Haven was dining when she exited the Chantry. People crowded around dotted campfires and huddled under torches. They spilled out into the streets and laughed with one another in endless, babbling sound. The sight was electric, all of this life that was happy. Happy here.

Cassandra wanted to be a part of it.

She made her way to the longhouse where she usually dined, filling her plate with whatever was at hand. When she turned back to face the crowd, it parted like a curtain to reveal a table of Kirkwall Templars. Cullen sat with them, tall and beautiful, and she felt suddenly shy, unsure of how to proceed. His words were burned into her, coursing through her blood, but that didn't mean she was any different than she'd ever been. And she had never known how to be in love, only how to fall.

As she watched, the man sitting on the bench alongside Cullen stood, and the empty space beckoned. She squared her shoulders. She would be brave.

The room seemed long and full of obstacles, but eventually she made her way to her goal and the place was still free. Cassandra slid into it without a word, her stomach twisting quietly.

Cullen didn't acknowledge her. He continued speaking to his men, telling a story of the time one of them had been so drunk she'd punched a pole thinking it was laughing at her, and Cassandra stared down at the table. Varric was with them as well, and he caught her eye and gave her a quick thumbs up. She hoped she deserved it.

And then Cullen shifted, almost imperceptibly, in the middle of a sentence, until his leg was pressed against hers under the table. He never paused, and he never looked at her, but she relaxed, just a little, and returned the pressure. She asked Varric a question about his novels, and she fell into conversation with one side of the table while Cullen took the other. All the while she felt the heat passing between the place they touched. Her heart passed through as well, a slow and steady beat, and she wondered if he could feel his returning, too. If they were coming home.

While she was still eating, Cullen stood to leave. He said he had to meet with some of the mercenaries who'd come to the Conclave, and he bid them all goodnight. When he did, his eyes swept around the table in an easy circle, until they rested, finally, on her face. "Good night," he said again, and he smiled softly before he left.

Varric applauded when Cullen was gone, and she couldn't even feel annoyed.

The next morning she took the early benediction, and she stood on the dais and waited for the congregation to finish their welcoming prayers as she always did. There were hundreds here, now, gathered at Justinia's call, and her eyes wandered over them as she prepared her words.

Her gaze arrested on a blond, bowed head in the front row of the chapel.

As though he felt her, Cullen's head lifted, and he stared at her with the solemn face of a proper Andrastian petitioner. Only the twinkle of laughter in his eyes betrayed him, and she couldn't stop an altogether inappropriate grin from her lips before she banished it. The congregation eventually raised their faces to her, and she raised an arm in turn.

"There was no word for heaven or earth, for sea or sky. All that existed was silence…"

She flew through the Canticle with hardly a pause, perfect in every word. But she remembered none of it when she finished. She only remembered the amazed, lovely wonder on his face.

They ate lunch in the training yard and talked between his barked orders at the trainees. By silent agreement they talked of nothing of consequence, nothing of love or desire, but there were thousands of other things to learn and examine, and they started in on them easily. He scolded her for every laugh she drew out of him, claiming it would ruin his authority in front of his men, but he didn't send her away.

Not until he'd startled an answering laugh out of her, an unrestrained noise that cut through the yard as easily as their blades through the air. A handful of the younger men turned to gape at her. She wondered if she looked as incandescent as she felt.

Apparently she did, because Cullen stood and glared at them all. "If you allow your head to be turned on the battlefield by a beautiful woman, you'll soon lose it," he said severely. "Do you think an enemy can't be lovely? Focus!"

Cassandra rose next to him as the recruits and veterans all redoubled their efforts. He turned to her with a look of affectionate exasperation, and she offered a contrite lowering of her eyes which she knew fooled him not at all. She glanced back up just in time to see his mouth twitch. "You, leave," he said. "You're distracting the troops."

"The troops? Or the Commander?" she asked.

"You don't need to be here to distract me," he said in a low voice, and she reached out to squeeze his hand, once. He returned it, then drew his brow down with deliberate sternness. "Go."

