Chapter 34

‘Patience'becomes a mantra.

A not-so-subtle reminder that her wishes don't outweigh his comfort. Even if she thinks it's insane for him to continue sleeping on the couch night after night when they've technically already shared her bed. The urge to tell him exactly how backwards and outdated the whole thing sounds is enough to make her jaw ache from forcing herself to stay quiet. To stay patient.

He's still healing, she reminds herself. Still adjusting to living as someone who is part of the world instead of just a bodiless bystander. Jen and Miles have been more than welcoming—they've gone to see them more than a handful of times in the last few weeks—but she can tell that the whole idea of being known by more than just her still feels alien to him. She makes an effort to invite him wherever she goes, but he declines more than he accepts. It must be overwhelming, trying to navigate the changes when he's spent centuries being invisible. The times she can see him biting back the urge to say something he would have so freely said before, when only she could hear him, are as frequent as his showers.

God, the man takes so many showers.

She was willing to overlook it before with his wounds, but they're practically healed now and his bathing habits are still excessive. She's giving him another week before she starts rationing his hot water.

Patience.

She stirs creamer into her coffee, watching it go from a bitter dark to soft caramel. Seth still hasn't found a taste for it, but he's been drinking an ungodly amount of tea. Sara's not sure if it's because he actually missed it or because everything he does seems to be in excess lately. Either way, she's made a point to mix some decaf in the tea box before he turns himself into an addict.

Taking a sip, she closes her eyes and sighs. Her bare feet are tucked beneath her, and she relishes finally being able to curl up on the couch without a bulky walking boot.

Seth is sitting in his chair, an ankle crossed at his knee and looking so at home it would almost feel like old times if it weren't for the flannel of his shirt and the book in his hand. He has the sleeves rolled up to his elbows today, the pale lines of his forearm flashing with every turning of the page. With the morning sun streaming through the window, casting soft shadows across his face, Sara struggles to tear her eyes away from him.

Of course, that's nothing new. She finds herself watching him way more than she should, tracing the lines of his face and the shape of his mouth. She's not the only one. When her back is turned, and he thinks she's too busy to notice, she can feel the weight of his stare as clearly as her reaction to it—skin flushing and pulse quickening. The air between them feels thick; ripe with a temptation she's too hesitant to take.

Besides his looks, he's given her no indication that he wants to move forward. Hasn't brought up their kiss or the sheets they shared. She doesn't think he regrets it, but she does think he might need more time.

Because patience.

"You're staring," he says, turning the page without bothering to look up. "I don't suppose you're reconsidering your choices in my wardrobe?"

She doesn't even bother entertaining his question (she's mostly sure it was a joke anyway). "Can I photograph you?"

His eyes lift, the corner of his mouth lifting into that teasing half-smile he wears so well. "I suppose it would last longer."

It's permission, obviously, but instead of getting her camera she finds herself rooted; captivated by the curve of his lips and the heat it inspires. In her chest, her heart thrums—the sound echoing in her ears like the shrill screaming of cicadas in the summer.

His head tilts, smile dimming into something concerned. "Sara?"

Patience, she reminds herself, but it's so weak it may as well be a whisper in a storm. Patience.

"Why haven't you kissed me?" She blurts, setting her mug on the coffee table before standing. "Or did I misread something?"

Seth blinks up at her, the hand holding his book going lax. "I beg your pardon?"

"It's been, like, a month," she blurts. There's a heat crawling up her neck, but she stands her ground despite the outrageously blank look he's giving her. "So. Yeah. I—if you aren't interested, you could at least—or if you're needing more time to adjust—"

"Sara," he interjects, her name rolling off his lips like champagne—soft and dizzying. "Do you mean to tell me, that you want me to kiss you?"

She hates that she can't make sense of his expression—can't tell if he's eager or irritated—and it only fuels her own frustration. "Are you for real right now? Because I've been pretty obvious about it."

His lips part briefly, then shut, twisting into a frown. Closing his book, his knuckles white as he grips the edges, he tries again. "I… rather thought you to be the monogamous sort?"

"I… am?" she says carefully. Then a thought strikes, and she blushes a whole new shade of red. "Wait. Are you not?!"

Brow furrowing, he only looks more confused. "I don't understand."

"Well, that makes two of us."

"You want me to kiss you," he says, each word carefully formed, "despite your relationship?"

"What relation—" she stops, eyes widening as realization dawns. "Oh my god. You think I'm still with David?!"

Seth stares at her, the book sliding from his lap and onto the chair as he slowly rises. His breathing is deep, chest straining against the flannel of his shirt, as he steps towards her. "Do you mean to say you aren't?"

The edge in his voice, the heat, makes her shiver even though the whole situation makes her want to scream. "Of course I'm not! How could you even think—"

He kisses her.

It's everything their first kiss wasn't. Hungry and frenzied; weeks worth of pent up passion bursting at the seams matched only by her own. His hands slide over her jaw, fingertips burying in her hair as his lips slant over hers around a gasp. "You infuriating woman," he pants between kisses, "Why didn't you say anything?"

