Chapter 337: Chapter 337: Slow mornings at home
Morning light filtered through the tall windows, pale gold on the rumpled sheets. The room still smelled faintly of cedar, honey, and sweat, a warm, heady echo of what had passed between them. Lucas stirred first, eyes blinking open, every muscle languid and loose. Trevor lay behind him, one arm heavy over his waist, their bodies still joined by instinct even after sleep.
Windstone had been up for hours. From the hallway he had already sent away two junior staffers who had tried to approach the suite. He didn’t need to open the doors to know what had happened between arrival and dawn. The scents told him everything, and the fact that neither man had emerged only confirmed it. With the quiet efficiency that made him invaluable, he cancelled all appointments, rerouted calls, and instructed the kitchen to have restorative food and plenty of water ready whenever the couple rang.
Inside, Lucas rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling with a faint, sleepy smile. "He’s going to know," he murmured, voice rough from sleep.
Trevor propped himself up on an elbow, violet eyes still dark but softer now. "Windstone always knows. He probably has the entire wing under a sound-dampening protocol by now."
Trevor’s thumb drifted from Lucas’s brow to the corner of his mouth, tracing the faint curve of a smile. His other hand rested loosely at Lucas’s waist. The heavy Fitzgeralt signet ring he’d slipped on before the flight caught the light when he moved, a muted glint of gold against warm skin. Without thinking, he shifted it so that the band lay flat against Lucas’s hip and began to draw small, absent-minded circles there with his knuckles.
Lucas huffed a laugh again, softer this time, turning his face into Trevor’s palm. The movement made his own hand slide across the sheets, and the new signet ring Trevor had given him only days ago, sleek platinum engraved with the Fitzgeralt crest, flashed briefly in the morning sun. It still felt slightly too big, slightly too new, but warm from his skin. "Good," he murmured. "Then I don’t have to be embarrassed."
Trevor bent a little closer, the cedar of his scent now a gentler undertone rather than the sharp edge of rut. "Nothing to be embarrassed about," he said quietly. "We’re both young, with a clear rut cycle. It would be odd not to."
Lucas tilted his head back enough to look at him, green eyes still heavy-lidded but amused. He turned his left hand so the platinum band pressed lightly against Trevor’s chest. "That sounds like something Windstone would write in a report."
Trevor’s mouth curved. "He probably already has."
He shifted onto his side, propping his head on his hand so he could look at Lucas properly. The gold of his own ring and the platinum of Lucas’s brushed together as he traced lazy lines over the smooth plane of Lucas’s stomach. "You realize," he added, voice dropping to a murmur, "this is the first time in months we’ve woken up without anyone waiting on the other side of the door."
Lucas caught Trevor’s wrist, thumb brushing over the warm metal of both rings where they touched. "Then let’s stay here a little longer," he said.
Trevor’s expression softened, the last of the strain from the capital finally gone. "As long as you want," he answered, lowering his forehead to Lucas’s again. Gold and platinum glinted between their hands as they settled back into the pillows, the manor hushed around them while they stayed tangled together in their own unhurried world.
—
Outside, the gardens shimmered under a thin veil of autumn mist. Inside, time stretched, soft and forgiving. The heavy curtains moved with each breeze off the sea, carrying the scent of wet stone and cut grass into the room. It mingled with the lingering traces of cedar and honey until the air itself seemed to hum with quiet contentment.
Lucas shifted closer, fitting himself more firmly against Trevor’s side. His sweatshirt had twisted in his sleep, exposing a strip of pale skin above the waistband of his drawstring pants; Trevor’s fingers idly smoothed it back down, tracing another slow circle over his stomach with the edge of his ring.
"We really did it," Lucas murmured, eyes still closed. "The wedding, the presentation. And now..." He let the sentence drift off into the hush.
"And now," Trevor echoed, pressing a kiss into his hair. "We get to breathe before the next storm."
Lucas opened one eye, green glinting under the lashes. "Serathine and Cressida are still in Saha?"
Trevor smiled, making a low sound of agreement. "Weeks away. They can’t barge in with another schedule even if they wanted to."
Lucas made a soft, incredulous sound, turning onto his stomach and burying his face in the pillow. "I can wear my sweatshirts and comfy pants without a lecture."
"You can wear nothing at all and Windstone would still defend you to the death," Trevor said dryly, brushing a thumb along Lucas’s jaw. "But yes. Sweatshirts. Comfy pants. Whatever makes you remember this isn’t a performance."
Lucas’s shoulders shook with a small laugh. "That’s almost more shocking than the wedding."
Trevor’s hand stilled over his stomach, palm warm. "Get used to it," he murmured. "This is what we fought for. Our time and peace, maybe small mornings like this."
Lucas rolled back enough to look at him, their rings flashing together again. "Then we’re not moving for at least another hour."
Trevor leaned down until their foreheads touched and hummed suggestively. "Only if I can take your comfy clothes down."
Lucas let out a low laugh, eyes crinkling. "Tempting, but I’m too sore, and unfortunately yesterday didn’t count as heat for my body."
A slow, genuine smile spread across Trevor’s face at that, the kind that reached his eyes. "A countdown, then," he said softly. "I can be patient."
Lucas huffed a little laugh, tilting his head so their noses almost brushed. "You? Patient?"
Trevor bent to kiss the corner of his mouth, a lazy brush of lips rather than anything demanding. "For you," he murmured. "Always."
Lucas relaxed back into the pillows, green eyes still heavy-lidded but glinting with amusement. "We’ll see if you still say that in seventy-two hours."
Trevor only laughed again and drew him closer, one big hand resting over Lucas’s stomach where their rings gleamed together in the morning light. "Then until then," he said, "we do nothing but recover, eat, and enjoy being invisible."
Lucas let out a soft hum of agreement, the sound vibrating between them as he pressed his forehead to Trevor’s. "That," he murmured, "sounds perfect."