself, and once or twice, even at her. She sends gifts. He sends handwritten notes; flowers, once, not a bouquet but a living potted plant. He calls the morning after one of those nights that they hung up a little too abruptly, when they hung up because he was impatient, and he apologizes. Simply, in spare, painful language: he apologizes.

He sounds wretched.

He misses her so much.

--

It gets to the point that he doesn't even trust the plans anymore. It gets to the point that he thinks one of these days he's just going to drive down there, unannounced, and see if fate can keep them apart then. Maybe it's a jinx. Maybe it's a curse to be broken. Maybe,

but then somehow the stars align. And it works out. And he is driving down in the evening, which falls early now as the planet tilts toward winter. The mountains to the west are purple in the twilight, then grey, then mere shadows against the bowl of a brilliant, cloudless sky.

He parks in the covered garage of the building she found him. He rides the elevator up to the condo she had designed for him, renovated for him. He has a set of keys, and so does she, and even before he slides the key into the lock he can feel her. Sense her, that vibratory, golden energy just behind the door -- so very rarefied and so very wild all at once. The key turns in the lock. He has his hand on the door a beat before he twists the handlebar and lets himself in.

It's dark. The curtains are open. The windows block out the noise of the city; only the sound of the ventilation fills the space. Moonlight spills onto her skin. She looks

incredible, unbelievable, surreal in her beauty. That's what he thinks, anyway. He is transfixed in the doorway a moment, the light of the hall still picking him out of darkness, dusting over broad shoulders in that shearling jacket, haloing in his hair. He needs a haircut. He needs a shave. He needs a lot of things, and chief on that list is her.

He lets the door shut behind him. Stomps out of his shoes and takes off his jacket and undoes his shirt and all the while he is walking across the room to her, leaving pieces of his accouterments behind like shed snakeskin. He undoes his belt and he takes off his undershirt and he steps out of his jeans and now he's an armsreach from her, undoing his watch, taking off his boxers,

climbing onto the couch with her, over her, saying not a word, feeling as raw and wild as an animal himself as he covers her on all fours, nuzzling the side of his face against hers hard, insistent, kissing her mouth as he finds it.

Avery

Avery likes the feeling of the leather against her breasts. She has been luxuriating in his space and in the remnants of his scent from the last time he was here; she has, here and there, touched herself (here and there) as she has thought about him. It hardly matters that there have been spikes of mutual frustration or upset over the past two months, or that they've barely spent more than a couple of days together since July. All she can think of now is that he's coming, he said he's coming she talked to him just thirty minutes ago she's here and he's coming.

When she is stroking herself, idly and meltingly, she doesn't think about the worry that he might not, that something else might come up, that she'll be called away. She has turned off her damn phone. She is lying naked on her boyfriend's couch, waiting for him.

Of course, when he walks in she isn't touching herself. She's smiling at him. She could feel him, hear him, smell him coming and it is all she can do not to cross the room in a couple of bounding steps and leap onto him. But as he enters, shutting the door and starting, immediately, to strip out of his clothes, she restrains herself. She quivers a little. And when he's halfway across the room she is turning on her side and when he gets onto the couch she is rolling onto her back and when he crawls on top of her she shudders, tipping her head to the side and back, opening her throat to him, arching her back.

Avery likes the feeling of his body against her breasts. Avery likes the feeling of his thighs between her thighs, her legs opening for his body. Avery likes the feeling of his mouth searching for her mouth, her mouth turning to his, the taste of his tongue, the slide of wetness from her pussy as his scent fills her nostrils, as his hands fill themselves with her tits, as her hands avail themselves of his chest, and his sides, and hips, and his cock.

Calden

Calden was going to order takeout. He was going to open a bottle of wine, because he's moved a few choice articles into the small wine cooler under the kitchen counter. He was going to sit with his lady love and catch up and eat out of takeout boxes and watch a show and

maybe all those things will still happen. They've been delayed, though. Quite put aside. He's on the couch, and the leather is so soft, and so are her hands and so is her skin and he goes a little mad for her when she rolls onto her back. His hands are, in fact, on her breasts. Almost immediately, he's covering her tits with his big calloused palms, he's cupping them together and bending to kiss her cleavage, which he's always found to be such a funny word, almost as funny as bosoms, but: there you have it. Anyway, he's hardly thinking of proper terminology.

He's hardly thinking at all, especially when she opens her thighs for him. Opens her hands over his chest, his sides, grasps at his hips, wraps her fingers around his cock. That draws the first groan from her, deep and rough, and muffled as well because: well, his mouth is on her tits. Because of course it is. He is sucking at her nipple, voraciously, avariciously, kneading and rubbing the other breast as he does so. He is lapping at her, rubbing his rough unshaven face on her, and then he's raising his head and kissing her mouth again, driving her back into the cushions with the force of it.

He's missed her. Ardently, achingly. He doesn't even have to say it. It's in the way he kisses her, open mouth, tangling tongues. It's in the way his hands on her are a little rough, almost greedy; how he smooths his palms over her shoulders and down her arms, up again. He keeps coming back to her breasts, lifting them, playing with them, can't get enough of them, and then

he takes her around the waist, rather suddenly; scoops her up and turns and now he's sitting on the couch, he's gathering her on his lap, she's straddling him and he's raising his mouth to hers. "I want you to ride me," he mutters: the first thing he's said to her in person, in the flesh, for a month and change.

