A/N: The sequel to Time Frames, where teen!Belle and Rumpelstiltskin must learn to live together as adults. NC-17.

This series is now called ‘Young Girls and Pet Dragons’

—-

A Place on Earth
Chapter 1

—-

Rumpelstiltskin’s hand felt so strange, warm and soft and newly-human, in Belle’s as he lead her upstairs.

She assumed she knew where they were going. Where else could he possibly be taking her but his bedroom? After all the time she’d spent begging for this, really, there was nowhere else left to go.

But the room they entered at the touch of his hand on the doorknob was not one she would have associated with Rumpelstiltskin, not after seeing his chambers in her father’s castle. It was all lush rugs and pretty wooden furniture, all silver and blue and green.

“What’s this?” she asked, and her voice wasn’t small and timid, not in the slightest. Belle was happy, not sad or scared or nervous. Belle was happy .

“This is… your room.” he smiled at her, and it was a warm and slightly unfamiliar smile.

She did this: she changed him. And he looked so happy, so good and sweet and human , that it reassured her, just a little bit. Even if she had loved the golden scales as well, even if he didn’t look like the same man, not yet.

“Your things are all unpacked already, in the wardrobes and cabinets.” he said.

“Okay,” his hand squeezed hers just once and then fell to his side. She turned to face him - and she was not shy, not at all, not a tiny little bit, really - and frowned, “What do we do now?”

“I um…” he looked as at a loss as she felt, “Maybe you’d like to freshen up? Get your bearings?”

“Okay…”

“We’ll eat in an hour in the dining hall. Just go down the stairs and make a left.” He smiled, a warm and encouraging smile, “I’ll see you then.”

He pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, and left with a brilliant grin.

And Belle was alone, for what felt like the first time in her life. Completely alone, without even Rumpelstiltskin to look after her, without even her father or Gaston or Snow or anyone.

Belle had not expected this: in all her dreams and plans for the future, she had never envisioned this. To live forever in a castle that was not her childhood home, with someone who was not family, however close they may have been.

She loved him, heart, body and soul.

But that didn’t cure the frightened, childish, homesick urge to curl up under the covers of her new bed and hide forever. Even from Rumpelstiltskin. Especially from Rumpelstiltskin .

He seemed so happy to be human again. And if he was happy, so should she be: after all, she could now spend her days with someone who would age with her, someone who would be flesh and blood and bone, who didn’t have the face of a demon.

She’d wanted this.

She was just tired, and overwhelmed. Today had been one of the longest days of her life.

So she found her clothing, in the massive armoire in the bedroom, and tried to find a dress that didn’t need too much effort to put on. Or to take off, for that matter: there was still the matter of a deal that needed fulfilling.

Somehow the whole idea seemed a little… big and scary now.

But she loved him, no matter how he looked or spoke, no matter whether he would be here for an hour or a lifetime, and that was the important thing.

So she dressed in her simplest dress, blue with a white blouse underneath, and let her hair down from the stupid updo her father had insisted she wear for the Council meetings. Her gold dress, her princess dress, she threw haphazardly over a chair. She was too tired, her hands shaking and heart racing, to wonder what they would do for laundry in this place.

Then she slipped from the room, and down the stairs he had gestured to.

She didn’t feel small and scared and alone. No, of course not: Belle was eighteen, an adult, and she had been so very happy about this just an hour or two ago.

He met her by the massive table, and to her relief all he did was take her hand.

This was utterly absurd: she had spent most of her adolescence trying to draw something more from him than gentle brushes of palms and sweetly friendly smiles.

But for right now, what she needed was the friend of her childhood, and not the lover she had spent so much time trying to turn him into. She needed the man who protected her in his tower from the truth of her mother’s death, who taught her to spin straw into copper - she never mastered gold, to her frustration - and told her what the soldier’s curses were when her father just brushed her off.

“Are you alright, dear?” He looked so concerned, the emotion so much easier to discern on his human face, and she smiled, nodded.

“Yes. Just… tired, I guess. How about you?”

He chuckled as he lead her to the seat at the head of the table, pulled the chair for her and gestured for her to sit down, “You needn’t worry for me, dearie, I’m better than I’ve been in centuries. I owe you everything.”

And with that, she abandoned all fear and pulled him in by his high collar, pressed a slow kiss to his soft, warm lips and and felt him still against her.

