Zest
...
Thursday 28th February
Grace appears to be frowning slightly into the mug clasped between her hands, absolutely lost in thought as he returns to their quiet, corner table from his quick, necessary trip.
Always thinking, she is, Boyd muses, her brain always ticking away. It's fascinating to watch, sometimes, but then sometimes it makes him worry, too. Makes him wonder what's going on behind those intelligent, deep blue eyes.
"Not having second thoughts, are you?" he asks lightly as he sits down again, this time eschewing the chair opposite her and instead taking a seat beside her on the padded vinyl of the cheery red bench running along the length of the coffee shop wall. "Not pondering whether this is really just a crazy, ridiculous, potentially catastrophic idea?"
The smile he gets as she looks up at him makes this entire, ludicrously long journey worth it. "Never. And I asked you, remember?!"
Studying her eyes, her smile, he grins down at her, slipping an arm comfortably around her waist and drawing her closer. "Not something I'm ever going to forget, Grace," he replies.
It's too easy to forget where they are, to put the two hundred plus miles still ahead of them out of his mind and to simply lean down, closing the gap between them. And somehow the gentle caress of his lips against hers turns into something considerably more, something that lasts rather too long and becomes a little too deep and mischievous for the bustling surroundings of a busy motorway service station, but damn it all to hell, he thinks. He's waited a long time for this weekend, and he's going to enjoy every single minute of it.
…
It was his idea, and even as the three hundred odd mile journey stretches into its sixth hour of winter darkness, neatly obscuring the passing scenery from view, he finds no trace of impatience arising, no hint of his classic irritability and short temperedness with the varying levels of traffic, the steady passing of time and the incompetence of other drivers.
None at all. Instead he simply reaches across to capture her hand, sliding their fingers together and squeezing softly, revelling in the gentle, contented sigh of response that comes from his relaxed, slightly sleepy companion in the passenger seat, and the accompanying tender returning pressure from her hand to his.
…
Keswick in Cumbria, a small, quiet and very comfortable hotel not far from Derwent Water is where they eventually end up – home for the next three nights. It's very late – almost eleven, even – by the time they make it to their room but they still opt for a slow, sensual shared shower followed by a lazy glass of wine each, their soft chatter rising and falling naturally into the night air and the gentle glow of the lamps as the indulgence of their weekend, their time, takes over, everything else in their universe falling away.
Her question, his impatience, that's what has brought them here. What has created this weekend, what prompted the phone calls and the paperwork, the reservations and the excuses for leaving London, for evading work. The idea has been fixed in his mind since it grabbed hold of him a mere handful of hours after she asked. Grabbed hold and seized him in a wild burst of enthusiasm and need. A single-minded desire to just do it. To take her at her word. To prove something – everything – to her.
His eyes caress her body, drinking in the sight of her as she stands quietly, takes a sip from her glass. He watches the slow movement of her throat as she savours the liquid before swallowing, sees the steady rise and fall of her chest as she breathes. Her eyes close and for a few long seconds he wonders yet again what she is thinking, feeling. So much of the time the way her mind works remains a mystery to him, he reflects, but then there are moments, precious gaps in the day or night, when her eyes give her away, when the emotion burning there is so bright and expressive he can see it all, can feel everything.
"Tired?" Grace asks, abandoning the window she has been gazing out of and wandering slowly over to where he is sitting on the edge of the bed, watching her. Boyd reaches out, catches her hand. Tugs her closer until she's standing right in front of him and he can rest both hands on her waist, gazing thoughtfully up at her. Her expression is clear and calm, relaxed, open.
Shaking his head he offers a gentle, naturally easy smile. He is tired, but it's not the most pressing matter on his mind, not the dominating, overriding emotion. "Happy," he tells her, simply.
Grace places a hand on his shoulder, runs the other through his hair, stroking softly, rhythmically. "Not impatient?" she teases, her voice barely more than the lightest whisper tickling his ears.
"Not anymore." It's the honest truth.
Perhaps, he muses, he has simply burned up all existing impatience in the lead up to today. Weeks of waiting and a checklist of requirements had unceremoniously tossed his ideas of wildly romantic spontaneity out of the window. He had chafed and growled, shouted and angrily searched the net to double check. He contemplated giving in, and then shouted some more, knowing he wouldn't. Couldn't.