Avery

There is every possibility that Calden will forget to tell her later that he had such pedestrian expectations, such simple plans. Takeout. Wine. Cuddling on the couch and watching television. Oh, how she'll laugh if he doesn't forget. Tease him about whether he remembers the last time they saw each other or not. Kiss his neck and bite his ear and ask him, silly man, whatever was he thinking?

There is no thinking about any of that right now. There's no thought at all; everything in her mind has been seared away and replaced with a blinding whiteness, translucent and shimmering. The leather beneath her creaks as they move, and her breath catches as he kisses her breasts, the sounds cascading into that heavy groan of his when she touches him. Avery leans up to kiss him again, stroking him in her hand, moaning softly in her eagerness. Of course that takes his mouth off of her breasts for a moment. Of course he kisses her that much harder, pressing into her, pressing her into the couch. Little matter, so long as their hands and mouths are on each other, somewhere.

Quite suddenly, he moves to scoop her up and flip them around, but Avery catches at his arms, gasping a quick: "No! -- darling," the second word softer than the first, with greater liberty of patience. It does mean her hand leaves his cock, both her palms touching his biceps now, pulling at him with just enough strength to forestall the tossing and bouncing around he intended. "No, darling, stay like this," Avery murmurs, shivering slightly.

Her back arches again, pressing her closer, her hands sliding upward, moving into his hair, holding him. "Please," she whispers, leaning up, kissing his neck, his earlobe, his mouth. Her legs are wrapping around his lower half, enfolding him against her just as softly as the words that drift over her lips: "Please, my love, cover me."

Calden

It -- startles him, almost, the way that no escapes her. He halts. It is different from freezing; it is not freezing, no, but it is stopping. He stays where he is. Her hands rub over his biceps, smooth over his shoulders. It brings him down to her. They flow together, like waves rushing to meet just off the shore. He is kissed, he is caressed, he forgets himself in her mouth.

There's just enough moonlight to see his face, even when he's over her and shadowed like this. "Okay," he whispers, even as she's asking him: please, please. He wraps his arms around her, and he is solid and warm and she is

like gold: precious and malleable and burning so bright. He is enfolded, encircled. He thinks, briefly and absurdly and pangingly, of rings: wedding rings and older things, oath-rings, promise-rings, rings that symbolized the inherent magic of a vow, a spoken word.

--

You'd think, after so long, that they'd make love fiercely, athletically, tearing cushions off the couch and flinging dishes to the floor. You'd think they'd fuck every which where and every which way: the dining table and the walls and the bathtub and the floor, the balcony, the coffee table, hanging off a ceiling light. You'd think that, beautiful, joyous, life-loving people that they are, but:

he stays so close to her. He wraps her close in his arms, keeps her beneath him, sheltered and embraced and protected and enshadowed. He pushes into her with a quiet gasp, goes slow, goes steady, buries his face against her shoulder and her neck. He moves deliberately, moves deeply, the genesis of every stroke in the back, in the flank, in the thick bunching musculature of that body that he so willingly gives to her.

It has been so very long, but he discovers that some things are burnt into the memory: the sight of her and the feel of her, yes, but the smell of her: that is etched into his primordial mind. He closes his eyes; he inhales, he breathes her on every breath. He had not realized until now how deeply he missed her.

Avery

Right now, she can't bear the thought of him moving away from her. She can't bear the thought of losing that melding of her warmth and his, feeling their temperatures equalize, feeling their skin grow more more indistinguishable as they touch. She wants him there, with those arms around her and that body pressed heavily on her own. There's something about being between his body and the leather; she can't name it or understand it. All she knows is that she can't bear for him to move away, even for a moment. She doesn't want to dance. She doesn't want to romp. She wants to hold, and be held. To have, and be had.

It is not long after that murmured okay that she feels him inside of her, feels him pushing into her body, filling her, making her moan aloud against his shoulder. She holds onto him, wrapping herself around him, all her held-close longing flooding through her and out from her, like waves of light, waves of molten gold, waves of adoration. She cannot get him close enough to her. And there's something still robust about this, athletic, heavy and firm and intense, but she doesn't want to bounce around the apartment, or even the couch. She wants to feel him. That's all she wants in the world, right now.

Because she is beautiful and joyous and life-loving, Calden-loving. Loving.

Avery's ankles, crossed behind him, press him gently, urging him deeper, harder, like she might urge one of his horses to quicken its pace. It is that wordless, and that much of a symbiosis and not an order from general to soldier: they feel each other that way. When she wants him to make her gasp like that, sharp and bright, head tipping back. When he wants her to tighten around him, make it good for him. There aren't words for it, or they don't bother using those words. Don't need them. Her hands hold onto his back, flat-palmed, nails occasionally digging in thoughtlessly before she flexes, relaxes, makes herself remember.

