Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
KEIRA
The garden looks and feels different. Wilder than yesterday. The hedges have grown too tall, swallowing the sky until there's nothing left but green and shadow and the faint, intoxicating scent of jasmine that shouldn't bloom this time of year.
It wasn't there before.
I don't understand.
I'm walking barefoot through soft grass, the blades cool and damp between my toes. I should be freezing, but I feel amazing. Warm and comfortable for the first time in a long while.
My nightgown is white and thin…I don't remember owning something like this. It clings to my skin like mist.
Everything feels liquid here. Edges blurring into space, time moving in that strange, syrup-slow way that only happens when you're not awake.
I must be dreaming.
There's someone standing in front of a row of thick hedges, shaped into elaborate figures that remind me of Versailles. With every step I take, the person becomes more solid.
It's Henri.
He's not in his usual black uniform. No weapon, no rigid posture of a man paid to watch me. No black cloth covering his face. He's in a simple white shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows, the top buttons undone to reveal the base of his throat.
He looks too good, and I definitely shouldn't be here.
But I guess it doesn't really matter, since this isn't real.
"There you are," he says, without the French accent. His voice sounds different—rougher, more intimate.
My feet carry me across the grass until I'm close enough to see the flecks of amber burning in his eyes.
"This isn't real," I tell myself as much as him.
"Does it matter?"
I don't know anymore.
"We both know it doesn't." He closes the distance between us, pulling me in. "Because you came here anyway. You found me."
"I didn't—"
"You did." His gaze drops to my mouth. "You're so desperate to feel something that your own mind built me a door."
His hand lifts to my face, fingers tracing along my jaw with a tenderness that makes my bones soft. I lean into the touch before I can think better of it.
He's right.
I'm starving for contact that doesn't come with conditions attached. For words that don't wound. For someone to look at me without pity or rage in their eyes.
"I don't know what I want," I whisper.
"Yes, you do." He's so close now. Close enough that I can feel his breath on my lips. "You're just terrified to take it."
"I don't know how anymore."
His fingers twist into my hair, grip tightening until my scalp tingles.
"Then let me show you."
My heart is beating out of my chest. "You don't know me."
"I know you're disappearing." He tips my face up, eyes raking over me. "I know you used to be someone else. Someone who laughed. Someone who burned so bright people couldn't look away."
My throat tightens. "That woman is gone."
"No. She's still here."
He leans down, pressing his lips softly to my forehead. Then my temple. My jaw. His mouth drifts slowly, tracing a path down my throat, along my collarbone, and finally to my heart.
He pauses there, peering up at me. His breath ghosts across my skin, and I feel my nipple harden in response, heat flooding through me.
"She's just hiding," he murmurs against my skin. "Waiting to be found."
Then find me.
Rip me open. Pull me back to the surface.
I don't know how to breathe or respond or even move. I know I'm locked in a dream, but this feels so real it hurts.
He straightens, and I keep my eyes on his as he towers over me again. His lips barely brush mine—not a kiss, just a graze—but it's enough to make me lose my mind.
My lips part on instinct, chasing the contact, but he pulls back just far enough to make me ache.
"Tell me to stop. Tell me this is wrong, and I'll walk away."
I should push him back and remember where I am, who I belong to, what happens to women in this house who want things they're not allowed to have. What if—
There is no what if. This isn't real. Just do it.
I fist my hands in his shirt and pull him down to me.
The kiss ignites something I thought had died years ago.
His mouth moves against mine carefully, learning the shape of me.
Then it turns deeper. Hungrier. His tongue slides against mine, and I moan into him, the sound foreign and shameless and so fucking good I want to cry.
His hand grips my waist, fingers pressing into the thin fabric of my nightgown, pulling me flush against him until I can feel every hard line of his body.
"Please," I breathe against his lips, and I don't even know what I'm asking for. More. Everything. Something to make me feel real again.
He breaks the kiss, eyes searching mine like he's taking pictures of this moment. Then his hands slide down to my thighs, and he lifts me like I weigh nothing.
Everything about him feels unmistakable to me.
I wrap my legs around his waist as my back hits a wall that wasn't there before—cool stone covered in climbing roses. The thorns should hurt, but they don't. Nothing hurts here. Everything is perfect.
"I've wanted this," he rasps, his mouth dragging down my throat. "Since the first moment I saw you. Do you know what that's been like? Watching you every day and not being able to touch you?"
His teeth press into my pulse point, and I gasp, rolling my hips against him.
"I need to hear you say it. Tell me what you want," he demands.
Those words flip a switch inside me.
Heat coils through me, sudden and unforgiving, like something that's been waiting just beneath my skin for years.
Every buried thought, every forbidden want I thought was gone comes rushing back.
A version of myself I threw away years ago—the one who used to ask for what she needed, who used to beg for it and loved every second of the surrender.
"I want you to touch me."
"Where?"
"Everywhere."
His hand slides up my thigh, achingly slow, trailing fire across my skin. "Like this?"
"More."
He smiles, loving the control I just handed him. "Such a needy girl."
Needy girl.
I used to love being talked to like that.
I remember it all too well. That exact phrase, in that exact tone, from a voice that sounded just like—
His fingers brush between my thighs, and the thought dissolves, replaced by pure sensation. I'm not wearing anything beneath the nightgown, and the realization should embarrass me, but instead it only makes me wetter.
"You're soaked," he murmurs against my ear. "Is this all for me?"
"God, yes."
