"I'm never going to be invited to a counsel meeting again."
Kíli pushed shut and locked the door of their chambers, then turned to his wife. "What? You were brilliant, as usual." The single lamp still burning at this late hour struck a glint of mischief from his eyes.
Tauriel laughed. "Because you were looking at me, you forgot what you were saying. Three times." Though she teased him now, she had, in fact found his attention intensely flattering.
"Valar, Tauriel, and what were you thinking, wearing this dress to council?" He lifted a handful of satin skirt, finished the movement by clasping her hips. "All I could think of was the last time you wore it." He pressed her back against the door and strained up to kiss her.
She smiled against his mouth. Of course she had counted on his remembering.
Tauriel let him kiss her once, twice, before she pushed off from the door and took a step or two into the room. Kíli refused to let go of her, and so they stumbled on the edge of the rug and tipped over a chair, which fell with a clatter. Tauriel caught him, and for a moment they stood, poised and breathless. Then Kíli trod on her skirt, and she accidentally tugged his feet from under him, and there was another scramble in the dark before they dashed against the dining table.
"Oof!" Kili gasped and then began to laugh, a low, rich sound from deep in the chest that drew an answering flutter of eagerness in Tauriel's stomach. "I admit, we were a little less clumsy about this when I planned it out during the meeting tonight."
"Did you?" Tauriel said as she settled more comfortably on the table's edge, so that Kíli could stand between her knees. "I do like you just as well when you're clumsy. Sometimes more."
"I'll be clumsy for you later, if you still wish. But this is what I had in mind…" He caught her feet, gently tugged off one shoe and the other. His hands traveled from her ankles to her knees, their slow caress wakening her nerves with a fire that licked on up the length of her body.
As he pressed callused fingers on past her knees, she gave a long, soft moan of need and appreciation. Her hands sought the hem of his shirt—
"Nana?" a voice piped from behind her. "Is that you?"
"Yes, love," Tauriel returned, her voice only slightly unsteady. Kíli glanced up at her with a look that somehow perfectly combined disappointment and amusement.
"Are you all right?" Kára, their youngest, asked again, sounding more troubled this time. There was the sound of little bare feet shuffling, but coming no nearer. "Something crashed."
"I'm well." Tauriel looked over her shoulder to see her daughter standing at an inner doorway; the girl's hair glowed red in the light of the hall behind her. "Your Adad knocked over a chair in the dark; that's what you heard. Nothing is wrong."
"Where is Adad?"
"I'm right here," Kíli said. His thumbs still worked light whorls over Tauriel's knees, and she knew he was reluctant to leave her, even as his face now showed tender concern for their daughter.
"Adad." She was pleading now. "Will you tuck me in? Please, Adad?"
"Yes, my sweet, I'm coming," Kíli assured her. Then, more softly, for Tauriel alone, he whispered. "Stay right here, amrâlimê. I'm coming back." He kissed her, once on each bare knee. Then he moved past the table to the hallway, where his daughter waited.
Tauriel heard the rustle of clothing that meant Kíli had stooped to gather Kára in his arms, and then the smack of his lips on her cheek. "How is my little jewel?"
"Adad, your meeting went a long time," Kára said as they moved away down the hallway. "But I waited and waited for you to come back so you could tuck me in. I almost fell asleep…"
Tauriel gave a small sigh of mingled frustration and happiness. Oh, she burned to feel her husband's hands on her; she had waited through a very long meeting indeed for that. Yet their sweet, affectionate little Kára had waited just as long, it seemed, for her father's good night. Tauriel smiled at the thought of their little dwelfling struggling to remain awake for her parents' return. No, she did not grudge her daughter these few minutes with Kíli, far from it. She knew what a precious gift was a parent's love. She could wait.