To my lovely wife. You amaze me! And I love you, with all my heart.

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kairos

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The snow crunches beneath their feet and the crisp air stains their cheeks pink as wisps of fog rise and swirl with every breath they expel. The sun shines incandescently from a cerulean, cloudless sky, glinting off the snow, and the seemingly endless white blanket around them glitters and gleams like the world was sprinkled with diamond dust. He likes the symbolism of that, the brilliance and sparkle, the renewed joy that brightens this afternoon.

Their hands are knotted together, her delicate fingers fitted so perfectly between his thicker ones and their palms smudged together because they do this now- hold hands as they stroll through the wintry landscape of Central Park. They can do this now. He smiles, squeezes her hand tighter as he eyes her from the side, only has eyes for her.

The park is bustling with people, the air alive with laughter and the hum of voices. Groups of friends, families, chubby-faced children with bright-red cheeks and runny noses and bundled in puffy snow suits, students and seniors and couples, lovers old and new.

New lovers. Like them.

He can't help the grin from spreading wider across his face because this happiness feels uncontainable, bursts through him like the rise and swell and crash of a fountain effervescent with joy, and he glances at her again because he just cannot stop looking at her. Her hair falls in wild waves down over her shoulders, her cheeks and the tip of her nose are rosy from the cold and there's a soft smile playing across her lips that he thinks she might not even be aware of herself. She's so gorgeous and his heart swells, making it hard to breathe. He admires her profile and the graceful column of her neck as it disappears beneath her scarf, the elegant flow of her every movement and the subtle sway of her hips and he can still see her arched beneath him, the long lines of her skin pearled with perspiration, the rapid flutter of her eyelashes and the breathless 'oh' of her mouth, the spectacular beauty of her pleasure as she came apart with him.

"Stop looking at me like that!" She elbows him in the side but the lilt of amusement in her voice is undeniable.

"Like what?"

"Like you've seen me naked," she hums, a blush creeping up her neck and yet her voice is low with insinuation, her smile an alluring contradiction of shy and seductive. She knows exactly what she's doing to him and a fresh bout of heat unspools low inside of him, unfurling through his limbs. His knees weaken, his stomach flutters and he reels her close by the hand clasped within his until the length of her body is arched into his, her thighs and stomach and the warm soft weight of her breasts smudged against him because he can't go another moment without holding her close.

"But I have seen you naked," he whispers, wrapping an arm tightly around her waist. She smiles widely at that, her arms looping around his neck like this isn't the first time they are doing this, like they are at home draped across his shoulders. Then her teeth graze her bottom lip and he regrets ever suggesting they leave the loft for coffee and some fresh air when they should've stayed inside for round four because he knows, he already knows, he didn't ever not know that he will never get enough of her - every single thing about her. She's fierce and indomitable, unpredictable and layered, she's complicated, she's intellect and compassion and she's this, too. This warm and so-soft woman, this caring, sometimes ferocious and sometimes shy lover, this lovely, devastatingly sensual creature and he can still taste the flavors of her skin on his lips, hear the way she hummed low in her throat when he traced the spider webs of her veins with the tip of his tongue. "It's the most beautiful sight I've ever seen."

And there it is, that exquisite smile he loves so very much, where her face tilts down and her eyelids lower. He had captured it in a picture once, unexpectedly and so long ago, has been chasing it ever since because it is the embodiment of Kate, all her layers and contradictions and all the secrets that lie within her, just waiting to break free of their fortified confines. He curls his fingers at her jaw, tilts her face toward him, his thumb caressing the smile on her lips. She exhales as if all air has been shocked from her lungs and he finds her mouth with his, giving it back. It's a slow kiss, a seemingly unending exploration of lips and tongues, tender as they seek and find each other.

She grins against his lips when at last they pull apart, foreheads still touching as if they can no longer bear any physical distance between them and he supposes that's true, at least for him. Now that they're here, with each other, he cannot imagine spending a day, an hour, a single moment apart from her. Her fingers are coiled into the hair at his nape, her other palm resting against his chest, right over the exhilarated beats of his heart.

"Sooo..." Her fingers curl over his coat, seem to pick at imaginary pieces of lint as her eyebrow arches up. "Can I stay over again tonight?"

Stay forever, he wants to say; it's a burst of a thought, bright like fireworks. But he doesn't. Not yet. It's a confession for another day but it's not one that weighs him down. It's more like a hum, a vibration of latent excitement just waiting for the right moment. Some day. Soon.

So he grins, brushes his thumb against the underside of her rib just to see the slight flutter of her eyelids, remembers the moan of delight that had rushed from her when he had discovered the sensitive spot this morning- God had it really only been a few hours ago? He can't wait to map her all over again, find every delightful curve and dip and sensuous line of her. "I'd love that."

Their hands entwine and they turn as one, the snow crunching as they continue their walk when he steps on a branch, the dry wood cracking beneath his shoe, almost deafening in the snow-muffled silence around them. It all happens at once; the few squirrels that startle, rush across the snow-laden tree branches hanging above them and the tiny scurrying feet that dislodge the lose piles of snow, send it flying. It swirls through the air, dances and flurries to the ground, sparkling spiraling ice crystals. Kate tilts her face up against the sky, eyes closed and her arms spreads wide on either side of her as the snowflakes land on her hair and her cheeks, adorn her eyelashes like jewels, melt against her fingertips and her wide, breathtaking smile. She laughs, a bright and tinkling sound, so beautiful that he feels breathless with it, like all air is squeezed from him at the sheer happiness that's bursting from her.

It rises within him, swells and grows, no longer containable but he finds that he doesn't want to contain it any longer. He wants to say it, here and now, say it when it's not weighed down by pain and fear, say it when all there is is the joy and the peace they've found with each other, the beauty of this moment.

"I love you, Kate." All of his heart is in his words, in this truth she already knows but that deserves to be repeated, that he wants her to hear and have and hold within her heart because it is the most wondrous, most amazing thing he's ever felt.

She stops twirling, faces him, with her eyes wide and her cheeks flushed and her face full of wonder.

"I love you so much."

And then she's running into his arms, crashes into him with her bright, euphoric smile and her chilled fingers in his hair and her lips melting with his.

And later that night, with their fingers entwined and their bodies coiled together, naked and warm and snug and so perfectly right, he listens as she breathes it into his skin, kisses it to the angles and valleys of his body, trails it like stars and constellations across his torso, his broad planes, the length of his limbs.

"I love you, too."

complete

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Thank you for reading! It has been a joy writing this story and sharing it with you.

Special thanks go out to Marissa and Kylie who've cheerleadered and betaed me through this. Your input has been immeasurable.

And to my girl who only occasionally rolls her eyes at my Castle obsession ;), who supports my writing and believes in my talent even when I don't.