39. Piper and Tristan at Night
Chapter thirty-nine
Piper and Tristan at Night
The stone corridor is cool against my bare arms as Tristan's hand finds the small of my back, guiding me through the dimly lit passage toward his chamber.
My pulse drums against my throat like a trapped bird. The oak tree picnic feels both seconds ago and a lifetime away. The memory of his mouth on mine makes my knees weak.
"You're guiding me like I might bolt," I say, glancing up at him. The candlelight catches the sharp line of his jaw.
"Wouldn’t be the first time you considered running."
"I'm not running."
"No." His grey eyes hold mine, and the silver flecks catch the light. "You are not."
The heavy oak door swings open, and I step into Tristan's bedchamber. The door clicks shut behind us. The sound is small and final.
I turn to face him, and my breath catches.
Not because he's beautiful — though he is all sharp angles and shadows and that dark hair falling loose across his forehead.
It's because his eyes are changing. The grey is bleeding away, swallowed by black that spreads from the pupil outward like ink dropped in water.
"Your eyes," I whisper.
"I can't help it." His voice is rougher. "When I want something this badly."
My back finds the edge of the writing desk. I grip the wood behind me. "How badly?"
He doesn't answer with words. He closes the distance in two strides, with fluid predatory grace. His hands frame my face. His thumbs trace the line of my cheekbones.. He tilts my head back and studies me with those depthless black eyes, and the silence stretches taut between us.
"Are you stalling?" I breathe against his mouth.
"I'm savoring."
"I'm not a fine Scotch."
"No." His lips brush the corner of mine. "Scotch doesn't taste as good as this."
He kisses me then and his tongue slides against mine with a deliberate patience that makes my stomach clench.
I pull him closer. His body presses mine against the desk, and the hard length of him against my hip sends a bolt of heat straight between my thighs.
We started this under the oak tree and we’re ready for more. Now.
I break the kiss, breathing hard. "Bed."
"Patience."
"I don’t want to be patient. You’re noble and chivalrous and annoyingly restrained." I grab his collar, pull him down to my level. "I'm done with that, Tristan."
He laughs, low and genuine, and then he lifts me.
My feet leave the floor, my legs wrap around his waist on instinct, and he carries me across the chamber as though I weigh nothing.
I feel every ounce of his power in the easy flex of his arms, the controlled power of his stride.
He sets me on the edge of the four-poster bed.
The crimson silk is cool and impossibly soft.
I reach for his waistcoat. My fingers find the buttons.
"Let me," he says. His hands cover mine, stilling them. "I've imagined this. Let me have it."
The words land low in my belly. I drop my hands to my sides and watch as he undresses methodically.
The waistcoat goes first, then the shirt beneath, and each layer revealed is another reminder that this man was built for war long before he was built for tailored clothing.
His chest is broad, defined, skin pale as marble in the firelight.
A scattering of dark hair trails down the center of his abdomen.
The muscles of his stomach flex as he moves, and I realize my mouth is literally watering.
"You're staring," he observes.
"You're hard to look away from." I shrug. "It's a real problem."
His mouth twitches. He reaches for me, and his fingers find the hem of my top.
He peels it up slowly, knuckles brushing the bare skin of my ribs, and I raise my arms so he can pull it free.
The cool air hits me, and my nipples tighten against the thin cotton of my bra.
His gaze drops, and the black of his eyes seems to deepen further.
I unclasp the bra and let it fall. His breath — he doesn't need to breathe, but he does it anyway, a habit of humanity he's never shaken — catches audibly.
"Piper." My name in his mouth sounds like a prayer. It always does.
His hands span my ribcage. His thumbs brush the underside of my breasts, and the touch is so light it's barely there — but my skin prickles into goosebumps, and my back arches involuntarily.
He leans down, and his mouth finds my collarbone.
He traces it with his lips, then lower, pressing open-mouthed kisses along the slope of my breast until his tongue finds my nipple.
I gasp. My fingers get lost in his dark hair, pulling him closer.
His mouth is cool and skilled, and he circles my nipple with his tongue before drawing it between his lips and sucking gently.
The sensation shoots straight downward, pooling hot and liquid between my legs.
He gives the same attention to my other breast, and I'm shifting on the silk, pressing my thighs together for friction that isn't enough.
He pulls back. His lips are swollen, his eyes pure black. "Tell me what you want, Piper."
"I want your mouth on me."
He makes a low sound and then he pushes me back onto the bed. He unbuttons my jeans and slides them down my hips, taking my underwear with them. I'm naked, and he's still half-dressed, and the imbalance should make me feel vulnerable but instead it makes me want.
He kneels at the edge of the bed. His hands grip my knees, and he spreads my thighs apart with a deliberate slowness that makes my breath come short. The firelight plays across my skin, and I know he can see everything — how wet I am, how swollen, how ready.
Then he leans forward and presses a kiss to my inner thigh.
The coolness of his lips against the sensitive skin makes me shiver.
He trails kisses higher, closer, taking his time — maddening, deliberate time — until his mouth hovers over me.
His breath ghosts against me, and my hips lift off the bed.
I groan in want.
His tongue finds me. One long, slow stroke that drags from my entrance to my clit, and the sound I make is raw and uncontrolled. He does it again, and again and again.
