29
Demi
I wake up to the tenderest forehead kisses I’ve ever felt.
The sun is glowing golden through my windows, but when I open my eyes, all I can see is Tristan. He’s still naked, propped up on an elbow, and looking down at me with adoration in his gray eyes.
“You’re so pretty. I can’t believe I get to touch you,” he says softly. To emphasize his point, he uses his knuckles to caress my cheek, down my neck, across my collarbone, to my bare shoulder. “I never want to stop touching you.”
“I don’t want you to stop either.”
“It would take a lot ? ?to get me to stop.”
“Oh, really? Like what?”
“Aside from you telling me to stop? An army. A war. An act of god.”
I bask in the warmth of his attention: the way he looks at me, how he speaks about me, his long finger tracing the place where the bedsheet and my chest meet.
“Last night was incredible,” Tristan murmurs, leaning down and pressing another kiss to my forehead.
Then one on my nose. Then, sweetly, he kisses my mouth.
A little noise comes out of him when our lips meet, a moan of appreciation, a sharp inhale through his nose.
I open my mouth for him, and he accepts the invitation, deepening his kiss .
I love kissing him. I loved it last night, but I think I love it even more this morning. We’ve moved past the frantic urgency of our first time, propelled by surprise and adrenaline, and the most consuming need I’d ever felt. But this…there’s no rush. There is just lingering .
Tristan palms my breast not with last night’s same desperate hunger, but with appreciation, like my body is his favorite thing. His thumb brushes lazily over my nipple as his tongue laps at my mouth. Everything he does feels so damn good.
“What was your favorite part about last night?” I ask when he moves his mouth to my neck.
He sighs and snuggles into me, shifting us so my head is on his chest. “You can’t make me pick just one thing.”
“Yes, I can.”
“Everything. Everything was my favorite.”
“That’s cheating.”
“Fine,” he says, petting my hair, running his hand up and down my back. “I liked—no— I loved tasting you. Making you come was probably the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“You did a very good job.” I don’t even try to hide my grin when I say it. Because it’s true, he did a fantastic job. I’ve never been devoured like that. Truth be told, I don’t think I’ve ever come so hard before.
“So did you. Your turn. What was your favorite part?”
“When you spit in my mouth,” I reply.
A dark, purely male chuckle rumbles in his chest. “Jesus. I did do that, didn’t I?”
“You sure did. And it was fucking hot. ”
“I’m glad you liked it. It could have backfired on me big time.”
“I have another favorite part.” ????????“T wo? ? ?Damn, I really knocked it out of the park.”
“Don’t let it go to your head, Casanova.”
Tristan chuckles again, kisses the top of my head, and plays with my hair. “What’s your other favorite?”
“The moment I realized that the spell worked,” I say, and Tristan goes still beneath me.
“You collapsed, and when I ran over to you, I reached for you, and I touched you for the first time. I could feel you. Your skin was warm, and you were breathing, and your heart was beating. I knew we’d done it. I knew you were here with me, finally.”
He’s quiet for so long that I start to wonder if he’s fallen asleep. But then he curves his hand around my jaw and gently tips my face up to look at him. His Adam's apple bobs heavily, and his eyes are stormy.
“I don’t know how to repay you for giving me back my life, but if you let me, I’ll spend the rest of it trying,” he says.
I shake my head, suddenly feeling very warm, very vulnerable.
“There’s no repayment,” I say. “I did this as much for you as for me.”
“I got a whole new life. What do you get out of it?”
“I like you.”
“I like you, too.”
“More than like?” I ask.
The look on his face says it all: pure, undiluted reverence. Still, when he says it out loud, I can feel butterflies in my stomach .
“More than like,” he says.
“Me, too, I think.”
Tristan smiles gently, patiently, like he has all the time in the world. “Be sure to tell me if it turns into ‘I know’.”
“Subtlety isn’t exactly my forte. You’ll know when I know,” I say with an easy laugh.
“Fine by me.”
His stomach growls. Loudly.
“What the fuck was that?” he asks, somewhat alarmed. Or, as alarmed as a man as stoic as Tristan could sound.
My laugh is immediate and full-bodied. The corner of his mouth lifts: amused by my amusement.
“I think you’re hungry,” I say.
~
Tristan follows me around the kitchen.
Considering that the man hasn’t eaten a meal in decades, I decide to go all out and make us a big breakfast. Thick-cut bacon is in the oven, cooking to a shatter-crisp.
Coffee is brewing. I’m standing at the stove making pancakes, and Tristan is behind me, hands on my waist, looking over my shoulder as I drop a scoop of batter into the sizzling cast-iron pan.
I’m not a tidy cook. In fact, I’m chaos in the kitchen and tend to wait until after the meal is finished before cleaning up.
It appears Tristan doesn’t function like that because, as he follows me around, he also cleans up after me.
He moves bowls away from the edge of the counters, cleans up spills, and discards the trash as we go.
“Did you do this before I could see you?” I ask as he grabs a dishtowel and reaches around me to wipe up a trickle of batter that’s crawling down the side of the bowl.
“Watch you cook?”
“And clean up after me.”
“Absolutely. You’re the messiest person I’ve ever met.”
“Tough talk from a guy who’s about to have the best meal of his post-afterlife life. I could just not let you have any and make you watch me eat again.”
He groans and presses closer. “The image of you licking pie and ice cream off of a spoon will be burned into my memory forever.”
“So, all this food is for me, then?” I tease, flipping the pancakes with a spatula.
I feel him gather my hair into his fist and wrap it once, lifting it off my neck and tugging it gently to urge my head to the side and give him access to my throat, where he presses his mouth.
A shiver skitters up my spine. I’m not sure how, but Tristan seems to have a knack for finding just the right spot to touch me or kiss me.
It’s like he has a radar for my most sensitive pathways of skin.
“I’ll make you a trade,” he murmurs, nipping at my pulse point with his teeth.
“Mmm? What’s that?”
“My endless devotion. When it comes to me, you can have whatever you want.”
“In exchange for what? ”
“Breakfast,” he says, slipping his hand through the opening of my robe to touch my bare skin beneath.
“Seems like a fair trade. Pancakes in exchange for worship.”
“So, we have a deal?”
“Deal.” I turn my head and seal our negotiation with a kiss.
We sit down at the table, and I watch, amused, as he loads up his plate until it’s overflowing. I pass him the dish of dark yellow butter and a bottle of local maple syrup, and he sets himself up for the perfect first bite.
I wonder what it might feel like to be so hungry, so deprived for so long, and now to have all of this in front of him.
I wonder what it might feel like to have only the memory of food and flavor, and to finally taste again.
I wonder if it’s the same way he felt about touching me last night.
Scratch that, I know it’s the same way he felt about touching me.
I can see it on his face, the excitement, the gratitude, and disbelief.
When Tristan takes his first bite, his eyes light up and then roll in pleasure.
“Oh my god, Demi,” he moans, mouth full.
Pride swells in my chest. I like making him happy. There’s a particular pleasure in knowing just how gray his existence was as a ghost, and to watch the color spread over him with each new experience.
After everything he’s been through, Tristan Beaumont deserves all the happiness in the world. It’s nice to be the one to give it to him.
“You like it?” I ask.
“More than like,” he says, shoveling another bite into his mouth. “Love.”