And she kisses him. Kisses him and kisses him, when she can pause her breathing. Kisses him, as sweat builds along her hairline and even as she is groaning low and needful, begging him with her body to go faster if he can, please, and that becomes a word, becomes a whimper,

please,

without forming the words for what it is she's pleading for. Just that quickness, that heat, that rising ache in her body that has her propping herself up on her elbows for leverage to fuck him back that much harder, meet him,

look down between their bodies to watch him. Avery pants, staring at the darkness and the shifting, hot shadows between her thighs and his hips, biting her lip. Lifting her head to kiss his neck, lick sweat from his skin, moan against his flesh until she is coming, until it takes her as suddenly and invisibly as an undertow, making her eyes close and her mouth open, her breath catch. It writhes up through her, coiling in her belly and flowing through her limbs, pounding her heart, making her groan against his shoulder, sink her teeth into his shoulder, tattoo him there with a moan of pleasure as that coil, that writhe,

unwinds,

and relaxes.

Calden

Something about the way she raises herself on her elbows. Something about the way she watches their bodies, watches the stark physical act of coupling. Something about the way she kisses him, even, lifting her head without lifting her arms, her hands resting low on his biceps while his own forearms braced him over her. Something about that, all of that:

it lights him up inside.

He feels lit up, even though all is dimness and darkness. He feels incandescent and aglow, lit by her light. He feels feverish, making love to her on the leather couch like that, and when she comes,

when it boils up from beneath and takes her under,

he feels like a god, he feels like a divine sacrifice, he feels the unspeakable joy of being the source of someone else's ecstasy. She takes him with her teeth, bites him as she moans, as she writhes beneath him, as she wraps her thighs so tight around him and rides it out on him.

And unwinds.

And relaxes.

His hands slide under her thighs, then. He eases her knees up a little higher, shifts the angle. He kisses her as she lies there, replete, gorgeous, and then he moves up on his hands, drives into her once, twice, hard on the third time, teeth clenched around a low, rough groan. He comes into her so close on the heels of her orgasm that she's still clenching around him when he comes down to her, wraps her in his arms, clasps her tight to his body as he grinds the last of his pleasure out against her.

A little while afterward,

a long time afterward, he kisses her shoulder. He slides down a little, drawing out of her; he lays his head down on her breast, his ear to her heart. He quite dwarfs her when they are in these bodies of theirs, but he rests on her like this nonetheless, listening to the secret rhythms of her body, her blood.

Avery

Right on the end of her orgasm, Avery is panting. Her body is slipping, her elbow shifting, her torso falling backward against the leather because she can't hold herself up any longer, she can't stop quivering, she can't think, and the whole world is spinning around her. She falls, hair a halo, and even then she is reaching for him to bring him closer again, moaning for him, his name, wanting to kiss him, telling him kiss me, as he

pushes her legs up, which makes her gasp. As he holds himself still inside of her but pushes up on his arms. Her half-lidded eyes snap open, watching him suddenly, shockingly renewed hunger, already, when she hasn't even caught her breath. She is looking at him like an animal looks at a meal, sharp and wanting and ferocious. He looks

so very good

to her.

Calden thrusts, and she cries out, again on the second time, louder on that harder third. She feels him in her, feels him tighten up against her, feels him and takes him, takes all of him, shuddering even as he is collapsing from the force of it, wrapping himself against her. Their bodies rub, and grind, and sweat mingles, and she forgets where one of them ends and the other begins, which is all she wanted to begin with. What she wanted most, at least. Avery winds her hips on him, beneath him, even as he is starting to drowse.

"Nnno no no no," she murmurs, not quite whimpering but approaching it, when he starts to withdraw. Her hand touches his hip, his flank. She all but purrs it in his ear: "Oh, stay." The word is heavy and dark on her lips. She squeezes him inside of her, urging him to make a home in her. Even if he rests his head to her breast, even if he falls asleep to the pulsing ocean of her heartbeat -- and at the moment, she cannot think of anything she would love more. Her arms drape over his back, his shoulders, her chest moving as she regains her breathing.

And, to be quite frank, waits for him to be ready again. Though he might not know that.

Calden

They have said so few words to each other, but every single one of those words has mattered. Stay, she says, and so bidden he does. With a low, murmured sound, he gives in: relaxes over her, resting his brow on her shoulder instead.

Her hands touch him. There is little about Calden that is sleek or svelte. He is a robust creature, all meat and muscle and a dusting of fur besides; not so very different, when one comes down to it, from one of those prize bovines he spends most of his waking hours tending to. The surety and dignity that comes with immense size and power; the steady, even temperament of a creature that does not, by nature, draw blood with tooth and nail.

Her hands trace out large, sturdy bones; sheets of muscle gone heavy and lax with relaxation. A thin little shiver steals down his back when her hands sweep over his hipbone, the small of his back. He wonders if she knows how much he likes it when she grabs his ass, wraps her legs around him, pulls him into her like she can't get enough. He wonders if she knows how much he likes it when she bites him, catches him with her nails, looks at him the way she does sometimes,

hungry, fierce, eyes aglitter.

She squeezes him inside. He utters a short sound deep in his throat. He rubs his face on her shoulder and he kisses the side of her neck, and

not so long after lifts himself to one elbow, sweeping his large hand up her body with the other. Pigeons can find north even in a storm. Calden, it appears, can find Avery's breasts even in total darkness -- and this darkness is far from complete. The moonlight frosts her; makes an ice maiden out of a summer goddess. He frames her breast in his hand and he admires the effect: the light, the subtle underlying gold of her skin, the shape of her breast, the nipple that tightens in the sudden coolness of their bodies parting.

