Chapter 3: The Morning After
Grey dawn had bleached the darkness from the room, leaving it in a cold, silver stillness.Jennie woke to the steady, deep rhythm beneath her ear. Her cheek was pressed against the fine linen of his shirt, her nose buried in the scent of him—sandalwood, the faint tang of last night’s ash, and something uniquely, unmistakeably Leonid. She was curled into his side, one arm flung across his waist, her legs tangled with his beneath the coverlet she had stolen.He had moved in the night. He was on his back now, one arm bent behind his head on the pillow, the other lying at his side.Her head rested just below his collarbone, rising and falling with his breath. She did not stir, did not open her eyes. She simply listened, feeling the vital heat of him seeping into her.Her fingers, which had been curled against his ribs, unfurled. She traced the seam of his shirt, then found the exposed skin of his wrist. Her fingertips whispered over the prominent, blue veins there, following their path up the corded sinew of his forearm, over the hard curve of his bicep, feeling the latent power sleeping beneath the surface.
His breathing hitched, just once.Her touch stilled.
“You are still in my bed.”
His voice was sleep-roughened, the beautiful instrument slightly out of tune, but the tone was flat, final.Jennie tilted her head back to look up at him. His eyes were open, staring at the canopy above, dark and unreadable in the wan light. She smiled, a slow, unrepentant curve of her lips. “It’s warmer here.”
“Your own bed has the same number of blankets.”
“But not the same occupant.” She pushed herself up on one elbow, her long hair falling across both of them like a black veil. Before he could move, she leaned in and pressed a soft, closed-mouth kiss to the sharp line of his jaw.The scrape of his stubble against her lips sent a jolt straight to her core. “I’m still cold.”
His hand shot up, catching her wrist again, not with the restrained warning of the night before, but with a firm, unyielding grip. He sat up in one fluid motion, pulling her with him so they were both upright in the center of the disheveled bed.The covers pooled around their waists.
“Enough.” The single word was a blade.“You will return to your room.Now. Before the maids begin their rounds and talk fills the kitchens before the bread is even baked.”
The mention of servants, of the fragile wall of privacy crumbling, should have sparked caution.It did not.It sparked defiance. He had released her wrist to throw back the coverlet, presenting her with an exit.She did not take it.
Instead, she shifted. In a move of feline agility, she twisted and settled herself directly onto his lap, her knees bracketing his thighs. The thin linen of her shift, already rucked up from sleep, rode higher, exposing the smooth skin of her legs almost to the hips. She felt the hard heat of him through his breeches, the insistent, unavoidable presence of his body responding to hers. A thrill, sharp and dizzying, shot through her.
He went absolutely rigid, his hands clamping down on her hips as if to physically remove her, but for a heartbeat, they didn’t. They held her there, suspended in the electric space between push and pull.
“Jennie.” Her name was a strained rasp.
She looped her arms around his neck, leaning in until her lips brushed the shell of his ear.The scent of him was overwhelming here, hot and male. “Send the maids away.Send everyone away.Let them talk. I don’t care.” She whispered the words, each one a tiny eruption of breath against his skin.“I just want to stay here. Like this.Forever.”
His breath left him in a short, controlled burst. The hands on her hips tightened, his fingers digging into the soft flesh with a pressure that was almost painful. For a wild, heart-stopping moment, she thought he would yield. She saw the conflict in the taut line of his neck, the slight flaring of his nostrils, the dark dilation of his pupils swallowing the brown of his eyes.
Then, with a raw force that stole the air from her lungs, he lifted her and deposited her unceremoniously onto the mattress beside him. He swung his legs off the bed, standing with his back to her, his shoulders heaving once as he dragged in a deep, steadying breath.
“Forever is a childish fantasy,” he said, his voice restored to its chilling composure. He walked to the window, pulling the curtain aside to let the indifferent morning light flood in.It illuminated the dust motes dancing in the air between them, a universe of separation. “You live in this house by a thread of charity and my father’s misplaced goodwill. Your ‘forever’ depends on you not burning every bridge you cross.”
The words were calculated, cold. They found their mark. She sat on the bed, the heat of him fading from her skin, replaced by a creeping chill.The shift felt absurdly thin now.
“Get dressed,” he commanded, still not looking at her.“Go to your room. I will inform Rosé you had a nightmare and sought refuge.It will be embarrassing, but it will be explainable. Anything else…” He finally turned.His expression was carved from marble, beautiful and remote. “Anything else is untenable.”
Jennie stared at him, the wild thing inside her snarling at the bars of his propriety.She wanted to scream, to claw at the perfection of his composure. Instead, she slid off the bed, her bare feet silent on the cold floor. She grabbed her abandoned blanket from the floor, wrapping it around herself like armor.
She paused at the door, her hand on the polished silver handle.She looked back at him, a silhouette against the bright window.
“You weren’t cold at all,” she said, her voice quiet, lacking its usual taunting melody.
He didn’t answer.He didn’t need to. The rigid set of his back, the white-knuckled grip he had on the curtain, said everything.
She slipped out, closing the door with a soft, definitive click. The sound echoed in the silent, sunlit room, a period at the end of a sentence neither of them knew how to finish.
Leonid stood alone, listening to the distant sounds of the manor waking. The ghost of her weight on his lap, the scent of her hair on his pillow, the searing imprint of her words in the air—they clung to him, a tumult he could not order. He stared at his own hands, flexing them once, as if to dispel the memory of her skin. The headache Rosé prophesied began a dull throb behind his eyes, a predictable punishment for a night of impossible resistance.