Tessa wore only the chemise from her dress as she moved around the room. She trailed her fingers over the empty bookshelves and the empty mantle over the empty fireplace. It was warm enough that neither of them felt the need to rebuild the fire. Will had pushed the windows open and the room was lit by sunlight and smelled of spring.
This room was a blank slate. A blank slate with terrible wallpaper. It didn't have their books in it yet. Nothing about it had been chosen by them. They would though. They would choose bedspreads and paintings. They would make this space their own. Will knew it was considered normal by many for a married couple to have separate chambers. In fact, there was a suite across the hall that was technically Tessa's but he liked the idea of making a space together. She had been the one to get attached to the balcony and the bookshelves in this room. It was hers as much as it was his.
He watched her. She was slow and methodical, obviously thinking. The chemise covered her but was thin enough that it didn't really obscure much. She reached up to adjust a horrendous painting of a landscape that had been knocked askew when Will had thrown her corset at it. The line of her body was visible through the white fabric. He swallowed the desire down but let his eyes wander over her. She was barefoot which was almost more intimate than her state of undress. He couldn't say why but his attention kept being drawn back to narrow ankles and the flare of her calves as the disappeared beneath the fabric of the nightgown.
"You're staring," she said.
"I'm allowed, I've got it in writing," he said. "I had it written into the marriage certificate specifically."
"It's almost indecent," she said.
"Unlike everything else we've done this morning," he said. He tried for a serious voice but he was fairly certain his expression crossed the line from admiring to leering at just the thought of what they'd been doing before. He was indecent but the comment made her smile as though she was also thinking those same indecent thoughts. He could spend his lifetime making her smile.
"I'm starving but I don't want to call the maid," she said.
"Why?" he asked.
"There's a spell on this morning," she said walking towards him. The rest of the world got indistinct when she turned her full attention on him. It had been a problem almost since he met her but it had become almost painful in the months of their engagement. The wanting swallowed his thoughts whole sometimes. She was saying, "I'm afraid of breaking it. I don't want to talk to other people."
"You stay here, I will go find food," he said pushing himself out of the chair he had been lounging in. He hadn't put on anything but the trousers from the night before. Tessa had finished crossing the room and put her hands on his bare chest. He reevaluated whether he really needed to eat to survive or if it was just a myth told to children.
"Brave hunter," she teased.
"Perhaps I should learn to hunt, like an American outdoorsman. I have a wife to provide for now," he said and her faux serious expression shattered into a smile and he leaned down to kiss her. He had learned the basics of hunting with his father as a child but had never really cared for it. Demon hunting had a purpose, fox hunts were just a game of ripping apart animals. He had overheard his mother say that he was too kind and gentle at 10 for fox hunts. She had been right. He had taken objection to it regardless and stomached the fox hunts because he wanted to be tough like his father.
"You're going to give up hunting demons so we can move to the Western Frontier and you can trap rabbits and hunt buffalo?" she asked.
"I could become a cowboy from a penny dreadful," he kissed her again, "I could chase down outlaws and keep prairie towns safe." She laughed into his mouth and he entirely forgot what he'd been planning to do.
"You would look good in one of those hats," she told him. Each sentence was punctuated with little glancing kisses. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer and kissed her deeply. Her arms were around his neck and she kissed him back. Every time she did this, his heart expanded. She gave him back as much love as he gave her and it was incredible. He wasn't sure his heart would still fit in his chest if it kept this up.
"You'll need a shirt," she said when she pulled back. He could feel every part of her body through her lack of clothing and he was momentarily confused.
"To be a cowboy?" he asked.
"No, well, yes. I suppose, yes you would, but you promised be breakfast and you'll need a shirt before you go find Jenny," she said. "You might make Jenny faint if she saw you like this. She sometimes looks like she's fit to faint just because you asked her something."
Jenny was Sophie's replacement and she still felt like a stranger in the household though she'd been with the London Institute for months. Blonde, narrow boned, fully trained at the Edinburgh Institute. She was a good maid but Will knew that Tessa missed Sophie. They'd been friends. Jenny was staff. It wasn't the same and Jenny was incapable of looking directly at Will which made every conversation he had with her uncomfortable.
"It's because I am exceptionally handsome," he said.
"You are," she said touching his face with a soft smile on her face. "But you're mine now and I'd be most upset if you went about seducing the new staff."
"Can I seduce the old staff?" he asked.
"William!" she said mock glaring at him. He grinned and pulled her even closer so he could press his face into the curve of her neck and whisper against her skin.
"I don't want to seduce the new staff, or the old staff, or anyone who isn't you. You do know that. Tell me you know that Tess. I don't want anyone who isn't you. I never will," he had been joking when he'd started but suddenly he was worried. Worried that the reputation he'd cultivated had been too well built. Worried that she might doubt him.
"I know," she said and he could feel her lips on his hair. He relaxed into her. Not the passionate embrace of the kiss, not the clinging anxiety that he was going to ruin this, he just held her close.
"Besides, Bridget wouldn't put up with it. I'd find you stuffed in an oven," she said laughing and pushing him away to go find Jenny.
