Beneath Silk Sheets (18+) || Paul Lahote

Thirty Two | Narcissus

"I think I could love you until even the sun grows tired of coming back every spring to forgive us for another season of hiding."
—Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib | In This Scene

• • •

By the next morning, any pretense of sorrow seemed to have left them.

Serenity enveloped them in a blanket of comfort as warm and forgiving as their tangled embrace and light filtered in through the break between curtains as Bailey stirred below the sheets. Something warm and heavy kept gently gliding along the back of her head while what felt like a pair of soft, wet lips kept sponging light kisses along her cheeks, her chin, her nose, and down her jawline, her neck, and her exposed shoulder from where her oversized t-shirt appeared to have fallen throughout the night. Groggily, Bailey let loose a soft sigh from the back of her throat and blinked her heavy eyes open only to be met with the sight of a familiar russet-skinned chest. Thinking nothing of it, Bailey squeezed her eyes shut once again and stretched with all the might of a sleepy kitten whilst an equally as sleepy mewl slipped past her puffy lips.

"Morning," a deep voice grumbled soft in her ear, the word followed by a sweet nibble of teeth on her earlobe. Two kisses were then pressed to her closed lids and Bailey blinked upon their end.

"You slept a long time, baby," that same voice continued as those same lips pressed gently against the crook of her neck while Bailey struggled to awaken fully. "Was startin' to think you'd never open those pretty blue eyes for me."

"Mmm," was all that escaped her mouth in response, the corners of her lips lifting into a fatigued, blissful smile that softened the previous puckered pout they had been shaped into earlier. A kiss was pressed to each corner and the rough day-old stubble that scratched against her chin registered in her mind as Paul's.

"You gonna let me see 'em?" He cooed, all manner of usual hard stoicism having disappeared under influence of the sleepy golden-haired girl curled up like a kitten atop his chest. "You gonna let me see those pretty eyes of yours?"

Bailey pouted when his thumb moved to pull gently down on her bottom lip. His dark chuckle resonated in the quiet air around them when it sprang back up against her teeth with an audible plop! and his chest vibrated beneath her in tune with his laugh.

"Don't wanna," she mumbled petulantly, burrowing her face into the pillow beside her when he laughed once more. "M' too tired."

"Too tired, huh?" Paul smirked, the mirth in his eyes made evident through the jesting tone of his voice. "Well what's it gonna take to wake you up then?" He asked her smoothly, hand on the back of her head flattening so that his fingers could thread through her mass of blonde curls. "What's it gonna take, hmm?"

"Shh," she mumbled incoherently, unwilling to wake from the exhausted slumber the events of the day before had placed her under. The bath she and Paul had taken last night had all but put her to sleep by the end of it, and by the time the water had run cold and the moon shone high up in the sky, Paul had lifted her tiny body from the tub, wrapped her in a towel without giving in to the strong temptation to peak at what he had already seen, and pulled one of his t-shirts over her head before tucking her underneath the covers. Then, after he'd blown out the candles and pulled on his own pair of pajama pants, he'd slipped in beside her and held her in his arms as he thought about all the reasons why he loved her, and all the reasons why he'd never change a thing. The light of the moon had blinked through the curtains behind his bed and illuminated her blonde curls in its silvery glow, and as he stared at her with all the rapture of a man head over heels, he'd eventually fallen asleep just the same.