((Contains material of an adult nature.))

The apartment Christian was currently occupying in the city wasn't fancy, but it was safe, warm, comfortable, and spacious enough for two, and it was home. Though he was by no means rich, money wasn't really an issue, and the apartment had all the creature comforts of home, including a soft bed big enough for two, which was where Merethyl was currently languishing, curled up under the blankets alone. From the trail of clothing strewn about the room, it looked like Christian had ignored Tony's advice, but if they were to be married, what did it matter" He would have liked to have taken his time with her, but both of them had been in too much of a hurry for that just yet, and they had collapsed from exhaustion in each other's arms soon after that first fire had burned itself out.

Thankfully, Merry had remembered to close her eyes when she entered her reverie for the night. Christian would likely not have reacted well to finding her eyes open as she did the equivalent of sleeping by his side, no matter how close they had become in the hours before sleep. Still, it was one of the more peaceful nights she had ever spent, reluctant to awaken for fear that everything that had gone before had been nothing but a dream. The sheets twisted as she stretched, allowing herself to yawn as her eyes opened to find herself alone in an unfamiliar bedroom. Rubbing her eyes, she pushed the sheet down, blushing to discover that she was still nude beneath their covering. So that part had not been a dream.

Almost as if on cue, the door to the bedroom swung open, and in entered Christian, tiptoeing across the room as much as he could while balancing a breakfast tray in his arms. He had a feeling she'd awake shortly after the sun rose, and so, he'd gotten out of bed ahead of her to prepare a sumptuous breakfast for them both, complete with a vase holding a single red rose. Where he might have gotten the thing from was anyone's guess, but if nothing else, he was resourceful. "Bonjour, mon amour," he greeted her with a smile as warm and bright as the morning sun. "I hope you're hungry." He was dressed in a blue robe, tied loosely at his waist, a pair of shorts peeking out from beneath, not because he was modest or shy, but because he had a feeling if he didn't make an attempt to cover himself, they might pick up where they left off the previous night and all his effort at making breakfast would go to waste.

Sleepily adoring eyes met him as he entered the room, unabashed by her own unclothed state as the sheets fell to her waist. "Good morning, melamin," she answered his greeting with soft affection, hoping her relief that none of what they had shared had been a dream wasn't too obvious in her smile. "Hungry?" Blinking, she forced her gaze to drop to the tray he held, and her smile deepened tenderly. "You made breakfast' I would have helped." Well, she would have tried to help. Meat wasn't really her area of expertise, but she had adapted to the more human-dominant diet of Rhy'Din well enough not to be averse to it entirely. Her hand reached out, pale in the sunlight, to touch his skin as he came closer. "Did you sleep well?"

He hadn't considered how the view of her there in his bed, naked to the waist with her tousled hair cascading gently past her shoulders, would spoil his breakfast plans by stirring his body's desire once more. Ah, but there was no smell of cooked meat coming from the tray or the kitchen, though she might have caught the smell of freshly brewed coffee. Like Tony, Christian was no slouch when it came to knowing his way around a kitchen. "Oui, I made breakfast. I hope you don't mind," he said as he set the tray very carefully on the bed before taking a seat beside her. Her touch was like fire against his skin, but he only took her hand in his and drew it to toward him for a brief brush of lips. What they had both shared last night was wild and ravaging and needful. What he wanted to give her today was romance. "Better because you were beside me," he replied, his breath warm against her flesh.

Her fingers twisted in his grasp to gently trace his lips as his breath warmed her skin. "Then we should never spend another night apart," she murmured almost teasingly. Irina would be expecting them in a few hours' time, but for now, ballet was the furthest thing from Merethyl's mind. "I would have you sleeping peacefully every night, if I could." Her lips brushed the pulse that beat in his throat affectionately, breathing in the scent of his skin with thrilling delight. "I missed you when I woke."

"I would have you beside me forever, if I can," he whispered back, touched by the gentleness in her voice and her words and her touch. Hang Irina. She could wait for them a little longer. This was in part her doing, anyway, though he was looking forward to seeing the look on her face when she heard the news. He sighed softly at the touch of Merry's lips against his throat, knowing if he let this go on much longer, the breakfast he had labored over would be cold, and they'd be late to the theater. "You need never miss me again," he whispered back, touching a soft kiss to her cheek and pausing to breathe her in.

