"What did you do yesterday?" Kalindra asked him, a light teasing in her tone. "It must have been so lonely, being by yourself for that long."
"You know me, I just fall to pieces when you can't come in to work." Daveth's arm slipped around her waist as he pulled her closer. His bed was very warm, if a bit small, but then, as he always claimed, so was she. Pressing his lips to her temple, he murmured, "How's Shianni, by the by?"
"Better. Her wrist needs to be wrapped up for a while, but she'll live." A grin crossed her face. "And complain about it the entire time it's healing."
"It could be worse," he pointed out. "She could have been hurt by the merchant, instead of spraining her wrist decking him one."
She giggled. "Yeah, they don't expect us to object quite that strongly when they try to charge us five times the price they charge you shems for a basket of fruit." With a sigh, she leaned her head back on his pillow. His body warmth lulled her, and she let her eyelids drag shut. "Slim and I had a talk with that merchant, too."
"Oh, and I missed it!" He dramatically slapped his hand on his forehead. "You know how much I love twitting people about that kind of thing."
"Especially since you did it yourself at first," she said, poking him in the side right where she knew he was ticklish.
"Hey, take that back!" He poked her back, where she was ticklish, and it quickly devolved into a more intimate give and take.
Later, as they lay naked together, she ran her fingers through the hair on his chest - still somewhat of a novelty for her, given elvish anatomy - and craned her neck to look up at him. "So what did you do yesterday?"
"Oh, just finished a little project I was working on. We could go look at it if you like."
Intrigued, she sat up and stretched languorously "All right." She squealed when he reached over and slapped her lightly on the rump as he got out of bed, and scrambled after him to repay the favor.
When she left his tiny bedroom and found him in the kitchen, however, she stopped. Her eyes widened as he turned to face her and swept his hand with a flourish across the large paper he'd pinned to the wall with a small dagger. "So, what d'you think? Should I quit my night job and become an artist?"
She didn't reply as she approached him, transfixed by the work of art. "That— that's me," she whispered.
"Work with what you know," he said. His hand reached out and stroked along her cheek. "And we've been together for a while now, even before I convinced you to do more than glare at me on occasion."
"It— It's beautiful. I didn't know you could draw, let alone something like this." She moved even closer, reaching up to touch it for a moment.
"Hmm, a good inspiration'll do for me any time." He pursed his lips. "Still… I'm not exactly poor now, present quarters notwithstanding, and I think I'd prefer working next to you every night to being a starving artist." Sweeping her into his arms, he pulled her up into one of his long, lingering kisses, the ones he used when he wanted to 'make her ears curl'.
And they were usually successful.
She let her fingers trail down his muscular back to his waist and below, curling around the sculpted muscle and squeezing lightly. When he released her, she licked her lips and then smiled. "Maybe you'd prefer to do a nude study?"
His grin threatened to break his face. "Now that is an offer I can't refuse."