He couldn't arrive at Hawke's door, couldn't be directed through the rooms of her house, when he hadn't actually left. He had been in her house since the previous evening and had remained through the night, as well as the night before that. In fact he hadn't spent much time at all in his own mansion the past few days.

And so he was caught off guard when Hawke appeared as a shadow over the page of the book he was reading, blocking the light in front of the armchair so he raised his eyes to look at her.

"I don't trust that smile." He said immediately, which of course only prompted her to smile wider.

"Do you know what day it is?" He looked at her hard for a moment, puzzled.

"10 Drakonis. Is that important?"

"It's the 10th day of the month!" He looked at her blankly, until the significance she was clearly trying to imply came to him slowly. Some time ago they had settled on a routine that he came to her to continue with his lessons on the 10th of the month if circumstances allowed and if they had found no other free time that month. But now, he sat with a book in hand, contentedly reading without assistance.

"Hawke, I hardly think it's necessary." He lifted his eyebrows and then gestured to the book in his lap.

"Fenris." She mocked, and then with a heavy thud she landed on the arm of his seat, his elbow only just pulled back in time to clear the space. "It's tradition, I need to see how you're getting on."

"I'm fine. I haven't needed lessons for the last 6 months." He sighed at her and she waggled her brows at him.

"But you kept coming. Every 10th day of the month."

"I thought you might realise earlier that I rather had other reasons for that." He smirked up at her and she hummed a low laugh, leaning closer to him, her eyes fixed on his lips. He instinctively lifted his chin to meet her. Her nose brushed his and his lips parted.

"You just wanted Orana's sweet pastries, I know. She's the best cook in this city." Hawke pulled away from him at the last moment, in one movement snaking the book from his lap and spinning out of his reach. He frowned without moving from his seat.

"Come on, I'll see what she's made and we can sit somewhere I'll be comfortable too." Still scowling at her far too smug grin, he saw she wasn't going to give in. He pushed up from the single armchair and repositioned himself on the longer sofa, further from the fire.

"Better? Now may I have my book back?"

In the end he didn't recover the book it until she had procured a plate of delicacies from the kitchen and settled herself against his side, one arm looped through his and a head on his shoulder.

"So what are we reading?"

"The Book of Shartan. If you recall, how this whole debacle started." He said flatly and she grinned.

"Oh I don't know if I would call it that. I'd say some good has come of it." She turned quickly and pressed a kiss to the side of his jaw. For a moment she was able to see the flat frown on his face waver but he refused to look at her. "So, read to me about Shartan?" She asked, and with a sideways glance, he complied.

It was easier to read out loud, simply because he knew the words when spoken and he found saying them often made it easier to comprehend the meaning of a sentence.

What made it more difficult was the fact Hawke had nestled her head under his chin, her hand brought up to rest on his own, allegedly to help hold the book.

He made it halfway down the page – without needing any help – when her hand began stroking idly up his arm, tracing imaginary patterns across his skin. He ignored her.

He turned the page and her head turned into his neck, her nose brushing into contact with his skin there. He felt the long contented sigh as it rolled through her whole body. With that, he found it became much more difficult to concentrate on what the words meant and he faltered in the reading.

Hawke noticed. He felt her lips curve upwards, a smile against his throat, and then it was warm, wet, her lips parted to press more than that into him. He stifled back a low moan.

"Hawke."

"Your voice feels almost as wonderful as it sounds."

"It seems you are doing the exact opposite of helping me to read."

"You'll find I'm actually testing your focus, your ability to work under duress."

"You certainly are."

"So keep reading," She breathed into his throat and he swallowed reflexively as she laid another kiss directly on his Adam's apple.

He turned his focus back to the page, but couldn't make it stay there for long.

Hawke had moved from the centre of his throat to the spot just below his jaw, moving her lips across it in a measured, unbearably teasing way.

"I can't read with you doing that." He said and he felt her smirk again.

"Are you giving in?"

"Hardly. What I mean is that I can't move my jaw with you on it." He managed to growl.

"My apologies," She failed to sound at all apologetic, "Let me take this elsewhere."

She twisted slightly in her seat and rested her head lightly on his shoulder, this time nowhere near his bare skin. He flicked his gaze down to her and saw her looking at him, an innocent expression on her face. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously and looked back to the book.

He managed three words. Then, as if drawn by a magnet to his skin, she darted forwards, and her lips found the side of his neck. She drew her tongue over it and, with a small noise in her throat, began to suck gently, not enough to leave a mark. Or at least not a vivid one.

The word he had been trying to say, 'challenge', was choked off midway and the book nearly slipped from his grasp as, at the same time as she focused her lips on his throat, her hand crept up his chest and drew deliberately back down, nails dragging at the material of his jerkin.

"Hawke…" His voice was dragged from him in the same way, suddenly coming out rough, almost a plea. Still, his head fell back, only leaving him more exposed to her ministrations. She gripped the front of his jerkin and pulled herself impossibly closer against him. Her lips brushed his throat, moving up to his jaw and then his cheekbone, and she whispered, no more than a breath.

"Perhaps there are other ways we can spend our free time."

Then her teeth casually began to torment the long, lower edge of his pointed ear and a growl rumbled in his chest - through her fingers - as he pulled back, finally turning his head to capture her treacherous lips with his own.

His teeth took her bottom lip in rebuke for her distraction before taking her lips fully under his own control. She willingly gave way. He brought his hand up to quell hers, now tangling quite insistently in the front of his shirt. As he moved his hand however, he hadn't thought about its previous occupation and the book slipped completely from his lap, falling with a dull thud to the floor.

Opening his eyes at the book escaping his grasp, he made a movement towards it, hampered by Hawke's arm across him pushing him back down.

"I found it in a sack in the Alienage, Fenris. I think it can cope with my floor for the moment." Her hand was suddenly at his chin, using one finger to turn him back to face her.

The book was immediately forgotten in the next moment, as she lifted her leg over his lap instead, as soon as the space was made available. She smiled that indomitable smile he can't get enough of and her eyes met his own with something he could still scarcely believe was really for him. But she leaned down and found his lips again, before he could even form a reply in his mind.

The toggles down the front of his jerkin were apparently unacceptably preventing her the access she wanted, and he thought of little else but her dextrous hands undoing the ties, her tongue licking along his own, inviting him, and her body straddling his legs, warm and close and everything he could think to want in that moment.

No, the reading lessons did not go exactly according to plan.

I hope you enjoyed this last chapter. Sorry it took a little longer than the others. As an extra fun fact, that last line was the first thing I wrote and essentially the plan for the whole story. Thanks for reading!