Page 469 of Bad Prince
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Stella
I wake up warm in the deep, impossible way that starts somewhere behind the ribs and spreads until it feels like your whole body has been gently rewritten.
For one suspended second, I don’t open my eyes.
I just lie there in the quiet glow of the room and listen.
The ocean below the cliff.
The low hiss of the fireplace, almost burned down.
The slow, even rhythm of Tristan breathing behind me.
His body is curled around mine like the shape was made for it. One arm draped low and possessive over my waist, the other tucked under the pillow, his mouth somewhere near the back of my shoulder, warm and sleepy and real.
Last night rushes back in fragments.
The dance.
The curtains.
The song.
His face when I told him the truth.
This room.
The firelight.
The tenderness.
The way he looked at me like I was not just wanted, but cherished.
My eyes sting before I even open them.
Ridiculous.
I smile into the pillow instead.
Behind me, Tristan stirs.
His hand flexes lightly against my stomach.
Then his voice, rough with sleep and still somehow devastating:
“You’re awake.”
“So are you.”
“Barely.”
That makes me laugh softly.
I turn carefully in his arms until I’m facing him, the sheet tangling low around us, morning light slipping silver-blue through the terrace doors. His hair is a little wrecked, his jaw shadowed, his face softened by sleep in a way that feels almost too intimate to survive.
He blinks at me once.