Then his tongue circles my clit with a precision that makes my vision blur. My hips move against his mouth, and he lets me, one hand pressing my thigh open while the other slides up my stomach to cup my breast.
He's relentless. His tongue flicks and circles and sucks, and when he slides two fingers inside me, the feel of it combined with the pressure on my clit has me climbing fast. My thighs are trembling. The sounds coming from me are incoherent — his name, fragments of words, breathless and desperate.
"Tristan — I'm going to —"
He doesn't stop. His fingers curl inside me, his mouth seals over my clit, and I come apart. The orgasm crashes through me in waves, my body clenching around his fingers, my spine arching off the bed. I'm gasping, shaking, and he continues until I can’t move.
He sits back on his heels. His lips are slick. His eyes are black as a moonless night.
"Damn," I manage to say.
He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and the gesture is so casually masculine that another pulse of arousal twists through me despite the orgasm still echoing in my body.
I sit up and reach for his trousers. "Your turn."
"You don’t have to —"
"I know I don't have to." I meet his eyes. "I want to."
I unfasten his trousers and push them down his hips along with his briefs.
His cock springs free, thick and hard. I wrap my hand around him, and he's rigid in my grip, and the sound he makes when I stroke once — a sharp inhale, a bitten-off groan — sends satisfaction singing through my blood.
This reminds me of the dreams I had of him.
I lean forward and take him in my mouth. The taste of him is clean and slightly salty, and the sounds he makes above me — low, rough, Scottish curses I half-understand — are better than any music.
I bob my head, finding a rhythm, and when I swirl my tongue around the head of his cock and suck, his hips jerk forward and his grip tightens.
"Piper — stop." His voice is wrecked. "I need to be inside of you when I come."
I pull back, licking my lips, and look up at him. "Then come here."
He moves. In one fluid motion, he's shed the rest of his clothing and he's over me, his body caging mine against the silk. The full skin-to-skin contact is overwhelming — cool chest against my warm breasts, his thighs between mine, the hard length of him pressing against my stomach.
He reaches between us, positions himself, and then he's pushing inside me. Slowly. Inch by inch. The feel is intense, and my breath catches. He sinks deep, all the way in, and we both go still.
His forehead drops to mine. His breath is ragged. "You feel so—"
"I know." I lift my hips, taking him in deeper. "Move."
He pulls back and thrusts, and the friction is blinding.
He starts a rhythm that's slow and deep, each stroke hitting something inside me that makes me see stars.
My nails dig into his shoulders. His mouth finds my neck, just pressing against me, and the danger of it, the restraint, makes me clench around him.
"Harder, Tristan," I breathe.
His hips snap forward, and the sound of our bodies meeting is perfect. I hook my leg over his hip, changing the angle, and the new depth punches a moan from my chest. He reaches between us, his thumb finding my clit, and the dual sensation of being fucked and touched has me spiraling fast.
"Tristan — I'm close again —"
"I know." His voice is gravel. "I can feel you."
I come a second time, and this one is harder, rolling through me in waves that make my whole body seize. He groans against my neck, his rhythm faltering, and then he pulls out.
"Turn over," he says.
I roll onto my stomach. His hand presses flat against my lower back, and then he's pulling my hips up, positioning me.
He enters me from behind, and the new angle is deliciously devastating — deeper, rougher, hitting places inside me I didn't know existed. His hardness feels so good inside of me as I’m still quivering from the orgasm.
His pace is sensual. Each thrust drives me forward. I'm still sensitive from two orgasms, and it’s almost unbearable, but beneath it, a third climax is building — slower, heavier, a pressure that sits low in my belly and spreads outward. I feel his body against me, his breath, his touch.
"Tristan," I gasp.
His hand reaches around, fingers finding my clit as he sensually pumps inside me. "Feel the deep pleasure, my lovely."
I feel him thickening inside me, and the combination of him inside and his fingers teasing my clit is absolute. The orgasm rips through me, and I clench around him so hard that he shouts. I feel him come, pulsing deep inside me as he spills hot against me, groaning deeply.
We collapse together as my orgasm slowly, very slowly subsides. The fire crackles. My thighs are trembling. He presses a kiss to my shoulder blade. His lips trail up my spine, gentle and lingering.
"Are you all right?" he murmurs against my neck.
I laugh, and it comes out breathless. "I'm excellent." I turn my head, catching his mouth in a lazy kiss. "I'm fantastic. I’ve never, ever, come like that."
He rolls us both onto our sides, facing each other. His hand brushes a strand of auburn hair from my face. His eyes are still black, but slowly, the grey is creeping back in around the edges.
“We have to do that again soon, Tristan. That was … extraordinary, delectable, everything. You’ve undone me. I’m sure I can’t stand up if I needed to right now.”
"Piper Monroe," he says, and my name sounds like a warning and a promise, "your wish is my command. You don’t know what you’re asking."
I smile against his lips. "I know exactly what I'm asking."
Outside the tall windows, the moonlight spills across the misty Glenhaven grounds, and somewhere beyond the moors, a wolf howls. The fire pops. The bed is warm. And in the circle of Tristan's arms, with his cool skin against mine, I close my eyes and let myself fall.