Ever After

thirteen | eikko

When we woke up, naked limbs pressed against each other and my hands still tangled in Eadlyn's hair on this massive bed, I could not help but laugh. 

"What?" She asked sleepily. There was a lazy smile on her face as she traced circles on my skin. 

"I just never thought this would happen. I mean, darling, we're married. We're in France. I... I just applied to be a translator."

She giggled. "What a good thing it was that you needed a job."

"What a good thing it is that you drew Henri's envelope. I still cannot believe I didn't just apply for the Selection. Maybe we could have avoided the rule breaking."

She shrugged and kissed my fingers as I brought them up to run them through her hair. There was something captivating about it, and my hands always wanted to be combing through. 

"Or maybe I wouldn't have picked your envelope. Maybe I would have kicked you out in the first elimination, simply because I didn't know you. Maybe we never would have met." She grins and lazily plants a kiss on my bare chest. "I don't know how this somehow unfolded the way it did, but I wouldn't ask for it any other way."

I smiled and kissed her. My hands acted on their own now, sure of how to grab her waist and pull her closer. Eadlyn giggled and cupped my face in her hands, kissing me back with a smile on her face. She wrapped her legs around me and sighed. 

I pulled her closer and let out a grunt when she shifted her weight. She grinned against my ear. "Sorry, dear."

"No, you're not."

She smiled and kissed behind my ear, still smiling as she did so. Her lips trailed my neck, my collarbone, back up the other side, and her hands wandered my body. Then she settled back into a comfortable embrace, and I groaned. 

"It's peaceful out here. Maybe I'll abdicate and live out here with you for the rest of my life." She rolled away from me and pushed herself out of the covers. 

I moaned and reached for her, but she wriggled out of bed and grabbed my shirt from the floor, pulling it around her body and buttoning it in a few quick motions. 

"It certainly would be the best course of action," she continued, smirking as I flopped back down on the mattress. She kept talking about the beauty of France and how maybe, once we're retired, we would finally have another week to ourselves. Maybe we could come back out here. 

But I kept staring at my shirt on her as she gathered up our fallen clothes from the night before, smirking back at me the longer I stared. I finally rolled my eyes and sat up. 

"Can you please come back here?" 

"I'm going for a walk," she informed me, "want to join?" 

I finally relented and crawled out of bed, pausing only to wrap my arms around her from behind and kiss her neck, before I retreated to our trunks and dug out pants and a cotton shirt. Without the need to dress as a prince, I didn't. Eadlyn still looked regal in everything she wore, but when I turned around, she had added a pair of my linen pants and tucked my shirt into them. My heart fell out of my body. She didn't exactly look regal- she looked mine. 

"Darling..."

She smiled. "Yes?" 

"Are you trying to distract me from literally everything else in the world right now?" 

There was a small blush that decorated her face as I walked forward and pressed another kiss to her lips. "How about that walk?" 

She hooked her fingers under my chin and pulled me back down to her level. "Actually, I wouldn't mind another nap."