It was a small thing, tender and sweet and close-mouthed, but still, it was something.

He took a seat next to her, his hand still in hers, and gave it a squeeze, “Everytime you do that, I owe you something more.” he smiled, and she blushed.

“Well,” she tried so hard to sound as grown-up as she needed to feel, “There must be something you can think of for repayment.”

“Dinner first, love. Then we’ll see.”

He snapped his fingers, and she gasped, the food appearing right in front of her, hot and fresh and served on fine china plates.

“You needed a caretaker ?” she scoffed, “That was a lie.”

He shot her a quick smile, “I was kidnapping his Majesty’s only daughter, I didn’t think the truth would go down too well.”

“No,” she allowed, entirely uncertain what the knot in her stomach could mean, her voice suddenly quiet and sober, “I suppose not.”

He frowned at her, but she ignored it. She couldn’t explain how she felt even to herself, it didn’t seem fair to burden him with her childish little anxieties. “Well, tuck in, dear,” he gestured to her food, and she nodded, suddenly ravenous.

It wasn’t amazing food, nothing of the quality some of the visiting chefs in her father’s castle could create, but solid and warm and filling, and that was enough.

Perhaps he did need her here: perhaps she could be useful.

They ate in silence, but his hand stayed in hers on the table, and the contact gave some comfort. She wasn’t alone, she wasn’t , and this was her first night of the forever she had dreamt of and never believed would come true, and she was happy .

—-

She was nervous, this he could tell. His new eyes were less sharp than the old, but he knew her, better than anyone else in the world, and his Belle was not comfortable.

And he missed her, the girl he knew, the brave and bold little temptress who had dragged him here with her strong little hands and broken his curse so easily, so freely and sweetly. The girl who had a normal life, a good and honest little life, and still chose to love a monster.

She looked so small and scared, sipping her soup, her hand cold and tense in his.

So he conjured wine from the kitchen, and took a sip himself, waiting for her to reach for it. Alcohol probably wasn’t the best solution to this problem, but at least it would relax her.

At least he knew she loved him.

She had to, for the curse to have run fleeing from her kisses.

Anything else was an obstacle, something easily fixed and worthless thrown in their path. “How are you feeling?” he asked, when she’d finished her second glass and her meal, and was back to smiling at him.

Her cheeks were a little rosy, her smile a little wider and happier. He wondered if she’d ever actually had a drink before.

He couldn’t recall from the castle what was served to youngsters at dinner.

“Better, thanks,” she said, and then, to his complete surprise, pulled him to his feet and drew him close.

“What’re you doing, love?” he asked, as she tucked her head under his and slipped her other hand into his, entwining their fingers.

“Shhhh…” she breathed, and he smiled against the top of her dark, glossy curls. She started to sway, humming some tune he couldn’t identify, “Dance with me?”

“What’s brought this on?” he was smiling, widely, still entirely unused to the smoothness of his own skin, the loosening of his muscles and the near-weakness of his bones. He felt her presence so keenly it almost hurt, the joy too powerful to truly express.

Would he have felt all of this before, had he met her as a man, had he fallen in love with her with brown eyes and pink skin, without his green-gold scales? Would she have bowled him over, taken over his entire world, made him a simpering suitor at her feet, desperate for a simple smile, a kiss on the cheek?

He had felt his emotions muted and covered in a layer of darkness, of the horrid magic he associated with the Dark One, the demon who latched onto his soul.

Without that, everything was brighter, sharper, sparkly and new.

And she was so beautiful, so soft and warm, and fit so wonderfully into his arms as he swayed them on the spot that he couldn’t believe she had no magic of her own.

Perhaps she was an enchantress, sent to rid the world of its monsters.

Perhaps she was a siren, and he would lose his soul to her.

Perhaps he already had.

He flicked his wrist, startling her, and some old song, something orchestral and romantic he’d heard somewhere long ago filled the room. They tried to dance in earnest, but she was always clumsy, better suited to tree-climbing than delicate rhythms and shifts of weight, and he hadn’t had a dance partner since one village spring faire in his youth.

Eventually, they gave up and stuck to simple slow swaying, her hands migrated up his arms to link behind his neck, his splayed on her hips, holding her against him so she couldn’t vanish, so she couldn’t suddenly wake from the spell she was surely under and run for the hills.

Her blue eyes were bright, with the wine, the dance or something deeper, something stronger and more intoxicating still he didn’t know.