Merry's smile brushed his throat once again before she drew back. As much as she wanted him, as certain as she was that she would never stop desiring him, he had gone to the trouble of waking before her and cooking them a breakfast to share, and she did not want to disappoint him. "I am sure I will not," she promised him tenderly, tearing her gaze from his to look about for something to cover herself with.

As much as they might like to, they could not live on love alone, after all. His gaze drifted briefly to admire the soft curves of pale flesh, a familiar ache reminding him how he had not had enough of her yet and might not ever have enough of her, but the hunger of the flesh would have to wait a while longer. There was always the shower, if she was amenable, and what better way to save water than to shower together" He seemed to sense she was looking for something with which to cover herself and he shrugged off the robe to lay it across her shoulders.

She laughed softly as he laid the robe about her shoulders, wriggling to slide her arms into the sleeves and cover herself a little more modestly. "Uncovering yourself to cover me," she teased him affectionately, rising up onto her knees to be sure the robe covered everything before she settled down once again. "Now I am the one who will have to behave myself in sight of you."

"Ah, but I am not completely naked," he pointed out, a hint of amusement touching his lips. "And you are far too distracting without clothing." It was hard enough dancing with her at times, though so far he had been the consummate professional. He touched an affectionate kiss to her lips before reaching for the tray. "Voila!" he exclaimed as he uncovered his masterpiece. What awaited his beloved wasn't anything so ordinary as bacon and eggs. Instead, she'd find crepes filled with fresh strawberries, fresh fruit, and coffee brewed to perfection.

She giggled at his qualification of their states, leaning comfortably into his side as he turned his attention to unveiling the meal he had created for them. "Oh, Christian, this is beautiful," she exclaimed, surprised and delighted with the food laid out before her. "You will spoil me." Her hand crept up to caress his cheek as she looked over the crepes, not entirely sure what they were, but recognizing the fruit and coffee easily enough. "What are the sweet sheets?"

He reached for a fork to cut into the crepes and offer her a bite. "Try them," he said, without explanation. Once she decided whether she liked them or not, he would tell her what they were called. He wasn't too sure what she was accustomed to eating, but he had never met anyone who didn't like crepes.

To her credit, Merry was decidedly more adventurous than some of the elves she lived with. She didn't hesitate to take the mouthful from the fork he offered her, her eyes laughingly suspicious as she chewed for a long moment. It was sweet, yes; soft, and thin enough to almost melt on her tongue. Licking her lips, she smiled up at Christian. "I have never tasted anything like that," she admitted. "What is it' It's delicious."

"She did put us together," Merry allowed, laughing as she took his hand to slither from the warm nest of sheets and onto her bare feet. His robe hung ridiculously large on her petite frame, sliding off one shoulder as she shook the sleeves back from her hands once again. "Are you going to wash me, melamin, or am I allowed to wash you instead?" she asked with teasing eagerness, crowding close to playfully nip at his skin.

"Perhaps a little of both," he replied with a smile, his arms going around her waist. The longer they tarried here, the later they would be, but Christian wasn't in a mood to care. He had been responsible all his life; it wouldn't kill Irina to have to wait a little longer. He dipped his head to brush a trail of soft kisses against her bare shoulder as he eased the robe back. It was hard to hide the eagerness his own body was feeling for hers.

Her fingers curled into the tousle of his hair as his lips brushed her shoulder, her face turning into the slope of his neck to brush her own kisses to his skin as she breathed him in. "We will never be able to dance if we cannot control ourselves so close," she murmured on a laughing breath. It was only too easy to imagine the look on Irina's face if their hands started wandering during the ostensibly chaste motions of ballet.

"But we are not dancing now, cherie. We are alone and there is no one here to see but us," he reminded her, drawing her toward the bathroom before they lost control of themselves right then and there. "Whoever I am partnered with, it is you who holds my heart."

"Life is a dance, melamin," she smiled to him, following along with ease as he drew her away from the bed. "Now I have found my partner, I will never dance alone." Not literally, obviously - they would both be performing soloists in the last shows of The Snow Queen that week, but the metaphor stood.

