Better than that?
In the end, Nigel was very thankful that Tealeaf Cottage was so remotely situated.
Though a part of him wouldn’t have minded the whole of Greater Snoring hearing and recognizing his prowess as a lover, for Luna’s sake, he felt a little privacy was in order.
This way, she could feel free to unleash the depths of everything she felt.
And unleash she certainly did.
He might have even heard his name in there, somewhere.
Afterwards, as she lay panting and dazed on the bed, he climbed up beside her, stretching his still mostly-clad body out alongside her lovely self, and stroked her hair and face and everything else within reach. Which was plenty.
Luna closed her eyes, dragging in deep breaths before finally blinking up at him.
“Well, that certainly was unexpected!” she declared with a dreamy smile.
“I mean, I thought it had to be something pretty wonderful, you know? For all the songs and movies and novels that seem so fixated on the subject. But I had no idea!” She rolled onto her side, propped her head up on one hand.
“Does it only feel like that the first time?”
“Not at all, my dear.” Nigel grinned, running his finger along the soft line of her cheek. “In fact, it will get better with practice.”
“Better than that?”
“Much, if I have any say in the matter.”
“No kidding?” She lay back on her pillow again, blinking up at the ceiling, her eyes a bit glazed over as she considered the implications of his words.
Then suddenly she giggled, and though he had now watched her whole body flush many different shades of pink over the course of their interlude, Nigel saw a new, subtle shade staining her cheeks.
“Do you know what I really like?” she asked, turning her head slightly to look at him again.
“Tell me, my dear.”
“That!” She gave a delightful little shiver followed by a small moan. “When you call me ‘my dear’ in that posh-as-pie voice of yours. Gods, but it does something to me! It’s a simple endearment, I suppose, but when you say it, it makes me feel like I must be rather it, mustn’t I?”
“You are it,” Nigel answered promptly. “The one and only it, as far as I’m concerned.”
“See? You even make the Silly Young Things’ slang sound good!” She rolled toward him again, her expression suddenly earnest. “I need a pet name for you too, I should think.”
“I’m happy hearing you call me Nigel.”
“Oh, no, we can definitely get more creative than that. How about . . .” She puckered her lips in a little moue of thought. “How about, ‘O Godlike Lover, Sole Reason for My Very Heartbeat?’”
“Might be a bit of a mouthful at home.”
“‘Honey Bunny?’”
“And the search continues.”
“‘Captain Cuddle Pants.’”
“That one. That sounds like me. To my very essence.”
Laughing, she leaned forward and kissed him, her hand lingering on his cheek before slipping around his neck. “I’ll put some thought into it,” she murmured against his mouth. “I’m sure I’ll come up with something.”
Then she stopped talking as he kissed her more ardently in response, and she was so delicious on top of everything else he’d just tasted. Gods! Would he ever be sated on her?
When his kisses grew wandering once more, however, she gripped hold of the linen at his shoulders and pushed, saying, “Hold on there, Sugar Daddy. Shouldn’t I be doing something for you now?”
“I don’t need anything more than to hear you cry out my name again and again,” he purred, nuzzling into her neck. Then he paused, frowning, and drew back a little. “Not ‘Sugar Daddy.’ Just to be clear.”
“But what if I said it like this?” She cleared her throat and assumed a sultry expression. “Oooooh, Sugar Daddy!”
Nigel’s eyes widened, and his mouth went dry. “You know, that . . . didn’t sound bad at all, actually.” And rolling her onto her back, he pressed kisses to her mouth, her jaw, her neck, her shoulder, his body quite shockingly reinvigorated.
Luna laughed, her fingers tangling in his hair, oblivious to the significant strain she’d already put on his sore scalp.
Nigel wasn’t about to complain. “Before you get too wildly invested in your husbandly pursuits, I do think a cup of tea is in order,” she said.
“We need to keep our strength up, don’t we? ”
Nigel sighed with some resistance, but allowed his wife to sit up in bed, if only because it afforded him a new angle on delightful vistas. But when she tried to rise, he hastily drew her back again. “No, no, my dear,” he said. “Let me get it for you. Remember, today is all about you.”
She bit her lip, her eyes simmering dangerously. “What if I want a little piece of you? Will you teach me how?” He almost lunged for her again right there, but her hand came up and pressed against his chest, palm hot against the bare flesh exposed by his open shirt-ruffles. “After tea!”
