[Mature] Rest Like You Belong Here

[Aremu Ediwo]

Lunch time, 29 Hamis, 2720
The Ibutatu House, Isla Dzum

Aurelie dressed him down rather thoroughly, the facts delivered almost scoldingly, though her smile and her hand over the back of his went a long way towards taking the sting from him.

Not, Aremu thought, all the sting. Yes, he wanted to say, I remember. In the mind’s eye of his memory, the cave hadn’t been so bad. He would rather have forgotten the slow, grueling swim to shore, and having been sick so many times before Aurelie. He would rather have forgotten the walk up to the house, in which he had leaned so much on her as they dragged him step by step along the sand, the grass, the road.

Chastised, Aremu just inclined his head in answer, not nodding for fear of worsening his ever-present headache. Of course I’m worried about you, Aurelie said, her hand soft on his.

Of course, Aremu could have said. He didn’t know if he should have. Even the struggle up the stairs that morning seemed as if it had happened to someone else; half of yesterday felt like a dream. Bits of it - kissing Aurelie in the cave, waking with her in his arms, kissing her again - were crisp and sharp, or so he wanted to tell himself. He couldn’t - he wouldn’t - forget them, or let them blur with the rest. If that meant he had the clung to the memories of his own pathetic weakness, Aremu thought, his stomach churning, he would.

I’ll be fine, he might have said, if not for the deliberate exactitude of her recitation; it seemed unfair, dismissive, and maybe even cruel to answer her so. He couldn’t bring himself to it.

“Thank you,” Aremu said automatically at the mention of egg wine. Egg and wine? He had never heard of such a thing, and his stomach churned at the thought of it. He looked back at the cup on the tray. Aurelie was curled against his side, just a little, closer than she had been downstairs. He couldn’t help but find it comforting; he couldn’t help but need the comfort.

“I’d better have it now then,” Aremu gave her cheek a last brush, and eased his hand away. He leaned over, conscious of not pressing too much against Aurelie, although some contact was inevitable. He took the warm cup from the tray, and looked down as he brought it back.

It was, he felt, oddly thick looking. It smelled like wine and spices, which might perhaps not have been unpleasant, but was so just now. He took a deep breath, set the cup to his lips, and drank.

He didn’t chug it all down, not sure if he was meant to; he didn’t take just a tiny sip earlier, but a decent slug of it. It was odd; it wasn’t as unpleasant as he had feared, though he wouldn’t quite have said it was good either. He swallowed against the protestations of his stomach, and smiled in a way he hoped was reassuring at Aurelie, sitting back against the headboard once more.

“Thank you,” Aremu said, after a moment, looking down at the warm cup curled beneath his fingers. He didn’t think he felt worse, at least, not once it was down. He drank a bit more, steeling himself to it, and then the last of it.

Aremu set the empty cup aside, and leaned back, breathing evenly in and out. His stomach was churning, and his head ached. If Aurelie settled against his side once more, he would wrap his arm around her, happy to have her close, and turn to brush his lips over her hair.

“How are you feeling?” Aremu asked. Not about me, he wanted to say, petulant, but it didn’t seem helpful. If she didn’t seem to mind, he would stroke his thumb gently over the outside of her arm, tender and careful.

The egg wine had woken him up a bit, at least, Aremu felt. He could sort of taste it in his mouth and on his tongue, and in his unsettled stomach. He didn’t feel on the verge of being sick; he also wasn’t sure he could manage any more food, not just now, though he wasn’t ready to admit it.

He looked down at Aurelie once more, her small round head and her lovely soft hair; he wanted to kiss it again - to kiss her again - but he held off. They needed, Aremu thought unpleasantly, to talk. For now he couldn’t seem to bring himself to it. There was too much warm comfort in the soft pressure of her body, nestled against his side. He was selfish, Aremu knew, but the lingering ache of guilt paled in comparison to how good it felt, to hold her so.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Hamis 29, 2720 - Lunchtime | The Ibutatu House, Isla Dzum

The look Aremu gave the egg wine was distinctly dubious. She did suppose it looked and sounded deeply suspect. She had never felt the egg came through much, but if you didn't care for the rest of it... Well. Aurelie watched him take a breath and drink it, a bit afraid she'd misstepped. Again.

