Fade into You: Chapter 19 - Thorough
The words she had spoken seemed to take shape into something tangible, filling the space between them with a pulsating truth.
Jareth's lidded gaze brightened as he stared down at her. He blinked, and Sarah could swear his eyes were glistening in a way they hadn't been moments ago.
His silence sat heavy, forcing the air from her lungs, and she felt a sudden squeeze of anxiety in her belly. Her hand lifted to sweep his frantic hair away from his face to better gauge his expression.
For a moment, she thought he would challenge her, or repeat what he had said to her before when she'd tried to tell him how she felt.
'Tell me when you know what it means.'
She knew now that it had been a fair thing to ask of her at the time, conflicted as she had been. Not about her feelings, but about how safe she felt cocooned within them.
Sarah swallowed hard past a lump of emotion lodged in her throat. "And…" she breathed, her voice barely above a whisper.
Jareth inhaled sharply, something like fear flashing in his eyes as if she was going to take it all back. "And?"
She sighed, relieved he had said something, even if it was just repeating a single word. "And I know what it means," she finished, braving a small smile as her thumb brushed his sharp cheekbone.
Again, he surprised her with his silence. She'd expected him to probe—to ask questions—but he just smiled back, and this time, she was certain tears gathered in the corners of his eyes.
His head dipped and he pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead before abruptly peppering her face with a relentless torrent of kisses until a giggle broke through her tangle of nerves.
"Okay, okay," she said, half-heartedly pretending to push him away as he scooped her into a crushing embrace.
Sarah abruptly felt the barrier of their clothing disappear from between them as he lifted her and rose to his feet. "Come," he purred into her ear. "Let's bathe while you reflect on how fucking much you love me."
"Uggghhh," she groaned at his shameless statement, though her laughter betrayed her. She buried her face in the crook of his neck to hide her blush. "I hate you."
"So fucking much?" he needled, and Sarah could hear the grin in his voice. "Or just the standard amount?"
"What are the chances of you ever letting me live that down?" Sarah asked, lifting her head to glance at him.
When he caught her eye, his expression was pure mischief. "Slim, I'd wager."
Her eyes rolled but her smile didn't falter. It felt impossible to do anything less with the joy that radiated from him at her admission.
She loved him. If she was being honest with herself, she probably always had. She loved Broody Jareth, Sarcastic Jareth, Irksome Jareth—even Sing-Songy, waking-her-up-to-creepy-jingles Jareth. She loved him when he policed her time and tidiness, and she loved him when he gave her space to sit in her own chaos. She loved Dance-Party Jareth, and 'Ew' Jareth and Sugar Lust Jareth. But Happy Jareth made her fall and fall and fall, and she was grateful he held her so tightly because the plummet felt entirely bottomless.
Jareth walked a few more paces and paused, and Sarah broke his gaze to look around. She hadn't fully processed his suggestion to bathe and hadn't known quite what to expect. A well-deserved dunk into the frothy pink tide, maybe. But she certainly didn't anticipate the large, brass, claw footed bathtub he lowered her into.
The water was pleasantly warm and the thick layer of bubbles was a relief to hide beneath, exposed as she was in every way.
He slipped in opposite her, his eyes never leaving her face, and Sarah thought she should have known better than to assume she could hide anything from him. She thought for sure he would take her reflective silence as an opportunity to say something boastful or, at the least, embarrassing. Instead, he smirked and blew a palm full of bubbles at her face.
Her eyes narrowed, but she found herself at a loss for words. All the important ones—plus a few—had already poured from her mouth, and while she didn't regret them, she felt protective of her raw feelings. She pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them. Little piles of bubbles sat atop her kneecaps as they emerged from the water, and she blew them in his direction with an unenthusiastic little puff of air.
Jareth's feet slid over the tops of hers, his toes kneading playfully for a moment before stilling.
Always holding me, she thought with a painful pang of guilt.
Sarah sent him a little smile, but she felt it waver. Her stomach was a knot of emotions, and she couldn't help fretting over her recent decisions. She'd instigated intimacy that by all means seemed to directly violate their pact to wait, however silly it may have been. It had meant something to him, and it had meant something to her that he cared about preserving their blooming relationship enough to agree to abstain.