He didn’t know who kissed who first, perhaps they simply met in the middle, but her hands tangled in his hair and her tongue was in his mouth, stroking at his, lips soft and wet and warm. It was so very different from the bruising kisses they’d shared in heated moments in the dark corridors of her father’s castle, and the sweet, soft, hidden ones in gardens and alcoves.

This was a kiss with intention, purpose: a kiss designed to tease and excite, that promised something more, something new and special. His dazed and addled mind had the bright idea to transport them - just a flick of two fingers, such a small and subtle expression of magic - up into her bedroom, her new quarters in the west wing.

She glanced around with surprise when he broke their kiss, and she saw that they had moved. “Useful talent,” she murmured, and he huffed a laugh into her hair, holding her tight against him for a moment, needing just the comfort of knowing she was still here, that he hadn’t lost her somewhere in-between.

“Indeed.” he pushed her back just a little, so he could look into her face. “Do you wish to sleep, now? I could leave you for the night.”

He didn’t want to, of course he didn’t, he wanted to stay with her forever, make love to her the way he had promised so long ago, the way she had bargained for. But she was still Belle, and he loved her in ways he didn’t know he could love anything, anymore, and so here it was: an escape clause.

She could tell him to leave, and he would go.

But she was staring at him, all bright blue eyes and hope, all sweetness and beauty, and he hoped to all the Gods that she wouldn’t take the out.

He hoped that if she did, he really could leave.

Self-control was not exactly the domain of monsters and cursed cowards. And what he had had been torn to shreds years ago, when she was so much younger, and intent upon driving him to distraction. That she was still a maiden even after she had lain herself naked in his bed and begged for him to take her there and then was a virtue he hoped the Gods had made note of.

“Stay?” she asked, blinding hope and an awful uncertainty warring on her face, “Please? We still have a deal to fulfil, after all.”

He swallowed, hard, and was glad he had drunk as much as she because he was suddenly entirely lost. He nodded, trying not to show the slight shake in his fingers, the nervousness coiling in his stomach.

Because she was Belle, and more perfect than anything he’d seen in centuries, and she broke his curse.

He had hardly been an expert in matters of heart and body when he was human: his wife had hardly welcomed his foolish advances, and after Bae and the war even those attempts at bedding had been forgotten and never repeated. And the Dark One had had desires - darker than anything Rum the Spinner could have dreamed of, and more complex - but nothing such as this.

Rum had been a fumbling and ineffective husband, and the Dark One an almost cruel and selfish, demanding user of loose women.

He had never looked into the eyes of someone truly good, pure and sweet and far more innocent than she knew, and loved her truly. He had never wanted to worship someone the way he did her.

So he gently reached one hand from her waist and dragged it over her bodice, to the laces at the front of her dress, and tugged at the bow holding the ties together. It fell apart in his hands, and she was staring at him, breathing hard although he’d barely even touched her yet. It astounded him, that this pale and perfect creature could want this, that she could watch such a tired and twisted old man pull her clothing apart and react with nothing but darkened eyes and flushed cheeks.

His other hand rose to help, shuddering over the swell of her breast beneath her dress as it slipped up over it, and between them his nimble spinner’s fingers loosened the ties and dragged the brown cord from its loopholes, wrapped it around his knuckles and threw it to the floor.

Slowly, he peeled the bodice from her body, slid a hand under her blouse and traced tender fingers over her breast. She was watching him intently, her soft pink lips parted, desperate to be kissed, bitten and licked until they were swollen, until they were red as rose petals. He watched her face closely as he tried something else, as he slipped his thumb up and over and scraped the side of the nail over her nipple.

She gasped, and he tried it again, and again until it was hard and pucked, until her eyes had closed.

His other hand slid around her midriff, over the subtle curve of her waist, to the ties at the back of her skirt. It was a simple little knot, easily undone with one hand, and he was a little proud of his timing, when he pinched at her hard little nipple, brought a tiny and beautiful cry from her lips, right as her skirt came off and puddled at her feet.

He smiled at her, warm and encouraging, and she stared at him, the nervousness seeming to have given way to something else entirely. Her hands came up from her sides to the front of his waistcoat, and he stood still as she undid the catches, the trembling in her fingers making the task far harder than it should have been.