But he wouldn't trade any of it.
Once the idea had become firmly rooted in his brain, and with her question still lingering in his ears long after she'd asked it, he wanted nothing more. Waiting, planning, submitting documents – so be it. It would all be worth it in the end.
And he was right. The delays, the frustration – it means nothing now. Not when they are only hours and a few miles away from their destination. Not when they have each other. Not when he can see that zest for life in her eyes, the beginnings of that delightfully well-hidden mischief as her fingertips leave his hair and glide across his face, following the line of his brow, the curve of his cheek. Not when he knows, as her thumb brushes lightly against his lips, tracing the outline before meandering languidly through the soft bristle of his beard, how happy she is, how much she's enjoying this too. Not when he shares that very same enthusiasm, that zeal for enjoying every opportunity and moment that life chooses to grant them.
There's a shift in her expression, a tiny gleam appearing in her gaze, one that tells him she knows he's thinking, and what he's thinking about, and that she thinks he shouldn't be. He wants to laugh, both at how well she knows him, and at the direction her own thoughts are heading – the direction his are rapidly heading in as well. She thinks he shouldn't be thinking, and he's more than happy to oblige.
Closing his eyes he concentrates on her, on what she's doing to him. It's incredibly simple, her slow, deliberate exploration, but breathtakingly tender and it works an utterly bewitching, enthralling kind of magic on him.
There are no candles, no artificial lights now, only the steady, mystical glow of the full moon beyond the partially-drawn curtains. There are no sounds but that of her breathing and his, and the soft sighs and moans as they travel together down a familiar, erotic pathway. Already entirely lost in her he can feel nothing but her – her body, her weight against his as she winds herself closer, settling herself on his lap; her hands tracing across his suddenly hypersensitive skin, driving his mind into sensual oblivion, her lips following the trail of her fingers, teasing, touching, arousing.
"I love you," he murmurs. It's a reaction to the moment, and it's not. It's the truth, the honest, plain truth.
Her hands still for a second and then slide down, fingers linking together behind his neck as she leans closer. She's pressed against him, body to body and it's so familiar, so enticing. So right. Her scent floods his nose, washes through his brain as they meet in a kiss that tells of so much more than just one moment. More than this night, this weekend; more than just sex, desire. More than the endless depths of friendship. More than love, even. It's everything they are to each other, everything they have shared, and everything they are intending to share from this moment on. It's everything they think and feel, everything they want and need and have to give to one another.
"I know." She's a little bit hazy, and a lot drunk – not on the wine, but on him, on the moment. As he is on her and their time together.
Her hands stray across his chest, catching hold of the edge of the simple cotton tee shirt he pulled on after their shower. Insistent fingers tug north, search for the skin that lies beneath and he raises an eyebrow.
"What?"
Her lips find his again, and the world stops as he can taste her, feel the heat of her body from beneath the thin, silk robe wrapped around her, the weight of her settling closer, urging him to lie back and take her with him.
His shirt is gone; where and when, though, Boyd has no idea. All he knows is she's smiling down at him as her hands and then her lips travel across his body, eliciting thoughts and sensations that stop his mind from functioning. It's not a problem though, for in its place his senses take over, drinking in the rich array of scent and flavour and detail around him. Surrender to it all is the easiest option, and one to which he gladly yields.
…
He wakes to gentle light creeping around the edges of the heavy drapes and a sense of deep contentment, of pervading warmth and comfort. It takes a while for the vestiges of heavy slumber to fade away, and as they do he rolls lazily onto his side, searching.
Grace is still sleeping but she appears to be dreaming, muttering an incomprehensible stream of words under her breath as she fidgets, fighting against an invisible enemy and thrashing out in the process. His palm on her shoulder, rubbing slow, soothing circles is enough, though, and she calms quickly, relaxing back into the pillows. It's a trick he learned a long time ago, within weeks of their relationship evolving from friends to something more. She dreams a lot, especially early in the morning. Mostly it's harmless; wildly vivid and implausible scenes in brilliant shapes and colours that make no sense to either of them when she recounts the images to him, but that frequently provide plenty of early morning laughter and amusement.
Occasionally there are nightmares, but not today it seems, and for that he is grateful. Boyd watches her features, observes how she seems at peace as she breathes softly and slowly, a steadying metronome he's used to lull himself to sleep on more than one occasion after unsettling dreams of his own.