He wasn't immediately leaving the room to be sick, which Aurelie decided to take as a good sign. Looking at his face, Aurelie couldn't tell what he made of it. She didn't ask. If Aremu found it very unpleasant, she didn't want to make him say it. Aurelie wouldn't have minded, but just now it struck her as not the sort of thing to drag out of him. He was, after all, very tired. She could ask later, if she remembered and still wanted to know. Whatever his opinion, he finished it all.

When he finished it and sat back again, she shifted to lean into his side once more. She had thought to leave him to sleep some more, if he wanted to, but he'd asked her to sit with him and didn't appear to have changed his mind. Surely that made it at least a little bit all right. There was nothing that required her immediate attention, no chores to do or tasks that needed sorting. She could have gone back to the attic, which she might well do later in the day. Just now, though, she felt that being under the weight of his arm was better than anywhere else.

"A bit tired," she said automatically in response to the question. "But fine otherwise." Better than you're doing, she didn't say, both because it seemed unfair and because she felt ashamed that it was so. The whole thing was nobody's fault, really, objectively. Somehow her gut told her it was hers, anyway. Had she been a better swimmer, or paying more attention, or...

She tilted her head back to look up, a smile tugging at her face. "I told you, I'm sturdier than I seem. The silver lining of a lifetime of—er, well." Oh, she hadn't meant to say that. Just a joke, anyway; she'd been a fairly healthy child, too. It wasn't only the labor of Brunnhold that had made her so, but it had certainly helped. The idea didn't make her ashamed, precisely. She was as proud of that as she was of anything about herself.

Aremu knew, of course. Obviously, he knew where she had spent most of her life. Aurelie didn't think on any level that he didn't; she just didn't like to bring it up. Foolish as it was to avoid it so. Aurelie didn't look away, but she tucked her hair self-consciously behind her ear.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Lunch time, 29 Hamis, 2720
The Ibutatu House, Isla Dzum

Aremu thought he should have looked away, perhaps, but he didn’t know why. He didn’t want to make her uncomfortable; he didn’t know where her limits were. Can I kiss you, he’d asked, and will you kiss me? Can I admire you, he wanted to ask now, absurdly, as if it were the sort of question one could answer.

He was still looking down when she glanced up at him, a little smile on her face. Sturdier than I seem, she said, cheerfully, and then the joke trailed off into nothing. Something seemed to ache a little in her eyes, and she reached up to tuck a loose strand of hair away behind her ears.

You’re very sturdy, he thought to say, and it seemed like a bad idea in an exceptional variety of ways. I like your sturdiness wasn’t, really, much better. You should be proud, he also couldn’t quite find the words for. If she’d finished the sentence, he thought, maybe, he could have – but he didn’t understand exactly why she hadn’t. He didn’t want to cause her more pain, if she didn’t want to speak of it; at the same time, he didn’t know whether it was that she thought he didn’t want to speak of it, that it made him uncomfortable. He wished he knew how to tell.

Instead, Aremu lowered his lips and brushed her hair with a soft kiss, his thumb stroking along the edge of her arm nonetheless. “I’m perfectly sturdy myself,” he pointed out, “and just look at me now.” He didn’t know – he didn’t know. He held her a little closer against him, and despite the awkwardness, it was comfortable and easy to do.

If you never want to speak of it, he wanted to promise, then there’s no need. If you do – I can’t promise I’ll know what to say, but I can promise to listen, and to try to say the right thing. Maybe there isn’t a right thing; maybe there’s only listening. I’ll to do that, then, because – it’s about what you need to have, and not about what I want to give.

Aremu’s thumb swept, slowly, over Aurelie’s arm; he looked down at her once more.

I want you, he wanted to say. I want to kiss every inch of you; I want to be with you, in whatever way you’d have me. There’s no rush, there’s no… urgency, or I hope there isn’t. Every time he thought to begin, that was where he found himself stuck, trying to make it clear that wanted to know what she wanted didn’t mean he needed it now.

Was it better, Aremu thought, nagging and uncertain, to do it piecemeal? To let her feel out what she liked, bit by bit, without asking her to know it all at the start? Or was that only asking he to linger in uncertainty. He didn’t even, Aremu thought uneasily, knew how much she knew of – but women were women, he thought, everywhere, and he couldn’t imagine such ignorance as that.