He shifts over her; snugs his hips closer to hers, presses himself deeper and more securely into her, as though to reemphasis their joining. He bends to her, then. It is no surprise, none at all, when he puts his mouth on her breast,

but oh, it's soft to start: he kisses her, and it is almost chaste, closed lips and the faint scratch of his unshaven underlip. The tip of his nose nuzzles the tip of her breast. Something about that makes him laugh, some joke shared with himself -- a low sound almost unheard. After a while he opens his mouth to her and he begins to lick her in earnest, very languidly, very lazily, teasing her with the point of his tongue and then the flat of it; sucking her, gaining ardor, gaining momentum, hardening inside her again. There might have never been another Fianna, one thinks, so fond of fondling his lady's tits.

Avery

And twice tonight she's told him no and each time it was because she needed him close to her, needed him near. That's what it is: need. It isn't want, it isn't simply longing. She needs him right now, feels it in her bones. She feels sleepy herself, turning her head on the leather, drowsing as they relax. She strokes his back; he shivers faintly but stays where he is, content to be there, content to be motionless for now. Steady. Even. Warm. And for Avery, safe.

That should be a laughable thought, but he would understand: that couch in her penthouse bedroom, her wariness but eventual acceptance of the keys to this condo, the night she ran across his land the last time they saw each other, patrolling for hours, gone for hours, ultimately ending with her body slipping back into bed beside his own.

Calden is safe for her. And she could no more explain that to him, or anyone, than she could explain the mystery of how shapeshifting works. But with Calden, she also does not need to try and explain. He knows. She knows he knows.

--

When Calden lifts himself up a bit, Avery's closed eyes flicker open slightly: she watches him, as though making sure he isn't going too far away from her. He stills, and so her eyes close again. She sighs, letting herself be languid and silent. She is comfortable in that silence with him. As his hand starts to caress its way up her side, the corner of her mouth curves in a little smile that is as lazy -- at the moment -- as the rest of her. Though she can't see him right now, she feels him cupping her breast, feels and hears the shifting of his breath as he looks at her.

"Lick it," she whispers, so softly it sounds like a ghost or a distant wind. Her nipple is hardening, perking, because of the cool air on sweat-dampened skin. Calden comes closer, shadowing her again, lowering his mouth. Avery exhales a full-throated sigh, her lower lip trembling slightly. Calden isn't licking it just yet, but he kisses her, nuzzles her, warms her in other ways. She hears his laughter and wants to ask him, eyes half-opening and smile spreading,

what's so funny, mister

but she is forgetting the words even as they're leaving her mouth. Now he's licking her, slow and wet and loving. Tickling, then savoring. Avery shivers beneath him. He takes her in his mouth, suckling, and she groans quietly, arching slightly,

taking him a little deeper, squeezing him a little tighter.

--

For all she cares they can stay right where they are again. Fuck exactly the same way, the same rhythm, the same heat. She doesn't mind at all; she couldn't possibly get bored with him. She loves him. She loves having him close.

For all she cares he can roll them, lift her onto his body, urge her to ride him and oh, she will. She'll hold his shoulders and fuck him like he really is a sacrifice, like getting her off is what he was made for, like he's the only one who can.

For all she cares, Calden can urge her to move onto her stomach as she was when he first walked in. He can nail her like that, rougher than before and holding her in his teeth. She wouldn't mind that at all, either; she thought about it earlier, while she was touching herself.

They can stand in the center of the room. They can hold each other, her back pressed to a wall, his feet planted, his hands under her thighs. They can go to his bedroom, his soft sheets, the soft tartan throw folded neatly at the foot, the smell of wood and sex in their minds, a fire in the hearth or the grate cold. She doesn't care. She doesn't care how, or where, or if they speak. She only cares that he's inside of her. She only cares that he's touching her. That he's kissing her. That he is there, and real, and loved.

--

Somewhere, then: a couch or bed or counter or wall or floor. She tucks her head against his shoulder, beneath his jaw. She actually feels sore then. Finally, she thinks, as though this is a pleasant sensation. In a way it is. She feels like for now she has had enough; it's enough, however many times. Her heart is thudding still, her breath catching, and she feels now as though she is made essentially of two things: sweat, and the feeling of satisfaction.

Love, too. Love that keeps her there under his jaw, her eyes closing trustingly, her belly and throat so vulnerable, her hands warm against his sides. Love that moves her feet against his, marveling at the concept of their separation, their souls inhabiting different bodies. She loves that, too.

"Love you," she murmurs, though perhaps she has said this many times already -- or thought it. Or kissed him with it instead of verbalizing it. No matter: she says it now, sighs it now. "Love you, and missed you," the word itself aches, twisting in midair. She moves closer, urging him to hold her tighter. Those big arms. She loves those big arms of his. "Missed you so much, my darling."