There was no guarantee that they would always be paired together as far as the ballet was concerned, but there was no doubt in his mind they would be partners in life and in love from now on. "Come, mon amour, before Irina thinks we have both quit," he said, tugging her toward the bathroom.

Laughing her bright laugh once again, Merethyl surged after him, ducking under his arm to skip into the bathroom in the lead. "You get to explain to her why I am wearing the same clothes as yesterday," she told him cheerfully, examining the taps and plumbing with curious eyes. It wasn't that she was unaware of indoor plumbing, but she was certainly unfamiliar with it.

He laughed at her remark, eyes sparkling with amusement to see her examining his plumbing - where it pertained to his shower, at least. "Let me show you how it works," he said, as he moved past her to turn on the tap. "This way for hot, that way for cold. Tu vois?"

Her eyes lit up with interest as he showed her how it worked. "Ah, I see. Like the toilet, but with both temperatures and no finite whoosh of water, yes?" Not the best analogy, but close enough for her. Pleased to have learned something new already, she shucked off the robe, turning to hang it up on the door. "Does it start when you stand under the spray?"

"Non," he replied with a chuckle. "You must turn it on first. Regardez," he told her as he tugged his shorts off and stepped into the bath before pulling the lever that would direct the water overhead. "Voila!" he said, offering her a hand again, to join him.

Enchanted by the convenience of the plumbing, Merry took his hand, needing the help to step into the bath with any kind of dignity at all, torn between looking up at the showerhead, and down at the porcelain beneath their feet. "There are bumps," she pointed out a little superfluously, momentarily distracted from him by the strangeness of a modern bathroom.

"Oui, so you don't fall," he told her, reaching around her to pull the shower door closed. It was close quarters, but that was sort of the point. "I have never asked where you live ..." he realized suddenly, wondering if she just cavorted with nature. He adjusted the temperature of the water so that it was warm but not too hot before picking up a bar of rather manly smelling soap.

"Oh, I see." Raising her eyes from the bottom of the tub, she watched as he drew the shower door closed, grinning at how very close they now were to one another. His question made her smile. "In the elven quarter," she told him. "I share a house with around a dozen others, though I have a room of my own. There is a natural hot spring diverted into the gardens that fill the courtyard."

"Oh," he replied, frowning a little. He wondered if his cooking would make up for the fact that he didn't live near a hot spring. They hadn't really talked about where they would live once they were married - or even before that - but this didn't seem like the time. There was one thing he could never change and that was the difference in their races. He didn't think it mattered so much anymore, and yet, he wasn't sure whether they should live here or there. And yet, in the vision, they were living happily in a home of their own. He could only trust that it would all work out somehow. "Who do you think sent us those visions?" he asked out of curiosity, as he lathered his hands, a little annoyed that he didn't have something more feminine smelling to offer her.

Seeing his frown, Merry smiled, reaching up to smooth his expression with her fingertips. "There is no privacy there," she assured him. "I would rather have privacy with you. And we have our own warm waters we can play in, where no one else ever goes." Rising onto her toes, she kissed his chin impishly, grabbing his hips as her feet slipped a little. "The visions" I do not know. They did not mean harm, whoever they were. If they want us to know, they will show themselves at some point."

"Peut-etre," he admitted. Perhaps they would, perhaps they wouldn't. It hardly mattered; he was only curious. "I love you, Merry. I have loved you for some time. It doesn't matter to me where the visions came from. I only want us to be together." And with that said, he took her in his arms and kissed her, like he'd kissed her the night before, creating a heat of their own that had nothing to do with the shower.

What he gave her, she returned with as much passion as he held, only too easily roused to desire as water slicked skin slipped and slid together. The soap seemed to have been forgotten, lost in the coming together of hands and lips, of bodies that had not even begun to find the highest point of satisfaction yet. There were secrets they had yet to discover about one another, secrets that could only be discovered by touch, and slowly, they would find it all out over time.

Though he was mortal, time, it seemed, was on their side now. There was more than enough time to explore each other and savor in that exploration, learning every nuance of the other, both physically and otherwise. This was all part of the gift they'd been given. The joy was not only in the knowing, but in the learning of each other, slowly over time.