When she kissed him – when he ran her hand down her back and listened to her gasp – it was easy to forget all the rest. He didn’t want to forget it, exactly, but he didn’t know the right way to remember it either.

I like you, he wanted to say. I like you very much, Aurelie. It feels silly to put it that way, but I don’t know how else to say it, just yet. I think I could –

He busied himself with another kiss pressed to her head. “If I told you,” Aremu began, carefully, uncertainly, his thumb stroking her arm, letting his grip loosen just a little so that she could move away, if she wanted to, “that I’d like to kiss every one of your freckles – would that make you uncomfortable?”

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Hamis 29, 2720 - Lunchtime | The Ibutatu House, Isla Dzum

If Aremu thought anything of that half of a joke—even to say it was half seemed generous—he didn't say anything. Granted, Aurelie didn't know what she would have said to him if he'd asked about it, or even how he could have. It wasn't as if she would have avoided the topic entirely, she decided, but neither did she want to bring it up herself.

"Sturdiness does have limits," she conceded, looking back down. It was true, she didn't really doubt him. She frowned to herself, not sure that was what she meant to say. But she could think of nothing better, and it was easier to not try. Things only got more unclear when she made the attempt, anyway. "Flesh and bone are only so strong, after all."

Bells and chimes, but she really was tired. She hadn't realized how much until she said she was. She had ignored it all morning. Her own tiredness had seemed a lesser concern to everything else, both the day before and all this morning so far. She didn't think she could sleep if she tried; it wasn't that kind of tiredness. But she felt like she less settled and more sort of collapsed more against Aremu's side when he pulled her just that much closer. A nice sort of tired, in a way.

Silence settled over the both of them for a little while. Aurelie felt no need to speak into it, happy not to think of anything to fill it with. Which wasn't to say she wasn't thinking at all; she was, a great deal. Silly, drifting sorts of thoughts, like about how pleasant this all was (aside from her ever-present concern about Aremu's injury), or how much she liked the way Aremu's thumb brushed over her arm. About that morning, and the day before, and how she wasn't quite sure she cared if she was an idiot, after all.

"Hmm?" Aremu started speaking after a while; Aurelie wondered, rather idly, what he had been thinking about while she had been sitting there pondering how nice kissing him was, and if she should be concerned about her own levels of foolishness. He'd kissed her head, but also loosened his hold on her; she wasn't quite sure where that statement was going.

Then it did, in fact, reach its destination. Rather unfortunately, she had not become a more clever or collected person while they sat there together on her bed. "There's quite a lot of them," was the first thing that squeaked out of her mouth, and she had to squeeze her eyes shut briefly.

"N-no, not. Ah, not uncomfortable. Uhm. Despite appearances. Er." She thought she should perhaps have sat up, looked him in the eye. She was sort of glued to the spot she was in now, suddenly reminded of the wildly flattering things he'd said yesterday. She had rather assumed it was mostly the blood loss, even after everything, but... Ticks, she was turning absolutely bright red, she knew she was.

There was no way out but through, really, at this point. "I, ah. Just easily, uhm. W-well. I certainly wouldn't object if you did—ah." She hadn't meant to say that quite that way. She had meant to think of some other way to put it. Something better. Less... that. But she was who she was, evidently, no matter the circumstances. An absolute fool.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Lunch time, 29 Hamis, 2720
The Ibutatu House, Isla Dzum

There’s quite a lot of them, Aurelie said.

Aremu couldn’t help it; he grinned, a soft little laugh escaping from him. He didn’t think he should have laughed, and it wasn’t at her, not quite. Her voice was half a squeak though, and her eyes squeezed shut, but she was every bit as cuddled into his side as she had been, and – for all her embarrassment, it hadn’t been anything like a no.

Not uncomfortable, Aurelie said, insistently, despite appearances. She was flushing bright red, all the way over her cheeks; his hand crept up around her, and he stroked his thumb over the blushing red color, tenderly, as her eyes opened again. He could feel the warmth of her blush against his fingers.

“Good,” Aremu said, softly. He smiled at her. “I do want to,” he said, cuddling her into his side again, and settling his hand on her shoulder once more, back down to her arm. “Especially if there's quite a lot,” he said, a little of the laugh back in his voice once more.