But then it was done, and he pulled his hands from her so that he could shrug the heavy garment off. She didn’t seem to know what to do beyond that, and she looked so very small, so fragile and soft and breakable, stood in just her blouse and thin little shift in the dark blue expanse of her bedroom.

“Are you okay?” she asked, a worried little crease between her eyebrows, and the very idea that she should be concerned about him at a time like this made his heart give a funny little squeeze.

“Never better, love,” he replied, as he tried to work out what to do next, “You?”

And she was beaming at him, hands on his shoulders, tracing little circles with her thumbs through the silk of his shirt, “Never better.”

He grinned, and suddenly bent at the knees, scooping one hand under her legs and the other under her back, so he could hold her in his arms bridal-style, and carry her to the bed. He used just the smallest little stream of magic in his muscles to hold her weight - she was a slender, feather-light little thing, but without his Dark One skin and strength he didn’t want to risk dropping her - and laid her down on the sheets.

He didn’t give her a moment to lie there alone, to wonder at what they were doing, to doubt herself and him.

He should have: he should be slower, more considerate. He should give her room to breathe.

But every inhalation gave another moment for her to see who he really was, to shatter the image she’d held of him in her mind since she was a child, the fantasy she’d built as a young maiden, and regret her decision.

He’d given her her out, and she’d smiled and brushed it aside.

And even without the golden scales and purple witchcraft, Rumpelstiltskin is still a monster, deep in his bones. Dark Ones are not made from perfect, angelic human beings, they are spun from the cowards and the dregs, the muddied and bloodied and aching, the already-damned.

So he covered her pale body with his, and pressed his mouth back to hers, kissing her deep enough to quash any resistance, any chance at matching his pace. She lay there and relaxed into him, hands curling and fisting in his hair, and took his kissing, the dominance of lips and tongue, and simply moaned in the back of her throat and pulled him nearer.

His hands fluttered down by her sides, settling on her waist, holding her as close as he could, bracing himself on his knees so as to avoid crushing her porcelain bones with his weight.

He flicked his fingers - so much magic, tonight, but every spark of it worthwhile - and he was clothed in his nightshirt, divested of his complicated boots and leather trousers. All of a sudden, her bare leg was pressed against his, and the sensation of such innocent skin on skin was like breaking down stone walls and moving mountains.

She felt it as well, and when he pulled back she was staring at him, eyes wide, the reality of the situation seeming to have finally sunk in.

He expected a gulp, her steeling her bravery, and perhaps a tear or two she could not contain. The image of a dream shattering into a million sharp and painful little pieces behind her eyes, perhaps, and a knife to his heart as she saw the old and broken monster she had won in an ill-concieved bargain.

But instead, she simply smiled, and shifted her leg a little so her skin moved against his, so that her thighs were spread a little wider, and he could lie between them and settle his weight on his elbows, staring down at her in wonder.

He considered taking her right then and there, the flush in her cheeks and gleam in her eyes too beautiful to bear. She was laid out beneath him like the most delicious meal he’d ever seen, the floral scent of her hair and the muskier, spicier smell of her skin sending his senses reeling.

He’d wanted her for years, even before she had given him his dagger and struck this deal, ever since she’d summoned him to a rose garden under false pretenses - silly, fifteen-year-old dreamer - and tried to convince him to kiss her.

He’d spent three years trying not to ravish her soft, innocent little body.

He was so hard, so ready for her, that holding back was physically painful. But there was something harsher than that, something deeper and more hurtful lodged in his mind: the idea of failure, of not living up to her expectations.

She was a maiden, untouched and unprepared. He could ease the pain he would cause, and would do all he could to do so, but what of her pleasure?

He reached down between them, eyes fixed on her face, attuned to any change of expression, any hitch of discomfort or pain, as he slid his fingers up under her shift to brush against her centre, through her coarse curls.

She gasped, her tender limbs shaking, and he did it again, trying to find the sweet spot that would send her head spinning. He moved through the surprising wetness, the moisture he had - in all honesty - not expected to find. He still couldn’t believe that she was here willingly, that this was her side of the deal, the thing she had wanted from this, and not his.

Surely he must have dealt away a kingdom for this honor, the very fact of being here with her?

Her eyes squeezed shut as his fingers met a tiny little bud of nerves, hidden within folds of soft, tender flesh. He rubbed it lightly with the pads of his fingers, and she quivered again, a soft little moan drawn from her lips.

