"What are you doing?" I asked.
She kissed me again. "Shut up and undress me."
"You'll wake the baby…"
"He's downstairs with Lesley." She tugged my jacket off my arms and pulled my shirt out of my trousers, I could feel her nipples hardening under her blouse. I started fumbling with her buttons. She grabbed the blouse and ripped it open, exposing her breasts and shrugged it from her shoulders, then tugged at the belt of my trousers.
"But I thought…"
"Stop it! Stop thinking. You think too much. You pull things apart until there's nothing left. You analyse everything until it's torn apart. Don't think. Feel."
She tugged me by the belt towards the bed, pulling my shirt over my head and kissing me again. We fell on to the bed and kicked off our remaining clothes, wrapping our bodies together.
She bit my shoulder, making me squeal, "Ow! That hurts"
"That's for being stupid." She nibbled my ear, making me squirm, "and that's for thinking too much." She had her hands on my naked rear, wriggled beneath me. She kissed me long and languid, lifting her hips, and my body took over from my brain and I finally stopped trying to think.
A little while later I was staring at the ceiling, stroking her hair while she lay on top of me, resting her head on my chest. The length of her naked warmth was laid down my body, so that her legs rested between mine. I sighed.
"A pigeon for your thoughts," she said.
"It's a penny," I reminded her.
"You always say that, but it doesn't make it right."
"I hate pigeons."
"I don't suppose they're that keen on you," she said.
We lapsed into silence again; I could feel the rise and fall of her chest where she lay on me.
"You're not leaving me then?" I asked, tentatively.
She leaned over and sank her teeth into my side.
"Ow! Ow! That hurts! Let go!" I rubbed where her teeth had nipped the skin. I rubbed it with the palm of my hand. "I'm going to have a mark there."
"You shouldn't ask such stupid questions."
"Teeth are off limits. No teeth. OK?"
"That's not what you said earlier," she purred.
"That was different."
"You have to make your mind up then. Teeth or no teeth?" Her hand stroked across my chest, circling where my chest hair surrounded my nipple.
"Why is everything so complicated?" I asked her.
"It's not complicated. You simply have to decide what you want and what you're prepared to do to get it."
"Is that what you did?"
There was a long pause. I carried on stroking her hair.
"I admit, when I first met you I was thinking that you already had a daughter, so maybe another baby wasn't impossible for you. But you have to remember that you were marked by the Untainted. I'd never heard of anyone surviving to the next dawn in those circumstances. It was unlikely at best, and I offered what I could, partly from selfishness, it's true, but I would have made sure you enjoyed it."
"What changed your mind?"
"About you? I don't remember a specific moment. Between threatening to skewer you with a knife and losing you on the Way, something changed. I found I cared about losing you."
"Do you still care?"
She pressed her nails into the soft skin at each side with increasing pressure.
"OK, OK, I give in." The pressure relaxed
Lifting her head, she rose up on her arms to face me, studying my face intently.
"What?" I asked.
She shuffled upwards so that she could straddle my hips and sit across me, taking both my hands in hers and intertwining the fingers, pressing them down so that her hands were over my shoulders. I leaned up to kiss a nipple, but she evaded me, looking serious.
There was a hint of green fire somewhere in the darkness of her eyes.
"Know this, Niall Petersen. I have loved you almost since the day I met you. I cannot promise to love you for ever, because I do not know what the future will bring, for either of us, but right here, right now, I love you."
"I love you too."
She lifted her hand, mine still entwined, and pressed it against my lips. "Don't say that unless you mean it. I do not demand it of you. I do not even ask it."
"I do. When I thought you were leaving I was… I don't know what I would have done."
"Someone…" She stopped, and sighed, and tried again. "Before I met you, someone hurt you. Maybe it was Katherine, and maybe it was someone else, I don't know and I'm not blaming anyone for it. But you hold yourself closed, like any moment you expect the floor to drop out from under you."
I didn't say anything. The knot had reappeared in my throat and I didn't think I could speak.
"I just want you to know," she said quietly, "that I won't do that to you."
She leaned down and gently kissed my lips.
She added, "I might stick a knife in your ribs, or bash your head in with a rolling pin, but I won't do that to you."
I smiled, and she smiled too.
"Which might be sooner rather than later if you don't get me out of here. Seriously, if I have to change another nappy today I am going to go stark-raving mad. I love our son dearly, but he's a little shit-bottom."
"All part of the joys of parenthood," I said.
"Well if you don't want to find him skewered to a door post, you're going to have to do something."
"Far be it from me to tell Blackbird of the Fey'ree when she can come and go. The world is your oyster, Mistress." I hadn't forgotten her earlier words, despite our current rapprochement.
"That smart mouth will get you into trouble." She kissed it for emphasis. "I can feel my brain going to mush. I haven't had a decent conversation that doesn't involve nappy-rash for weeks. Don't look hurt, I don't mean you. It's just that I've always been active and enquiring; I spent the last thirty years as an academic. The lack of any kind of mental stimulus is driving me to distraction. I need something to get my teeth into."
"I'll see if I can come up with something."
"Maybe I could come with you on one of your Warder missions?"
"I don't think Garvin would approve," I pointed out.
"Stuff Garvin. I don't need his permission."
"Woah, I was just pointing out that Warder business possibly wasn't the best way to get some fresh air."
"You don't need to protect me, Niall."
"It's not that. I'm already feeling out of my depth. I meant it when I told you I messed up this morning. We could have caught them if I had been quicker on my feet."
"And then what happens to them?" she asked.
"Whatever. They join the courts? We all live happily ever after?"
"Something tells me that's not what Garvin has planned."
"I know you don't see eye to eye with him, but you don't have to see a conspiracy in everything he does."
"Where is Angela?" she asked, innocently.
"The seer? She's staying in the house, isn't she? Garvin said he'd ask Mullbrook to find her somewhere."
"Have you seen her since then?" she asked.
"Well no, since you come to mention it."
"So where is she?"
"It's a big house. There are plenty of empty rooms."
"It makes you wonder, doesn't it? What are they all for?"
"Now you really are going off track. I promise I will find something for you to do." She squeezed my hand, "For us to do together, then. Just don't rattle Garvin's cage any more than you have to, OK? He's already on my case."
"He probably wouldn't approve of you having sex when you're supposed to be on duty," she said, releasing my hand and stroking across my chest so it brushed my nipple.
"We won't tell him then, eh?"
She released my other hand and leaned down for a long slow kiss. She whispered warm in my ear, "He's probably listening at the keyhole." She lifted my hands to her breasts so I could caress my thumbs over her nipples while she stroked down my arms. She wriggled on top of me in response.