I blink down at her. “Have to? You can go if you’d like, but you’re welcome to stay, too.” Oh, I so hope she chooses to sleep in my bed with me, to let me wrap around her all night. It’s getting late, and I think we’re both feeling it.
Peony smiles sleepily. “I would much rather be here with you.” She nuzzles my throat, settling her face there. “Right here.”
They’re words I never realized I longed for someone to say.
“Good,” I whisper to her. “Let me pick you up?”
“Sure, sure.” Peony’s limp as a puppet as I lift her off the bed enough to pull down the blanket, then raise it over us. I slide in beside her, then tuck us both in under the covers. Peony lets out a pleased sound as she returns to her previous position, curled up in my arms.
It’s easy to fall asleep with her there, her light breaths ruffling my fur, her heartbeat slowing as she wanders off into a dream.
I wake to find Peony nestled in my arm and still fast asleep. My hand is numb from the way she’s lying on me, but I ignore it as I observe her tousled hair, her plump lips, her long lashes fanned out across her cheeks. She looks younger in sleep, and it makes me wonder just how old she is.Twenties? Early thirties? How many years did this “Andy” take from her?
I wish I could give them back.
My sweet Peony, who trusted in someone so much—someone who took that trust and twisted it, who used it to take her apart piece by piece. I see how she holds all the remnants of herself in her arms, trying to find how they fit together again. I’m glad that to some degree, I can give her a safe place to land.
I wonder how long she’ll let me keep her. I want to hope for forever, but I don’t know what she wants or needs after the life she escaped.
Light drifts in the window, and Peony’s eyelids slowly open, as if she can sense I’ve been watching her. When she sees me, a tender smile lifts her lips, crinkling her eyes.
“Rupert.” The soft, sleepy way she says my name turns me into jelly. She reaches up and skates her palm along my cheek, into my mane, which is clearly her favorite place to be. She snuggles closer and rubs her face on my chest in what is, potentially, the cutest, sweetest gesture in the existence of humankind.
I hold her close, hoping this moment never, ever ends. But we’re interrupted by a sound almost like a car rumbling, and Peony grasps her stomach.
“My goodness. I guess I should make breakfast. What time is it?” She squints. “I think my phone is in my pants, if I didn’t leave it in my coat pocket.”
I bark out a laugh.
“It’s probably in your coat pocket.” Keeping my arm wrapped around her, I roll over onto my back so I can glance at the alarm clock beside me. “It’s almost nine-thirty.”
“Whoa, we slept in!” For a second I think she’s going to dart from the bed and get going, but then Peony sinks backinto my arms. “Hmm, but it sure was nice. I haven’t slept this late in… who knows how long?”
I kiss her forehead, the feeling of her naked body lying blissfully alongside mine already stirring me. “We can sleep in anytime you want. But we should make breakfast. Strawberry crepes?”
Her brows lift. “Oh, yes!” Those were the magic words, because now she is in motion, finding her underwear and jeans on the floor. “I’ll make a compote, too, and maybe we can mix a little cinnamon into the batter and the whipped cream?”
Cinnamon in whipped cream?
I bend down to kiss Peony’s exposed collarbone before she can slide on her shirt. “Don’t mind if I do.”
peony
Kellen is nowhere to be found when we come down from the east wing to make breakfast, and I hope he couldn’t hear us last night. I was pretty loud, I imagine.
In the kitchen, Rupert insists on helping to prepare breakfast.
“I can’t ask you to be both my cook and my lover,” he says, bumping me with his hip.
I pout. “But I enjoy cooking for you. It’s my job.”
“Then you can enjoy cookingwithme, instead.”
Chuckling, I agree to his request. I make the batter while he cuts the strawberries and starts the bacon. We operate in tandem, and the time flies by. Rupert finds excuses to squeeze my butt on his way past and leans down to brush akiss over the crown of my head when he stops to flip the bacon.
I shiver all over when he touches me, already eager to finish with eating so we can maybe go for a round two of what we did last night. Just the thought makes me tingle between the thighs, and after a moment, Rupert’s ears flick and his nostrils flare. He turns to me, amusement in his eyes.
“Eat your breakfast, first,” he says in a throaty voice, serving me up some bacon on a plate. I add two crepes, which I fill with strawberries and whipped cream.