This would go easier for her if she had already had some pleasure, even if the very fact of her lying there, hands fisting in the silken sheets and lips parted oh-so temptingly, was driving him insane.

So he pulled himself back, tried to reign in the dark thoughts that still weren’t entirely gone, curse-break or no, and focused on her reactions to his motions, to the playing of his fingers against her core, the rubbing of his hand against her, and his other hand, slipping upwards, casting her blouse aside with yet another little spark of magic and palming her breast, raising and puckering her other nipple to match the first.

She was shaking violently, hips shifting just a little, wriggling against his hand, seeking completion. He smiled, encouragingly, nodded, leaned down to her ear and murmured, “That’s right, yes, you can do it, that’s right,” she was mewling into his ear, gasping, eyes squeezed shut, “Come on, such a good girl, you can do it, you can come for me, yes, yes…” he felt it the moment she did, her inner walls clenching on air, a small cry dragged from her lips.

“There, there, you’re so beautiful, Belle, well done,” he praised, and she smiled, a little stunned, shellshocked, up at him.

He pressed his fingers a little lower, pushed at her entrance and sent a little spell, a little tiny thread of magic to ease pain. He didn’t want to hurt her, ever, never hurt his precious little Belle, who was looking at him with such a mix of wonder and apprehension and love that it broke his heart.

“Ready?” he asked, knowing full well that there was no turning back now and yet still desperately needing to ask the question, to hear her agree.

She was so beautiful, and so young. Her skin soft and smooth, unlined or marked by the ravages of life, her eyes clear of all but simple, straightforward emotion. He had to hear her ask him, have her agree to this one more time, before he could take her for his own and not feel like a villain, like a monster violating an innocent girl.

She nodded, “Yes.”

He smiled, braced himself on his elbows beside her head and pushed himself up inside her.

There was no cry of pain, at least, just an inhaled gasp of breath, her eyes wide with something like surprise, as she shifted her hips, trying to get comfortable.

He was almost cross-eyed, trying to stay still, to let her body become accustomed to his presence. The feeling was incredible, indescribable, and he was tempted to start moving right away, to slam into her and take her hard and fast, to pour every ounce of need into his movements and pound her into the bed.

But she was so very, very young, and it would hurt her even with the magical protection, and frighten her even more.

So he waited for her, for her hand on his cheek and her imperceptible little nod, before he pulled out just a little way and rocked back into her, slow and soft and gentle.

It took longer, this way, but not by much. He was so desperate for her, so in love that it hurt his soul to look and wound tighter than a bow string from her years of torturing him. He was coming close within minutes, but he was holding back, trying to bring her what pleasure he could before satisfying himself.

In the end, it was she who broke him. She always did, one way or the other.

She leaned up, and brushed her lips against his, coiled her arms around his shoulders and held him against her. She whispered into his ear, her lips soft and wet against his cheek, “I love you, Rumpelstiltskin.”

His control shattered, and he thrust up hard one more time, stilling inside her as he found his release.

She stroked his back, soothingly, as he came down from his high and slipped out of her. She wasn’t running away, not yet, nor trembling with fear or gasping in pain. She was soft, pliant against him as he rolled them around, so she was curled against his body and his hands could wrap around her waist, holding her so close against him that he need never let go.

She’d stopped shaking, and slowly, tentatively, her hand came down to rest over his, clasped around her midriff.

He fell asleep to the sound of her soft and rhythmic breathing, and the scent of her rosewater and cinnamon hair.

—-

She awoke in her new bed, and stared at the canopy in a kind of daze.

She tried not to feel any different. Because, really, what had changed? One more tiny and really rather insignificant step into forever. That was all.

Still, she slipped her feet from their tangle with his at the foot of the bed, and slid from the silk sheets onto the stone floor, and somehow her skin seemed a different colour. Paler and stronger and so very, very weak all at once.

She was tired and overwhelmed, the world shaking on its axis.

When the sun rose she would still be Belle. At least, she hoped so.

But she couldn’t stay in that bed for much longer. Not with his arms wrapped so tightly around her, with the moon spilling in through open curtains and her whole body feeling so very new and strange.

How odd it is , she thought, to finally get what you want .

She was shivering cold without the warmth of his body, and she glanced around for a robe or blanket to pull around herself. A dark puddle of silk on the floor, his discarded shirt, seemed a possibility. But she rejected that idea after a moment’s thought: she needed to wear something that was hers.