"Yes ser," she said, and she walked away with the pleasant feeling of his gaze boring into her back.

The Conclave was delayed when an early snow came to Haven. The mountains stole summer away in a minute and replaced it with a dusting of white powder that fell from the sky in fat, lazy flakes. Cassandra emerged from her tent with a broad smile on her face. She stood in the courtyard with her arms splayed wide while the rest of the village scurried to shelter.

She opened her eyes at a harrumphing cough. Cullen was watching her with his arms folded, one eyebrow raised. "You realize that most people try to get away from storms?"

"We had no snow in Nevarra," she explained. "It has not lost its magic, for me." She tilted her head back and caught a drifting, dancing flake on her tongue. "The Maker's creations are wondrous."

Cullen laughed. "We had a lot of snow in Ferelden. To a young boy stuck in his house with no amusements, snow loses its wonder very quickly," he said. She smiled, and he returned it. "Nevertheless, I'm starting to gain a new appreciation for its beauty."

Cullen stepped closer to her as she caught another flake, challenging him with her eyes. He tried to do the same, but he had no instinct for it. He chased flakes that flew away on winds that never seemed to catch for her, and she could sense his growing frustration.

"This shouldn't be so difficult," he growled, and she chuckled, unwisely.

Cullen looked down at her with a new focus, then a smirk crossed his face. When another flake hit her cheek, he darted down and kissed it from her skin before it could melt away.

She gasped, and he pulled away just enough for speech. "That was much better," he murmured, and he tasted her once more, this time on her exposed jaw. The tip of his tongue darted out to run along the bone before he stopped and examined her with his eyes once more.

Her eyelashes were heavy with snow, and it made him shine in her vision. "You cheated," she said accusingly, and she tilted her head back further as she wound a hand around his neck. While he watched, she parted her lips, and he sighed and took the invitation.

She didn't know how long they kissed, standing the center of the whirling snow with their arms wrapped around each other. Long enough to feel the chill, and for her to burrow closer to his delicious, ever-present warmth. His mouth was even hotter, a blazing invitation, but it lacked the desperation and fear that he'd always shown before. Now it was pure bliss, joy without ceasing, as their tongues swept into mouths, their lips touched skin, and they whispered sweet sounds into the world.

They no longer kissed like they would disappear. They kissed like they were found.

She walked into the armory, after the storm was passed, to find Cullen patiently leaning over a table. His brow was furrowed in concentration, and the way his tongue stuck slightly out of the corner of his mouth - the corner with the scar - was captivating.

But eventually her curiosity got the better of her, and she asked, "Is that a bear fur?"

He looked up, startled, then smiled. "Yes. The Templars ran into a pair on a scouting patrol, and this was part of their prize. I requisitioned it."

"To do what?"

Cullen gestured at the workbench importantly, and she stared at the needles and thread and leathers strewn across it. "You are stitching a cloak with a bear on top of it? I wasn't aware you were a seamstress. Are there not workers who could do this for you?"

He scowled. "I'll do it better."

A woman called out from a nearby anvil, "None of us wanted to be responsible for something so ugly."

Cassandra smothered a laugh as his scowl deepened. "Is it for me?" she asked when she was in command of herself again.

" You princesses are so greedy," he said with a reprimanding shake of his head, and she elbowed him. "It's for me. That training area is getting cold." He grinned, then. "Plus, this way, you'll have no choice but to huddle against me when you're there."

She never wore clothing adequate enough to suit him, but as a good commander should, he'd apparently considered how to turn a weakness to his advantage. She tipped her head at him, and he accept the congratulations. "But won't that distract your troops?" she asked innocently.

"They need to learn sometime," he said, kissing her quickly before pointing her to the door.

When he modeled the finished product, she had to summon all of her training to keep from laughing. Cullen was always gorgeous, with his strong brow, full lips, and ever-present scruff, but the fur looked less bear-like and more like feathers atop the leather. She smiled to cover her amusement. "Wonderfully done," she said.

