Her lips are soft against his throat, and he sighs beneath her touch, aching to be closer to her, to mould himself to her. But he can get no closer, her body warm on top of his, and she nuzzles into his throat, her fingers ever so light cupping the back of his head. Christine, his Christine, here with him and he swallows, slips his hand up over her back to rest on her shoulder, her skin warm beneath his fingertips.
And the question comes to him, as it has so many times, what has he done to deserve this? This wonderful creature, this wife who kisses him as if he might be an ordinary man, who breathes delicate words of love into him at every opportunity. It is not so very long, really, since she could not bear to see his face never mind to touch his body, and now she not only touches his body but kisses it too! Tears spring unbidden to his eyes, and it's all he can do to will them not to slip down his cheeks.
"Oh my love," she whispers, nuzzling into the space where his neck meets his shoulder, "my love." He could never get used to hearing those words, and draws in a stuttering breath, his heart twisting. Her love. He is her love. He is not Erik. He is not the Erik that he once was, an assassin, a murderer, a torturer, a demon from the deepest depths of hell. He is hers, simply hers, and she owns his heart, commands his soul. He is her Erik, re-fashioned and re-built, and his very skin cries out for her devotions.
"Christine," he breathes, his lips forming her name as if it is a prayer, "Christine."
"Hush, my love."
She presses kisses along his collarbone, one next to the other, almost overlapping, until she finds the spot where the ridge of scar tissue that stretches to his hip begins. That scar a wound that almost claimed his life, and she has saved him, over and over and over again, and does she realise all she has done for him? The happiness, the peace, she has brought him? He was nothing without her, a scarred, broken man, and she has put him together and healed him, and a sob catches in his throat as her lips brush the corner of that scar.
"It's all right, darling," she whispers, pulling back and tightening her grip around him. She presses a kiss to his forehead, and holds him close, and he gasps in a breath, and another, to try and ease the pounding of his heart.
"I love you," he gasps, and feels hot tears on his forehead that are not his own but hers, blessing him, anointing him, protecting him, her tears that she should never cry, "I love you."
"I know." Her voice is hoarse through her own tears, and she presses another kiss to his forehead, and another, "I know."