Sometimes, I catch him watching me. I'll be doing something normal, like reading a book, or solving a puzzle, or cooking. I'm not doing anything I would deem worthy of watching, but he seems fascinated. His dark eyes are filled with all sorts of things: tenderness, lust, adoration... Sometimes, I'll turn, smile at him, then keep doing what I'm doing, and he will keep watching me, the pleasant shivering feeling of his gaze ever present. Sometimes, he wanders over to me, and scatters kisses over my neck and my shoulders, keeping his hands gently on my hips. The times I like the best are the times when I walk over to him and seize his lips in a kiss, his hands wander over me, and peach lace pools around my feet.
It's those times when he scoops me up in his big arms, and lays me down on his bed, those dark eyes burning holes in me. He starts out gentle, the perfect gentleman he tries to be, moving slowly inside me. But always, always, he will lose it, and he will truly take me, amd our bodies will become a rhythm of panting, and screaming, and fingernails digging into quivering flesh. I long for those times, when I feel his pure desire, his imperfections, when I feel him: the true Hershel Layton.
It's those times when I don't know who I love more: the father or the lover, the warm heart or the cold need, the gentleman or the madman. He lets me see them all. Me, and only me.
After we have fully spent ourselves and we are left exhausted, he will hold me for hours. I curl up in his arms, and feel his breaths, listen to his heartbeat. I feel the strength of him closed around me, protecting me from anything and everything. Sometimes it will hit me: I am laying with Professor Layton, the man who saved London, the man who saved the Azran Legacy, the man who saved me. I think about all the people who talk about him, in awe of him. They wonder what kind of man he is, what he's like behind closed doors. Only I truly know that.
I think about the fleeting glances of women, looking at him. I smile, knowing that he has chosen me over all of them. He chose me over Rosetta, over Janice, over the phantom yet fondly remembered Emmy. He could have had any of them. It feels good, being the one he chose: the secret mistress of the great Hershel Layton, no, the secret queen.
As I lay in his arms, almost asleep, it is me who watches him. I count his sleeping breaths, trace my fingers over his peaceful features, feeling the little lines that gather as a man starts to age, wondering who he was before I met him. Wondering who I will become now he is by my side.