He blushed and ducked his head. "It looks utterly ridiculous. But it is very warm."

"I'll have to see for myself." She stepped into the circle of his arms and leaned into the cool, golden armor he'd taken to wearing. To distance himself from the Templars, she suspected. "Mmm. It is very warm," she said.

Cullen kissed the top of her head. "You need to move back into the Chantry," he said, and she frowned against him.

"There is no room for me," she said. "My shelter is quite well-shielded from the weather."

"You can have your room back. I'll sleep in the Templar camp."

"Then you will be cold," she said. "Whereas I am currently not cold in the least." She twisted away from the half-truth, knowing that she'd woken up more than once in the morning shivering. But it had never been even close to unbearable.

He growled. "Then I'll sleep on the floor, at the foot of the bed. Or in the hallway. But I don't like you out here, Cassandra."

She leaned back to look at him. "I like the pace of us," she said, and his eyes grew alarmed. They'd still never spoken of what was happening between them, focusing on rebuilding their bonds before they examined them, and she didn't want to start now. But it was important that he understood. "We cannot sleep in the same room. I'm fine. I will tell you when I am not."

"Do you promise?"

"Yes."

"Very well," he said. A touch of light entered his face, and he said, "And my motive wasn't entirely pure. The pillows no longer smell like you."

She blushed, remembering her own reaction to the bed, and he stroked her cheek slowly. "Fortunately my cloak soon will," he said, tightening his remaining grip. "And I'll be in it much more often than my bed. And you'll be in it often as well. Like you said, bears are very attracted to you."

That night, when Cassandra crawled into her tent, she saw a new pile of blankets stacked next to her bedroll, and her pillow had been replaced by another. She raised it to her face and breathed in the scent of Cullen, masculine and overwhelming. She slept with a smile on her face and felt no chill at all.

Cullen pulled her aside after a meeting with Justinia into a little used room in the Chantry. While she waited, he reached his hand into a pouch at his waist and drew out a small, silver hairpin with delicate etchings. "This is yours," he said quietly.

She was dumbfounded. "How did you find it?"

He rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. "Let's just say that storage shed is much better organized now."

Cassandra laughed, but it was nervous, and she reached for the ornament in his hand with agonizing slowness. The air between them had suddenly become more solid, harder to fight through, and when she was a few inches away her hand stopped entirely. There was so much pain in that pin, underneath the happiness. She could still remember the ugly look on his face when he'd grabbed it away from her and tossed it aside. Like he would never care to find it again.

Only he had. But she still couldn't touch it.

She looked up into his eyes, heavy with understanding, and she tried to smile. "According to sword lore, it's yours. You bled on it," she said.

Cullen promptly closed his fist and raised it to the crown of his hair, thrusting what he held in with inexpert aim. When he lowered his arm, the pin glinted in the center of his golden waves at a ludicrous angle, looking more like the detritus of a windy day than a decoration. "How does it look?"

His smile was proud and preening, and she giggled wildly as he posed carefully for her examination. As soon as her fingers touched her lips to stifle her laughter, he lunged forward and pulled her in for a searing kiss. He caught her mid-giggle, turning it into a surprised moan that seemed to embolden him. He clenched his fingers tightly around her hips as he drew her in more closely. It was meant to keep a modicum of space between them, a small part of her brain knew, but she wasn't sure if he understood how much heat that firm grip was pooling in her belly.

Eventually it was too much, the slide of his mouth over hers, the wet and needy noises that their lips made as they warred, and she shoved him back against the closest wall and pinned him in earnest. Her lips worked down the column of his neck, nipping and biting at the pulse that beat so strongly there.

"Cassandra," he whispered, his voice already ragged with need.

She shuddered at the blessing of her name in his rough baritone, a sound she craved more than she'd known. She shoved her hips against him to feel his rising hardness and sucked at his skin earnestly as he groaned. When she switched to the other side his hips jerked up into hers, and it was her turn to gasp. He drew her head up and fastened his lips to hers again while his hands moved over her body to cup her and pull her more flush to him. Her tongue traced the line of his scar that she'd memorized. He drank in each moan she made as if it was the only thing keeping him alive, and she felt her desire flaming every nerve in her body.

