A/N: This is what happens when I see a gif of rain falling down a window. I don't know what else to say about this.
The seconds trickled down their bedroom window loudly while Samara's fingers slid over page after page, daylight aiding her reading despite the heavy clouds wrapping the sky like the sheets were constricting her body. The rain had imprisoned them inside without all the duties the palace had occupied them with to leave them with just the storm raging outside and the quiet in the room tempting it to break in. Restlessness only tugged at her muscles, though, trying to rip them out with the shivers racing down her spine faster than the raindrops were falling from the sky. The string of words wasn't complex enough to ground her when she already knew who the killer was after she'd barely passed the middle of the book. Her mind reached roots in all directions to collide with the walls of the manor, chilly with its ignorance of the outside world.
The mattress shifted beside her and Erendor moved away the curtain of her hair to let her breathe fresh air. His lips on her shoulder startled a gasp from her, the warmth of his kiss concentrating her focus in a single spot of her flesh to free the rest of her body from the tension he'd read in her. The trail he made up to her neck led out of her mindset and into his to bridge the gap between them.
She moaned in encouragement and appreciation, the overcast outside melting out of her sight to free her attention span for him. She wouldn't notice an attack on their lives with her picking up all the little details of his touch he dropped on her skin like precious jewels.
She dropped the book to soak up the softness of his tongue's wet caresses and let him pull it out of her hands to insert himself deep inside her mind with the familiar pattern of sensations he traced over her body. His hands reached for the front of her shirt to undo the buttons there at a set pace dictated by the decrease in his energy now drained by their advancing age and not the crown. The slow–almost lazy–progress rooted her in his proximity better than his body pressed against hers did. Her breasts landed in his palms, her heart racing while her chest settled in the desire-ridden air of his hot puffs against her neck. His teeth grazed her pulse point and his probing fingers tickled at her abdomen, their caresses in tact with the heat pooling in her lower belly as his erection poked her thigh.
She wasn't quite there yet but he would get her chasing her own pleasure–and his, the two tangled together–without leaving bed. He filled all of her, leaving no room in her mind for more. No more thinking, no more coldness. He could fill the rest of the day–of her life–with the wholeness of their marriage. She could close her eyes to the outside world and its plans for the two of them without even clothes between them.
"They say that the best time to sleep is while it's raining." She rarely slept calmly, never deeply. She always had to find the energy for another day despite never resting. She should have added getting a good day's sleep to her agenda long ago but it had been unthinkable without him next to her. And the palace had never allowed such frivolities in the daytime when the throne called.
Erendor was on top of her, pressing her into the mattress and making her head spin, all in the safety of their bed. There was nowhere to fall except down the path of his self-indulgence. "Well, you can sleep with me and then I'll sleep with you." The chuckle he got was not the voice she'd used all her life. It was lighter without the facades to her intonation and the pleasantries weighing down her tongue. It was real like her enjoyment of the moment they hadn't had to steal between palace intrigues and royal duties.
"I want to but... I don't know if I can." There had always been another scheme, another detail to tweak, another role to play as her own. And then there were his lips kissing the words off her mouth, his fingers pulling the doubts out of her mind. Her body was silk, her heart – graphite in which the truth spilled.
He ran his hand through her hair causing no tangles, only a pleasant tingle in her roots. "Will it help if I exhaust you before nightfall?" Her body was taking over, the responses to his touch instantaneous, no thought required. She was dripping like the rain outside, slowly, taking the time to fill out the entire day and keep them in bed. A storm had never been her blessing in disguise before with the distrust clouding her mind.
"I can't lose, can I?" He rarely exhausted her, somehow always giving her more than he took. She'd always had their marriage despite having to argue with a king. Even if her momentum failed her, lying awake next to him was hedonistic in itself now that there was no empty bed of her own to go back to, no crown to get up for.
"We have a lot of catching up to do for all the rainy days we've wasted," he was looking behind her eyes, inside her, and it was less unsettling than her own reflection in the mirror staring at her.
Their lips were one, his grunt flowing inside her like a rain of their own, watering the soil for more to grow in their closeness.