Calden

Somewhere in the middle of all that -- somewhere between the couch and the bedroom, perhaps after the cowgirl episode and before the over-the-side-of-the-bed sequence,

though: perhaps there were no acrobatics after all. Perhaps there was no wall, no kitchen counter, no bathtub, no ceiling lamp. Perhaps they didn't feel the need to prove themselves so athletically. Perhaps they just needed to feel each other, be near each other, be close. Sweat together, move together, fuck together, come together.

Several times in a row.

-- somewhere in the middle of all that he is catching his breath, sprawled on his back, and she is sweating and aglow and breathless and laughing, laughing because she's reduced him to a barely coherent heap.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, a different middle, a different moment, he is laying kisses down her back and stops, pauses, laughing under his breath and tells her of his own accord:

remember when I laughed earlier?

I was thinking we'd invented a new kind of eskimo kiss.

--

Now: they are in bed. The bedspread is still on. They never made it under the covers. The truth is it's a little dusty on that bedspread, but then they need a shower anyway.

She tucks herself against him. Head on his shoulder, beneath his jaw. She moves a little closer and he responds in kind, wrapping his arms tighter around her.

"Love you too," he whispers. He likes it, that gentle repetition. "Missed you too."

For a while, nothing else. His eyes closed, his breathing even, his head pillowed through the bedspread. Perhaps he drowses a while; she'll just have to forgive him for it. She's quite worn him out, you see. It doesn't last, though. Soon enough he's opening his eyes on a quiet inhale.

"It had been so long that sometimes I wondered if you were ... I thought maybe ... it was irrational."

Avery

She laughs: light and soft, sitting atop him and leaning over him, her hands on his chest and her hair brushing over his shoulders. She laughs when she is under him, and he is half-asleep on top of her body, still playing with her breasts. And later, drowsing with her cheek on her hand and her skin tingling as he kisses softly down her vertebrae, her eyes closed, he tells her why he laughed, and she chuckles: which time?

And he tells her, and he tells her, and Avery bursts into new laughter, boisterous and delighted, the corners of her eyes crinkling with it. oh, you silly man, she tells him. And turns to him, rolling again, taking his face in her hands.

Stroking the tips of their noses together, softly and slowly, a tender nuzzling that really is an Eskimo kiss far more than the cutesy rubbing seen in cartoons. She smiles at him, inhaling his scent from his face, his cheeks, drawing it into herself.

darling, she murmurs then, as though in recognition. Then she is kissing his mouth, drifting back down to whatever soft surface they are on then, sliding her legs up his sides.

--

Now they are in his bed, and she is lazy and replete. She snuggles, as one does. She breathes with him, a slow, sweet rhythm. There is no forgiveness necessary, for even if he does not, Avery finds herself drifting to sleep against his chest. She is breathing steadily at least, when he speaks again.

Her eyes don't open at first, and then they slowly do as his voice stumbles over words unsaid. She moves her hand on his side so he knows she's still awake; her fingers stroke his waist, her arm covering him.

"If I was what, darling?" she murmurs. She really does not know; cannot guess, or does not want to guess. Surely he did not wonder if she had died; they still texted and called, after all. They stayed in touch, at very least. She cannot imagine what he feared, so irrationally.

Calden

Her hand moving on his side sends a stirring of sensation through him, as though the nerves under his skin ran straight to his heart. He shifts; her hand is not in easy reach of his, so his hand strokes over her back instead. Rests comfortably at mid-back, there where her spine begins its in-curve.

There is a silence before he answers. A sort of soundless wrestling, his brow contracting.

"If you ... couldn't bear to come back to me anymore," he says at last. "And I know, I know it was irrational. I know it was as much on my end as it was on yours, the way our plans kept falling apart. But sometimes I couldn't help it. I still wondered."

Avery

She says nothing. Her eyes open, and brows draw tight together in ache. Avery lifts her head, turning to him, her hair sweeping over his skin. She looks at him, still as close as she can be, hand following his body until she covers his heart with her palm.

Still, Avery says nothing. She just looks at him, that deep ache, a reaction that doesn't -- as yet -- have words to express itself.

Calden

He loves her familiarity with his body. The way her hands move over him, follow the contours and planes of his torso, his shoulder, his face. Some of that must come from the eighteen months they've known each other and shared one another's beds, but some of that was there right from the beginning. Even from the start, she touched him like she had a right to him: like he was known to her, dear to her, a part of her life, even when he was not.

His hand covers hers. Hers covers his heart. And she is looking at him, ache in her eyes; he is lifting his other hand and lifting her hair and sweeping it back over her shoulder, careful and tender.

"I'm sorry," he whispers. "I shouldn't have said anything."

Avery

"I'm glad that you did," Avery says, almost immediately. That quickness to speech does not raise her voice or sharpen its tone; she just knows what she feels. Her gratitude for the truth is as real as his worry, irrational or no. She leans over him and rests her head on his shoulder, covering him not just with her hand on his heart but her body over his body, as though she could protect him from such terrible, painful thoughts.

"If I knew that I could keep the promise to never ever find myself in such a state, I would make such an oath right now," she murmurs. "But I don't know. I do know that even if I were to go quite that mad, I would still love you. And, loving you, I would tell you what was happening to me, so that... I could release you, if you wanted to be released, from any vows you may make to me."

Those words do not come easily. She finds her throat tightening around them, not so much in resistance as in grief at the very thought.