She pulled his bottom lip between her teeth and watched his eyes turn black as the night.

"I've missed you," she said when she released him, and he nodded so quickly it was almost comical. She reached down between their legs to brush his cock, and he whimpered.

"No," he said through a clenched jaw. "No, it's too far. I'm sorry. I know you want to move slowly. I do, too. I'm trying. It's just… you're so beautiful. And I remember…"

"I do, too," she said, and she stepped back with effort. Cullen's beautiful eyes were screwed shut, breathing in a meditation pattern she recognized from Templar training. She leaned up to kiss him once more, but this time it was sweet and tender, and he relaxed as she followed the pattern of the breaths into his mouth. As she did, she felt his hands in her hair, and when she finished he smiled down at her.

Her hand went to her braid, and she felt the familiar presence of that silver pin. The one that had been Cullen when there was no Cullen to be had.

She blinked away a tear, and Cullen pressed his forehead against her own. "It's yours," he said, kissing the tip of her nose. "Just like I am."

"But I am also yours," she whispered back.

Another kiss, soft as a raindrop. "Then we'll be each others'."

They planned an ambush.

Cullen guided Leliana into a small meeting room to discuss troop business, while Cassandra found Aedan speaking to a knot of nobles in the Chantry courtyard. She curtsied prettily, which made him suspicious, and told him that the Divine needed to speak to him. He didn't believe her, it was obvious, but he couldn't risk the possibility, so he followed her into the building. "Is this a surprise birthday party?" he asked.

"Is it your birthday?"

"No," he said. "It's not for months. But people sometimes like to get at the front of the queue."

"I'll make a note," she said before she reached the room and pushed open the door.

Aedan gasped beside her, and Cassandra wondered too late if they'd been alone together at all since she'd broken them with careless words. From Leliana's carefully shaded face, it didn't look like it.

But the ambush went off as planned. Cullen sprang to the door as she shoved Aedan inside. "Tell each other your truth," she said. "The feelings neither one of you show."

Cullen pulled the door shut before they could answer. "Tell her you wanted to marry her," he yelled through the door, and Leliana yelped in protest. Cullen didn't answer, locking the door and taking the rope she handed him.

"We're both rogues," said Aedan. "What makes you think you can keep us in a locked room?"

"Warriors' strength," answered Cassandra, and together she and Cullen tied the knots on the doorknob to a nearby statue while one of their victims fiddled with the lock. By the time they got it open, the door was well and truly stuck.

"We'll be back in an hour," said Cullen.

"Or two," added Cassandra.

They walked away hand-in-hand and told the guards to leave the hallway unpatrolled until they returned. And when they did, the pleased sounds coming from inside of the room meant the two conspirators gave them another full hour together, alone.

Cullen remained endearingly shy of intimacy in the Chantry, though he kissed her as often as she desired no matter where they were. She was reading curled up in her tent one afternoon when he slipped inside its folds and without his armor, nudging her out of the way as he wiggled under her blankets.

"This place still isn't warm enough for you," he grumbled.

She laid her book aside and raised up on her elbow to look down at him. "It is now."

His scar was beckoning temptingly, a reminder of a time they'd been partners against the enemy that was her past, and she kissed it softly as she always did. He relaxed back into the pillows, and they spent some time that way, her lips roving over him, his catching hers whenever they were close enough. Slowly his irritation drained as he let her set the pace.

"How are the mages?" she asked. She explored his temple, her hand kneading the tight muscles of his shoulders.

"Mmm, that feels good," he said in a faraway voice. It was another minute before he continued. "We've located all of them. Now that we know where to look, the network is getting clearer, but Leliana's spies haven't seen any aggressive activity from them. It's always a risk, but I don't think anything is being planned for the Conclave. Not from them."