“Tea,” he rasped. “Yes. Tea. Right.” He kissed her again softly before backing away from the bed. “Don’t move,” he told her. “I’ll be back shortly.”
It was a bit of a wrench, leaving her side and descending the creaky stairs back to the kitchen.
At least the kettle was already full, and she’d fetched the teapot and left it on the counter.
Nigel busied himself with these homely pursuits, trying to keep his thoughts focused on them and on the delightful experiences he’d just enjoyed upstairs in his wife’s old brass bed.
But the truth was, now that he was away from her, other concerns encroached on the edges of his awareness.
Concerns he could not afford to ignore much longer.
The most pressing being the reality that they must pack up and leave quite soon now.
In fact, they probably shouldn’t have lingered as long as they had.
If Calista Anguish had perished by severmist yesterday, then it was just possible the knowledge of Tealeaf Cottage had perished with her.
She did like to keep her secrets from the Brotherhood, after all.
But they couldn’t count on either of those factors: her death or her secret-keeping.
They must assume the Brotherhood knew about the spell-warded cottage and were already en route.
Unlike Nigel, they would not be able to transmatterport through the protective wardings, but they could gather on the outside and make things difficult.
Nigel grimaced even as he measured out level spoonfuls of orange llarmi (he discovered a full tin at the back of the aunties’ stash, which Luna seemed to have missed in her initial search).
After remembering to add the dibble-dab, he fetched the kettle and poured in a stream of hot water.
His movements were all a bit automated while his mind churned over the many questions ahead of him.
Where would they go? He knew of no other spell-warded hideouts that might offer them protection, not now that Garden was gone.
And could he even transmatterport them out of here?
The aunties had fed him any number of restorative teas since his arrival in the cottage yard yesterday, and he could feel the influence of the severmist retreating.
But he wouldn’t have access to his full range of powers for some while and would have to pick and choose his spells.
No easy answers presented themselves. Only more questions, more worries.
Nigel felt his face tightening into a severe knot of tension as he located a crochet tea cozy and moved to place it over the pot.
One might think he harbored a secret hatred for tea cozies judging by how intently he frowned at it.
Footsteps creaked on the back stairs.
The tension fled from Nigel’s face. He turned to see his disobedient wife emerge from the stairwell, wearing that same thin and silky blue nightie she’d worn the night before. The night before, when she wasn’t his wife. And he’d fought to keep his hands to himself.
Nigel froze in the act of trying to fit the too-small cozy over the too-large pot. His eyes drank in the sight of her, his mouth gone slack.
“I know you told me to stay upstairs,” Luna said with a little smile, her bare feet padding across flagstones toward the old kitchen worktable. “But I got a bit lonely waiting. How long for the brew?”
“Erm.” Nigel fought valiantly to find his voice. Gods, after everything he’d seen of and done to her in the last two hours, surely one nightgown shouldn’t have the power to completely incapacitate him! And yet . . . “Erm, about five minutes, I should think.”
“Oh, yes?” She leaned back against the table, lifting one knee slightly. Then with a little shrug of her shoulder, she dislodged a fluttery strap to slide down her upper arm. “What will we find to do with ourselves for five whole entire minutes?”
Nigel tossed the tea cozy. Let the tea go frigid for all he cared! He was across the kitchen in two strides, and there was a raising of hems and a lowering of necklines and all sorts of silken textures and delights.
“Wait a moment!” Luna protested, one hand propped behind her on the worktable, the other tangled in his hair. “Wasn’t I supposed to be doing something for you next?”
“Oh, you are, my dear,” her husband answered with enthusiasm. “You’re doing everything for me.”
Some while later, Nigel got up from the floor and kissed his wife’s bare shoulder, while she panted and pushed herself back up from the table. “The tea!” she gasped. “Do you think it’s over-brewed?”
“Quite possibly,” he replied with a satisfied smirk.
He went to pour, however, and found that, while slightly over-brewed, it wasn’t undrinkable.
Just a bit tepid. Luna, having resituated her nightgown, located the milk and sugar.
There was a sweet, domestic tinkling of spoons and bustling about, before Luna took a far more decorous place at the table than she had a short while before.
Nigel set a cup and saucer in front of her.
“Thank you, Handsome,” she murmured.