The hour was late - or early, given one's point of view. Dorcas and Gabriel lay silently together after making love for a second time this night. Both were awake, though, and deep in thought.
"My darling," Dorcas said quietly, sighing as she caressed her husband's chest, "how… are you?"
Gabriel smiled, nuzzling his wife's forehead.
"Pleased," he told her. "As I always find myself when I am with you, my love."
Dorcas grinned. She'd never imagined herself the sort of woman who could leave a man so intimately satisfied, but, in the months she and Gabriel had been wed, she'd learned that indeed she was quite capable - and good at making a man happy in such a way.
Planting a wet kiss on Gabriel's chest, she gazed up at his handsome features in the firelight illuminating their bedroom.
"Everything about you leaves me wishing I knew you even more," she told him. "Oh, I know we have no secrets between us - not any longer - but there are times when we are together, such as tonight, when I feel that there is so much I have yet to learn about you, Gabriel. I wish I could explain it, but…"
"I know what you mean," Gabriel told her. "Sometimes I feel as if I will never fully unravel all the mysteries you present to me, my angel. Dorcas, you are my constant delight. Do you know that?"
Dorcas grinned up at him.
"I do," she told her husband.
Then, for a few minutes, the two of them were again silent. At length, Dorcas spoke.
"Gabriel," she began tentatively, "you know that I wish I could… that I hope we can…"
"I know," he told her, his voice gentle.
"But… if … if we cannot," Dorcas whispered, swallowing hard. Age and time, she knew, were not on her side.
"Then I shall love you as I have since the day we met," Gabriel promised.