The idea of being entirely wrapped in him, even without him beside her, seemed both thrilling and entirely terrifying. And Belle was always brave, always , but just in this moment she wasn’t Belle at all. She was some new creature, spun from his fingers under moonlit blue sheets, and she needed her own clothing.

So she rummaged in the drawers of her new dresser, found an old and comfortable cotton nightgown from years ago and pulled it over her head. It was tighter, now, than it had been: apparently she’d filled out somewhat in the intervening years, and once again there was that little stab of something not quite fear, and not quite loss.

But it was still warm, still smelt of the lemon rinse they’d used in the laundry rooms in her father’s castle, and the tiny piece of home and past and childhood helped calm the fluttering in her nerves.

She padded on bare feet across the rugs and carpets of the floor to the window, and leaned against the massive frame, staring out across the lands that, she realised, now constituted her home.

She didn’t look back at the bed. To do so would be to give in to some new and strange desire, a curious tugging in her body that longed to go and curl back into him, to have him cover every little part of her and to soak into his skin.

So she kept her eyes on the land, on the fields and forest she could see that made up the grounds. She imagined a rose garden, like the one back in her father’s castle, in that corner, and there, perhaps a vegetable patch. Perhaps she would learn to garden properly, to cook their meals and wash their clothing, to be caretaker the way he had lied to her father that she would.

She’d barely been listening back in that throne room, as her men – her father and her fiancé and the love of her life – bargained her fate away.

But her family had not expected this. They would imagine her curled in some dungeon deep underground, sleeping under the stairs or in some tiny little cubby in the kitchen.

Perhaps they thought her already dead, Rumpelstiltskin’s retribution for years of keeping him as servant and pet and slave to the dagger they had found one early morning, twenty years ago.

I am ruined , she realised, a fallen woman .

But hadn’t she always planned for it to be so? Wasn’t this – all of this, the bedroom and moonlight and deep, dark, desiring looks, the little touches and deep sensation, the closed tight eyes and tiny, mewling moans – everything she had dreamt of since she was sixteen?

She loved him enough to break whatever awful, ancient curse had haunted him. Surely that was enough of an extraordinary circumstance to grant a little leeway?

The idea of one day going home, not a wife and yet no longer a maiden, sent a shiver of terror racing down her spine. How could she face her father, her friends? They would know, instantly, and that would be it. She would be tainted, no longer her father’s daughter, cast out and banished to the four winds.

But that was a stupid fear to have: she would be in this castle forever, after all. She highly doubted that Rumpelstiltskin would want her returning to his old prison after all that they had done.

Tomorrow, they would have to talk. Tomorrow she would have to ask if she was caretaker or concubine or future wife.

But tonight, she was cold and getting colder, stood by the window, and she turned to look back at him, giving in to temptation and running her eyes over his form. His eyes, which had been so peacefully closed, now gazed at her with heavy lids, a small smile playing on his newly-human lips, “Who gave you permission to leave my side?” he asked, and there it was again, that warm, heavy feeling in her stomach, the desire that built whenever he so much as looked at her.

“I woke up, didn’t want to disturb you.” she tried to smooth her hair down, feeling its tangled weight resting on her shoulders and suddenly she was self-conscious.

“Hmmm,” he didn’t look impressed by her answer, “You disturbed me more by leaving, dear, so please come back to bed.”

His voice was still that lower, rougher pitch, his human tones. He had an accent she hadn’t been able to place before, when it was covered with his impish giggles and high lilt, but it was stronger, now, in what she supposed was his real voice.

She found she rather liked it, this new brogue of his, the way it seemed to vibrate through the air, all dark chocolate and thunder.

She smiled, bit her lip, and took a step toward the bed, and another and another. She was right at his bedside, staring down at him, and his lazy smile did wickedly dark, wonderful things to her insides. “How’s this?” she asked, knowing full well what he meant but still needing him to say it. Just one more time, one more assurance that this is real, and he really does want her as she has always wanted him.

“Hmm,” he shook his head, “No, not quite.” His hands reach out of nowhere and grab her hips, pulling her down so she’s sprawled on top of him, so he can roll them over and wrap his arms around her. He buried his face in her hair, pressed his lips to her neck and nuzzled into the skin there, sending pleasurable little shivers through her body.

“There,” he murmured, “Much better.”