He laughs—and since she's focusing on this now, she might just notice how nice his voice sounds, how suddenly the comparison of laughter to musical instruments might make sense. "Vampire transformation makes you prettier, I believe I told you. But look on the bright side: not only are you also incredibly pretty, but you have access to me whenever you want!" he says brightly.

"I don't want to spend all day staring at you, James, I have things I'd like to do," she snorts.

"Staring is not the only thing you could do," he suggests, shrugging his shirt back on.

She raises her eyebrows. "Are you implying something in particular, James?"

"I am not," he says, primly. "I am merely observing that I am yours to please and whatever you desire I shall seek to give you."

Yvette snorts, amused.

"Okay. I, um. Kissing is fine? Other things are. I don't know, not soon. This is still a little intimidating, and I haven't exactly had a, a. Relationship as serious as this before."

"If kissing is what you desire, kissing is what you shall have."

"Okay," she says to her shoes, beaming. "Carry me away to kiss me in a place more secluded than this?"

"My command, milady." Scoop, run.

She nestles comfortably against him.

"I feel very portable, you know."

"I hope that's to your liking, because you will not stop being very portable anytime soon."

"No, it's all right, if I weren't okay with being carried I'd have asked for a date location that was more local." She wiggles happily to a slightly better position, then leans against him, smiling.

"You are extremely attractive and I desire to register that I feel very tempted to kiss you right now."

"Good thing we're going to a secluded kissing location, then, isn't it?"

"Yes it is. Do you have a preference? We could go to my place, or stop sooner."

"Whichever you'd prefer," she says, knowing which one that'll be.

She's correct! He can find a secluded spot in a nearby village where he can carefully set her down and then—

—well they do have a purpose here, don't they? He needn't breathe, but the apt metaphor is still a drowning man in need of air.

Oh, this is nice. A bit terrifying, she's never had anyone want her this much before, never had someone that would kill or die or pull the stars down from the sky for her, but it's not precisely unpleasant. She likes being this important to someone. She's afraid for him and concerned for him and wants to treat him correctly, but oh it's nice to be so wanted. Nice to not have to fear rejection, he just loves her. Nice to not worry about taking it to slow or too fast, because however impatient he might be, clearly he prefers to take this at her pace.

So they can. She can not worry about anything else and just focus on being his air.

And he breathes, he consumes the sight of her, the scent of her, her touch and her voice and her hair and her eyes and her thoughts and attention. He drinks her up, he enjoys every bit of having her around, and he is very, very obviously completely and irrevocably in love with her.

"You have it so bad," she murmurs breathlessly, during a break that's supposed to be helping with that, but isn't really.

"Did you just notice?" he asks in a teasing tone.

"No," she snorts. "It's just the most salient detail when you're kissing me like I'm your everything. It's, it's very noticeable. What's it like? To be that in love?"

He pulls away slightly then furrows his brows, clearly giving the question thought. "It's like home," he eventually settles on. "It's like knowing the place where you belong, the thing you must do, the goal to your journey, all of those. I would not say that the universe revolves around you—it's more like you're as fundamental to it as gravity, and the universe without gravity would just be fundamentally incomplete."

"Oh," she says, blinking. "That sounds like... a lot. You don't seem to think of it as uncomfortable, though?"

"More brain room," he says, tapping his temple. "And it isn't," he continues. "It's not more uncomfortable than gravity. And I am confident you will love me back. We are soul mates. We're meant for each other."