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As the dusk lights starts to stream through the windows in our bedroom, I feel little tickles all over my face, waking me up from my slumber. I lay there, still, as I try to place these tickles. His kisses, I think to myself. Cardan is giving me little kisses all over my face, light enough to tickle. My cheeks warm at the thought.
“I know you are awake, dearest Jude.” He says, catching me in the act.
I roll over and find him right there, and as I roll over, his nose brushes mine. He is looking at me with a sleepy smile on my face, and I imagine my smile looks like his right now.
“Good morning Cardan.”
“Good morning Jude.”
He pulls me closer to him and starts to run his fingers through my hair, and starts to comb through my hair with his nimble fingers. I melt into his touch and let out a sigh. I snuggle up with him, pulling his warm body in line with mine, not wanting to let go. He must have the same idea, because we settle into a comfortable embrace in bed.
We tend to find ourselves like this more often than not, snuggled up in bed, not wanting to let go of each other, content to be held in each other's arms.
However long we may want these moments to last though, all good things must come to an end. We still have palace duties to attend to, meetings to adjourn and people to please. Being King and Queen is not all fun and games.
We get ready together this morning, not quite wanting to let go of each other completely. We dress in our normal courtly clothes. Cardan is wearing his midnight blue breeches, with an overcoat that shimmers darkly when the light hits it right. The top is covered in feathers in a pitch black color. His red ruby wedding ring stands out against the rest of his dark clothes. Cardan brushes some gold onto his cheekbone and rubs eyeliner on his eyes.
I dress in a gown today, instead of my normal trousers. I have had this dress put away for months, waiting for the right moment. Nothing special is happening today, but it just feels right. The dress is a pink so light, it almost looks white, with dainty lace as sleeves and adorning the bottom of the dress, and flowers cascading down from my waistline.
There's a slit in the dress that shows a scandalous amount of leg everytime I walk, but that only makes me like it more. The corset style of the dress brings out my curves, and I feel stunning. And to top it all off, the ruby red ring I have on my finger goes splendidly with this dress.
I brush through my hair and go to walk with Cardan out the door before we leave for our first meeting of the day. Instead, Cardan just stares at me with a look of adoration. He looks me up and down slowly, drinking in every curve of my hip, every dip of my body. His roaming eyes only get blacker every second he looks, his impenetrable black eyes getting
He finally seems to catch himself staring.
He grabs his gold highlighter and swipes some on my cheeks, matching me to him. “There,” he says, softly smiling at me. “Beautiful.” He sinks to knees and brings my hand to his lips and kisses it delicately.
He stares at me as if just a glance away will destroy him. His blazing black stare into my own walnut eyes. His eyes burn a hole inside of me, and I finally have to glance away, afraid that his gaze will consume me yet again.
I slap his arm away playfully and order him to get up off the ground, and we have things to do. He stands up,never letting go of my hand and before we start walking he whispers something in my ear that has me blushing. I roll my eyes and give him a quick kiss, and we walk out the door, hand in hand, ready for the day.
***
The day comes and goes slowly. And to add to that misery itself, Cardan cannot stop staring at me, which, perhaps is not quite so unusual, but something about this is different. And I cannot seem to place his gaze, which only infuriates me further.
We finish all of our duties for the day and I head back to our chambers to spend some time with Cardan before we repeat this cycle again tomorrow. I walk in the room to find the candles already lit, and a vase with pink flowers that match the color of my dress with a note attached to them.
“Cardan?” I say into the bedchamber, to see if he is in here. “Cardan?,” I ask again.
With no avail, I assume he got caught up with people while leaving the meeting. I go back over to the flowers and open the note attached. I notice it smells a little like Cardan. And apparently he had something else planned beside talking with other because in his scrawl, it reads:
4am, you know where
yours, CG
p.s. Don’t change the dress, but feel free to change what’s under it
Leave to Cardan to sign off a letter the only way he knows how and to not give me a location. Contrary to what Cardan thinks, I do not know where. And considering that it is currently 3:39, I only have 20 minutes to figure it out.