Cassandra hummed and slid her hand down, catching the hem of his shirt and drawing it up under the blanket. She kissed his lips again as she touched the hard muscles of his stomach, playing her hand eagerly over each valley. He opened his mouth to her, grazing her lips with feather-light touches of his tongue, then flexed his body in a way that had her laughing into him.

He did it again, and she pushed back against the tense muscles more firmly, until he let her "win" the battle. "You're gorgeous even when I can't see you," she said. She lifted the blanket, briefly, to admire the view, and her gaze caught on the waistband that had slipped down on his hips. Before thought could guide her, before it even entered her mind, she lowered the blanket and moved her hand to the tie of his pants.

She watched his face as he did, and there were a few nerves but mostly there was desire. After patient minutes of working blind, she finally slipped her hand inside the fabric, underneath his smalls, and ran her fingers over the interested cock that waited.

Cullen closed his eyes as soon as she did, groaning low in his throat. "Nothing you don't want," he whispered, and she nodded against his jaw as she nuzzled him. He sighed. "You feel much better than my own hand."

"I should hope so," she said. "Otherwise I'll be rather useless in this relationship."

He smiled and lifted his hand to circle her back. "I have many uses for you."

She licked at his jaw and set to teasing him to full hardness. Her hand worked in the way she knew he liked, slow then quick, slight turns and stutters before moving back in earnest. Soon he was panting, his hips lifting off the ground to meet her, and he reached down to pull his shirt over his head.

Cassandra kissed his newly exposed chest as she worked, moving the blankets down to reveal new stretches of skin. He growled and pulled her back up to his mouth. "Not for that," he mumbled against her. "For the mess."

She submitted to what he wanted, kissing him with a new fervor. He thrust into her hand, harder and more erratically, but still he held off. She snarled at him for his obstinacy, and he laughed weakly even as he moaned. "I don't want to," he said. "Not yet."

Her lips moved to his ear. "Yes, Cullen. Now," she said. He tensed and his cock had never felt so hard in her hand. "Cullen, my heart. My everything. I love you so much."

And then he crested with a shout, spilling across her hand and his stomach in shuddering waves. He'd barely finished before he wanted her mouth on his again, and this time the kiss was a mix of heated and worshipful.

When he finally came down from the heights his mind explored, he leaned back and looked at her with tear-filled eyes. "Are you sure?"

She ran her clean hand through his hair. "Only the Maker is more certain in this world."

Cassandra performed another marriage ceremony. It was unofficial and incomplete in the bard's room, but Aedan's adoration and Leliana's melting joy as they spoke their words of devotion were touching enough to make it feel true. Aedan had a wife, and a country, and soon he would have a child, and he loved them all as his family. But Leliana was his life's passion.

As for Leliana, she was beautiful under his eyes, and when she sang the wedding Chant, high and sweet, they all wept.

"I have no understanding of how to love you," said Cassandra one night as they lounged together on a couch in Justinia's office. His feet were in her lap, and she rubbed them soothingly as a fire warmed them.

Cullen looked up from the report he was reading and frowned. "It isn't something that requires understanding," he said. "You love me, and you do it well. And I love you, very much."

She smiled a little, touched as always by his easy regard, but she wouldn't be turned aside from her thoughts. "I do love you, and I am glad you're satisfied with my efforts, but it's not so simple as that. There are kinds of love, flavors, and I do not understand which ones are right," she said. "I have never been like this, with a man, before."

Cullen said nothing, and she appreciated that he gave her the space to speak.

"Should I try to love like my parents? They cared for each other more than anything, maybe too much. Did their love lead to revolution? To death and abandonment? My mother was right about my nature, but she was wrong about about hers, I think. Or perhaps I should be like Leliana and Aedan, sweet and passionate and unashamed, but also hidden away from others' eyes? Hawke and Anders love deeply, but its fluid and moving and they've constructed it around a poisoned center. And Andraste gave everything for her Maker, and she burned in the end." Cassandra stopped her hand's movement. "Those are the only loves I know, beyond my own meager definition of the thing. Passion and sex and fear. And now there is you, who I wish to please in every way, and I have nothing to guide me."