The words slip out between a gasp, breathy and weak. His lips graze her jaw, and the friction is electric. "I didn't think I had to?"

"I just assumed. For so long, you wanted—I thought—" Her fingers drag over his shoulders and he groans, low and deep against her neck—his breath hot and panting against her collar. "Bloody hell, you're magnificent."

She guides him back to her mouth, her fingers fumbling with the buttons of his shirt. "Less talking."

He smirks into the kiss. "Think you rather like it when I talk."

"I don't."

He nips her bottom lip. "Liar."

Her fingers run over the puckered, scarred skin over his heart—feels the hitch in his breath against her mouth. "Sorry," she whispers. "Does it hurt?"

"Does it hurt?" he echoes, laughter coloring his voice, lips brushing against her jaw. "As if everything you do doesn't tear me apart." The hand at her hip slips under her shirt, palms gliding over her waist until his long fingers fan over her ribs. "As if you wouldn't have me begging you to continue."

A small sigh leaves her lips as he peppers kisses along the line of her neck. His hand is dangerously (deliciously) close to her breast, his thumb tracing maddeningly along the edge of her bra. She swallows thickly, eyes closing. "That's a no, right?"

He smiles against her skin. "Yes, Princess. That's a no." Leaning back, he brushes a stray hair from her forehead. "How did I manage to find you?"

"You must be lucky."

"Was it luck?" he asks, a question she doesn't have an answer to. "To find you. Here of all places? In the very last place I would have chosen to look?" he murmurs, the words tickling her ear. "Must be, mustn't it?"

"Seth," she breathes. "You're still talking."

"Sincerest apologies," he murmurs. Sara doesn't believe him for a second. Especially since she can feel his smirk against her cheek. His nimble fingers are making steady work out of the buttons of her shirt.

Hers aren't doing too shabby either.

By the time they make it to the bedroom, both of them have lost their flannel to the floor. By the time they get to the bed, his pants are hanging precariously low on his hips thanks to her, but he seems to be having greater trouble.

"I miss skirts," he grumbles, struggling with the button of her jeans.

Sara bites her lip, smothering a laugh as her hands reach down to help him before shimmying them down her legs. She's a second away from teasing him, but the surprised parting of his lips, the way he stares at her hip, stalls her.

Her tattoo.

It's so small, no bigger than a nickel. He shouldn't have even noticed it right away. But he's always been too perceptive; has always had a knack for zeroing in on her weaknesses. Seth is so familiar with her—knows her in ways she doesn't even fully know herself—that she never realized the ink embedded in her skin would be news to him.

His thumb brushes over the spotted flesh, a smile in his voice and a question in his eyes. "What's this, now?"

Sara licks her lips, her mouth painfully dry. She knows he's thinking of their afternoon in the field, laughing about spots and old wive's tales. It would be easy to let him believe that, to lie by omission, but she can't. Of all the people in the world, Seth is the only one she wants to share her pain with. The only one she trusts to be unburdened by it.

Her face must reflect her feelings, because his expression softens. "You don't—"

"It's for Oma," she blurts. Quick. The ripping of a bandaid that's been pressed against her heart for far too long. "After she… it's for Oma."

"Ah," he breathes, a sigh in the dark. His fingers trace the lines, his eyes following their path. "I… never knew your grandmother, but I know you. I've seen your love for her—your suffering. I have no doubts she was an amazing woman." His gaze finds hers, soft with sympathy but firm with conviction. "I'm sorry she's gone."

Sara swallows thickly. "Thank you," she murmurs, chest tight. A watery laugh escapes her, teeth sinking into her bottom lip to keep it from escalating into something more—something deep and guttural. "She would have really, really liked you."

Humming, he places a gentle kiss on her hip, just above her tattoo, and Sara's breath hitches. "I believe you," he says, words whispering over her skin. "I am, after all, incredibly likable."

She rolls her eyes, but the smile he inspires is wide. "Incredibly arrogant, maybe."

Another kiss, just as soft but not even half as innocent, to her lower abdomen. "Less than seven spots," he croons. Sara can feel his smirk, breath fanning dangerously close to the hem of her underwear. His eyes, dark and heady, are entirely focused on her. "Suppose that means a lifetime of happiness, yes?"

"Harvest," she says, correcting him with a smile. "Oma said it was harvests."

He shakes his head. "No, no. Not when you have no fields," he murmurs, thumb tracing over her hip. "I have it from a very reliable source that it is happiness."

"That being?"

"Myself. I'm old and very reliable."

"Except you can lie now."

"True," he hums. In the dark, his eyes gleam. "I suppose you'll simply have to trust me, then."

The thing is, she does. Oh, she does. Despite the way he teases, touch feather-light and tauntingly slow, as they remove the rest of their clothing.

His lips are everywhere—tasting the inside of her knee, the dip of her waist, the curve of her ribs—while his fingers dip languidly between her thighs. Keening, her body arches off the sheets, moving against his hand in a frenzied search for more.

