The morning light spilled gently through the half-closed blinds, casting soft golden stripes across the room. It crept over the bed slowly, kissing the rumpled sheets and illuminating the bare skin of two people tangled together as if they belonged that way.
Ella stirred first.
Not because of the sunlight, but because of the warmth curled around her. The soft rise and fall of Nicholas's chest beneath her cheek. The slow, steady rhythm of his heartbeat that had been her lullaby hours earlier.
For a moment, she stayed still, unwilling to wake him. Her fingers idly traced the slope of his collarbone, down to the faint line of muscle along his sternum. He was so warm. So solid. And it was still wild to her that she'd spent the night not just in his bed, but with him—beneath him, around him, completely claimed in every possible way.
And yet, now… now it felt different. Like everything had been stripped away but something truer. Something quiet and beautiful.