His energy shifted from happy Jareth to worried Jareth as he watched her, and Sarah didn't like the change. She wanted to reassure him, to say the words again and again and again, but she felt suddenly afraid she'd cry if she said anything at all.
"You're quiet," he commented. His tone was gentle, all signs of pestering levity gone.
Sarah sank a little deeper into the water, her gaze falling from his face to focus on where the moon pendant disappeared beneath the bubbles. "So are you," she countered.
"I have much to say," he said after a long moment. The pads of his feet stroked her ankles. "But I am petrified of scaring you away."
His words stung and sent her heart soaring all at once. She wanted him to return her declaration, but part of her was grateful he hadn't. It was all a little too much in that moment. But what he had said had a confession buried just beneath the surface, and even her cloudy mind heard it.
I love you too, you absolute dolt.
And hadn't he shown her that in every way aside from all-out saying the words? She knew it was for her sake that he withheld them. A fresh wave of murky feelings crashed over her, and she blinked away a sudden sting of tears.
Jareth hummed as he considered her. "I'd summon my bucket hat onto your head to keep the worries out, but I can see them already swirling around in there," he said. "And it would really dampen the whole romantic bath aesthetic I conjured for us."
Her eyes lifted to his. "My bucket hat, you mean."
He smirked, but it was tinged with a sadness she hated seeing on his face. "Our bucket hat," he corrected.
Sarah huffed a small laugh. "Fine."
A full-on frown spread across his face at her easy surrender. "Sarah."
She wanted to reach across the space between them and smooth away the lines around his mouth, but she kept her hands to herself. Considering what had just happened between them, it seemed the most respectful thing to do. "Jareth," she returned flatly.
"I'm not the most observant being in the worlds," he said, "but I can't help but notice you're wallowing in some sort of self-constructed bog of eternal guilt."
"You are the most observant being in the worlds. Inescapable, actually," she told him. "And it's not a bog. It's a bath."
Jareth chuckled, but Sarah could tell it was mostly to indulge her weak attempt at deflection. He held her gaze for a long moment and said, "Talk to me." Foot nudge. "Please."
"I'm sorry," Sarah said after taking a steadying breath. "I shouldn't have…" She trailed off for a beat as she searched for the words. "I shouldn't have done that."
His eyes flickered with a tangle of amusement and concern. "Sarah, I don't know precisely what you've convinced yourself you owe me an apology for," he said. "But if you think you seduced me into spilling my come all over you, well, you're right. You did."
"You. Are. The. Worst," she informed him, slipping even further beneath the bubbles.
He shot her a tentative grin and sat up, leaning forward to cup her kneecaps with his palms. "You did nothing wrong."
"We said we wouldn't—" She swallowed thickly. "That felt a lot like sex."
"It was sex," he said, his hands sliding down her shins to clasp her ankles. He pulled her feet closer to him and began to massage the arches. "And if you recall, I was an active participant. Do you want me to be sorry, too? I can meet you halfway and share the burden of guilt."
"You have nothing to be sorry for, though," she said, hating the argumentative note to her voice. "I started it."
"And we both finished it," Jareth insisted. "One of us even finished twice."
Sarah glared at him. "You tried to stop it."
"I did no such thing," he said with a self-deprecating laugh. "You do me a disservice by assuming I didn't want closeness just as badly as you did, Sarah."
She shook her head. "But I still shouldn't have—"
"Stop this," he interrupted, though his tone was tender. "Who started it is irrelevant. It was bound to escalate the moment I smelled the dampness of your sweet cunt. If anything, you diverted something more extreme from taking place between us."
His penchant for vulgarity shouldn't have shocked her into silence, but she felt whatever retort she had been planning to volley die on her tongue. She stared at him for a tense moment. "You can…smell my arousal?"
The corners of his lips curved. "You suspected."
Sarah hugged her knees a little tighter. "I worried."
"Well," he said with a casualness she did not reciprocate. "Now you know."