She gasps his name, and it's a command and a plea all rolled into one. His scalp must be stinging with how tightly her hand has wound in his hair, but he only places another kiss, sweet and soft, at her breastbone.

"Patience," he murmurs, breath hot. Another kiss, this one at the hollow of her throat.

The sound that escapes her is a cross between a whimper and a moan. It trails off into a gasp as his teeth drag against her pulse, the hand between her legs shifting just so.

How he's able to hold back, take his time in exploring her, when he's had no one to touch for centuries, mystifies her. Her body is a tangle of humming, nerve endings coaxed tight as guitar strings until she feels like she's straddling the line between singing and snapping.

She growls, throwing her leg over him until he's under her. "I've been patient," she reminds him, hands fanning over his ribs and hips grinding down. The groan she pulls from his lips is poetry, the way his head tosses back and exposes his pale throat is art. She could fill a portfolio with the lines of his body.

Seth's eyes are dark. Endless. He sits up, one hand caressing her jaw—fingers threading into the hair at the nape of her neck—and the other a delicious, bruising pressure at her hip. The curl of his lips against her mouth, hovering just shy of a kiss, steals her breath as effectively as his words. "As my Princess demands."

Sara wants to scold him—at least send him a glare—but she likes the sound of my too much to argue. She kisses him instead, hand reaching between their bodies, and basking in the way his breath hitches as she grasps him.

He groans, head dropping to her shoulder. The hand in her hair travels down, fingers tracing the curve of her breast. "Permission to go through your nightstand?"

"My nightstand?"

His mouth follows the path his fingertips have mapped over her skin, breath fanning over her heart. "Isn't that the quintessential storage spot for condoms? Or has media failed me?"

She adjusts her grip. His body trembles. Sara's free hand runs through his hair, her answer a sigh against the shell of his ear. "IUD. You don't come with any mysterious 18th century diseases I should worry about, right?"

His laugh is hot against her collar. "None that showed up on my labs, anyway."

She stills, ignoring his soft whine. "Labs?"

"Miles was particularly insistent on the matter," he hums, lips tracing patterns along her neck. "If memory serves, I believe his exact words were, ‘If you give her the clap, I'll kill you.'"

Sara's torn on whether to thank Miles or smack him.

She'll decide later.

Preferably when Seth's arms aren't pulling her against him—palms open and warm against her back as he presses in, chasing the emptiness away with himself.

When she doesn't have his every panted breath whispering encouragements and endearments against her skin; when her lips aren't busy shaping words like "please" and "more" while her nails decorate his shoulders in crescent moons.

When Time and Space isn't condensing, revolving around the way their sweat-slicked bodies push and pull, pressure building. Ecstasy disguised as a spring. With every turn of his hips and every brush of his fingers, her body coils tighter, tighter. It's too much and not enough and her name is a tattoo on her heart for how many times he murmurs it against her parted, gasping mouth.

He shifts, or maybe the world does—she can't be sure—but the pressure snaps and she is spinning. Suspended in the moment, his name on her tongue and his eyes—deep and dark in ways she knows will haunt her in the best of ways—holding her own as his grip tightens and he shudders against her.

His fingers trailover her skin, tracing the curve of her hip, the line of her spine. Languid and so gentle the touches are borderline ticklish, but it's the look on his face—the adoration she sees there—that makes her melt.

"I don't think it was the kiss," she murmurs, voice quiet between them.

"Oh?" His fingers push a piece of hair away from her face, his eyes dark and sated in ways that make her heart thrum. Beneath the covers, their ankles tangle together, knees knocking.

"Well, maybe not just the kiss," she amends, gaze dropping. She traces the line of his collarbone before laying her palm flat over his heart. The scars are like braille under her palm. She wonders what it would say, if she could read it. "I think, maybe, it's been breaking a little bit at a time." Sara's brow furrows, chewing her bottom lip. "I hated you. I thought—I really thought—you were evil. The villain in my own screwed up story. But then you weren't. And I…"

She takes a breath, lets the words sit on her tongue until she's certain they're the right ones. "I realized, the miracle you gave me was a curse, but you weren't. You weren't the monster you pretended to be." Her eyes lift, pulse quickening at the absolute reverence in his expression. She swallows, wets her lips as she searches his eyes—struggling to put it in a way he can understand. "I forgave you."

His exhale is a sigh against her lips, shaky and brimming with emotion. His mouth parts, throat working around the words he can't find. He kisses her, instead. Softly. Lovingly. The hand tangled in her hair trembles. "You should have turned me down," he breathes, lips whispering over hers with every syllable. "I'll be impossible to be rid of now."

Sara smiles. "Good, because you kind of already threatened me with forever." She can feel his mouth curling, his eyes bright with the force of his smile.

"Forever then," he whispers, a promise sealed with a kiss to her forehead.

Sara curls into him, rests her cheek over his chest and listens to his heartbeat. It feels like the future is rolled out in front of them, inviting and warm with promises.

One of these days, sometime soon, she'll set her alarm and drive out to her favorite hilltop and wait—camera in hand—until the light spills into the valley. It's time for her to capture a sunrise.