God Of Crafting

A sense of the warmth of the other person, the trust necessary for her to only gain peaceful sleep when held close in my arms, and the welcoming manner in which her limbs wrapped around me. All of those things combined created what I could only describe as being showered in silent, mature, and intimate affection.

But that\'s how it was supposed to feel.

And with Chihiro\'s words still ringing at the back of my head, I simply could not perceive this moment as such.

\'Thinking about it, isn\'t he quite right?\'

On one end, save for the time when we both fully focused on duking it out with the attackers, Claire was quite active. Heck, she was the one to partake in the organization of this whole battle or many of the events prior to it.

\'Then again, she\'s yet to mention this whole thing even once, huh?\'

Shaking my head, I took a deep breath before knocking at our villa\'s door with my foot, my hands too occupied holding Claire up to ever have a chance to reach for the knob or find, insert, and then turn the key.

Thankfully, that\'s where being rich perks kicked in, with one of the servants inside hurrying up to open the doors for me instead.

Sparing no time for the words, I just nodded my head in the passing to thank you for the help before hurrying up the corridor and then to the private part of the mansion. Before I could think about anything else, I reached our bedroom where I could finally plant Claire down.

The moment I tried to do so, however, her grasp over my both tightened.

As I was already counterbalancing for the loss of her weight, it suddenly persisted, causing me to stumble forth and then down on Claire, ending up in this rom-com-like scenario, even if at this point, just staring at Claire\'s face from up close could get either of us flustered.

That didn\'t mean it wasn\'t nice to look her up from so close when the distance no longer obscured the small, fine details I would usually miss.

The way her cheeks slightly trembled with her breath, the slight twist of her lips every once in a while, the way she put on a determined look on her face as if sensing what was happening through her sleep and now clutching onto me, refusing to let go.

\'Wait, if I now think about it…\'

Reaching up with my hand, I brought it to Claire\'s cheek, gently caressing her soft skin with my thumb.

In response, her lips slowly curled up in a lazy, satisfied smile. Her head moved a little, sending her long, brown hair into yet another, fresh arrangement that appeared to contain a world of mysteries all on its own.

And as those long hairs danced around the delicate features of her rather stoic face, Claire slowly opened up her eyes, revealing their deep, brown color to the world as she stared up, taking a moment to regain focus only to end up matching my gaze.

\'Fuck, she\'s so unbearably adorable!\'

But on the other hand, Claire indeed didn\'t seem all that interested in words with how she suddenly pounced and tightened her hold all over my body. This time, however, rather than holding onto me, she suddenly pulled me into her clutches!

Using the reflexes of someone who survived both a kidnapping attempt and then an outright battle, I allowed Claire\'s attack to sweep me… Only to then sneak both of my arms around her head, before collapsing my forearms, effectively locking it in a tender, affectionate hug.

"Just how can you be so damn adorable…" I whispered my true feelings of the moment, happily welcoming the soft, cushy warmth of our tight hug all the while trying to resist Claire\'s new, devious tactic.

Instead of fighting back to distance her mouth from my chest and take a fresh breath…

She just wiggled around within the hug, all skittish and jittery from just how nice it felt to properly hug each other.

Seeing this… No, feeling her all cutely tremble from simple, primal happiness made it impossible for me to resist.

As if by some magic trick, my arms pried open… Only for my elbows to move out of the way, allowing my hands free access to the back of Claire\'s head.

\'Counter!\'

I tried to sneak my elbow close to the side of Claire\'s head… Only for her to suddenly pull me and raise her head, changing the way in which my hand reached the top of her hair.

Instead of just reaching out for it as I would from the front, with my elbow now sliding behind it, I\'ve actually reached across the back of her head and then a bit above her forehead, nearly embracing her whole head within my arm as I pulled her even closer in this extremely intimate… No, affectionate hold.

-content

Looking down, Claire\'s forehead was burning red.

\'She\'s feeling it too, I guess…\' I thought, once again thinking back to all that I\'ve discussed with Claire\'s father.

Right now, beyond all my natural reasons to just enjoy the snuggle… I actually had a nefarious goal in my mind. A plot that I had to see through no matter what, too weary of the consequences of not doing so.

Still, with every passing moment, our movements grew more heated and our breaths bothered. This made it quite clear that my perfectly reasonable goal of preserving our relationship long-term, perfectly aligned with how naturally our affectionate struggle was turning into more and more expressive forms of love and desire.

Then again, now that I patted Claire\'s head… my restraint of how she could move it had weakened. A breach she hurriedly made full use of by slowly raising her face as she gave me this deep, dreamy look of longing, hunger, and desire.

And then…

"How do you want to do it?"