She scoffed indignantly. "Would have been nice to be informed that you knew every single time I got horned up over you."
Jareth's laugh was a bright, delighted thing. "Think about that a moment," he said, giving her a beat to let his request for reflection sink in.
The scowl she sent him could cut glass, but her mind ran away from her with memories of a long history of desiring him.
Starting with that damn ballroom, she admitted to herself.
She should concede. Tell him he was right, that it wouldn't have served her to know that he could tell every time—the many, many times—she had, in fact, been desperate for his touch.
"Hmph," she groused instead.
"Indeed," he agreed. "Imagine what it must have been like for me. You can even pity me for it if you like."
"The worst," she told him again, pulling her feet from his hands. "Relentless."
"Admittedly so," he said proudly. "You love to hate it."
She did, but she wasn't about to tell him that. The truth of it sat between them along with a drawn-out silence, softened only by the rolling waves against the pearly beach. The music had stopped a while ago, she realized belatedly. Part of her wished some silly dance number would start abruptly to break the wavering seriousness of the conversation.
His hands found her knees again and he tugged them gently. "Come here," he coaxed. "Sprawl with me."
Sarah sighed, twisting in the tub and scooting backward until she sat between his parted legs.
His arms wrapped around her and he pulled her close against his chest. The kiss he pressed to her temple was sweet and reassuring. "I don't regret it," he told her. "And I'm not sorry unless you think I should be."
"I don't," she said, letting herself settle against him. "But I'm still worried about it."
Jareth made a small vocalization as if to speak, and she sensed him wanting to argue with her, to tell her she shouldn't worry, but he stopped before the words came out. "Why?" he asked instead.
Her hands came up to grip his forearms. "It just feels like we crossed a boundary we'd set in place for a reason."
He hummed, his lips against her hair. "Do you remember the reason?"
"Probably because you think I'm flighty and didn't want me to get in over my head, then run," was her honest reply.
Jareth's breath hitched in surprise, and he laughed. "I wouldn't have worded it quite like that."
Sarah snorted. "You'd find some other way of saying it without telling a lie."
"I did," he said quietly. "I think I made my fears known about exploring intimacy further before you knew your own heart, and what it could lead to for us."
She sighed again, her fingers unconsciously smoothing the fine blonde hairs on his arms. "You did."
"But you love me," he reminded her before planting a soft kiss behind her ear.
"I love you," she agreed and meant it as much as she had the first time she'd said it. More, maybe, for all his teasing.
His ankles wrapped around hers and he tightened his legs in an anaconda squeeze. "As long as that holds true, and thankfully, you're an aforementioned terrible liar, I don't regret it," he said. "I don't want sex for the sake of sex alone, Sarah Bear. Not with you. You mean so much more to me than that."
"It's not just sex," she confessed, desperate for him to believe the truth in her words. "It's never been about sex with you."
Jareth chuckled and nuzzled into her neck. "It's a little bit about sex, though."
Sarah laughed. "It's a lot a bit about sex. But it's more than that."
"Because you love me," he said again, his lips moving against her pulse.
"Because I love you," she told him.
He pulled away to peer at her over her shoulder. "I know intimacy hasn't always meant something to you," he offered. "I know you haven't been treated like it was something precious."
"It was never intimacy," she clarified. "Not really. Not like this."
Sarah wasn't sure when the positioning of their arms had reversed, or when he'd begun stroking reassuring patterns on the inside of her arm, wrist to elbow.
"I know," he said. "I've had the pleasure of holding the title of best-friend-who-gets-all-the-sordid-details for years."
She cringed. "Sorry about that."
"I'm not," Jareth said. "I've told you before, and I meant it. I'd be your best friend until the suns burn out if it means you feel safe."
A small sob crept up her throat. "You're way too good to me."
"Don't," he scolded gently. "There's no such thing, and that's my point. You deserve intimacy. And respect. And tenderness."
"I want that from you," she told him.
"You have it. You've had it. Even the intimacy, long before things became sexual between us." He paused, and when she said nothing, he asked, "Am I wrong?"
