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Three years.
They had been together three years and married for two of those. Hardly any of that time had been spent in the Grand Necropolis, and yet, their apartment here was more a home to Rook than anywhere else had ever been.
All the keepsakes and mementos of the life they had built together had been returned and stored safely within these walls as they traveled. None of it replaced the life Emmrich had had without her. It could still be seen and felt, warm and rich, if a bit lonely, and perhaps that was why it felt like home. This place was Emmrich, broken down into all the pieces that had made him who he was.
In a way, the life she had once could be felt here, too, but only because Rook did not have much to start with. Her personal possessions had highlighted that when she moved in, being very few but precious and all acquired much later in life.
Rook had more now. More than she ever thought she would, and she had fought gods to have it. Still, Emmrich would offer her the world simply because it was in his nature to give his all. She had no use for the world, but Emmrich gave it to her anyway in being himself.
There was no doubt she returned the same to him. Emmrich was a romantic at heart, after all. Her joy brought him joy; Rook swept him off his feet as Emmrich swept her off of hers— and that was honestly all she wanted, to give Emmrich all the happiness in the world.
Starting a family had always been a part of that, and their return home upon her pregnancy could not be happier for it. Especially now that she was unpacked and settled back in.
Rook played with her necklace as she looked around their bedroom. Comforting, earthy tones on the walls, then splashes of life and color strewn throughout. A breeze moved the translucent curtains on the large, canopied bed.
The Necropolis mirrored the weather topside on the residential floor, and the dry summer wind had been the same on their wedding night. Cool against her sweat-dampened skin, while the heat of Emmrich had seemed endless.
An echo of that heat coiled low in her belly at the recollection. Rook smiled to herself at the pulse of arousal. Her desire for Emmrich would never fade. Of that, she was certain. But it had become considerably more insistent in the weeks since she had detected the faintest life signature coming from within.
Emmrich did not mind, of course, and not just because he got to share in her body more often. It was more than that when they were intimate. It was always more than that, and thinking about it only made Rook want him more.
She looked toward the doorway that would lead her to Emmrich and caught a glimpse of her reflection. It was not her likeness in the mirror that gave her pause, but the glint of gold twisted around her fingers.
It was Watcher tradition to mark special occasions with gold or jewelry. Still, the pieces Emmrich had given her for their wedding were anything but traditional.
Rook wore one of the necklaces as part of her funeral dowry, but most pieces were not conducive to daily wear. Still, she loved them and what they represented. Wore them every chance she got, too, but even then, that had only amounted to a handful of formal events.
How it had never crossed her mind to wear them for Emmrich like this before now was beyond her. Especially since it was not often Rook had the opportunity to surprise him with a romantic gesture.
He was still contemplating potential teaching and research avenues when Rook stepped through the doorway fifteen minutes later. Ankle over knee on the chaise longue, a cup of tea on the side table. Emmrich’s gaze lifted from his notes at her appearance, and Rook watched the way the rest of the world ceased to exist for him.
“I think you should take a break,” she told him. “We have time to figure out the details.”
At first, he did not say anything, only appraised her with a quiet reverence. His eyes traveled over the swell of her breasts and hips, lingering where the gold adorned her naked body and contrasted vividly against her brown skin. Rook had enough objectivity about her appearance to know she was attractive, but with Emmrich’s eyes on her like this, she felt almost intimidatingly so. It made her shiver. Just a little. Sending goosebumps rising across her skin.
“After such an extended sabbatical, some extra care and attention feels appropriate, but I am always happy to return that to you. Especially when you are so clearly in need of it.”
Her lips curved into a smile, and warmth settled in her chest. Stronger somehow than the flare of heat between her legs.
“Is it that obvious?” she asked.
Emmrich set the pages aside. “Come here, darling, so I may remedy this.”
Rook crossed the distance between them in several unhurried strides. She set her knee on the cushion and paused for a moment. He was beautiful, strikingly so with his pale skin, sharp features, and dark eyes lined with kohl. Then, his hand extended to her, and Rook placed her fingers in his so Emmrich could welcome her closer.
She climbed into his lap so that she was straddling him. Her knees settled on either side of his hips with his growing hardness pressed intimately against her. Emmrich briefly caressed her cheek before touching her shoulder, where several necklaces converged.
He lifted one of the chains. Thousands of tiny, delicate rings had been looped together in intricate patterns to form chains resembling solid strands of gold. Thin and light but deceptively strong. The firelight illuminated the strand, making it glitter as Emmrich lightly ran it through his fingers. Instantaneously, the memory of him placing these on her the first time rose to the surface of her mind.
A link for every moment that has bound us together.
Emmrich must have been recalling it, too, because when his gaze lifted again, he was looking at her in the exact same manner.
“I have always believed there is no man as fortunate as I, and yet, you find new ways to show me how little I truly grasp the extent of it.”
Like then, Rook felt she should say something, but before she could, Emmrich shifted forward. His forehead and nose brushed against her face, and he kissed her.
It was a slow, searing kiss. Lips brushing, noses nuzzling. Emmrich sighed in approval at the taste of her, his tongue caressing hers for several long minutes before pulling away to trail a line of kisses along the column of her throat.
Throughout, Emmrich explored her with his hands. They drifted down her sides, over her hips, and back up to palm her breasts. The chain linked across his palm and the gold adorning her body seemed to scald her skin as Emmrich touched her.