Aremu smiled at her again, his eyes searching the bright red planes of her face. He took a deep breath. It wasn’t, he thought, now or never, but he wanted to begin as he meant to go on, even if it meant the bright red glow of her face, even if it meant the risk of shattering the comfortable peace of her curled against him. “It’s important to me to ask,” he said, quietly, holding her a little closer once. “It’s important to me that you’re – I don’t know if it’s better to call it comfortable or enthusiastic, but that you want what we’re doing. I never want to do anything you’d regret; I never want to do anything we can’t talk about.”

Aremu took a deep breath. He didn’t know if he was doing it right; he didn’t know how much of it needed to be said. He wasn’t sure if he had ever really tried to say it all out loud before, all of it, all the bits and pieces that usually went unspoken. He knew there had been times when he hadn’t said them, when he hadn’t understood, when he had counted on himself to fill in the silence and the gaps, and when he’d been wrong. He didn’t think he’d ever really hurt someone in the so doing, but – there were moments that shamed him, in the looking back, and that he thought shamed those he’d been with too.

“I want you to know too that… saying yes once doesn’t mean you have to say it again and it doesn’t mean you have to keep going,” Aremu pressed another kiss to her hair. “Does that all make sense, Aurelie? I don’t know if I’m explaining well but I hope it’s all right that I’ve tried.”

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Hamis 29, 2720 - Lunchtime | The Ibutatu House, Isla Dzum

Somewhere underneath the furious burning of her face, she was rather glad he'd laughed at her surprised squeaking. That was better than taking it very seriously, in any direction. It had been a completely silly thing to say, and she didn't feel too much as if the laughter was directed at her. Not, she thought, that she could have blamed him much for laughing at her either.

Good, he said, after moving his hand to her face that she didn't need to see to know was absurdly warm. Oh, well, she almost said, then you're in luck. There are more of them now than there were even a week ago, and likely will only continue to multiply. She couldn't bring herself to say it, not even to make him laugh again. He would have, she thought. Or she hoped so, anyway, because it was both true and ridiculous.

She did her best to shepherd all her thoughts into some sort of control when Aremu took a breath again, looking at her. She also did her best to look up at his face directly, which was wildly embarrassing considering she was coming more and more to resembling an overripe tomato. Aurelie could not for the life of her figure out what was appealing enough to be having this conversation, but that was something she could pull apart in her own mind when she was alone. She was a fool and an idiot, but not so far gone as that, at least.

Wanting was one thing, and regret another. Talking about things was another matter entirely. Clearly, that was not where she excelled. She understood what he was saying, of course, and why. It wasn't, she thought with something like an ache, an unfamiliar line. Sweet, even; Aurelie found herself smiling, flustered as she was.

She chewed on her lip, quiet for a moment. If ever she were to have even a fraction of what was, supposedly, a Steerpike ability granted to the women in her family by right of blood—the ability to carry on a conversation like a normal person, that is, although the whole rest of her family was quite a bit better at it than that—she would like it to be now. There were a few points in the past where she would have liked it as well, but this moment was high among them.

"It all makes sense," she said at last, laughing just a little. There was something terribly sweet and a little sad to her about having all of this laid out for her a second time. "And of course it is. I'm—hmm." She looked away then at last, rather overwhelmed.

"I am not, er. Well clearly not the best, ah. With talking. Communicating. Generally. But I can, ah, do my... my best. I, ah. Hope, also, it. You... Hmm. Yes. I appreciate—well." Chimes she sounded like an idiot. She knew she did, nobody needed to tell her—she had functioning ears, after all. "S-so far so good, though. Ah. I hope. Uhm. In, er. Enthusiasm, I mean."

[Aremu Ediwo]

Lunch time, 29 Hamis, 2720
The Ibutatu House, Isla Dzum

Her face was glowing red, but Aurelie laughed a little, looking up at him, and said it made sense. Aremu smiled, relieved, his hand gently stroking up and down her arm.

As she so often did, she splintered; he thought, looking at her, that it wasn’t that she lost her train of thought, but rather that she lost her conviction about what to say next. He thought in the midst of it that she had promised to try to talk to him, which sounded good.

I hope, she said, and then, trailing off, you.

I what? Aremu wanted to ask. He could fill in a thousand endings. I hope you don’t push too hard - I hope you don’t want to do this or that - I hope you’ll listen to me -

I won’t, Aremu wanted to say, or I will, whatever you want. He couldn’t answer what she hadn’t said; he didn’t even have a fingerhold in the wall of it, not even the tiniest bit of rock to begin up.

