9. Peace at Last
By midday, Nasuada and Murtagh were so hungry and thirsty that he insisted she call for something to remedy that.
They were lazily sprawled on her magnificent bed with their arms around one another. Nasuada was pressed against his side with her leg drawn up, her head on his shoulder, and her arm across his body. Murtagh marveled yet again at the beauty of her ebony skin, which made his seem so pale in comparison. Nasuada's thick dark hair cascaded all around them. She so often had it up that Murtagh hadn't realized how long it was. It reached past her waist, and he repeatedly ran his hand through it, memorizing the velvety, rumpled texture.
"Should we not just go and eat?" Nasuada worried. "Won't someone be missing us?"
"Of course they are missing us, my dear," Murtagh replied. "They know exactly what we have been up to all these hours and are either rejoicing in or envying our happiness. But they won't expect us to emerge until we are ready. Eragon and Arya were gone for a week and a half after their wedding."
"Really?" Nasuada exclaimed. Then she added, "But I can understand why. If I never again saw another person besides you, my husband, I would be the happiest woman alive."
She moved her hand from where it had been idly fingering his slightly pointed ear and wavy hair, trailing it toward his jaw and letting her thumb stroke the length of it before sliding it down the tendon in his neck. She traced along his shoulder out toward his arm then used one finger to draw a line back along his collarbone to the hollow at the base of his neck.
From here, Nasuada spread her fingers wide, pulling them as one around the bulge of his pectoral muscle and pressing into him with gloating appreciation. A smirk of fierce approval appeared on her face as she continued her examination down the length of his body, allowing her fingers to trace around each defined line of his musculature as if seeking their way out of a maze. He grunted as she ended her exploration well below his navel, letting her hand brush against the most sensitive area of his body. His arms automatically tightened around her in reaction to her unexpectedly arousing inspection.
"That felt . . . nice," Murtagh said in a tight voice.
Nasuada laughed—a deep, throaty sound—returning her eyes to his face as she said, "Yes, it did. You have a magnificent body." As she met his eyes, Murtagh saw the burning he felt reflected back at him. He grabbed her face and urgently kissed her, using one arm to pull her on top of him and satisfy the insistent demands her touch had provoked.
After a time—Murtagh wasn't sure how long since the minutes and hours seemed as one when he was lost in her love—he was able to relax again, and she lay contentedly on top him. He closed his eyes and breathed evenly, trying to slow the pounding of his heart.
Nasuada commented, "I like hearing your heart beat like that with my ear right next to it. It sounds so strong, like the rest of you."
Murtagh inhaled deeply. When he was finally able to speak, he said, "But I now understand why Eragon looked ten years younger when he and Arya finally did return. I never would have imagined that sharing my love with you like this would serve to relieve me of decades' worth of anger, hatred, pain, longing—everything. I have never felt so perfectly at ease or happy. Peaceful, even. Thorn doesn't know what to think. He hardly recognizes me."
"Has he often been in your mind this last while?" Nasuada wondered with an attempt at nonchalance.
"You needn't be embarrassed, my dear," Murtagh comforted. "He only delights in sharing my happiness. I have blocked him for much of the time, but he can still sense the general tone of my mind, and it is unlike he has ever known it to be, that's all."
"I am glad you are so recovered, Murtagh. You deserve this peace at last," Nasuada said. "We waited an unbearably long time for this. It might have killed a lesser man, or at least driven him mad."
"It came close to that, Nasuada. Very close. But you were not the reason. If anything, you were the reason I made it here with some semblance of sanity, if I can go so far as to say that." Murtagh smiled dryly.
She raised herself off his chest and drew her face closer to his, hunching her shoulders as she leaned toward him. A wave of her hair spilled over his shoulder. She had just begun kissing him when a bell rang lightly, indicating that their meal had arrived.
Murtagh groaned in disappointment, tightening his arms around her back to prevent her from rising. "Won't they just leave it?" he asked. "I can fetch it in . . . later."
Nasuada smiled, nodding slightly. "You were the one begging for food and drink. Have you now no need for repast, though you have not eased your hunger or thirst and surely only increased it?"
"You are my repast, Nasuada," Murtagh growled. "Already I am hungry for you again."
Nasuada laughed. "Well then, I had best not deny your appetite, as voracious as it is." She resumed her kiss, and they once again joyfully tangled together in their physical expression of love.
-:-:-
Some hours later, after they had eaten and drank and dozed again on the bed, Nasuada reluctantly said, "I fear we must now make our reappearance."
"Why?" Murtagh demanded, nuzzling her neck and collarbone with his mouth.
"That tickles," Nasuada laughed.
"Good," Murtagh said. "Anything to distract you from that line of thinking."
She laughed again. "Because the longer we delay, the longer we deny another couple this same happiness, even Willow and Varhog. If we go now, we will arrive in time for dinner and can begin to make plans for visiting the Urgals."
"Spoken like a queen," Murtagh said with a regretful sigh. "Eragon will never let me live it down that my honeymoon was ten times shorter than his. Would you make me endure that, my wife?"
Nasuada laughed mischievously. "Who said this ends our honeymoon? Perhaps we will just have Thorn fly higher than all the rest so we can do whatever we want on our journeys. He must already be privy to the worst of it. We would only need to take care that our clothes didn't blow away in the process. Then it would really be no secret what we had been up to when we landed."
She laughed more loudly at the scandalized expression Murtagh felt cross his face, clearly delighted she had come up with a scenario even he hadn't considered.
"I quite like the sound of that," he said with a sly grin. "I always have admired your ingenuity and determination. Very well, my dear. With a prospect such as that to anticipate, I will relent and go with you now down to dinner, though I am sure to face the taunts of my dear younger brother."