Stephen laughs again when he has a moment to breathe, “What was I just saying about eloquence?”

Not that he’s complaining. He’s already stirring to life with the way she’s straddling his lap, hands twining into his hair, knees pressed either side of his comfortable rumpled trousers.

They have had each other in so many ways, learning and re-learning each other. Late at night, tipsy and clumsy and eager. In that fabled enchanted bathtub. The occasional misuse of their private offices.

Every version of Gwenaëlle is his favourite version of her, and here is another: bed-mussed and sleepy and warm, both of them waking up, cast in sunlight rather than dim shadows and moonlight. It means the room is bright, and he can see her in all detail; as he slides a hand to hike up her nightgown and help sweep the rest out of the way so he can reach bare skin. His other hand catches at Gwenaëlle’s uninjured cheek, the line of her throat, palming a breast as the strap of her nightgown starts to slip off one shoulder.

Only a few inches away: those wings, caught between skin and fabric.