Unquiet Intervention

III: Peak Perfection

Sweeney had been the first to wake up the next morning, his vision slightly blurred and his mind slightly confused about his surroundings. Even after a week of living there, he hadn't gotten used to their new life just yet. Perhaps he thought it was too good to be true, given how pessimistic he was - if that was the case, then it was no wonder that the man couldn't settle.

He was laid on his side over their make-do mattress, sheets clinging to his skin from the humidity of his body. He was too comfortable to move, and his heart was beating at a calm rate... which was unusual for him. He'd normally wake up with a torrent of adrenaline rushing through his body, but something had soothed him on this particular morning.

It was then, that he recalled the events of the night before. There were brief snippets of shiver-inducing memories coming back to him - the desperate way in which Eleanor had hooked her arms around his neck, the addictive way her opulent beauty had hypnotised him as she'd moved above him, the overwhelming way her entire life force swallowed him up completely off of the face of the Earth...

Hell, she'd bewitched him.

Bewitched him to the point where most of his thoughts were consumed by her. It strangely made him feel more composed, and slightly more excitable. Apparently she was the only living thing that was a physical reminder that he too, was alive - of course, being in control of a stranger's fate was something else that caused his heart to beat that little bit faster. However, he realised that she was unlike any human he'd ever met before. After yet another intimate night together, he'd finally figured out that she was his agenda now.

Now that there was no one else left.

It was just the two of them.

He floated back down to reality after a few minutes, her peaceful breaths attracting the attention of his ears.

She was pressing herself to the back of him, so much so, that he could feel the outline of her breasts through the thin layer of shirt which she adorned. A pleasant wave of heat washed over him, and he found himself feeling oddly proud that she was wearing something that she'd stripped off his person the night prior...

One of her arms lightly clutched around his side, her invitingly tender palm resting over his lower abdomen. Her other arm had fallen into place some hours ago, as her fingertips had kept on gently grazing the toasty skin at the base of his spine as he'd slept.

Now that he was awake, he wanted the visual aspect of Eleanor to attribute her soft breaths - the man couldn't resist watching her sleep. Not wanting to alarm her, he subtly tensed his back muscles and moved a fraction so that he could sneak a look at her over his shoulder.

As he pleasantly expected, the sight of her caused his breath to get that little bit shorter.

Her dark copper hair was tangled into an untidy knotted nest, propped up against the dreary canvas of the cushion beneath her head. Her body was completely defenceless, limp even. He could have watched her like this for hours. Perhaps days.

As he trailed his eyes over her like she was some kind of intricate spectacle, the minutes seemed to pass by like they were nothing more than split-seconds. For some reason, he liked that she was utterly oblivious to him studying her - it was the only time he found that he could do such a thing without her big mouth interrupting him with her verbal desires of marriage, or daydreams littered with wonders of where they were to direct their lives now...

None of it mattered to him. The fact they'd technically escaped the death penalty was enough of an achievement for him. If the man could have had a trophy for doing such a thing, he bloody well would have.