Tell me you love me
He told her everyday in small actions, like when he woke her with warm lips and hands that pulled her into his curled form. He showed her in the punctuality of his lunchtime owl, wishing her a productive day and reminding her to stop and eat a little. He expressed it in the evening as he kneaded the knots out of her shoulders, his fingers persistent in their pressure until she pooled like jelly against the cushions. Yet still she begged him to say it. She needed to hear the words on his lips.
“Tell me you love me.”
Honey-flecked eyes gazed, beckoning him forward. Toasted vanilla hung heavy in the air between them. The light from the candle flickered across their skin in time to their heartbeats.
He leaned into her, erasing the space between them and filling it with all his desires for now and the future. Skin against skin, coolness entwined with warmth, he exhaled the words as if afraid speaking them too loudly would shatter this moment in time.
“I love you, Hermione.”