Will found a shirt in the wardrobe and went to ring for the maid. She brought a tray of food up to the room and carefully arranged it on the little table in the sitting area. Will patiently waited for her to leave. He even managed to avoid tapping his foot or pushing her out the door when she turned to ask, again, if there was anything else they needed.
This was why people went on honeymoons immediately, Will decided. Because otherwise they killed the members of their household who got in the way of going back to bed.
Will closed the door on her as politely as he could. Jenny was still new and Will didn't want to start off on the wrong foot with her but he really wanted her gone. She smiled at him without actually looking at him. He had used his appearance as a weapon in the days before the curse had been lifted. It had been a tool in his efforts to push people away. He'd learned to be a beautiful monster. Now he found himself unsettled each time he was reminded that he could make some people uncomfortable just by looking at them. He wasn't sure how to navigate that yet.
He picked up the tray and pushed his way back into the other room. Tessa sat in the middle of the bed. If he was surprised by the fact that he could make Jenny blush just by making eye contact it was nothing compared to his bafflement that anyone could get anything done with Tessa in the room. Her one knee was tucked up underneath her but the other was stretched out on the mattress and wasn't covered by her chemise. She was brushing out her hair and didn't notice him for a moment. Her eyes were shut and her head tilted to the side as she ran the brush through the curtain of hair.
Will balanced the tray on the little table by the side of the bed where they didn't stack candles and books yet but they would. She kept brushing but her face lit up when she saw him. He climbed up beside her. She blushed and tucked her bare leg up under her body.
These flashes of shyness reminded him that she was just a girl. They were far too young to be getting married and taking over an institute. Someone was going to notice and send them back to their governesses while reminding them to stop pretending to be adults before they were ready.
By tilting her head, Tessa left the long line of her throat exposed and when he was close enough he kissed her there. She startled just a bit and he pulled away instead of pushing higher as he'd intended. Her face was unreadable but her eyes were big and trained on him.
"You always look at me," he said. "You see me in a way that no one else ever has."
"That's unfortunate," she said leaning in to kiss the side of his throat as he had done to her. His skin shuddered of its own accord and he understood the little startled jump he'd gotten from her a moment before. She kept talking but he was only half listening because she was kissing him again as she said, "Everyone else must live in such poverty to never see you like this."
"I could put on exhibitions, if you'd like," he murmured.
"I'd like it if you would pass me a cup of tea," she said pulling away from his neck and resting her head on his shoulder. He'd been paying attention over the months of their engagement and he had amassed a list of things she liked including exactly how she took her tea. He leaned back against the headboard and she cuddled in beside him with the tea cup held between both hands.
They ate in near silence and the longer they sat together the more Tessa's shyness evaporated like dew in sunlight. Her head rested against his shoulder. Her knee was crossed over his even though it made the chemise slide up to expose a lot of skin. She didn't seem to notice that she was bare almost to her hip.
He passed her bits of food so she didn't have to move. He was breaking up her pieces of toast when she stopped taking them with her hands and just took it out of his fingers with her mouth. Soft lips brushed his fingers and he forgot how to breathe.
It must have been on his face because she smiled at him. She jostled him just a little with her shoulder and tilted her chin up. Her mouth was open and smiling and he kissed her before continuing to feed her breakfast piece by piece. She licked crumbs off his fingers and he groaned very softly.
If he hadn't had the idea to start inviting her take things out of his mouth, they might have finished the tray. It was a bit of pear that finally pushed them over the edge. Tessa had been laughing and Will had been smiling so hard it was hard to chew. She dropped the fruit giggling at him and it landed in her lap. He caught her hands before she could pick it up and leaned down to retrieve it.
"Will!" she said as she squirmed out of his grasp. He had to press his face into her thigh in order to get it back and when he looked up at her the giggles had become a warmer deeper smile. In wrestling for control of her hands she'd thrown a leg over his lap and the chemise was hiked up so high, she was nearly undressed. Will watched her face as he trailed fingers up her leg. When he got to the hem, he paused and she nodded her encouragement. She lifted her hips so he could pull it up and then over her head.
"You're blushing," he told her. She blushed from her cheeks, down her throat and across her chest. He brushed his fingers over the pink skin and her cheeks darkened.
"Can I ask a question?" she said.
"Never again, I had that written into the marriage certificate too, no more questions," he told her. She frowned at him. He was still tracing very gentle lines over her chest, across her stomach, down her thighs but he paused to put his thumb on her chin and tilt her face down to look her right in the eyes when he said, "You can ask my anything, always,"
She blushed harder and he bit back the curiosity and waited. She would ask. She couldn't help it. He didn't need to push her. He waited and watched her. Fragile and strong. Confident enough to lay below him without hiding or turning away, shy enough to blush when he looked at her. Blue and gray. Girl and woman. Shadowhunter and Warlock. Nothing about her was simple but everything about her was beautiful.
"Ask me," he prompted.
She bit her lip before asking, "Do you decide when it does that?" He had no idea what she was talking about until she put a hand on his stomach and slid it lower. He was still fully dressed which suddenly seemed like the stupidest possible thing to be.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," he lied, "Show me?"