His thumb circled her nipple, already taut with her own arousal, and Rook shifted against the concealed length of him, restless, as the empty ache inside her only grew. Emmrich made a soft sound in the back of his throat and throbbed against her, a little bite of teeth gracing her throat with the following kiss.
“If I could mark every significant moment between us, you’d have all the gold in the world,” he told her.
“All I want is you.”
“And that is why they are all significant.”
At the gentle tug on her hips, Rook lifted up on her knees, and Emmrich pressed a kiss to her sternum, then the inside of her breast. His shoulders shifted underneath her hands as he adjusted the crimson sash around his waist to get to the laces of his trousers.
“Would you like me to move?” Rook asked.
“No, dearest, stay right here. Just like this.”
The thought of sinking down onto Emmrich and pleasuring him while he was fully dressed and she wore only the gold he had given her sent a scorching line of heat through her. Then, Rook gasped as Emmrich dragged his fingers through her folds, gathering her wetness and spreading it over her clit.
“I want to watch you savor every sensation I bestow upon you.”
A needy sound left her as she canted her hips to make it easier for him to touch her, but Emmrich seemed content to only trace gentle, exploratory circles over her that were nowhere near enough. Especially when he closed his mouth around the hardened peak of her nipple.
“Emmrich, please.”
“You are the most exquisite thing I’ve had the privilege to touch or taste— or be inside of.”
She whimpered as his fingers left, but then the head of his cock set against her in perfect alignment, and Rook was slick enough that she sank down onto him with ease. Her body practically sang at the feel of him stretching her.
Emmrich sighed as she took him. Then, his hands, his beautiful hands, fell to her waist as Rook rolled her hips and slid herself up the entire length of him, then down again. Slowly and deliberately.
Rook rode him like that. Tucking her feet underneath herself so she could feel every inch of him. He rested so deep. Thick and heavy and dragging perfectly against her walls again, and again, and again.
Heat crept down her spine. Pooled in the small of her back. Rook tried to ignore her own building pleasure. Tried to focus on Emmrich and making this last. But the way he watched her, touched her, murmured things against her skin and mouth in different languages only served to fuel it.
The intensity of her affection for Emmrich had filled in every available bit of space inside her. It had been like that almost from the start, neither of them understanding that every moment spent together had been laying the foundation for something far greater than companionship or passion. Or maybe even love.
Emmrich always made her feel so full. Mind and spirit. The way he fit inside her. She needed him like she needed air.
“Emmrich,” she breathed. “Oh, Emmrich. I…”
“I know, my dearest. I have you. I will always have you.”
He would. Rook knew he would, and she felt tears prickle the corners of her eyes. Then, she came suddenly with a soft, surprised cry. Bowing to her pleasure as the orgasm rushed through her, stealing her breath and her thoughts.
“Stunning,” he murmured. “My greatest treasure.”
Emmrich gripped the curve of her ass, his other hand pressing the backdrop pendant into her spine to keep her steady. Guiding her. Dragging out her ecstasy as he chased after his own. Rook felt it more than anything when he found it. The throb of him inside her, the warm rush of his seed. Emmrich’s mouth on her throat before Rook managed to find his lips with her own.
He ran his hands down her back, then gripped her hips as if to keep her in place. She rested her forehead against his for a moment, feeling his thickness still within her, the connection between them in the peace that followed.
“I love you,” Rook offered, even though it did not accurately capture what she really wanted to tell him.
“I love you too, darling.”
Emmrich kissed her a final time before allowing her to withdraw. A trickle of his come leaked out on her way to the bedroom, but better her than his clothing.
She was in her smalls, placing the headpiece back in its box, when Emmrich joined her. His hair was slightly ruffled from her sliding her fingers through it, but outside of that, he looked as if nothing had happened.
Rook smirked. “I wish I could be as perfectly put together as you.”
The back of his fingers skimmed over her stomach before moving to undo the clasp of her waist chain. “Perfection is an abstraction influenced by individual perception, and you, my dear, are the definition of it for me.”
Again, that feeling rose within her, even as the words to describe it slipped from her grasp as they always did.
“Do you remember when I told you about Solas asking me to name that feeling where everything grows quiet as you near home, and I couldn’t?” she asked.
A hint of tension appeared at the corner of his eyes. “I do,” Emmrich replied, then hung the chain on the wall. “He said it’s part of your soul reaching for a feeling and finding emptiness because that emotion does not exist anymore, and thus neither does its spirit.”
Rook touched his jaw. “Sometimes, I can’t explain how you make me feel, but when I reach for it, and my soul goes quiet, it doesn’t feel the same. It never feels empty. It feels— I don’t know, like you.”
Emmrich pressed his lips together in a faint half-smile, the one he gave her when he was feeling particularly touched by something she had said or did.
“I daresay it is another emotion that no longer has a name. Another thing lost that most do not know existed or experience its absence and wonder. Then, we know less about souls with certainty than we do anything else. But, Esha, my darling, I’d know the feeling of yours anywhere.”
She smiled, nodded a little, and thought, for a moment, that she might actually cry. But then it passed, and she burrowed into Emmrich’s arms as they wrapped around her. His thumb followed the ridges of her spine as he held her.
“I’m relieved it’s not just me,” she said.
Emmrich kissed the top of her head. “As I said, dearest. I have you. I will always have you.”
Rook inhaled, feeling the steady beat of his heart against her cheek and that sense of warmth and safety he seemed to instill from within. She did not share his fear of dying. She feared having to live without him until death would allow them to reunite.
But maybe, just maybe, she would always feel him there when her soul reached for something it couldn’t find.
“And I have you.”