"No," she said. "Our friendship has always been more intimate than anything else I've experienced."
Jareth squeezed her again, and this time the tightness of his hold lingered. "That's not going to stop, Sarah. Not unless you want it to.
Sarah's heart swelled. It was as if he had spoken directly to one of her biggest fears, that the closeness between them would slip away the further they explored it. She leaned her head back onto his shoulder and snagged his gaze with hers. "I don't want it to stop."
He smiled down at her, the warmth of it crinkling the corners of his eyes in that way she loved. "I can't promise it won't change," he told her. "I hope it does. I hope it grows with each moment we share."
She shifted in his arms, craning her neck in a silent plea for a kiss. When his lips pressed against hers, he was still smiling, and Sarah felt her dark mood slip away. He was happy Jareth again, and he kissed his happy Sarah with a tenderness designed to reassure rather than seduce.
"Let's go to bed," she suggested when he pulled away. "I want to get cozy and snuggle."
"I like that idea," Jareth said before kissing both of her cheeks. "Snug as two bugs in love."
Sarah giggled at his callback to their camping trip even as her guts melted into a swirling mess of emotions. Those words were as close to a confession as they could get, and she felt more ready to accept it than she ever had been.
She sat up and climbed out of the bathtub. She expected the ocean air to be chilly, but the salty breeze was a warm caress against her damp skin. Jareth followed before taking her hand, leading her to the canopy she'd noticed earlier. She hadn't paid much attention before, distracted by the boombox and dance floor and floating candles, and Jareth in general.
Some of the candles surrounding the dance floor flickered and died as they approached the canopy. A few remained lit and moved ahead of them to illuminate the inside of the canopy in what would surely have been a fire hazard if the situation had been different. A large bed was now visible in the warm glow of the candlelight. Pillows lined the driftwood headboard, and her maroon chenille blanket was draped across the foot of a fluffy white duvet. The previously ignored platter of desserts had moved to a small side table beside the bed.
As they entered, Jareth waved a hand in a complicated series of movements over one of the walls. Runes danced from his fingertips, and Sarah watched in amazement as a tapestry showing a door left slightly ajar wove itself from thin air.
"Thither be the privy," Jareth told her in a near perfect impression of the intrusive jester at the renaissance fair.
Sarah laughed and grabbed her duffle that she found stashed in the corner. "I'll be right back."
She moved easily through the tapestry, her intentions clear in her mind as her bladder was fit to burst. She was surprised to find herself in her own bathroom, and she sighed in relief at the chance to decompress for a bit in a place so familiar.
After toweling off, she relieved herself and pulled on a hoodie and a pair of sweatpants. She couldn't help but smile around her toothbrush at his attention to her mortal needs, that he had known she'd require this simple respite.
When she pushed back through the tapestry, Jareth was sprawled on the maroon chenille, shirtless with a pair of cream linen pants slung low on his hips. A chocolate covered strawberry dangled from his fingertips.
Sarah smirked as she moved to lay beside him. She tapped her mouth in eager invitation and hummed with pleasure as he slipped the fruit between her lips. "You're such a feeder," she accused, giggling as she chewed.
Jareth chuckled as he readied a puff pastry. "I like taking care of you."
She made a small sound of agreement as she took a bite. Raspberry jelly escaped the corner of her mouth, and Jareth leaned over to catch it with his tongue. Her hand cupped the back of his head before he could pull away and she caught his lips in a sweet kiss.
"I've noticed," she told him, pulling away with a giddy expression plastered across her face.
"And I like that smile," he said, beaming at her as a chocolate truffle danced across his fingertips. He lifted it to his mouth and held it between his teeth, crooking his fingers in a come-and-get-it beckon.
Sarah pushed him back into the mattress and climbed on top of him before leaning down and pulling the confection into her mouth. Her hands smoothed over his chest as the chocolate dissolved on her tongue. "So," she said, toying with the moon pendant that rested against his sternum. "Are we still trying to abide by this three date rule?"
"I like the dates," he said. "And really, Sarah, do you actually think this is our first date?"