It doesn't take long for his observations to take a more physical direction, his train of thought becoming preoccupied with the way her eyelashes seem to tickle her cheeks, by the way the shadows hide the freckles on her shoulder, the soft hints of light baring only the outline of her skin and concealing all the details.
He doesn't need the light. He can fill in all the missing bits of information from memory, does so now. His gaze wanders from her face to her neck and down, lingering at the hollow at the base of her throat as memory supplies him with what it feels like to press his lips there, to let just the very tip of his tongue drag up and across the ridge of her collarbone, that trail followed by a row of tiny kisses. The way she sighs softly and arches against him when his mouth lingers over the curve between her neck and shoulder filters through his mind, tempting him to try it now. To wake her slowly but surely with the ghostly pressure of tiny kisses and whispering caresses that gradually turn from barely there into something more, something deeper and much more reverent.
Lost in the moment, it takes him time before he sees the way the covers have fallen away slightly, but then he is greedily taking in the sight of her, every curve and plane cast in shadowy light, every hidden feature supplied by experience and knowledge. Grace shifts a little in her sleep, stretching her limbs and spine, and then Boyd's gaze falls on the fading mark that even now still tugs sharply at his heart when he allows himself to remember its significance. That particular scar is nothing really, nothing, and everything. It's short, well-healed and fading well – barely even noticeable anymore. But it is a permanent reminder of what he almost lost, that she could so easily have been taken away from him. Before he'd even taken a chance.
Even now it hurts to think of, makes his chest tight with the fear that has never really left. The best he can do is suppress it, try to reassure himself. She's in his arms now, and he has no conscious memory of it happening. Instead he only cradles her closer and closes his eyes, focusing on how it feels, on the little things like the way her hair tickles his nose and her head seems to automatically seek out his shoulder to rest against.
There's a soft sigh and a lingering kiss pressed against his chest. His heart floods with a warmth that spreads throughout his entire body, makes him speak the only thing in his mind, "I want to spend the rest of my life with you."
Grace is sleepy, her voice heavy but still amused. "I should hope so, after we've gone to the trouble of putting ourselves through all this." She tucks herself closer, snuggles deeper into his chest and wraps an arm around him, humming softly in pure pleasure.
Rays of brighter, more insistent light creep beyond the curtains but the two of them stay as they are, still and quiet and curled in each other's arms as they watch the shadows disappear and a new day dawn.
"It's not too late to change your mind," she murmurs.
Concentrating on nuzzling her hair, it takes a moment before her offer sinks in enough for him to process, to understand. "As if," he scoffs, the words out of his mouth before he has chance to think about them. Reality catches up slowly. He lifts his head to look down at her. "I thought we'd already been through this? Unless you…"
She grins, and he growls, knowing he is being teased.
"We should get up," Grace sighs, though she appears entirely disinclined to move from the tangle of limbs and lazy kisses and caresses that they seem to be caught up in.
"We probably should," Boyd replies languidly, even as he remains intent on slowly, thoroughly tracing the curve of her shoulder with his fingertips.
"I seem to recall we have an important event to attend," she whispers, the softest brush of her lips grazing the shell of his ear.
"The clock says we have plenty of time," he counters, one hand leaving its position at her waist and gliding up, searching and seeking as his lips find hers again and then again. She says nothing in return, only meets him in a kiss that builds slowly and deliciously into something that is both deeply erotic, and breathtakingly emotive. Time seems to stand still as they lose themselves again and again in each other, in a storm of indulgent sensuality and desire, in whispered promises and heady sensory feedback, in a tangle of heated bodies and racing hearts, and joyful, searing passion that blazes bright and strong through both of them.
…
Before lunchtime the border between England and Scotland appears and then melts away again as Boyd drives, their destination soon materialising before them in a landscape that barely changes, offers no real clue that they have moved through one country and into another.
A single storey white building, old, with black beams and woodwork around the windows. Quaint, and yet somehow nondescript, easily blending in with so many other such places featured across the nation were it not for the signs proclaiming its fame, bringing forth a host of thoughts and wonderings about its history and all who have travelled here in the past.
Inside there is the same feeling, the weight of history, of other people's – couples' – stories weighing down on them. The building itself seems to know, seems to remember it all. Seems to contain the tangled strains of love and commitment, the hushed memories of secrecy, the rushed hurry of cautious travellers – it's all written deep into the oak beams, into the very fabric of the place.
