In Time

Chapter Twenty

Sunlight poured in from the terrace, rousing Amara from the most restful sleep she'd had in ages. She stretched, smiling as her foot brushed down a thick, rather hairy leg and Thorin grumbled, "Stop kicking me."

"Oh, I am not kicking you." She peered over her shoulder at him. His eyes were still shut, his hair a tangled jumble of black waves shot through with silver, sliding over his shoulder and across this forehead. His arm lay draped across her waist, his fingertips just brushing her stomach. That arm tightened about her, tugged her up against his warm bare chest. Their clothes remained scattered about the room, the bed itself was a rumpled mess as well, with the sheets and quilts pulled free and simply wrapped about them, and she had never been more comfortable.

With a soft sigh, she snuggled down into the pillows, her eyes closing at the gentle sweep of his lips along her neck. He punctuated each kiss with an even gentler sweep of his tongue, and his arm tightened about her further. "Mmmm...." she breathed. "That feels so nice..."

He shifted to bring her flush against him and whispered, "So does this..."

She rolled in his arms to come nose-to-nose with him. "Again, Thorin? You have amazing stamina, you know."

He smiled. "There is still so much you need learn about dwarves, givashel. So very much, indeed."

"And I will be the first to admit it."

"You are staying here, with me, until we leave Rivendell. I haven't slept this good in decades."

"I'll see what I can do, since the infirmary is empty at the moment. But, if there should be any reason I'm needed, you know as long as I'm here, I have—"

"I know. If you're needed, you're needed and I'll not pout. Well, not too much, anyhow."

"Fair enough." She reached up to tuck a long, loose curl back behind his ear. "Tell me, does Erebor need a healer?"

"Amrâlimê, you are going to be a queen."

"I know, but that doesn't answer my question." She pulled away and sat up, drawing her knees to her chest as she gazed down at him. "Does it?"

Her eyes closed at the soft skim of his fingers along her bare back. "If it would make you happy, you could of course be our Healer."

The note of resignation in his voice was impossible to miss. "That wouldn't make you happy though, would it?"

"It isn't that it would make me unhappy. It's simply, I would prefer it if I was the only dwarf you ever saw naked."

She pressed her lips together to keep from breaking out laughing at his plaintive tone as he sat up beside her. "That is what would bother you?"

"I'm being honest."

"You are," she nodded, "you are. Silly, but honest."

She settled back against him and as he draped an arm about her shoulders, she traced the back of that hand with her forefinger. "A compromise, then," she said, running the tip of her finger along a vein that coursed from the base of his ring finger, along the back of his hand, over his thick wrist, and about his even thicker forearm, "and you allow me to train some of your dwarves as I trained Kenia and Samblar and Valindra."

"I think I can accept that." That arm tightened to draw her into his chest and he pressed a kiss into her temple.

"Good. Now, you should let me dress, and I need to go and speak with Elrond." She peered at him over her shoulder once more. "Would you like to come with me?"

"Why don't we tell everyone at breakfast?" A devilish glint came to his eye to match his sly smile. "It's the last thing anyone would ever expect me to do."