[ The ease with which they meet feels like the answer to more questions he hasn't asked. And as always, the temptation to deepen the kiss more, to go further still is there from all their time here lost. It grows louder when they part and Claude tips his forehead against hers and focuses again on time. That Hilda asks if she can sleep here - that he'd had to invite her twice to share this space to begin with is a clear sign now isn't the moment. For abysmal as he's been at expressing so many things in words it's easier, in some ways, to put them into affection as a placeholder until they can be said. It's what's on his mind as he runs his thumb over her jaw with no shortage of want behind it.
But want can be quantified in many ways, and it also includes what she's asked for in carving something back out close to normalcy, to not take for granted that she's here and asked to stay. It serves again to remind him that for all they've said in the last few months that's more than was said in years it's still no guarantee that what he wants - in this, in everything - is what she does, too. Better to wait to make sure he doesn't hurt her, doesn't crack something fragile further than he already has, and if in honesty deep beneath everything else: because some part of him is still afraid of being hurt, too.
That has no space here tonight; it's old insecurities coming to whisper in his ears after everything dragging them to light when this talk's proved to be so much the opposite. There's no delay as Claude presses one last gentle kiss to the corner of her lips before shifting back against the pillows to lie down once more. ]
You've got it. One special reading of erotic poetry coming right up.
[ The grin he gives her is very much on purpose while reaching to pull Hilda gently forward with one hand and the blankets with the other, and he tucks her in against his side first before settling the covers over them. A couple of pats around the mattress locate the book in question and Claude flips to a different section that's a little less dry to start reading from there. As it has on so many other nights it works to put them both to sleep though for Claude, it's less the hour and more that Hilda is a comforting weight and warmth against him.
Like so many nights before he sets the book aside to pick up again once awake with the intent of letting her sleep in as long as she likes, brushes a kiss into her hair with feeling and sentiment within it from what's threatening to bubble over in his heart, and closes his own eyes after to drift off into sleep himself. ]
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But want can be quantified in many ways, and it also includes what she's asked for in carving something back out close to normalcy, to not take for granted that she's here and asked to stay. It serves again to remind him that for all they've said in the last few months that's more than was said in years it's still no guarantee that what he wants - in this, in everything - is what she does, too. Better to wait to make sure he doesn't hurt her, doesn't crack something fragile further than he already has, and if in honesty deep beneath everything else: because some part of him is still afraid of being hurt, too.
That has no space here tonight; it's old insecurities coming to whisper in his ears after everything dragging them to light when this talk's proved to be so much the opposite. There's no delay as Claude presses one last gentle kiss to the corner of her lips before shifting back against the pillows to lie down once more. ]
You've got it. One special reading of erotic poetry coming right up.
[ The grin he gives her is very much on purpose while reaching to pull Hilda gently forward with one hand and the blankets with the other, and he tucks her in against his side first before settling the covers over them. A couple of pats around the mattress locate the book in question and Claude flips to a different section that's a little less dry to start reading from there. As it has on so many other nights it works to put them both to sleep though for Claude, it's less the hour and more that Hilda is a comforting weight and warmth against him.
Like so many nights before he sets the book aside to pick up again once awake with the intent of letting her sleep in as long as she likes, brushes a kiss into her hair with feeling and sentiment within it from what's threatening to bubble over in his heart, and closes his own eyes after to drift off into sleep himself. ]