And when it is finally their turn and they step into the fabled room, Boyd can't not be awed by it all. By the thought of all those who have come before, and all those who will still follow. The blacksmith's anvil is cool and smooth under his palm, its solid immovability reassuring, calming. His eyes meet Grace's and he knows, without a doubt, that they are absolutely doing the right thing.
Her hands rest in his as they stand there face to face and a feeling like no other races across his skin, catches in his lungs, his chest. Grace gazes up at him, into him, as he gazes down at her, lost in the depths of her eyes, perhaps even her soul as today he sees everything there, as a thousand and one things pass silently, wordlessly between them. It's a fanciful notion, he knows, and on any other day he'd chide himself for such thoughts, but not today. Not in this moment he has wanted and chased and wished for so much, for so long.
In his pocket is a ring for her, and in hers is one for him. Bought together, each choosing for the other, they are different yet somehow impossibly, incredibly matched. Simple bands that fit the character, the temperament of the receiver, and which reflect every facet of the bond between both the wearer and the giver.
Their vows are their own; hers written in solitude one evening weeks before and refined upon reflection and deep contemplation, his spoken in the moment from a collection of memories and thoughts and feelings amassed during the years of their evolving, changing relationship, and then mulled over in silence for the last few days.
The rituals of the officiant are kept to a bare minimum, by their own mutual choice, and the witnesses are unknown to them, but for a brief meeting before the ceremony. It doesn't matter, for this moment is about them, and them alone.
To Boyd, the moment when he slides that cool metal circle onto Grace's hand, to rest there on her finger for all the world to see, seems to be over far too quickly, seems to slip away before he manages to etch it into his mind forever.
The words that follow, though, they are timeless.
"I now pronounce you husband and wife…"
The kiss isn't. The kiss is their history and their memories. It is this moment and a promise by both for all the moments still to come. It is everything there is between them, now bound together and entirely shared. It is what they want, what they have both secretly wanted for a long time. It is love. It is them.
…
They pause only for a few photographs by which to remember the day, and then they retreat from the area, driving back to walk in solitude around the shores of Derwent Water. They amble along, hand-in-hand, and take in the scenery, the stillness of nature and the wonderful silence, the complete lack of other people.
Today is a day only for them. Today they focus on nothing but each other, on their promise of forever, of love. They talk, and they share silence, comfortable and happy, and basking in it all. The significance of the day fades away as they concentrate on each other, lose themselves instead in the rarity of being so many miles from their normal lives, so far removed from the need to deal with anything. There are no phone calls to distract them, no emails to answer. No work to squeeze in around those precious, normal weekend moments.
It's refreshing, energising, muses Boyd, as he uses his thumb to turn the ring a full circle around his finger. It's seems a strange thought, and a silly one, but he wonders when was the last time he felt this happy, this relaxed and uninhibited, this free from pressure and stress. This able to let it all go and concentrate on only what he wants to.
He feels utterly calm, entirely at peace with every fibre of his being. It won't last, he knows that, but in this moment it's an almost overwhelming thing to experience. A hint, perhaps, of what the not-too-distant future is offering him now.
Across the lake the sun is beginning to set, its sinking rays flickering across the water and changing its colour, painting a masterpiece of impressionist art in a blaze of every hue imaginable from the brightest yellows and pinks and oranges to the deepest reds and purples. They stop to watch, Grace tucked back against his chest as his arms encircle her, head dropping to rest on her shoulder as they quietly take in the spectacular view as their day draws to an end.
Her hands rest lightly over his, her head tilts until their cheeks brush and he tenderly nuzzles her soft skin, bestows a lingering kiss against her temple and breathes deeply, contentedly. Her fingers squeeze, a gentle pressure against his own, one that he then returns. Neither speaks the words the simple gesture replaces – they don't need to.
The End
It's well over a year late, but this story is finally finished. Thank you to everyone who has read, reviewed and patiently stuck with this - I hope the ending does the story justice. Massive thanks to Joodiff and missDuncan for, first and foremost, friendship, but also for possessing far more patience than I deserve, and for pestering me to get on with it and get it done. Additional thanks to Joodiff for the epic beta of this entire fic.