There is significance, though, in one word in particular: vows. She does not dwell on it, or stumble shyly over it. But she says it, she who never really speaks of -- or even alludes to -- such things between them.

"I do not blame you for being afraid, darling," Avery says, the forgiveness coming so freely from her that it unlocks her throat, smoothing her words and her breathing as though she is the one relieved, not he. She does lift her head again, a bit, looking at him, and if there is a new brightness to her eyes then he likely will not hold it against her. "But I do not want you to fear such a thing. I will not leave you to wonder."

Calden

His arms come around her so tightly then. He gathers her and envelopes her and hugs her where she lies on him, kissing her shoulder where she lies close to his mouth.

"Oh, Avery, I appreciate the thought, but you don't need to release me," he says, with something of a mournful laugh under his voice -- if such a thing could be said to exist. "And you can't, anyway. You're not the one that binds me to you. It's me; my heart."

A small pause. He'd heard the word too, small as it was, as passingly as it was spoken.

"Vows or no vows," he adds, quietly. And his arms give her another squeeze, then loosen. "But thank you. For having the courage to tell me, if it comes to that."

Avery

There aren't many things he could have said to her that would make her feel better about that -- hopefully -- far-off day when she can no longer stand the company of her lover, her pack, her blood kin. She hates the thought of binding Calden to her. She hates the thought of having power over him, of controlling him by her strength or even her charisma. She wants, more than anything, for him to be with her simply because he wishes to be with her.

He tells her: vows or no vows, she isn't the one who binds him. Something within him does that; something he is slave to in a way all living things are, in a way he will never be to her.

Avery smiles, despite the ache. She closes her eyes and hugs him, even as she's being squeezed. She relaxes her arms more slowly; she holds onto him, breathes deeply of him. She doesn't correct him that it is honor, more than courage: obligation to do what is right for others, even when it might pain her. Even when it might pain them. Though perhaps he's right: there is courage in being honorable despite it all.

She sighs, and lifts her head, smiling at him. It hurts less; her eyes shine a little less. "Darling, if you'd like... we should bathe. I'd like so much to curl up with you, and have some dinner with you, and talk... about anything. I've scarcely seen you in months. I don't want to fall asleep yet."

Calden

Calden, too, lifts his head. Raises it from the pillow -- which is under the comforter, and the bedspread -- and kisses her, lightly and softly but not quickly. It goes on a long time. It is sweet, sweet as summer.

When he sets his head down again, the ache has subsided somewhat. He looks up at her, eyes hooded, smile lazy. Her hair has fallen loose over her shoulder again. He loves the way it brushes over his skin; catches and tickles the hair on his chest.

"Well, I was going to ask if you wanted to order takeout," he says, still smiling, "but then you decided to lay yourself out on the couch like Venus on the half-shell, and I couldn't help but descend into sexual madness. So, Miss Chase, would you like to order takeout?

"And then," he is smirking a little now, "maybe we can talk about these mythological vows you were alluding to."

Avery

She grins. "Venus on the half-shell was standing up," she reminds him. "And being quite modest, which I don't believe I bothered with."

Avery kisses him a second time, this one quicker than the last, grinning. "I would like to order takeout with you," she confirms, thinking maybe they should call a place and get just huge slabs of steak and potatoes and pick them up, perhaps, before Calden startles the grin from her lips by mentioning the vows.

Her heart stops a little. She looks at him, and then that caught breath exhales, and she stammers: "I -- I wasn't --"

Calden

Calden, who is in some ways nearly a posterchild of american masculinity, american individualism, american self-sufficiency, is nonetheless not entirely insensitive. Actually: he's quite sensitive, and being so, readily picks up on that thread of unease, that anxiety that coils suddenly in his lover.

His smirk fades. He puts his hands on her cheeks, runs them gently back into her hair. Touches her like this, gently, unthreateningly, wordlessly, for a moment.

"I know," he says quietly. "I was teasing. It's all right. We don't have to talk about it."

Avery

She's pink. Her cheeks take on that color beautifully: a blush of rose across warm gold turning creamy with the onset of cooler weather. She looks beautiful even as her eyes are panging with anxiety, with nerves she doesn't even entirely understand.

Calden softens: he touches her face, her hair, smooths it back, and she gentles into his touch, eases down to pillow her head on his chest again. He tells her he knows, which means he understands why she tensed, why she was startled when he teased her about talking about vows.

And she is quiet for a few moments, thoughtful, then exhales slowly. It isn't quite a sigh. It's a thought.

"No," she murmurs. "I... don't think it's fair. To shy away." Her hand dances a little on his side, almost ticklish but not intentionally. It's a nervous gesture. "I'm not even sure why." At this point, she talks half to herself, musing aloud, but knowing he can hear her: "Why it makes me nervous."

Her hand stills, then, palm to his flesh, caught in the act of its own anxious fluttering. Avery turns her head, kissing him along his ribcage. Once, then twice, three times, each one a surprise to her but she just can't help it. She loves him. She adores him. She wants always to keep him, and to love him like this, and be loved by him.

She lifts her head so she can see him again, clear-eyed as she is. "Would you... like to discuss it, darling?" There's a beat of a pause, a rest between the notes, then she takes a short breath: "Becoming my mate?"

