Oz laughed and replied before he'd taken the time to think through how what he intended to say would impact the flow of the overall argument (this more than anything else so far was a sign that her remark about shiny new things had gotten under his skin; he was starting to get sloppy). "What, because I married you?" he responded, with something like genuine amusement on his face. "That is, at best, evidence only that I was seized by a fit of momentary insanity five years ago. Two, I suppose you could argue — one for the proposal and one for the wedding day." In the narrative of their lives as told by other people, only one of the two was really necessary, Oz suspected. Some people had been convinced at the time that he hadn't proposed of his own free will, though the supposed impetus behind the proposal had changed and grown to fit the imagination of the gossip: Thomasina was pregnant; something scandalous was taking place; blackmail was involved; et cetera. If any of those had been the case, then he couldn't have been blamed for the proposal, but he certainly could have been called insane for having gone through with it instead of spending their lengthy engagement devising an escape route. On the other hand, if he'd been possessed by some madness when he'd proposed he might have been driven to go through it by some misguided sense of honor or duty, and in that case only the one momentary insanity was necessary once again. Fewer people had ever suspected this avenue, because none of the antics Ozymandias had engaged in after his Hogwarts graduation and before his marriage had called up the words honor or duty to mind, but it had to have crossed at least someone's thoughts. Endymion had brought up something like that idea, when he'd been trying to talk Ozy out of going through with it the morning of the wedding, but in retrospect Oz had never been sure if his brother actually believed that or was only grasping at straws trying to explain the inexplicable to himself.

"People don't hold that against me," he continued. "The most common explanation is that I was trapped into it. Which is insulting in its own way, really. That they think you'd've had the wits to trap me."

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MJ is the light of my life <3

Sina waved her hand at him dismissively. "Not because I married you," she said with a scoff. She stood up and took a step towards her husband, with her posture straight as if to make herself taller. She reached one hand behind her and played with the fastenings at the back of her dress, slowly, without any real purpose.

"But because if I were to step out of this gown, right now, I'd trap you again."

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He didn't miss where she'd slid her hands. She had his attention. In twenty or thirty minutes he might goad her for using cheap tricks to get out of an argument, but that didn't mean it wasn't going to work.

"Prove it," he said with a smirk, while simultaneously leaning back in his chair to have a better view of her.

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MJ is the light of my life <3

Sina smirked at Oz and tugged at the fastenings, releasing them one by one. Gracefully, she pulled her arms out of the sleeves and allowed the dress to drop to the floor. Although she had several layers on today, as most women of their class would, this still had the effect of revealing her arms and most of her shoulders. "Do you require more proof?" she asked.

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"I do," he declared. He considered locking the door, but didn't want to pull his eyes away from her long enough to retrieve his wand without fumbling. "I'm something of a skeptic."

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MJ is the light of my life <3

There were so many layers; Sina thought that made this a better, slower tease. She liked when Ozymandias looked at her like this; even when she'd hated him, there had been nothing like the thrill of his looking at her.

She loosened the ties on her petticoat and tugged it down, revealing the bones of her crinoline. She pulled the camisole over her head, which had the predominant effect of rumpling her hair. Her motions were careful and exact as she unfastened her crinoline and collapsed it, holding eye contact with her husband. Sina loosened the ties of her corset and pulled it open, discarding the whalebone garment behind her. She inhaled deeply, enjoying the freedom of motion enabled without the garment binding and shaping her waist.

Sina straightened and pulled at her chemise until it exposed the garters that held up her stockings. "More?" she asked, quirking an eyebrow at her husband.

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Women's clothing had never been designed to look appealing when it was only half on, he knew, but Thomasina somehow managed to make every new state of undress look just as enticing as posing in lingerie. The eye contact and the surety of her movements was what did it. He was already hard and he hadn't even touched her yet.

"More," he affirmed greedily. She was making her point perfectly, of course; at that point he would have knelt at her feet and begged her to continue. She had trapped him (or trained him) quite efficiently. Or perhaps they'd trapped each other — she had started this interaction writing letters, after all, and it was hardly as though Ozymandias wasn't enjoying himself.

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MJ is the light of my life <3

Sina pulled the chemise over her head. This exposed her breasts and abdomen, and further ruffled her hair; she winked at her husband and let the chemise drop to the floor. She unlatched her garters and let them fall against her stockings, and dragged her bloomers down and stepped out of them. Other than the undone stockings, she was entirely naked.

"Ozymandias," Sina asked, "Are you going to do anything about this?"

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He had been waiting for her to ask. At her cue, Oz reached a hand into his jacket just far enough to brush the end of his wand and muttered the spell to lock the door. The metal clank as it obeyed so frequently preceded intercourse that it was starting to have an aphrodisiac effect on him, he thought. Not that he needed any help with that at the moment. He had closed the distance between them without hesitation and lifted her right out of her stockings, then pressed her up against the nearest piece of furniture (he was so single-minded he did not even really notice which piece it was). He pulled one of her naked legs up over his hip, then set to work on her: one hand at her breast, the other between her legs, and his mouth trailing a line of passionate kisses from the edge of her mouth down along her neck and towards the top of her other breast.

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MJ is the light of my life <3

Sina had few compunctions about being loud; she gasped and wrapped her legs around Ozymandias' waist, and dug her nails into his back through his jacket. "Husband," Sina breathed. He might be traveling to the continent without her, but whatever women he found there would not get this passion out of him — Sina was sure of it.

She didn't want to think about that right now. "Give me more," she said, running one hand down his back.

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set by MJ

Oz smirked against her skin and continued kissing her. "Whore," he muttered. He dropped his hand from her breast to undo his belt and trouser button. He didn't plan to undress completely; the disparity in their nudity levels added to the excitement of the moment, and he didn't need to offer her much in the way of bare skin to get her off.

(It was a point of pride for him that they did not end one of these interludes without him getting her off).

"Is this what you want?" he asked, poised at her entrance.

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MJ is the light of my life <3

Instead of answering out loud, Sina kissed and sucked on her husband's earlobe.

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set by MJ