She finally looked at him, and his face was thoughtful. "I would never forgive myself if I did this wrong," she said. "You deserve a love that is confident and sure. And I am confident that I love you beyond measure, but there is little else to be sure about."

He swung his legs down and set aside his papers before scooting down the couch to be closer to her. To her vague surprise, he didn't take her in his arms, only faced her with one hand on her knee. The other touched the pin in her hair, as they always did when he was uncertain, and she looked away from what he had to say.

"My parents were the best sort of parents I could have asked for," he said. "They loved me and my siblings so much that we never even thought about it. To remember it now, it was like being a fish trying to understand the concept of water. It was simply there, and it was all there was. But they loved each other as well. Our farmhouse wasn't large, and my siblings and I soon learned to leave the house when certain noises were heard from their room. To save everyone the embarrassment."

She snorted and looked back at him, and to her delight he was blushing faintly in the fire's glow. "But there were other moments. They would wash the dishes together, after meals, while we children raced through our own chores in contest. And my mother would sing the same song she always did, about a mouse and his wife who lived in a house and they danced and sang all the day. It was an old song from her home, in the Bannorn, and they made a little show of it. Whenever she sang about the mouse, my father would bow and kiss her cheek. And when she sang of the wife, she flared out her apron like a skirt and swayed. And when she sang of dancing, they stopped and danced like a gentry couple, one circle, right in the kitchen.

"That's how I always think of them now. They died in the Blight, my sister told me, saving the rest. They were braver than I realized."

Cassandra thought to herself, You are made from them. Of course they were brave.

But she said nothing, and he continued. "They were the a beautiful love. And they let me go to the Templars without argument. They gave their children anything they really needed, and they knew I needed that. Even with the pain that the service brought me, it wasn't all bad. I may have even done some good, somewhere. And of course, without it I might never have found you," he said. A smile rose to his face, and she stopped breathing at the love that lit him.

"I do not know any songs about mice," she said.

He laughed and cupped her cheek in his hand. "That's fine. I don't want you to be my mother, though you do remind me of her in many ways. She was soft as a snowbank when she was happy and hard as ice when she was upset. And she was fierce, and beautiful, and she worried so much about small things that sometimes she became lost in her own mind."

Cassandra flushed. "I do not do that."

"You do," said Cullen. "I love you for it, because it shows how much you care about me. You don't need an example to know how to love. You're naturally good at it. I feel it every day. And someday we'll have our own rituals that tell the world, and ourselves, that we will never break."

"You think you will want me so long?" Cassandra tried to make a joke out of it, but she knew her voice betrayed her.

He dropped his hand and gripped hers tightly. "I nearly asked you to marry me a dozen times in Kirkwall. Even when I knew it was too fast and too much, that it would terrify any woman, I wanted it. After you first kissed me. That first night I loved you, in the middle of my passion. When you told me about Anthony, and when I told you about Kinloch. Other times. I knew what I wanted. I still know. You're sitting right here," he said. He bit his lip. "I'm glad I didn't broach the topic, now. I knew you were cautious, but I didn't understand the pain you were in. I didn't try to find out. My own needs were too strong, and my own fear that if I pushed I would only find some reason that you couldn't love me after all too vast. And that cowardice hurt you when I got here."

Cassandra opened her mouth to tell him that it was hardly his fault they'd fought, but he gave her a meaningful look and she closed it. "Don't say it," he said. "Your past surprised me, but it was my present that wounded us. Well, that and your natural honesty. I wish I'd thought to ask you different questions, in the shed."

They sat in silence for a time, his fingers running over her knuckles as she thought. At last she said, "Your parents sound wonderful. But they are still your example. I have none for myself. Be patient with me, please. I may not always do this well."

He kissed her then, slowly and surely, and she melted into his warm regard. "You will," he said when he pulled back. "We'll fight, sometimes, or misunderstand one another. That's how life works. But I know you'll always love me well, as long as you wish to love me."