Calden

There's a bone-deep contentment in Calden when Avery lays her head down on him again. It underlies and transcends anything else that might go on in the moment. Those little kisses she lays along the strong arch of his bones, each one encased in dense muscle, warm skin, leave tiny shivers in their wake. His hand stirs her hair, and he closes his eyes.

Opens them again as she lifts her head. Her eyes are so blue; it is a color that almost exceeds human bounds. The corners of his mouth curve just to see her, though

a moment later he stills. Something turns in his eyes: bright-hot and wanting at once. A small furrow worries his brow, then passes.

"Only if you want to," he whispers. Threads a strand of hair behind her ear with the tip of his little finger. "If you're ready, I'm ready. If you're not, I can wait. Everything else is just details."

Avery

If you're ready, I'm ready.

Avery does not hedge at that: ask him if he's sure or ask him to qualify or even ask him why, or how he knows. She listens, thinking, watching his eyes and the way they change. She knows how his eyes change when he sees her for the first time in weeks, and how he looks at her when he's coming inside of her, and how he looks at her after. What his eyes look like when he opens them after drowsing off. What color they are when she finds him watching her from across the room. How they are when he laughs and when he is worried; how forgiving they are when she is at her worst, hiding from him, barely able to tolerate words or touch or contact.

She can get lost in his eyes. That's why she closes her own, sometimes. Why she does, now, when he strokes her hair back so lightly, the touch as delicate as the strand.

It takes her a little while to open them again, but what she has to say should be said with contact like that. "I'm not sure I am," she says quietly. "All those details... trouble me. Whether we shall live together or not, and where. Whether it will make me panic, and cause me to hurt you." She puts her brow to his chest, talking into his skin. The smell of him, however ripe from sweat and sex, comforts her. "Whether we will marry, and all that entails, and... and all the things we have not ever spoken of and all the chances there are to discover that we want different things and how afraid I am that I will lose you for it."

She blinks, rapidly, and quite a few times, but only burrows closer to him, between his arm and his side, hiding her face against his body. "I worry a bit that we might make rash decisions out of ache at how little we've been seeing one another, too."

Avery is quiet then, for a few moments, thoughts hanging in the air but not yet spoken. She sighs, relaxing her body a bit beside his. "I love you so dearly, Calden. And I don't want to be parted from you. And yet I'm still so troubled, thinking of all these things."

Calden

The details, he calls them. As though they didn't matter, though they do. Details like where they'll live, whether they'll live together, whether she can stand to live together. Whether they'll marry. Whether they'll have kids. And there, the more troublesome, distressing details, the ones that dredge up centuries-old traditions and stereotypes and expectations and bigotries: tribes and claims and bloodlines and whether or not their children will even be seen as worthy of one tribe or the other.

Details. The devil is in them, they say. And Calden, for all his quiet certitude, is no fool. He knows the details are not mere nuisances; they are there, they are troublesome, and they are many.

And yet --

He wraps his arm around her closer as she seeks shelter against his side. She worries. He aches. She sighs, and he turns his head to kiss her brow.

"The details trouble me too," he says quietly. Perhaps it is an admission; or perhaps only an explanation. "And maybe we'll disagree. Maybe we'll fight. Maybe we'll never quite resolve some of them. But for me, the details come after the question. And the question is, do I want to be your mate, to be with you and love you and stand beside you for as long as I have you?

"The answer is yes. So I'll deal with whatever I have to deal with."

A small pause.

"I don't mean that as an ... indictment against you. I don't mean to say my way is right and yours is wrong, or even that we have two ways about it. I just want to explain why I can stand here and sound so glib, telling you I'm ready if you're ready. It's because I am. But I don't want to push you, and I don't blame you for having concerns, or for hesitating.

"I can wait, Avery. As long as you need me to."

Avery

The idea of marriage, itself, is such a trove of details: a cavern, an almost endless tunnel of choices and tasks and, yes, arguments. Her anxiety coils and twists inside her at the thought of all of it: not that an argument threatens the very existence of their love, but that part of discovering that they want different things. Not the location or type of flowers but the sort of life they might want. That terrifies her. Just as, once again, Calden's willingness to give her what she wants -- what she needs -- regardless of the cost to himself or the denial it may cause also terrifies her.

"I know," she murmurs to him, as he assures her that he does care, he doesn't think these things don't matter, but ultimately it is simply one question for him. She lifts her hand, covering her eyes with her palm.

"I know," Avery repeats, and sniffs slightly. "I still feel terrible. That you're so... willing, and I'm not. I almost wish you would be hesitant with me."

She is rising up, sitting up, if only because her shoulder or elbow have started to ache from lying on her side, alternating between laying atop him and propping herself up. She sits slowly, drawing her knees up a little so her feet can rest flat on the bedspread. Her back is to him, slightly, though he can still see the outline of her face, the curve of her jaw. Their hips still rest together. There is tension in her back.

Her head shakes slightly. "These things matter, Calden." She looks back at him over her shoulder, her brow furrowed. "If we disagree, if there are things we cannot resolve, those are not things you can simply wave away and say that you'll 'deal with'. I don't want you to just 'deal with'... whatever. Some of these things are quite important. How can you say you'll accept them all when we haven't even discussed them?"

