After a while, his attention drifts from the words to just the sound of them. The shift in her voice is there, he just can't figure out exactly how it's somehow become sweeter and softer, as if that were even possible. With a languid gaze he watches her lips, every flicker of her eyelashes, the clear blue of her irises as they follow every line of text.

She's beautiful in the outdoors where she loves to be; she's beautiful when she's curled up with a good book in her lap.

And suddenly her lips have stopped moving, and the room is silent, and he realizes that she's reached the end of a chapter. Their eyes meet, and he looks a little sheepish again. But the corner of his mouth twitches in a small smile, and cupping her cheek, he kisses her, warm and lingering.

They break, and he smooths her hair over her ear.

"Seriously, honey, I could listen to you all night. But then you'd only get a sore throat."