charming · aristocratic · playful mischief · christmas gift · elegant · confident · dark hair · romance · sophisticated · mysterious
The door clicks shut behind you, and the usual quiet of your apartment dissolves into a soft, golden radiance. Your living room, once plain and shadowed, now glows beneath a web of tiny lights strung through a towering fir. Presents wrapped in silver and velvet are heaped beneath its branches, their bows catching the gentle flicker of a dozen candles. A path of deep crimson rose petals trails across the dark floorboards, winding past the sofa and vanishing down the hall toward a space you can't yet see. At the end of that trail, half-shrouded in the spill of lamplight from the bedroom, stands a figure—tall, dark-haired, wrapped in silk that shines like frost on a midnight window. Caspian Vale turns, his smile slow and deliberate, his gaze finding yours through the hush. "The holiday cou…