Her head tilted as she considered the question. Her mind flashed with a slideshow of all the time they had spent together. There had always been something deeply romantic about the way they treated each other. How they made each moment a memory.
"What was our first date, then?" she asked playfully. "Paint fumes and charcuterie?"
"Or spending a sad, sappy New Years together watching Rose take up ninety-nine percent of a floating door three times her size," he offered.
Sarah laughed. "Or when you cooked me breakfast because I was hungover."
"No," Jareth challenged. "You were much too grumpy that day for it to be considered a date."
"That's fair," she agreed. "But you knew how I liked my eggs, which speaks to my suspicion that maybe we'd been dating for a while by that point without me knowing it."
"Perhaps," he acknowledged with a knowing grin.
"Did you know?" she asked suspiciously.
He shrugged, but his smile didn't waver. "I hoped."
"You knew," she told him. "You know everything."
"I most definitely do not." He grabbed her hips and flipped them. "But I do know a few things I've been desperate to share with you," he said as he straddled her legs.
Sarah giggled. "That lascivious look on your face makes me think you're done waiting."
"Do you want to wait?" Jareth asked with a teasing curve of his lips that told her he already knew the answer.
"Not particularly," she told him bluntly, relishing his shiver as her palms grazed over his nipples.
"Oh, good," he crooned as he arched into her touch. "Tell me if that changes."
"I promise I will," she told him before pulling her sweatshirt over her head. "But right now, all I can do is wonder what you are so desperate to share with me."
Jareth's fingers danced over her ribs. His smile was a lecherous thing as he cupped her breasts in his hands. "Do you remember how I washed you in the pool?"
Sarah snorted even as her breath caught at the feeling of his thumbs brushing over her nipples. "Do I remember how thorough you were?"
"Yes, that," he agreed before dipping his head to lick a stripe between her breasts. He laid a kiss over the sun pendant nestled in the hollow of her throat.
"I remember," she breathed, her belly fluttering at the memory of his exploring fingers.
Jareth nipped her chin before pressing a kiss there. "Did you like it?"
Sarah pinched his nipples lightly to test his reaction and smiled when he let out a small gasp. "I did."
"I'd like to be a bit more thorough," he informed her, licking his bottom lip to emphasize his meaning.
Her gaze dropped to his mouth and lingered there a moment, her mind spinning with imagery that made the flush creeping up her neck deepen even further. When her gaze rose to his again, the air froze in her chest at seeing the expression on his face that was nothing less than hungry.
Swallowing hard, she nodded. "I think I'd like that."
"Oh, you would." He leered down at her with an impish smirk. "But I need to hear the words."
"You have my permission," she told him, pinching his nipples hard in a silent warning to stop torturing her.
He grinned, head on a theatrically curious tilt. His hands were warm and teasing as they smoothed over her belly. "I have your permission to….what, Sarah?"
Sarah huffed a frustrated huff. "You're impossible."
"Say it," he sing-songed and his roaming hands stilled above the waistband of her sweatpants as he awaited her response.
It took every ounce of effort to scowl at him. "You have my permission to eat my ass," she said, thinking she might actually dissolve into a puddle of embarrassment if that wasn't what he'd been alluding to. "Happy?"
His chuckle was a dark, depraved thing. "Thrilled."
Sarah forgot all about her irritation as he mouthed at her breast, sucking the stiffening peak and drawing out a moan.
Jareth shifted off of her enough to tug her sweatpants down her hips, grinning as she struggled to kick them from her ankles. He pulled them off and pushed her knees apart, settling between them.
His hands returned to her breasts as he blazed a hot path of open mouthed kisses down her abdomen. When he glanced up, the heat of his gaze licked across her body like a thousand flames. "You're so beautiful like this," he murmured against her navel, thumbing the sun pendant. "Just you and your sun."
Her heart skipped several beats as his mouth moved lower, the warmth of his breath ghosting over her clit. His tongue teased, the lightest of caresses over her sensitive flesh, before he pulled her into his mouth and suckled.
