29. Maximillian #3
By the time Elle comes upstairs, I have opened the bedroom window and found the book I abandoned before dinner. I am three lines into the same paragraph for the second time when she stops in the doorway.
“She’s asleep,” she announces.
“Rosa?”
“Luce.” She closes the door with her heel. “Although Rosa did suggest I might like to let everyone else do the same.”
“A third visit was probably sufficient.”
“Second. The first one after dinner was on my way back from somewhere.”
“Where?”
She considers this as she crosses the room. “Dinner.”
I set the book aside, laughing, and she comes to stand between my knees. Her hair is still pinned up, though several pale strands have escaped around her face. I tuck one behind her ear and let my hand rest there while she looks down at me.
“You could have come,” she says.
“I thought I’d give you two a moment alone.”
“Very considerate.” Her fingers settle against my shoulders. “And now?”
“Now I’m hoping for a moment of my own.”
She bends to kiss me, smiling before our mouths meet. I put my arms around her and draw her nearer, and when she lifts her head, she stays close enough that I can see the little crease beside her mouth where she’s trying not to laugh.
“What?”
“You put the bookmark in upside down.”
“It was an emergency.”
“Of course.” She brushes her thumb over my cheek. “I arrived without warning.”
“You should do it more often.”
“In our bedroom?”
“Anywhere you like.”
Her next kiss lasts longer. I feel her hands move from my shoulders to the back of my neck, and I forget the book entirely.
There is no audience here, no reason to let her go because someone is waiting for us.
When she draws away, I follow just far enough to kiss her again, and she laughs softly against my mouth.
“Impatient.”
“You were gone for some time.”
“Twenty minutes.”
“I didn’t enjoy all of them.”
She cups my face, looking at me with such open affection that I stop trying to be amusing.
All afternoon she has been turning toward me to share something: a plan for Luce, a complaint about my taking the shorter route across the meadow, a ridiculous conversation conducted on behalf of our horses.
Now she is here with her hands on my face, and I get to be the person she wants at the end of her day, too.
“Come here properly,” I say.
“You might need to make room.”
I shift back on the mattress, and she climbs up beside me, folding one leg beneath herself. I reach for the pins in her hair, then pause when she catches my wrist.
“There are four. Don’t lose them in the bed.”
“I can count to four.”
“You said that last time.”
She holds out her palm, waiting, and I place each pin in it as I find it. Her hair loosens over her shoulders, slipping across my wrist in pale waves. When the last pin is safely on the bedside table, she shakes it free and looks at me as though she knows perfectly well why I haven’t moved.
“Satisfied?”
“Getting there.”
She catches my shirt and brings me back to her.
I kiss her with my hand against her cheek, then feel her smile disappear into something quieter as she draws me close. For once I don’t try to find words for how happy she makes me. I have the whole evening to show her that I want to be here, and she seems quite willing to help me spend it.
The book slips off the edge of the mattress. We hear it land, look at each other, and leave it where it is.
When she reaches past me to turn out the light, I kiss the inside of her wrist. Her fingers pause against the switch.
“I love you,” she says.
“I love you, too.”
She turns back to kiss me in the dark, and the rest of the evening belongs to us.
Later, I wake a little when she moves, lifting my arm so she can settle nearer. Cool air comes through the open window, stirring the curtain. I draw the sheet over her shoulder and feel her hand come to rest against my chest.
“Did I wake you?” she asks.
“Only enough to be pleased you’re here.”
Her lips touch my shoulder. For a while we lie quietly, and I think she has fallen asleep until her fingers move against mine.
“I was thinking about the far paddock.”
I smile into her hair. “Naturally.”
“Not tonight. Tomorrow.” She lifts her head. “Will you walk it with me? I want another opinion about the gate.”
“After breakfast?”
“After breakfast.”
“Then yes.”
She settles again, apparently satisfied, and I turn our hands until I can thread my fingers through hers. Her ring rests against my knuckle. I brush my thumb over it once, then let my hand grow still.
In the morning there will be a paddock to walk, a gate to disagree about, coffee to drink before either of us is fit to argue.
She will probably visit Luce before breakfast and insist that it doesn’t count because she was passing anyway.
I want to be there when she tells me that.
I want to know what she’ll think of next.
“Max?”
“Hmm?”
“You’re smiling.”
“You can’t see me.”
“I can feel it.” Her hand rests against my cheek. “Go to sleep.”
I kiss her palm and close my eyes, with her tucked against me and tomorrow already holding something we want to do together.
The years ahead feel like something I can’t wait to share with her.