It wasn't the frenzied rush of the night before, the hurried desire to know and touch as desire overwhelmed conscious thought. This was the gentle coming together of loving hearts, something romantic to even out that shared sprint toward sleep that had brought them to this moment in time. Christian's name fell from Merry's lips as she sighed and moved with him, tenderly whispered like a prayer to a much loved god ....a god who was in her arms in that moment, and whom she never intended to allow to leave her.

He took her slowly this time, exploring her body with lips and hands and tongue, each sigh of pleasure encouraging him to continue, to go just a little bit further, until he could hold back no longer. He worshiped her like a goddess, but took her as a lover, working his magic on her body, allowing her to see and feel what it was to be loved by a man who was no longer afraid to give her his heart and offer up his soul. He tried to be gentle when gentleness was needed, and firm was it was not, taking what he needed and giving her what she wanted in return.

"So long as I did not hurt you," he replied, his fingers tracing her cheek and drifting into her hair. "I could never forgive myself for hurting you," he whispered, drawing her close and touching an oh-so-tender kiss to her lips, warm and loving.

His kiss found her lips smiling as she stroked her fingers against his jaw. "You did not hurt me," she promised him again, brushing the tip of her nose to his before she drew away. "Il "tait nuit la plus merveilleuse de ma vie, mon ch"ri."

"Il est la premiere nuit de notre nouvelle vie ensemble," he whispered back against her lips, his eyes soft with affection, reluctant to let her go, but knowing they had already tarried too long.

Her smile softened once again as she kissed him - a brief, tender touch of lip to lip, before she drew away to begin the business of dressing. Yesterday's pants combined with a sweater she occasionally used as a warm up knit would do for getting there, and she had a spare leotard and tights in the bag for the rehearsal itself. "We should hurry, melamin," she urged him with a low laugh. "Or Irina will try and help me into my leotard to speed me on my way again."

He only laughed. "That I would like to see," he teased, eyes dancing with amusement as he, too, got himself dressed. He would worry about tidying up later. "I have known Irina a long time," he added as he yanked a shirt over his head, further tousling his brown curls. "I am looking forward to seeing the look on her face when she hears the news."

Shaking her hair out as she settled her own clothing in place, Merethyl stretched, rising up onto her toes comfortably before settling down to tug her boots onto her feet. "I hope she will not think I have put you under some form of spell," she admitted with a rueful smile. "There was a moment or two last night when that thought clearly crossed your friends' minds."

"Anthony knows me better than that, and I have a feeling Irina has wanted this from the start. Deep down, she's a hopeless romantic. You know she is seeing Humphrey Granger?" he asked, exchanging a little gossip of his own while they got dressed.

"She has had the air of young love about her for some time," Merry agreed, flicking her hair back over her shoulder as she buttoned her boots. "I did not know it was truly a relationship. Humphrey Granger ....is he related to Jonathan and Drusilla?"

"He is the family patriarch, I believe," he replied, donning a sweater and jeans, before working on his own boots. He glanced at the clock, wondering something. "You are not able to ..." He gestured with one hand, drawing a circle in the air. "....use magic to get us there faster, are you?"

She shook her head, rising to pull her coat on. "Unfortunately, no," she admitted. "I can only do very small things with magic. I never studied it in any great detail - I learned enough to be convenient, but no more." She smiled apologetically. "You will have to drive us there, unless you wish us to arrive separately. I will be very late, if you do."

"Non," he replied without hesitation. "I do not care who knows we are together. Let them talk. I love you and I will not keep it a secret any longer." He moved over to help her with her coat, a gentleman again now that the fever of desire had subsided.

How could she not love him, a man who was so sure of his own heart that he did not care about the gossips who would surely talk" Her hand laid over his at her shoulder as she looked up at him. "Je t'aime, melamin," she told him once again, never tiring of the words in whatever language they were spoken in.

They were going to find out sooner or later anyway, and what did he care what the gossips had to say' The only one who mattered was standing right in front of him. "Je t'aime, mon amour." He would have to remember to ask her how to say it in her language, so he could return the favor. "Allez, or we will be late." He tugged on his own coat and threw his back over one shoulder, before reaching for her hand. Hand in hand, together, they would face the Russian dragon and hope she was feeling in a generous mood.

((We thought we owed them a little romance :grin: ))