Sarah's hands flew to his hair, and she pressed him into her, encouraging him to suck harder.
Jareth rumbled with an amused sound and he flicked her nipples as if to remind her this was just an appetizer, not the meal. His tongue slipped between her lips, and he groaned as he tasted her, already slick and wanting.
A shiver of anticipation coursed through her as his hands slid down her torso. He cupped her knees and guided them forward, opening her to him.
Sarah tensed as he pulled back to stare at her, fully exposed and on dripping display.
Sensing her hesitation, he lifted his gaze to hers. "I'm going to make this so good for you, precious," he promised, stroking the backs of her thighs. He waited a moment, giving her time to tell him to stop.
She didn't. Instead, she spread her legs further and whispered, "I know."
His eyes flashed in the candlelight as his hands moved to cup her ass. He licked the crease of a cheek before nipping the skin there.
Sarah choked on a surprised gasp, and Jareth chuckled, squeezing the globes of her ass encouragingly. "Don't hold back," he warned. "Or I'll think you hate it."
She groaned and tugged his hair threateningly. "Stop talking, Lanks."
Jareth nipped her again in reply before pressing a kiss to the bite. His tongue was on her then, dipping into her slick core.
She wanted to rock against his mouth—to fuck his tongue until she broke around it—but Jareth held her firmly. His tongue slipped out of her cunt, and she only had a moment to mourn its absence before his lips sealed over her perineum.
Sarah inhaled sharply at the unfamiliar sensation of his warm mouth creating a heartstopping suction there.
"Gods," she breathed. Her brain was having a hell of a time processing the feeling, and it short circuited as the tip of his tongue rimmed her tight hole. "What the fuck."
Jareth chuckled, the vibration of the low rumble making her shudder. He slipped his arm around her thigh to stroke her clit with his fingers as his tongue flattened, pulsing over her most secret place.
A fresh rush of heat surged through her, the strangeness of the feeling ebbing as a new kind of pleasure curled her toes. She let herself sink into it, relaxing a little as he coaxed another moan from her.
"Jareth, that's—" She choked on her words as his free hand parted her further, allowing access for his tongue to press in. "That's so fucking good."
He hummed, a pleased sound that stoked her desire into something nearly unmanageable. She'd be lying if she said she hadn't thought about this multiple times since he'd touched her at the pool. But she'd never imagined it could bring her so close to the edge.
Jareth pulled her closer, his tongue a torturous slide in and out as his fingers worked her clit.
Sarah barely recognized the sounds clawing up her throat, primal and wild as her hips bucked. Her hands palmed her breasts and she teased her nipples in rhythm with his mouth and fingers.
She could feel her hole pulsing around his tongue in a way she didn't know was possible as he fucked into her, stroking and massaging until she thought she would split in two.
For a moment she thought she had, an orgasm rocking her with such sudden force her vision went white. A gush of wetness drenched his face as he devoured her, his fingers gentling on her clit in a firm press as she came hard.
It was unlike anything she'd felt before, the intensity of it squeezing the air from her lungs. Her cunt clenched around nothing, aching for attention as he lapped at her puckered hole. She heard his name tear from her lungs in a scream as he pulled off, replacing his mouth with his pinky. Two fingers slid into her channel and she gripped them eagerly as they curled within her.
Jareth's pupils were blown as he stared down at her, his face a glistening mess. "Tell me you love me," he commanded as his fingers moved in and out.
There was a keening sound filling the canopy, and Sarah realized belatedly it was her. Nothing had ever felt like this—so overwhelming and all consuming.
His fingers stilled with an abruptness that rattled her bones.
She blinked at him blearily, confusion clouding her climb. "Jareth, what—"
"Tell me," he repeated, his slick lips twisting cruelly.
Sarah glared at him, her breathing ragged and broken. "I love you, you insufferable—"
Whatever insult she was about to lob at him turned to dust, replaced with a low whine as his fingers continued their agonizing caress.
"Good," he praised, thrusting into her deeper. His curling fingers coaxed with increased pressure and friction. "Now come again for me, you delicious, desperate thing."