He rewards me with one slow stroke right where it hurts, and my head falls back against the stone.
It's been so fucking long since anyone touched me and actually made me feel something beyond revulsion and resignation.
"That's it." His voice has gone velvet-dark, a sound that wraps around my spine and squeezes. "Let me hear you."
Another stroke, deeper this time. He presses his thumb against my clit, and I cry out, digging my fingers into his shoulders hard enough to leave marks.
"Please—"
"Please what?" He draws back, tracing his fingers lightly down my thighs.
I can quite literally feel myself dripping.
"Use your words, baby girl. Tell me what you need."
I have to obey if I want him to please me.
"I need—" The words stick in my throat, tangled up with old shame and repressed want. "I need you to—"
For whatever reason, I can't finish the sentence. Maybe it's because it's been so long and I'm rusty as hell.
It doesn't matter, though, because Henri's eyes darken in the most delicious way. "You want to be my good girl? You want me to tell you how perfect you are while I make you feel it?"
A broken sound slips out of me—half whimper, half plea. All I can manage is a nod. Wretched and demanding and exactly who I used to be.
"You need to ask properly. Tell me what you want."
His patience is unbearable. The steadiness of his hands. The way he waits like he has all the time in the world while I'm falling apart.
"I—" My voice splinters. "I need you to tell me I'm good. Please. I need to hear it while you touch me. While you—"
His thumb brushes my clit once, and I arch off the wall, gasping.
"Shh. Breathe." He kisses my temple, soft and devastating. "You're already doing so well. Look at you—open for me, soaking my fingers, asking so sweetly."
His free hand slides up my body until his fingers wrap around my throat. A claim without words.
"Is this okay?"
I nod frantically, heat flooding through me at the contact.
"Words, baby."
"Yes. Please, I need you."
"Good girl."
The praise liquefies something in my spine. My hips rock against his hand, desperate, shameless, and he lets me chase it for exactly one heartbeat before pulling back. His fingers hover just out of reach.
A broken whine slips out of me.
"Not yet." His grip on my neck tightens just a fraction, a reminder of who's in control. "You don't come until I say. You come because I tell you you're perfect. Because you earned it."
Tears prick my eyes.
"Do you understand?"
"Yes. Yes, I understand—just please—"
"One more thing." His lips brush the shell of my ear, voice dropping to something molten. "When you come, I want to hear my name. Not his. Not anyone else's. Mine."
I'm pretty sure I'm melting now.
"Can you do that for me?"
"Yes."
"Yes, what?"
"Yes…please."
His thumb circles my clit again, deliberately ruinous. "That's my perfect girl."
He slides two fingers inside me, curling slow, pressing that spot that makes stars burst across my vision. I clench around him, closing my eyes as my body begs. He pumps once, twice, then stills again, thumb circling my clit in lazy, maddening strokes.
"Henri—" His name is a sob. I lean into his touch, seeking more.
"Almost, sweet girl. You're so perfect when you let go. I could do this all night—watch you shake, watch you beg, watch you try so hard to please me."
He starts thrusting again, his thumb pressing harder against my clit. The orgasm builds quickly, and just as I'm about to chase it, he withdraws completely.
I open my eyes, crying out as my hips jerk uselessly.
That's when I notice the garden has shifted around us. The roses bleed from red to white to red again. And when I turn to look up at him…
His face is different.
The beard is the same, but his jaw is sharper beneath it. His eyes aren't brown anymore—they're gray, pale and piercing. A color so unique I spent years trying to forget.
"Tristan?"
He smiles, and it's the same one he used to give me in darkened hotel rooms and borrowed beds—the one that promised filthy things and always delivered.
"Took you long enough, Red."
Red.
"You're not—" I shake my head, trying to make sense of it. "Henri was just—"
"Henri?" He tilts his head, studying me with those familiar wolf-gray eyes. "Is that what you've been calling me?"
"I don't understand."
His hand comes up to cup my face, and the touch is so achingly familiar I want to scream. "You don't have to."
My breath catches. "How do you—I can't."
"You can." He leans in, kissing me desperately. And I let him. "You will. When you're ready. When you remember."
"Remember what?"
When he pulls away this time, it's Tristan's old face—copper-brown hair, no beard. The same one I fell in love with all those years ago.
"That you were always mine."
The dream disintegrates.
I feel it coming apart around me like tissue paper in rain—the garden dissolves, the roses start to wilt, Tristan's face blurs at the edges.
"Find me." His voice is already fading. "I'm right here, Keira. I've always been right here."
"Wait—" I call out, but darkness rushes in.
I wake gasping.
My hands clutch at sheets that smell like lavender detergent and captivity. My heart slams against my ribs. Between my thighs, I'm slick and throbbing, the phantom pressure of his fingers still lingering in my nerve endings.
For one delirious moment, I can still feel him. The weight of his hands. The heat of his mouth. The way he said good girl.
Then reality settles in like a nightmare.
I'm in my room. In Calder's house. Alone.
It was just a dream.
I press my palms against my eyes and try to breathe through the terrible ache.
It was all just a dream. Henri isn't Tristan. That's insane.
But my body doesn't believe it.
Somewhere with shitty reception and good coffee.
That's what Henri said in the village when I asked where he'd go if he could disappear. And I knew it sounded familiar. I have heard it before. Tristan…it has something to do with Tristan.
It's not possible.
It's not possible.
Find me. I'm right here, Keira.
What if he's been here all along and I've been too broken to see it?