So she turns, a little, one foot resting atop his shin, her hand moving back to his body, touching his abdomen. "I'm not asking you to reassure me that it will all be fine. I don't need you to tell me that you'll wait for me. Or that you love me no matter what. I know you do. And you know I love you, no matter what, don't you?"

She waits then. For him to nod, for him to say yes, for him to touch her hand and say I do. Anything. She hopes.

She kisses his hand, lifting it to her mouth to press her lips to his calloused skin. "This isn't a question of you waiting for me to be ready and that will be that and we'll work out the rest later, my love. That makes me feel... burdened, in a way." She frowns, thinking on that, and sighs softly. "I don't want to carry the worry alone."

Calden

Calden gets it. He understands, as she voices it: what a burden it is to be told I'll wait for you; what a lonely path it is to shoulder her worries alone, feeling anxious, feeling selfish, feeling like she's perhaps standing in the path of his happiness so long as she continues to hesitate when he's so ready to give it all.

She sits up. He reaches out. She's not so far away -- she's not far away at all -- that he can't touch her back, rub his palm slow and thoughtful along her spine. After a while she turns to face him, touches him too. It's hardly the time, but there's a stirring in him, a sizzle of desire that he can neither control nor hide. He takes her hand, catches it against his stomach, keeps it still. He listens to her, eyes on her face, and when she waits he doesn't keep her waiting long.

"I know," he says. Soft; unhesitating.

And she takes his hand in turn. She kisses his fingertips, his palm. The corner of his mouth quirks a little, poignant. His fingers close around her and he tugs her gently toward him, closer.

"Let's talk about it, then," he says. "Let's order food, take a shower, and then let's sit down and talk about it."

Avery

There's are things that distress Avery more than the thought of being the cause of Calden's unhappiness. There is much suffering in the world to be afraid of, to worry over, to try and avoid, but high on her personal list, particularly in moments when she is not facing down the enemies of Gaia, is making Calden unhappy. Making him sad or instilling frustration into his life, even down the road. Losing him is lower on that list. Her grief at losing him is lower. Arguing with him, struggling through decisions and disagreements with him -- they are all tied to that original trouble.

See, she loves him. And loves him so dearly that it shakes her. Scares her, on occasion, with how readily and how richly he fills her thoughts and how desire for the comfort of his nearness consumes her. She is not a creature of soft passions or gentle love; no matter what manners she has been taught, every strong feeling she has taps inevitably into that white-hot core of her rage. Even her most effulgent joy sometimes makes her feel as though she must burst out of her skin, grow claws, rip something to pieces in order to survive what fills her heart.

Sometimes it is not abandoning him in her madness that scares her: it is overwhelming him, overpowering him, obsessing over him, fixating on him to the point of neglecting food, neglecting sleep, neglecting the war, neglecting her family, neglecting herself. After all, her rage has at times drowned her thus, removing all context and good judgement, and all things seem to tie back to that goddess-granted fire in her soul. Why would love, this love, cause any less of a frenzy? Just a different kind.

She loves him so much, and the clearest way she knows to treat him with love is through restraint. Of her insanity, of course. But also: restraint of anything, even her adoration, that may harm him. Or perhaps even worse: cage him.

--

It is no surprise to Avery that he touches her, rubbing her taut back, when she sits up. Really she was hoping he would, all but waiting for that touch. And it helps. She doesn't sit up to get away; she sits up for comfort, and he seems to be able to tell the difference: she is not retreating from him. Or if she is, she is controlling it.

Restraining it.

When she turns, there is something about the look of her, perhaps, or the tenderness and ache of the talk, or the memory of their last coupling, or simply the stroke of her hand over what is often and accurately referred to as the soft underbelly, where he like nearly all mammals is vulnerable to predators. There is something about the closeness of that touch, the trust of it, the intimacy of their naked bodies in his bed. It stirs him, and no: it's as unhidden as it is unbidden. Avery's eyes do flick over his body before returning to his face, but she doesn't blush or shy away, and certainly does not laugh or roll her eyes at that frission of lust that goes through him.

Her hand is caught, and she permits it. She rolls her fingers under a little, fingernails stroking over his skin beneath his palm. She finishes what she is saying. Takes that hand of his and kisses it, loves it and its roughness, loves him. Loves him, loves him, so much. When he pulls her closer she goes smoothly, easily, perhaps closer than he even intended. He says they should talk. She slides over him, covers him, and kisses the side of his neck,

"I think sometimes about marrying you," she confesses, surprising herself with how easily the words come. Her body shifts atop his; her legs open, letting him rub across her inner thigh. Her breasts stroke over his chest as she moves, kissing the other side of his neck. "It makes me so happy."

Avery's tongue slips past her lips, tasting the salt of his skin, thin and sensitive over his pulse. It lights something up in her, being so close to his heartbeat, the surge of blood. She reaches for him, sliding her hand down between their bodies and wrapping her hand around his cock, gasping open-mouthed against his skin. The way she touches him is firm from the start; wanting. Longing. Hot. As hot as if they hadn't already, a number of times. "I want it," she says, her voice tight with that confessed wanting, though right now, it's difficult to tell if she simply means his cock, or... marrying him.