Even if Sarah had wanted to be withholding, she couldn't keep back the rising climax rippling through her. Her head fell back as she let it take hold, her whole body vibrating with the profound intensity of his fingers everywhere. Distantly, she could hear Jareth groan in satisfaction as she rode his hand, but she was more concerned about the sudden flood of fluids soaking the bed. Sarah looked down in shock, tensing for a moment when she saw the dark spot on the duvet.
"Let go," Jareth urged, his voice a soothing rasp. "You're doing so well, Sarah."
She relaxed, allowing herself to enjoy the wet rush of pleasure. Just when she thought it would never end, the alien feeling of heat spilling from her body ebbed.
Jareth slowly withdrew his hand, and she sucked in a ragged breath.
Sarah felt boneless. Spent. Utterly empty.
And more than a little embarrassed at the puddle beneath them that rivaled the crashing tide just outside the canopy's threshold.
"Um," she managed, readying an apology, but Jareth was already licking her damp thighs with an enthusiasm that made her shudder.
"Don't," he ordered, always ten steps ahead of her fretting. "That was the most breathtaking thing I've ever witnessed."
She giggled brokenly as an aftershock trembled through her system. "You say that like you had nothing to do with it."
Jareth moved to sprawl over her. The weight of him pressing her into the drenched mattress was somehow both vulgar and grounding all at once.
Sarah sighed as he held her. She could feel the thunder of his heartbeat, the synching of their gasps for breath, and it soothed her worries away.
"How do you feel?" he asked before pulling away and blowing a cool stream of air over her heated skin.
"Debauched," she answered without thinking. "And in debt. New beds are expensive."
He barked a laugh, and she felt the dampness of her skin and the duvet disappear. "There," he cooed. "Good as new."
"Unlike me," she told him. "Thoroughly used and ready for pasture."
Jareth laughed again. "Oh, Sarah." His eyes danced with delight. "I'm not ready to retire you quite yet."
Sarah hummed. "Fine. But at least give me a breather. I think my soul left my body for a moment there."
"You and your breathers," he admonished after an affectionate tsk. "If you insist."
"I insist," she said, kissing his cheek.
"Fair enough." He sighed dramatically and rolled off her to lie on his back.
Sarah moved to curl into his side. "You know, for someone who is the absolute worst, you're actually kind of the best."
"I know." He kissed the top of her head. "How do you feel?" he asked again.
"Like a husk," she told him. "I'm pretty sure I don't have a single ounce of fluid left in me."
Jareth sighed again, feigning exasperation. "I'm serious. Tell me."
She smiled up at him, cursing herself for the shyness she felt coloring her expression. "I feel like I'm vibrating. Like I could die right now in your arms and be perfectly sated with that as my finale."
"Don't do that," he scolded though his grin took up his whole face. He peered down at her, an eyebrow arched. "Was that everything you expected?"
Sarah snorted. "You know it wasn't."
He forced a frown, but the corners still curved, belying his amusement. "Disappointed?"
"Shut up and stop fishing," she told him. "You've never disappointed me."
"But?" he pestered.
"I didn't know it would feel so—" She broke off, mulling over her answer as she toyed with the ends of his hair. "Intense," she finally said before gesturing to the recently restored duvet. "And I didn't know I could do that."
The other brow lifted in mock confusion. "You didn't know you could do what, precisely?"
Sarah shoved him. "Stop it, J."
He chuckled and pulled her in close. "Just this once," he relented.
Her eyes rolled. "How generous."
"But only until morning," he added. "As soon as I sense you stir with the first signs of wakefulness, I'm going to unleash an interrogation."
Sarah groaned as she pulled the maroon chenille up to cover them both and snuggled into him. "I can't wait."
A/N:
Thank you, Geliot99 and rantobi for beta reading! I appreciate you both so much!
Well, you can't say I didn't warn you! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I really hope you enjoyed this chapter. It's been such a joy writing them like this, vulnerable and honest and exploring their feelings. I'm so beyond thrilled for them, it makes my author heart full to the brim with happiness.
Please let me know what you think. Your comments keep me going.