"I always will."

Cullen smiled and kissed her again, and they stretched out on the couch and comforted each other as the fire died down. Between kisses he told more stories of his parents, and of himself, and he recounted every story of how Cassandra had captured his heart. When it was down to only embers, and the reports were still forgotten on the floor, he finally pulled her up. "Don't go outside," he said. "Stay in here, with me. Nothing will happen, I just want to hold you."

She thought she might feel nervous, afraid she was falling back into old patterns of lust and passion, but she didn't. She just felt sleepy and warm, so she nodded slowly. They walked down the halls in complete harmony, and when they reached his door she stopped him and gave him one last kiss.

"I realize now that I do have an example of love," she said. "I have you."

Something did happen. Cullen only held her, as he promised, but when she woke in the dark, in depths of his arms, she wanted him more than she ever had. It wasn't lust or passion but pure, blazing love, and the need to express it was overwhelming and right.

He woke slowly to her kisses, to her hands on his body and fumbling at his clothes. He joined her in her own, still hazy and confused, but his mouth wasn't hazy as she claimed it for her own, and he was hard and ready under her hands.

"Is this a dream?" he asked once, a touch of fear in his voice.

"No," she said. "You are awake." She bit and tugged at the lobe of his ear to make him groan. "I can stab you with my hairpin if it will help."

"Don't you dare," he whispered, and those were the last words they spoke with any coherence. She touched him everywhere she could reach, until he was panting and begging for her. He didn't try to be dominant, this night, and she was glad. She wanted to be the one who gave him pleasure.

When she finally lowered herself onto him, his sleep-filled eyes were heavy on her face, and he gripped her hips to keep her still. He never said a word, and neither did she, but she felt it thickening in the air around them. Like fish in water. Love.

By the time they were done and she was drifting back to sleep with her hands tracing circles on his skin, she knew she would lose any amount of sleep to love this man.

In the morning she sneaked outside and gathered her things, folding the tent easily and returning it to the Templar quartermaster before padding back into the Chantry. She was back before he'd even cracked an eye, but he stirred as she put her clothes away and left her personal effects on the tables. She noted with a touch of amusement that he'd left empty spaces for her, putting his own things far to the side so that she would have a place to use.

Cassandra inhaled sharply as his arms circled her waist as she stood in front of the dresser. He rested his head on her shoulder and kissed her neck lightly. "Good morning," he said. "You've been busy."

"I hope it's okay."

"It's more than okay," he said. His lips went to her skin repeatedly, and she leaned against him to enjoy the sensation. His hands were busy as well, stroking over her thick winter clothes as though they weren't there.

Or as though he didn't want them to be. She spun around to look at him, and his eyes were blown wide with lust. It was a perfect accompaniment to his usual morning look, disheveled and bleary, with his hair sleep-tousled and the burgeoning beard on his jaw long and scruffy. Cassandra looked down and saw how hard he was, but that wasn't the first thing that caught her attention. "You should be wearing pants," she said.

He gave her a baffled look, and she laughed. "Only because I like the way you look in them. The line of the band over your hips, and the way I know what will be waiting if I reach past it… it is a lovely sight," she said. "But no shirt. Never any shirt."

Cullen laughed, but it was tense instead of his usual light chuckle. "I promise. But for now, I don't know if I can wear any pants, because I want you to come back to bed and take off all of that ridiculous clothing."

So she did, and with barely controlled desire he took the lead in a way that had her clutching at the sheets and biting back screams. But afterward, to her amusement, he stood and pulled on a pair of sleep pants with a grin. He modeled for her as she made appreciative noises, then moved over to the dressing table where she'd placed her things.

He watched her carefully as he slowly picked them up, along with his own, and placed them in new positions. When he was finished they were arranged in such a way that they were blended and mixed. Together.

A tear rolled down her cheek as she nodded. He came back to lay beside her, and they started the rest of their lives.