I wander out the hallways after to my disdain, changing my undergarments. I know how much Cardan loves me in my dainty lacey ones.
I walk out the room and start the search for wherever he is hiding his surprise. And suddenly, I get even more confused, because there is absolutely nothing special about today. Cardan is definitely the one for romantic gestures, but usually they correspond with something. He must have some kind of purpose to this, though just a nice date outside of the palace for no reason sounds just as appealing right now.
I walk around for about 5 more minutes until I reach the garden. I walk outside to see if I can see anything from out there, any clue to where he might be, but I run into The Bomb. She grins, and it's almost as if she knows what's happening here.
“Alright, tell me where he is. I know you know.”
“Oh but why would I do that, Jude. It’s so fun to see you being bested for once.” She laughs. I glare at her, and she starts talking, not really wanting to face my wrath at the moment. “Alright, if you must know, he is down by the little pond. You should be able to see a faint glow, and that is where he is.” She smiles, and starts to walk away.
I shout back at her, “Thanks Liliver.”
“Anytime Jude.”
I start walking to where she directs me too. We have the undersea, but also there is a little pond over yonder, surrounded by trees. It is a secluded spot away from the palace, perfect for a little alone time. Cardan has brought me here over the years a couple of times, just to be able to get away from life for a bit.
I notice a faint flickering of lights in one area, and so I start to head over there, assuming that that is where Cardan is. I arrive there and stare back in awe.
Cardan has spread out a blanket over the forest floor, and has strung lights from the trees. There are pillows spread out among the blankets, and an assortment of food. Jams and jellies, with some sandwiches and soups and such. The deserts look irresistible, delicious slices of cake with beautiful piping designs and cookies and brownies looking too good to eat.
And at the center of it all, is Cardan, sitting back on some pillows eating some cheese. His lazy grin is spread all over his face. He is dressed in the same thing as before too, but his shirt is unbuttoned to expose the beginnings of his chest.
I make my way over onto the blanket, and sit right next to him, not really wanting to be away from him right now. He sets down his food, and pulls me to him, so I’m straddling him. I lean into his body, and I soften at his touch.
“Hello, Jude dearest.” He says, greeting me. He starts to run his fingers through my hair, and I lean even further into him, completely gluing myself to him and I can feel his beating heart.
“Hello, love.” I reply back to him, as I go to give him a quick peck on the lips.
And we just sit there for a second or a thousand, I have no clue, all meaning of time is lost when I’m with him. And there is quite little else I could ask for the moment.
Breaking the silence, I do finally ask him, “You did this all for me? What’s all this for? It is not a holiday that I know of.”
“Yes of course I did this for you,” he laughs, “for who else stole my heart like you did? And do I have to have a reason?” He says back, smirking at me. I go to open my mouth to reply, but he cuts me off with a wave of his hand. “And it is a holiday, Jude. A mortal holiday.”
I think about the mortal holidays that we celebrate around this time, and I completely forgot about one. Valentines day. Living in Elfhame, and getting used to their revels and their day schedule- sleep during the day, and going out at night- had me forgetting this day. But Cardan remembered. And of course he remembered, being the romantic he is. I just can't believe I forgot.
“Valentines day,” I whisper.
He smiles sweetly at my remembrance. “Happy Valentine's day, love.”
“Happy Valentine's day to you too.” I respond, giving him a kiss.
I still cannot believe Cardan went to these lengths to do all this for me. I am baffled at the lengths he went to set all this up and acquire the good for us.
We start to eat and just talk about ourselves and catch up on the quality time that we miss when we have courtly duties. He grabs 4 bottles of wine from a container off to the side. I stare at him, accusingly, because why in the world would he need 4 bottles of wine?
He must see my hidden meaning because he only says, “I did not know which one you wanted, and what would go better with this, so I just grabbed a couple.”
