It’d been months since they’d admitted to loving one another. They still didn’t say it often, but as Gwen watched Jonathan read in their bed, she felt an ever-familiar flutter in her chest - love, she knew now. A tiny smile curled her lips, and her fingers pulled at the knot of her silk dressing gown as she made her way across the room.

“Is it terribly fascinating? Or do you think I might be able to distract you?” she asked as the silk gown fell from her shoulders.

Turning down the corner of the page he was currently reading, Jonathan tossed the book on his side table and watched Gwen slide across the sheets towards him with dark, intent eyes. “You don’t have to try very hard to distract me, love,” he murmured as she neared, hand reaching out to push her hair over one shoulder before pressing a kiss to her skin, lips skimming the thin strap of her nightgown.

“Mere existence?” she asked, smile touching the corners of her eyes as she pressed a kiss to his hair. “They say flattery will get you everywhere.”

“It’s not flattery if it’s the truth,” he responded, nimble fingers pushing aside the offensive bit of silk, her skin warm under his lips. “Besides, if I need flattery to get me anywhere, I’m not doing my job correctly.”

“Mmm,” she hummed as she arched her neck to allow him better access, “it is true that flattery often rings with insincerity.” Jonathan’s breath was hot on her skin and Gwen’s lids were heavy as shifted to straddle his lap, hands sliding into his hair. “I suppose I cannot attribute such a trait to you, at least pertaining to myself. In such regards, you have always been rather painfully honest.”

“I would never be dishonest with you,” he murmured against her skin, pulling back enough to peer up at her with darkened eyes, serious but still heavy with the feeling of her body against his, “even if you’d wish I were.”

Gwen regarded him with the same weight to her gaze. “It is why I have come to love you,” she told him as that something inside her fluttered again. She shifted her hands to cup his face and her thumbs dragged gently at the day’s stubble there. “I trust that there will only ever be truth between us. For all things,” her lips curled slightly, “even the mildly irksome and inconsequential things.”

Jonathan’s lips went crooked in a smirk as he brushed his cheek along her palm. “Mildly irksome. If I could promise you only mildly irksome things in the future, I would.” He let his hands shadow down the sides of her body, resting at her hips as he laid back against the mound of pillows, “and speaking of the future, Tess continues to ask when she’ll be able to meet her newest cousin.”

The girl had been talking almost non-stop, from sun up to sun down, about ‘Lil Lyra’ and how she couldn’t wait to see the little girl. That, coupled with the news of the Rascaile’s latest edition had the almost six-year-old aflutter with excitement.

“I would love to take her, but I doubt Romy is ready to entertain the whole family at a time. I wanted to go the first time without the girls.” Gwen tipped her head and watched him carefully. “I thought maybe you might like to go with me?”

He’d been around the whole family and Dora had hoisted Jude on him more often than not when she came to visit, but it was different with her brother’s child somehow. Lyra was a newborn as well, and Gwen knew that Jonathan had never been around the like.

He couldn’t help the lift of his eyebrows. He’d assumed that the first meeting with her new niece would be something personal, something private. The child carried her name, after all. And, despite the fact that he had spent more time around her family in the past year than he had around his own in the last thirty, it still surprised him when he was continually invited to share in their familial relationship.

He had little to no experience around children and could scarcely remember being one himself, but the time he’d spent with Tess, and Jude whenever Tonks was feeling benevolent with her first born, had him at least somewhat prepared for the types of things that could happen in the presence of a newborn. Or, at least the liquids that might make an appearance.

“If you’d like me to be there, you know I will be. Though I can’t promise not to make fun if she, sadly, took after your brother and not after Romy.”

Gwen raised a brow. “She’s my namesake. She will, of course, be lovely.”

Despite the way she was currently eyeing him, she was pleased. They had been lovers for a year, had lived together for nearly that, and had only shared their true feelings more recently. Jonathan was hers in a way that no man had ever been though, and it was the collection of moments like these that only furthered to assure of the declarations they had made.

Jonathan grinned then, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Well, when you put it like that, she’ll be the most gorgeous little girl there’s ever been. Naturally.”

“Naturally,” Gwen agreed. She couldn’t decide whether to be irritated at his cheek, or to be amused, and she continued to eye him doubtfully.

“We might have to sneak out without Tess realizing where we’re going, or we’ll have a very upset girl on our hands, and I don’t think an extra storybook at bedtime would be able to cover that particular slight.”

“But perhaps the promise of a pony?” Gwen suggested, lips quirking and chasing away the traces of irritation that still lingered. “I think she would be a talented rider, and it may even tire her out on occasion.”

“I’ve already promised her a pony, and informed her that it’s possible we’ll be looking for a house with a stable to house said pony,” Jonathan said, a look of innocence crossing his features when Gwen’s eyes narrowed in his direction. “I couldn’t help it! Have you seen her at eight in the morning? You’d have done the same thing if she’d looked at you with Those Eyes.”

“She has, and I made no such promises,” Gwen said dryly. Her lips quirked moments later, however. It warmed her that they were planning a life together, even indirectly. “I do think you are turning into a pushover.”

“I prefer the term ‘eager to please’.” Raising up to press the front of his body to hers, he wrapped his arms around hers, effectively pinning her in place, “and I don’t hear you complaining too often,” he smirked, leaning forward to press a kiss to the pale expanse of her neck.

“I’m sure I can find other things to fuss over,” she told him as she tested his grip on her experimentally. He held tight though, and her eyes darkened to a near-black. More often than not, she held him in place. This turn of events was not unwelcome, however.

“I’m assuming you’re not wanting to go over tonight?” Her look made it clear that, no, she hadn’t been meaning to visit her new niece just that moment, and his grin went crooked as he closed the distance between their mouths. “Then would it be alright if I suggest something that could occupy the intervening time?”

“It depends on what you’re suggesting.” The timbre of her voice was warm and low, and heat sluiced beneath her skin. Gwen brushed her lips against his, but did not attempt to deepen the almost-kiss. “What have you in mind?”

The tease of her lips against his left his eyes darkened and slightly narrowed as he looked at her. “It would involve less of this silk covering your skin, and more of your back against the silk of the sheets.”

“I like the direction of your thoughts,” she murmured as she tested his grip on her again. Jonathan was unyielding, and her lips curled slowly as her pulse began to pound insistently. “Do feel free to give them a try.”


Summary: Jonathan and Gwen share thoughts before bedtime.