So far so good, Aurelie said instead, in terms of enthusiasm. Her face was scarlet, radiating heat.

It wasn’t that Aremu liked the blushing, exactly. He didn’t mind it either; he couldn’t think just then of anything he minded, except maybe the occasional unfinished sentence. She was trying, though, and listening, and he was grateful for that, enough to make up for a lot.

He knew he grinned; it had faded a little as he listened, his habitual frown finding its place in the center of his forehead. There at the end it had smoothed away. He could think of a lot of things to say, just then; none of them were quite right.

Aremu leaned down and kissed her, instead; it wasn’t a short kiss either but a lingering one, and then another, and another. His head hurt a little, and the angle was awkward for his neck, and none of it mattered, in the least. His hand settled on her side, fingers spanning her waist; it crept to her back, stroking the line of her spine once more, slow and steady through the thicker fabric of her clothing, all the way down to the small of her back.

It was hard to pull away; it was flooding hard. He did, and then kissed her again, and eased back a little, resting against the headboard once more.

“Is there anything you want me to do?” Aremu asked, softly, his voice an entirely different kind of hoarse now. His hand curled over her hip, careful and gentle, his thumb carefully tracing the edges of her hip bone against her side. “Or anything you want to do to me?”

Tell me, Aurelie, he wanted to beg, please; tell me what you want. He could hear the roughness of it in his voice; he didn’t think he could have hidden it even if he had wanted to.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Hamis 29, 2720 - Lunchtime | The Ibutatu House, Isla Dzum

Why was saying any of this so hard? Aurelie liked to think of herself as a practical, pragmatic person. There was no real reason it should be, other than she was so certain she sounded like an idiot every time she opened her mouth. That was true often enough, one would think she would have gotten used to it. None of it would be quite so awful if she could just manage to get through a single thought from start to end.

It must be very frustrating, trying to talk to her. Aurelie found herself frustrating to listen to, and she knew what she was trying to say to a much greater degree. With her words that were always getting tangled on the end of her tongue, trapped behind the gates of her teeth. The only ones that reliably made it out were the ones that she hadn't considered well enough. I know, she wanted to say, and I'm sorry, I don't do it on purpose. I don't know why I am this way, either.

Aremu had smiled at her, at least, for a while; it had shifted to a frown in the middle of that mess of what one was forced to call speaking, but that too had faded away by the end of it. He looked at her a moment; Aurelie was struck, as she was often enough, by all the pleasant angles of his face and how well it all fit together. At that moment she didn't know she could have said much of anything. Luckily, she was saved from having to try.

Kissing she could do; it was harder to second-guess herself this way. That was the problem with her, really. Actions were so much easier, but she knew that words had to go with them. Eventually, they were necessary, and good, and practical. But now wasn't eventually, and Aurelie was happy enough to return every single one of those kisses and let them last as long as they would. She shouldn't have, she knew she shouldn't have. This was not at all what she'd come up here to do, but his hand was on her back and she had, at some point, put hers somewhere in the region of his neck.

"W-well," she said when he pulled away at last, leaning his head back. Aurelie shifted, less to his side and more beginning to sprawl across his lap, again. She bit her lip. The way he asked made her head spin in the most pleasant way. "That's, ah, a long list. Uhm, I mean— You made an excellent suggestion. But..."

She brought her hands up to the sides of his face, holding it there and looking at him. She tried not to think too much about what her face looked like; there was nothing she could do for it. She was, she knew, hopelessly fond. All the warning signs were there, she could see them for what they were now. It seemed to her no wiser an idea now than it had been before; it seemed to her that she couldn't in the least bit stop herself from feeling so.

"What I want most of all, at the moment, is for you to be well. S-so I think that rather narrows it down to, ah, 'nothing that jostles your head'. I think." Oh, please let the joke come through. She wasn't sure it had; she hadn't quite said it like she meant to, as lightly and easily as she thought she should have. It really was quite the list, that tally of things she wanted, and she had the distinct feeling that it would only get longer.

