You wake from the kind of deep, dreamless, boneless sleep that has been in seriously short supply the past few years - eyes not even opening, you just know you are awake. Rolling over on your back, you stretch out under the blankets, and brush against another warm, breathing being. This startles you – your eyes snap open and you are above the presence faster than you can even think.
But it's Aymeric; just Aymeric (just, you say to yourself wryly – you will never take his presence for granted, especially not like this) – sleeping on still. Your sudden shift hasn't bothered him a bit, and this pleases you: you have a chance to look and breathe and look some more.
And so you take your fill as you lean over him. He's beautiful, of course, even in sleep, and you can imagine the intensity of his gaze, especially when your skin still tingles with the explorations and exertions of a few hours previous. But at the moment, he just looks peaceful, and you are grateful for it. If you weren't afraid you'd wake him, you'd touch him all over: trace his profile with a finger, spread your hands out across his chest, reach lower so that you could make him gasp.
But he's sleeping, and looks peaceful, and you just want to let him be, so you just look.
At some point, you realize you're feeling chilled, and note that the fire is burning low – very low. You brace yourself to brave the cold, to move from a warm bed to a not-warm fireplace, but tossing a few logs on the fire won't be taxing. As you get ready to slip off the bed, readying for the cold of the bedroom, you feel a hand on your wrist. You look back at him, for it could be no other but him.
He looks up at you and, in a serious tone, voice still rough with sleep, inquires if the previous evening had been such a disappointment that you are trying to make a quiet escape. Your eyes widen and you shake your head, about to open your mouth in protest – surely, he couldn't think that I thought – but he gives a gentle laugh at your expression and pulls you back to him.
It was said in jest, he murmurs into your neck before he kisses you again. You suppose you can ignore the fire for the moment; the two of you are in no danger of catching a chill. He rolls you over so you are beneath him, runs a hand down your side – a firm touch, at once gentle but wanting. You like the way he handles you.
Time passes.
The warmth and the weight of him is making you drowsy again, and you lazily stroke what parts of his well-muscled shoulders and back you can reach, fingers tracing the contours that you hope to learn night after night. You start committing the feel of him to memory, just in case. He explores you in kind, fingers tracing paths down your body, your muscles, your scars. His touch feels like he is turning you into something molten - every place his fingertips trace – and you wonder if this melting feeling can go on forever. You wish it would.
The heated intensity of the evening has given way to something softer, more languorous - at least now, in the darkness of early morning and sleepiness on the part of both of you. You realize suddenly that you are practically limp with the pleasure of touching and being touched again after so long – so very long – so it's just as well. He moves against you like waves lap on the shores around Limsa Lominsa, and you let him, you move with him. You fall back – away, away - and you wonder if he realizes no one has ever quite made you feel like this. Probably not: why would he?
You force yourself to look at him, in order to find some place to anchor yourself in the midst of the feelings assaulting you, physical, mental. He is beautiful, beautiful. You have known this for a long time, but you've never had him so close to you – at least, not like this. And you wish you could tell him all of your jumbled thoughts: the way he makes you feel, the way he makes you want to ignore a great many other things, how you just want to hear your name on his lips, in that rich voice of his.
You have a feeling you cannot, so you say none of this, simply let him move against you as you rise to meet him – like a wave, a lapping wave, on the shores of Limsa Lominsa, while you whisper sweet, nonsensical nothings to each other.
When your name finally crosses his lips, it sounds to you as though he utters a benediction.