Just when they thought things had steadied, when they'd found peace following all of their turmoil, they are thrown back in.
An incoming delegation, a summit between the Royal University and the City of the Gods, bandit raids further south than any recent year in memory, Griffons needing negotiating with—one hazy night in his study where they were left in peace, and then it seemed as if they were being hurled back into a tempest.
In the end, these were things they had been handling for a long time, though usually at a more forgiving pace. Now, the frenzy was the moments in between—hands and lips and bodies that they could not keep away from one another in classrooms or forests or closets.
And for whatever time they could grasp—minutes, an hour if they were lucky—time stopped just long enough to give them a breath and lose themselves in each other as completely as they had ached to do for so long.
He tries to apologize, sometimes. Apologize that this is not how it was supposed to be. That it's supposed to be candlelight and romance and long, languorous evenings spent in front of a fire with good food and privacy.
She always hushes him, because time spent speaking is time they are losing and she can't think of anything else but his hands on her now. Talking could wait for later or, when there was really no time, during.
Impassioned pleas, sweet nothings and,occasionally, the odd work update or relayed message as she frantically pulls at the laces of his breeches are common form. Everything is a blur of passion and necessity and love and raw need and making up for lonely nights and recklessness.
He struggles to hold control over his silencing spell and hold her against the wall at the same time but her murmured pleas against his neck urge him on and he is so lost in her he's not even sure where he is except that it's with her.
Her pleas beckon him and his own—marry me—almost falls from his lips but he catches himself, barely. This may be what they have now but later there would be time for more.
But later was later, and now they cling together and weather the storm.