He should have known better than to challenge her. She pushed him back and once he was sitting up her fingers were on the buttons of his shirt. He ran his hand down her back while she undid each button. For months, each little bit of skin had been a secret and a mystery. Her wrists beneath cuffs, her collar bone below lace, her throat wrapped in a scarf. How many hours had he spent considering each piece of skin hidden beneath clothing. Now she sat before him, comfortable and smiling, wearing nothing but her necklace and her cascade of hair.
Once he was as naked as she was he said, "Oh, that, no, that's not a thing I decide, I think it might be your fault."
"My fault?" she asked.
"You touch me and it just happens," he said leaned his face into her hair which fell in waves brushed but still holding twists and kinks from the style it had been pulled into the night before. "Sometimes I think about you and it just happens." He pushed his face a little deeper into her hair as he said it. It had happened. No one had ever noticed but it was still embarrassing to have to stay sitting at the library table or drop the book he had been reading onto his lap and start a conversation with whomever was nearby until it went away.
"Truly?" she asked and he nodded silently.
"I suppose it doesn't happen to you," he said.
"Different... parts," she said. "Though I think I can imagine the kind of thoughts that might make it happen."
"Ladies aren't supposed to have those kinds of thoughts," Will told her pulling back from her hair.
"Then maybe I don't want to be a lady," she said. She never questioned that they might have had the same sorts of thoughts. His mind supplied the unwanted question, "Did she ever think them about Jem?" and Will's heart hurt. It wasn't imagining Tessa's thoughts that hurt. It was Jem. Jem would not have this. Not with her, not with anyone. No one would ever press a warm shoulder into Jem's chest and laugh against his skin. That wasn't fair or right.
Tessa pulled him back to the moment. She was still blushing she met his eye and smiled as her hand moved. While they had talked she had left it curled around his hip much as his hand sat at the dip at her waist. Her fingers found him and he gasped. Just fingertips. Glancing, gentle, curious. How the girl manage to ask questions with her fingertips was not something Will could explain.
"Higher or lower?" she asked just as he'd asked her the night before.
"Lower and tighter," he said taking her hand. She let him wrap her fingers around him and for a few strokes he guided her hand to show her what he meant.
"Like that?" she asked and his answer was a not quite coherent groan as he leaned his face back into her hair and tightened his fingers on her hip. The skin of her hands was so much softer than his and she was still curious and gentle. He'd always felt a little like he was doing something wrong when he did this himself. Abusing oneself they called it. She had none of his guilt about it, her hands were slow. Hands. One stroking slowly up and down the entire length of him, while the other one was on his stomach, on his thigh, lower. He gasped again.
"That's a good sound, right?" her voice was right in his ear.
"That's good, yes," he said and she took his previous request of tighter literally and, "Tess," escaped from him. Her name became an expletive or maybe it was a prayer. He hooked a hand under her knee, pulled her down and rolled her over in one motion. Her hands didn't leave him but they lost that even rhythm that had been chipping away at his self control.
"Will it hurt you?" he asked and she shook her head no. He guided her hands away and they started to wander up his chest as she spread her knees for him. His hand still lingered on her waist and he felt the way her hips shifted to meet him as he pressed himself down against her and then into her. It was as easy as the kiss that followed. She still tasted like pears and red currant jam.
Her hands were everywhere. There shouldn't have been enough of her to surround his entire body like this. He drowned in the sensations of her. The smell of her hair, the texture of her thighs where they touched his, the little sounds she made in the back of her throat when she liked something. He kissed her and the movements of his body were an extension of that. They were stiller than they had been before. Hips shifting together not stroking or thrusting.
"I don't deserve you," he told her in the middle of it when every wall he'd ever constructed between his emotions and the world lay crumbled at her feet. She stilled beneath him. He hadn't realized how much she moved with him until she stopped. Her hands found his face. Some piece of the Will he had spent so many years creating scrambled to rebuild the wall between his vulnerability and the truth. It was hopeless. He couldn't find anything that might keep her out. He stopped fighting it and let her see it.
"Yes you do," she said. "You deserve the world, Will."
He started to protest and she shook her head and he fell silent. In that instant, pressed together, he would have done anything for her. Anything at all. She kissed him. They were so close she barely needed to raise her face to do it.
"But this isn't about being deserving, William," she said and as he could in rare flashes, he heard Jem in her voice, "Don't make the world a game. It isn't that simple. We don't earn our lives. We create them. I love you. I want to be with you. I don't care what the world thinks we deserve. I care what you want. I care what I want. I want you."
"I want you too," he said and he kissed her again. Her hands in his hair held him close as he moved against her again.
Release took him first but he couldn't pull away from her even as his body shuddered and protested. She arched into him so soon after that it was almost the same sensation. She twisted her hips just enough that his over sensitive skin brought him gasping with her. He pulled back but rested his head against her chest. He lay between her thighs but no longer inside her. Their hands still moved over skin while their breathing settled.
"We create our lives," Will said.
"Together," Tessa said.