Under the Veil

"And leave my unmentionables alone!" she hissed from the stairwell.

Ethan gasped at the thought of her seeing him with her undergarments. He looked to the crook of his arm to realize the straps of lace material were hanging freely for all to see. He felt a lump in his throat as he pulled them from the rest of the clothing and held them up before him. The moonlight shone through the delicate patterns in the lace, and he struggled not to imagine the material wrapping tightly around the soft curves of Lily's body. He quickly shoved them back under his arm and trampled down the stairs, ditching the items into the laundry beneath the stairwell. He paused to catch his breath and quietly approached Lily's door, contemplating if he should bother apologizing or leave her to smolder and spare himself any further humiliation, at least until an inevitably awkward morning. As he stood there in a stupor, the door to Lily's room slowly opened, revealing her empty bed. Ethan squinted his eyes trying to make out her shape amongst the covers when she spoke up from behind the door.

"Come in here." She directed. Ethan gave no rebuttal and cautiously entered the room.

"You're sleeping in here tonight. That is all we'll speak of it." Lily said.

Ethan quietly complied, bowing his head as he made his way further into her room, part of him hoping to appease his sister and avoid any further drama, the other part succumbing to the familiar sense of authority she once commanded over him in his younger years. He found a seat at the foot of her bed and shyly watched as she made her way around to the other side, her sublime figure again silhouetted in the subtle light of the full moon as she drifted past the window.

"Well?" she questioned, "do you plan to just sit there and watch me sleep?"

Ethan's shoulders tensed in anguish and he rotated himself to lay down in the bed, his back to Lily. He heard what sounded like her nightgown falling to the floor and felt the weight of her body ease into the bed. Ethan sighed deeply, forcing invasive thoughts out of his mind as the bed shifted -- it had been a long time since they'd shared one together.