Morning at Blackthorne Manor didn't arrive gently—it arrived like a secret deciding whether to be told.
Light slipped through the tall curtains in thin gold ribbons, landing across the bed where I lay tangled in sheets that smelled of cedar and something unmistakably him. For a moment I forgot where I was, who I was. I only knew the pleasant ache in my body and the warm weight of Adrian's arm resting low across my waist.
He was already awake.
I felt it in the way his fingertips moved lazily along my skin, not demanding anything, only learning the map of me again. The touch was slow, thoughtful, as if he were memorizing a favorite poem.
"Good morning, Mira."
His voice was softer in daylight, less mysterious and more human. It did dangerous things to my pulse.
"Did I really stay?" I whispered.
"You did." A faint smile curved his mouth. "I was afraid you might vanish with the dawn."
I turned to face him. Without the shadows of night he looked younger, almost vulnerable. A lock of dark hair fell across his forehead, and I had the ridiculous urge to brush it back like we were already something familiar.
Instead I said, "I don't usually do things like this."
"Neither do I."
The honesty in his eyes unsettled me more than any practiced charm could have. There was no triumph there, no smug satisfaction—only wonder, as though he couldn't quite believe I was real.
Outside, the sea argued with the cliffs. Inside, the room felt like the center of the world.
He traced the silver mark on my wrist, the one that had appeared like a quiet vow. The touch sent a warm shiver up my arm.
"Does it frighten you?" he asked.
"It should."
"But it doesn't."
I shook my head. That was the dangerous truth. Everything about him, about this house, should have sent me running back to my small apartment and my sensible life. Yet lying beside him felt more natural than any morning I'd ever known.
He leaned closer, and the air changed.
Desire isn't always loud. Sometimes it's a slow tide, patient and certain. I felt it rising between us—the memory of the night before, the unfinished sentences our bodies had started writing.
"Tell me to stop if you want me to," he murmured.
Instead of answering, I kissed him.
---
There are kisses meant to greet and kisses meant to unravel. Ours was the second kind.
He tasted like sleep and secrets. His hand slid to the small of my back, drawing me nearer with a gentleness that made the movement somehow more intimate. The sheets whispered around us, and the world beyond the windows politely disappeared.
I discovered how easily a person can be persuaded without a single argument.
Adrian touched me the way someone handles a fragile instrument—confident but careful, learning which notes made me breathe differently, which made my fingers tighten in the fabric at his shoulders. There was no hurry in him, only a deliberate curiosity that left my thoughts scattered like dropped pearls.
"Beautiful," he said, almost to himself.
No one had ever looked at me like that. Not with such focused admiration, as if every ordinary piece of me were suddenly rare.
My shyness didn't vanish, but it softened. I let myself be seen.
The room warmed with quiet sounds—our laughter, our unsteady breaths, the creak of an old house pretending not to listen. The sea kept its rhythm outside, jealous and constant.
At some point the kisses turned lazy and playful. We talked between them, learning small things: that he preferred bitter coffee, that I collected pressed flowers inside library books, that he had once wanted to be a pianist before life decided otherwise.
Intimacy grew not only from touch but from the sharing of harmless truths.
"Stay the day," he said against my shoulder.
"I have work."
"Work can survive without you for once. I might not."
The line should have sounded theatrical. From him it felt sincere.
I stayed.
---
The manor in daylight was less intimidating, though no less strange. Dust softened the corners of elegant rooms; clocks ticked with slightly different opinions about the hour. Adrian showed me the library—two floors of leaning shelves and rolling ladders, a paradise disguised as a museum.
"You can borrow anything," he said.
"I might never leave."
"That wouldn't be the worst fate."
We ate breakfast on a balcony overlooking the water. He cooked with surprising skill, tying an apron over his expensive shirt like a man who didn't care about appearances when something mattered.
I watched his hands more than the food.
There's something intimate about seeing a person in ordinary moments after extraordinary ones. The way he frowned at a stubborn jar, the way he hummed an unfamiliar melody—these things stitched him closer to my heart than any grand gesture could.
Yet beneath the comfort lingered that delicious tension, the awareness of what waited whenever our gazes met too long.
He caught me staring.
"Careful, Mira. I'm trying to behave."
"Maybe I don't want you to."
The words escaped before I could dress them in modesty. His eyes darkened, and the balcony suddenly felt too small for the heat between us.
He set his cup aside with deliberate care.
"Say that again."
"I don't want you to behave."
A slow smile answered me—the kind that promised trouble and pleasure in equal measure. He stood, offering his hand like an invitation to a private storm.
I took it.
---
We didn't return to the bedroom immediately. Instead he led me through the manor as though giving a tour meant only for lovers: the music room where dust danced like shy ghosts, the gallery of painted ancestors who pretended not to watch us pass, the greenhouse where roses pressed their faces against the glass.
Everywhere we went, he found reasons to touch me—a guiding hand at my waist, fingers laced through mine, a playful tug that ended in laughter.
Seduction can be slow and joyful. I had never known that.
In the greenhouse he finally kissed me again, surrounded by the heavy perfume of flowers. Sunlight turned his hair almost warm, and I felt brave enough to explore him as boldly as he explored me.
We learned each other like a language no school had taught.
When he lifted me onto the old wooden table, it felt less like surrender and more like choosing. My dress became a careless pool of red; his shirt followed like a white flag.
Outside the glass walls, the world continued its ordinary business. Inside, time developed new manners.
He whispered my name often, as though it were a prayer he had waited years to speak. I answered in breaths and small confessions, discovering that desire could be tender without losing its fire.
By the time we returned to the bedroom, the afternoon had turned honey-colored.
---
I fell asleep against his chest, lulled by the steady proof of his heartbeat. For a while there were no mysteries, no ominous marks or dreaming houses—only two people tangled in the pleasant exhaustion of each other.
But happiness is sometimes a thin curtain.
I woke alone.
The room had cooled, and the curtains swayed though the windows were shut. From somewhere deep in the manor came the sound of a piano playing a melody I recognized from my dreams.
I dressed slowly, following the music like a thread.
It led me to a door I didn't remember seeing before—tall, dark, carved with shapes that looked almost like wings. The key from my pillow weeks ago suddenly felt heavy in my pocket.
Curiosity is a seductive vice.
I touched the handle. The piano stopped.
"Adrian?" I called.
No answer.
Only the house, breathing around me, and the faint silver mark on my wrist warming as if it approved of my courage.
For the first time since meeting him, doubt brushed my skin.
Love had opened a door.
I was beginning to wonder what waited on the other side.