40. Piper The Morning After
Chapter forty
Piper The Morning After
I’ve never slept better, after what Tristan did to me last night… despite all of the upsets and upheavals in my world.
The bed beneath me is softer than any mattress has a right to be. The room smells faintly of cedar, old books, fresh coffee ... and Tristan.
I’m snuggled in his bed as my eyes slowly open, his arm around me, his body against me.
My heart gives one hard, panicked thud as if it wants to make sure I understand the full scale of my life choices.
“You’re awake, lass,” he says. His voice is lower in the morning. Less polished. More dangerous to my entire personality.
“How do you know?” I whisper.
“Your breathing and heartbeat changed.”
“That’s unsettling before coffee.”
“I apologize.”
“No you don’t.”
His mouth brushes my shoulder.
“No, I don’t.”
Heat moves through me so fast I close my eyes. This is a problem.
A beautiful, ancient, Scottish, fang-adjacent problem. I turn carefully beneath his arm until I face him.
His hair is loose over his forehead. He looks younger like this. Not young, but less carved from old duty and self-denial.
He’s watching me as if the morning itself depends on whether I regret him and what we did. I hate that he has reason to wonder.
“Good morning, gorgeous,” I say.
Something eases in his face.
“Good morning, darling.”
My heart skips a beat. Neither of us moves. He looks ... sexy. Human. More human than I have ever seen him. Rumpled hair, light growth of whiskers, and those eyes …
"You have bedhead, Tristan."
"I most certainly do not."
"You absolutely do."
"I have impeccable hair."
I push myself onto one elbow and reach across the pillow. Without hesitation. I smooth the rebellious locks back into place.
"There."
The silence is intimate in a way last night’s passion was not. Last night had urgency, firelight and wanting. This is quieter and more seductive. More dangerous.
Morning asks questions passion can postpone.
“Do you regret it?” he asks quietly.
Trust the gentleman Tristan to walk straight into the blade.
“No. Not even a little.”
His eyes close briefly. I touch his face before I can think better of it.
“But I’m a bit overwhelmed.”
“That’s fair.”
“And if Mrs. MacLeod looks at me knowingly before breakfast, I may throw myself into the moat.”
“We don’t have a moat.”
“That feels like poor planning.”
His mouth curves, and I feel the smile.
“I shall speak to the engineers.”
He catches my hand and presses a kiss to my palm. It's such a small gesture, I almost come undone.
“Piper,” he says softly, “last night does not bind you to me.”
“Is this the immortal version of ‘no pressure’?”
“Yes.”
He keeps my hand in his.
“I mean it. You owe me nothing because you chose to share my bed.”
“That’s a very dignified sentence.”
His thumb moves once over my wrist. My pulse leaps beneath it. He feels it. Of course he does. His eyes darken, and then he looks away.
I lean forward and kiss him. Morning-soft. When I pull back, he looks completely ruined.
Good. Nice to know I have some power in this supernatural mess.
I say, “I’m here because I want to be.”
His hand tightens on mine. For a moment, neither of us speaks.
"You opened the window."
"I thought you would prefer fresh Scottish air. And you sleep with approximately seventy pounds of Labrador pressed against your feet."
I look down. Murphy is stretched across the bottom of the enormous bed, lightly snoring with theatrical commitment. He must have jumped up sometime in the night after I fell asleep.
One paw twitches. Murphy opens one eye just long enough to confirm we are both still here. Apparently satisfied, he resumes snoring.
I shake my head.
"I raised him better than this."
"I am unconvinced."
"You’re enjoying this entirely too much."
"I am," he says. He catches me off guard. He doesn't hide what he feels, he simply admits it.
"I don't think," he says quietly, "I've ever awakened beside someone and found myself looking forward to the conversation."
My heart makes an unfortunate little flip.
"Not in six hundred years?"
He thinks for a moment. Then slowly shakes his head.
"Let’s say in four hundred years. And never curious what the first thing she might say would be."
I look away. Because if I don't, I might kiss him again. Which seems like a perfectly reasonable morning activity.
My gaze lands on the room instead. Last night I noticed remarkably little of it.
Now, I look around and it feels like him. Dark walnut shelves line one wall. Hundreds of books. Maps rolled into brass cylinders. An old globe with faded oceans. A fireplace large enough to walk inside.
"No portraits?" I ask.
"I dislike watching myself age incorrectly."
"Understandable."
"There is one.”
"Where?"
He nods toward the far wall. I hadn't noticed it. A painting hangs half-hidden behind the open bedroom door. The young man in it cannot be more than twenty-five. Dark hair. Proud shoulders beneath the Sinclair tartan.
I slide out of bed, wrapping the sheet around myself almost without thinking, and walk toward it.
"So that's you."
"Once, long ago, before I became vampire."
"You look ... like trouble."
"I was!"
I study the painting. The artist captured confidence. A little arrogance, perhaps. The certainty that life would continue exactly as planned, son of a laird, to become a laird, until his own son would become laird.
"You had no idea," I whisper.
Tristan is looking at the portrait, at the boy he remembers being. "I remember my father more clearly than I remember me then."
My chest tightens. I cross the room until I stand next to him and then touch his cheek.
"I like this face better."
"You’re biased."
"I am." And I kiss his cheek.
For a moment, he simply looks at me. As though no one has ever said something so simple. Or perhaps ... no one ever has. He lifts my hand and presses a kiss into my palm.
The tenderness of it almost undoes me.
A loud snort erupts from the foot of the bed. Murphy has rolled completely onto his back. All four paws now point toward the ceiling.
We burst into laughter. The kind that makes my stomach hurt. The kind I haven't laughed in ... well, I honestly can't remember.
Tristan watches me laugh. When I finally catch my breath, I notice he hasn't looked away.
“What?”
"I love that sound,” he says quietly.
I tilt my head. "You've heard me laugh before."
"Not like this."
Something warm settles quietly inside me. Home. Him. The impossible certainty that for the first time in years, I have stopped planning where I'll go next.
Maybe that's why my eyes suddenly sting.
"What is it, my bonny lass?"
"I've spent my whole adult life moving around, taking on jobs and renovations. Always moving. There was always another project, another town, another beginning … and no one of consequence."
"But now, this morning..." I smile through suspiciously damp eyes. "...I can't imagine wanting to be anywhere else."
His breath catches. The look in his eyes says everything words possibly couldn't. He reaches for my hand and our fingers lace together.
A knock sounds softly on the door. Neither of us answers.
Another knock sounds.
Then Mrs. MacLeod's voice drifts through the wood.
"I've brought breakfast."
Silence.
"I shall leave it outside."
Another short silence.
"And I'll expect the tray back before luncheon."
I bury my face against Tristan's shoulder.
"Oh, she absolutely knows." A low chuckle vibrates beneath my cheek. "I can never face her again."
"You will."
"How?"
"She'll pretend nothing unusual has occurred."
He kisses the top of my head.
"Welcome home, Piper."