I laugh, because of course he did. I just grab the one closest to me, as I don’t quite have my husband's taste for wine and alcohol like this, and pour it into the glasses.
We sit there comfortably, glad to just be in each other's presence. We kiss a little, and eat some, and go back to kissing. Nothing is quite as special as this is.
I meet my lips with his again, and it seems that he finally cannot hold back any longer. I suspect that all of our earlier quick kisses have been slowly undoing him, as they have been doing to me. He groans and slides his fingers in my hair, retching my face closer to his.
It’s my turn to groan noise as Cardan fully encaptures my mouth with his. Our tongues taste, and our hands, begging for more. I move my hands down Cardan, stopping them on his exposed chest. He just kisses me more, injecting more passion, more desire, more love, into the kiss. I feel overwhelmed from all the sensations I feel right now.
He starts to trail his mouth down, scraping his teeth along my skin and pressing kisses to my jawline, to the spot right underneath my neck and my collarbone. He goes further and starts to press kisses at the top of my sweetheart neckline. I move my mouth to his ear and whisper “I love you.”
He bites down at my skin when he hears that and heat licks at my stomach, dragging me down with desire.
“Say it again,” he says, low and throaty. His voice makes desire travel down into my belly, pooling into the heat already there.
“I love you, I love you, I love you.” I murmur into his ear. A primal instinct takes hold of Cardan and he grabs my hips and meets them with his. I can feel him through the tulle of my dress, begging for more. I continue to whisper sweet words across in his ear, with my hands traveling all over his body.
While I am moving my hands, he moves his mouth. His cruel, wicked, devilish however talented mouth. His mouth presses hot open mouth kisses all over my exposed skin. I start to get breathy, and have to pause for a second to catch my breath from his searing kisses. I lean back, and look into his eyes. His eyes are pitch black, filled with nothing but me. I imagine that I have a similar look in my eyes.
Cardan suddenly whisks me up off my feet and twirls me around. I laugh, giddy with the feeling of him and the wine in me, to be frank. He just twirls me around and starts to dance a waltz to the tempo of us. My hands rest on his shoulders, his hands on my waist. I feel butterflies erupt where he touches me, even after all these years.
We stare into each other's eyes, following the steps of a classic waltz. Side, back, side, front. He leads me in this dance, the way he always does. Even with no music we still manage to perfectly dance with each other. Every once and and while Cardan would dip me down, or twirl me around.
We sway side to side, to the beat of our hearts. There is no music, no tempo to dance to, but with each, we need nothing but each of us. We dance a dance that we have danced a million times before, and one that we will continue to dance for years to come.
Cardan just gazes longingly into my eyes and we slow dance in the dark, his black eyes capturing me in his eyes.
I move a little closer and lean my head on his shoulder and he kisses my hair. As we continue to dance, the sun rises slowly, providing a backdrop to our little dance. Cardan twirls me one last time and kisses me softly, one filled with all the passion and love in the world.
***
We make our way back to the bedroom, hand in hand, and I feel warmth everywhere in me. We slowly walk there, not caring that we should be sleeping to get a good night's rest for the next day, but we don't care. All we want right now is each other.
He opens up the door and leads me in. I start to undo the back of my dress, but Cardan comes and helps me. The brush of his nimble digits against the sensitive skin of my back while undoing the laces has me wanting more of his touch. I slip out of the dress, and out of the slip and sheath I was wearing underneath it. All I am left with is my lacy undergarments I put on for him before I left to go see him.
“I see you took me up on my request.” Cardan says, raising a dark eyebrow in surprise.
“I know how much you cannot resist me like this.” I say, with a bit of mirth in my voice.
“And you would be correct my villain, as you always are.” He says as he pushes me to the bed. He pulls me up onto the bed and leans me back and climbs over me. He gives me a smirk, one that I have grown accustomed to over the years, one that he likes to give almost every time we start this.
“And so here is where the real fun starts.” He says and crashes his mouth against mine again, and we lose all control.