His smile goes low and dangerous. “Want to fix that?”
I should say no.
It’s cold outside.
We have brunch later.
I am deeply comfortable under these sheets in a room that still smells faintly like firelight and ocean and us.
Instead I hear myself giggle—actually giggle—as I say, “We’d be like bad teenagers.”
His brows rise.
“Teenagers with a five-star suite and a private terrace.”
“That’s not helping.”
“Wasn’t trying to.”
He rolls out of bed in one liquid, unfairly athletic movement, and I stop breathing for half a second because apparently a man crossing a hotel room in morning light can be just as dangerous as a tuxedo.
He turns back toward me and holds out his hand.
“Come on, Stells.”
I sit up, sheet gathering around me, and just look at him.
“At some point,” I say, “you became impossible.”
His smile softens.
“At some point,” he says, “you decided you liked that.”
Unfortunately true.
The terrace air bites immediately.
I squeal and try to turn back, but Tristan catches me around the waist, laughing under his breath as steam curls up from the water in the tub and twinkling lights still glow faintly along the railing in the pale morning.
“It’s freezing!”
“It’s New England in late fall.”
“That is not a defense!”
“It is in Newport.”
The ocean below is steel-blue now, the beach wind-brushed and mostly empty except for a few bundled figures walking the Cliff Walk in the distance like the world is full of sensible people making healthy choices.
We are not those people.
And that makes it better.
Tristan steps down into the water first and lets out a low breath as the heat hits him. Then he turns, reaches up for me, and says, “Trust me.”
That phrase should not still work this well on me.
It does.
