Choking On Sapphires

64 Love Is Blindness

You wake up in the dim morning light, his head to the side as you murmur and look up at him. The unfocused glow of the sun falling across his face, freckles that are barely visible across his nose and cheeks, the warm light making the red in his hair more prominent. It made him glow like the cinders of a dying fire, reminding you of the burning emotion that lay just beneath the surface.

You rise to turn your upper body to lay on his chest more so you can kiss his jaw. He grumbles and winces, nose twitching as his lips pout, pulling himself out of sleep. You kiss him again, your hand on his cheek, a simple press to his cheek, watching his eyes disappearing under his heavy hooded lids as his brow dips low, shifting before finally opening. A deep grunt rises from his chest.

"Mornin' love." his rumbling voice carries out into the breezy, open room.

"Matin, mon Fie." you coo, a kiss to his chest that makes him happily hum. You peck your way up to his cheek again, his arm moving taught around you, bringing you up against him. "Did we really finally say all those things last night?" you ask with a soft smile.

His brow shifts, narrowed eyes still heavy with sleep look down to you curled up like a kitten against him. "I dunno. Did we?" he smirks and reaches up to stroke your hair.

"You really do love me, Alfie?" you ask for purely selfish reasons, wanting to hear it, to see it on his face again.

"Do you love me?" he asks in rebuttal, a charismatic lazy smile playing across his plush lips.

"I asked you first." you say with a wrinkle of your nose.

He chest shakes with a laugh before it carries out of his mouth, stopping when he presses his lips to your head. "Bloody ridiculous." he chuckles. "Asked me first..." he muses and shakes his head, rubbing his face with his hand. "How could I not with that sort 'a response. Cheeky little girl." he grins and moves to squeeze you with both arms. "'Course I love you, you ridiculous creature." he hums happily as your fingers play in his beard, eyes closing again, his body relaxing under yours.

"I love you too." you whisper, nuzzling into his neck. You let out a content sigh against him, fingers lazily stroking his chest hair, setting the tone for the rest of your time in Paris.

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Your days in Paris were spent in the most ideal of ways, together. You ate until it forces you back to your place to nap, you spent mornings in the marketplace, picking out ingredients for your meals, flowers for the apartment and browsing the young artists work, buying pieces to join your growing wall of paintings. You spend your nights at shows, taking in the opera and the Moulin Rouge. Which wasn't Alfie's cup of tea. You dance by the edge of the Seine to live music, violins accompanying your slow-moving feet as he dips you down in his arms, your laughter disrupting the kisses you share. You walk home across bridges and stopping to kiss at the peaks of their arches, taking your time to look out at the water, the reflections of the city in the moonlight upon it.

Almost every morning and night you make your declarations of love in some form. Some mornings your hands roam and you keep it simple, bringing each other over the edge sloAwly, staying warm under the covers. Your nights are varied, some fast and desperate, him taking you on top of your piano, in the tub before you make it to bed. Others are slow, some with a constant spinning of affectionate words between the two of you, others in silence and always ending in each other's arms as you fell asleep.

The last night he gives you to earrings he'd bought. You felt disappointed in yourself for not having the foresight to get him something in return. He expresses the symbolism of teardrop stones. He promises not to bring you any more tears, save for those made of precious stones. You put them on, and promptly take everything else off, and proceed to have him tell you all the things he wishes for you both. Everything he promises to do, the things he'll never do and ending with the things he wanted to do to you tonight.