[Aremu Ediwo]

Lunch time, 29 Hamis, 2720
The Ibutatu House, Isla Dzum

A long list, Aurelie promised, and if her voice was a little shaky, he didn’t quite think it was a bad thing. He grinned, his hand still firmly on her hip; she squirmed a little more into his lap, and he smiled at her.

But, she said, and Aremu nodded, looking at her, her hands coming up to hold his cheeks. He smiled a little, softly. But, she had said, and he wanted to listen - to respect her and her concerns, whether he understood or not.

His eyebrows went up as she went on. She looked very earnest, sitting half across his lap, her gaze searching his face, her hands on his cheeks, all of her blushing red.

I’ll be fine, he wanted to say, dismissively, as if she didn’t have any reason to worry, as if she didn’t have any right to. He didn’t; he knew it would be true, but he didn’t say it. She had all but dragged him up from the beach; she had washed his head and shoulder and bandaged him, and made him whatever that strange wine had been, and he thought - he understood - that it would be cruel to dismiss her.

Aremu smiled, instead, and it was soft and it ached a little bit. It was so easy - so easy - to think of what this might mean, what it was there tucked between her words. He didn’t - couldn’t - let himself. You know better, Aremu thought; she can’t - she doesn’t. Not you; not -

It was easier to go a different way, easy to put those things which he didn’t know whether to call hopes or fears aside. He found that he could do so.

“Then,” Aremu said; he shifted back against the headboard, one of the pillows tucked against his back a bit. “I’ll sit here,” he said, softly, stroking her hip with his thumb. “Keeping my head very still,” he grinned at her, “and let you do whatever sounds good, while I’m very - very still. And I shall promise to kiss each of your freckles another time.” He wanted to lean forward and kiss her again, but he didn’t; he held, back against the headboard, conscious still of the rough throb in his voice.

He knew - he knew she might go. He understood; he didn’t think he would mind if she wanted to go and let him sleep, or start feeding him broth with a spoon. He knew what he wanted - floods, did he ever want, and it ached through every inch of him - but he could wait. He had never thought this possible, Aremu thought; surely in just the last day waiting could not have become so unbearable.

He couldn’t held smiling at her though, all the same.

[Aurelie Steerpike]

Hamis 29, 2720 - Lunchtime | The Ibutatu House, Isla Dzum

Whatever her intention had been, saying that, it had somewhat backfired. No, backfired wasn't right—the results were not objectionable in any way, and she thought the word implied that. For instance, she liked that smile on his face, even as she tried not to read more into it than was there. In her strange sort of sprawl, Aremu's hand hadn't moved from her hip; she liked that, too. She even liked the teasing. Or, she rather thought it had to be, because... Because.

She couldn't imagine much of an alternative. Although, she suddenly realized she had no idea how obvious it was that she only barely knew what she was about here. Surely it was written all over every red-tinted inch of her. Or was it? Aurelie didn't know which idea was more unsettling—that it was, and she seemed hopelessly naive, or that it wasn't. It didn't matter, she told herself; it was merely a fact about herself. That she had even limited experience at all, in the normal way of things—

—The normal way of things in a very specific sort of environment. Although, if she weren't the way she was, she would be even less... Oh, chimes. She was really thinking too much, and all over nothing. Stop that, she scolded herself, and pull yourself together. She had been smiling the whole time, even as she thought all of the nonsense in her head; she found herself smiling more the longer she looked at him.

"W-whatever? Hmm." It was a very appealing idea, all of her strange anxieties aside. In a way. Gracious Lady, she really was an idiot. Her hands were still at his face, and the rest of her halfway across his lap, and she was just staring, the look on her face getting more stupidly fond by the second. There ought to be a law, in her opinion, against someone being both wonderful to look at and be around when she shouldn't...

Chimes.

Aurelie gave up. There was no urgency, no need to have everything she wanted right this moment—except her own, and that was rather insistent. She moved so she wasn't just halfway sitting in his lap, but all the way so. That, she thought, wasn't too much—she'd done it more than once already. Idiot, her mind said again, but she ignored it. It was, after all, much easier this way. Less twisting around. She swallowed once, heavily, and then pressed forward to catch his mouth with her own. Soft and shallow, but only for a moment, before all other concerns apparently fled her mind.

"M-maybe you don't have to be, ah, entirely still..." Aurelie mumbled as she pulled back, biting her lip on a smile sprawled out somewhere between pleased and embarrassed.