Author's Note: There has been much sadness these last months. Once upon a time as an exercise to cheer a friend, I wrote several short pieces about the life that Erik and Tallis lived. Revisiting them has cheered me and helped to rekindle a Muse lost to Real Life. Stories are being finished and new ones are being outlined. While that happens, here is one of those short pieces for all of you to enjoy.

Dreams of Desire

How many times over these last months had he done this very thing? Silent in the darkened room, hands moving just above the sleeping figure, he asked himself that question. He had spent what seemed like a lifetime hovering in the shadows, watching as the world of the living passed him by. He had heard the giggles and sighs and – yes – the screams. He had seen assignations made and dreams dashed. He had watched women give away and men easily take everything he had ever wanted. Everything that made life normal had been so tantalizingly close and all he had to do was reach for it. He had reached and taken it once, only to realize that the tighter he held to something, the more it would find a way to elude his grasp.

Now, reaching down he carefully lifted a strand of brown hair, raising it to his nose and inhaling the smell of sunshine that always seemed to cling to her.

He thought upon all those other nights when, sleep eluding him, he had left the comfortable room and small bed, moving through the darkened cottage. He had always had only one destination in mind – the closed door that barred the way to his deepest fantasies. He had been amazed that first night when the knob turned easily in his hands. Cautiously he had pushed the door open, certain he would startle her but he hadn't – she slept the sleep of the pure in thought. So he had crept into the room, inch by inch moving forward with the agility and stealth of a beast of prey. He finally stopped at the bedside, staring down at the sleeping figure, his heart pounding, his loins stirring, his hands seeking…

And she had let out a contented sigh – "Erik" – as she had rolled onto her back. All the yelling and cajoling and crying she had done – they had both done – those last months since he had been unwillingly pulled from his death wish could never have done what that one sigh did. The sound of his name on her lips, unguarded as she had slept, stopped him in his tracks. It tore through the dark curtain of hurt pride in which he had wrapped himself. It opened a door into his heart that he had never intended to open again. A door that in turn opened onto his soul where the light of truth carried along by that one word shone into the darkest part of him, horrifying him at what he saw there, the hidden thoughts, causing him to turn and flee from another innocence almost lost.

It had been a turning point for him – for them. Slowly he had let down the walls he had rebuilt in defiance of the world. Responding to his efforts, she had willingly walked into his darkness to find the solace he had always claimed lived there. He had begun to rediscover his lost humanity and she had discovered a dark beauty within herself that she had never known. Yet there still lived within him those hidden desires he had not dared to name. Deep desires and dark thoughts that had manifested themselves in stealthy trips, night after night, to her room, to stare at her as she slept. To stand over her, hands hovering just above her body, moving in time with the rhythm of her breathing. To watch the movement of the stars beneath lowered eyelids, the way her lips parted as dreams danced across her mind, the tantalizingly painful movement of limbs hidden beneath bedding.

Now he pulled back the light summer bedding to study those limbs, beautiful in their lean contours. A single hand hovered just above a bare thigh, slowly moving down the seemingly unending length of that leg. His hand followed her leg as it bent at the knee, tracing the curve of her calf down to a thin ankle and a highly arched foot – a foot that could have belonged to any dancer he had ever watched. He began to reach for that foot when she rolled onto her back and he snatched his hand back before he could disturb her. As a light hum slipped from sleeping lips, he raised his eyes toward the sound and his hand clenched into a fist that he had to fight from thrusting into his mouth to stop the shouts that threatened to escape from his soul at the sight of her natural beauty. He drew deep breaths to calm the pounding heart that sent blood racing through his veins. He had no wish to disturb her, to startle her from the stillness that left her open and unguarded to him.

Fingers unclenched as his hand began to trace upward following the lines of her naked body, the fullness of hips that narrowed into the flat plane of her stomach. He found he could not swallow as his hand hovered over the curve of her breasts, wanting nothing more than to bend down and bury his face in the valley between those perfect mounds.

"So soft," he breathed, unable to stop the words before they were spoken

"Erik?" came the sleepy reply as eyelids slowly blinked open and early morning stars shone upon him.

He quickly drew the summer linens back over her waking body.

"What are you doing?" she wondered

He reached up and gently moved the tangled hair out of her eyes. "Watching you sleep," he replied.

He was rewarded with a smile as her head turned slightly on the pillow. "Is this to be an every morning event?"

He could only nod.

"I have much to learn about being a wife," Tallis said, her hand reaching up to clasp Erik's free hand, their fingers entwining.

"Wife," Erik said simply and swallowed down the lump in his throat, raising Tallis' hand to his lips. "Are you… is everything…"

"I am fine," Tallis assured him, a blush creeping up her cheeks. "A bit sore…"

"I am sorry!"

"Erik! No, no, no!" Tallis cocked her head slightly to one side, staring up into worried, frightened eyes. "It is normal. It will get better with time." Her blush grew deeper. "Or so I have heard."

Erik took his hand back to run a finger over his new wife's cheek. "You blush so beautifully," he whispered.

Tallis lowered her eyes. "I have so much to learn."

"We both do."

There was a silence in the room. It was Tallis who broke the awkward silence, reaching out to the man next to her who still struggled with a humanity he had never expected to possess. "Then we shall learn together," she told Erik as she reached up and placed a kiss on his lips. She smiled as the fear and uncertainty began to disappear from the gold eyes that bore deeply into her soul. "We have our whole lives in which to learn together."

"Our whole lives," Erik echoed as he sought and found another kiss. He was startled when Tallis wrapped her arms about his neck and pulled his head down to rest upon her breast.

"Just hold to me," she said as she kissed the top of his head.

"Forever," Erik sighed as he settled his long length next to his bride. He wrapped his arms about her and buried his face in her breast, smelling the warmth of her skin as her fingertips gently massaged his scalp. He lay there gratefully accepting that which had been freely offered. And in that offering he felt the glow of the humanity that spread outward from his soul. "My beautiful saving grace."

The End