Chapter 10: The Second Night

Linnet's POV

He came to my room at midnight, and he didn't knock.

I was sitting up in bed with the lamp off and the window open, watching the lake.

The black lines had stopped just under my collarbone, and the salve had made my arms numb and quiet.

I didn't want quiet.

I wanted to feel everything I had left.

He shut the door behind him and stood against it.

He was in his shirtsleeves, with the top buttons open, and his hair was a mess where he'd been dragging his hands through it.

"Odile's asleep in the east wing," he said. "I told her I'd be working."

"Is that what this is?"

"I don't know what this is." His voice was rough. "I haven't known since the porch."

"You said nothing between us but the debt."

"Then I owe you a lot."

I laughed once.

I pushed the quilt off and swung my legs over the side of the bed.

I was wearing a borrowed cotton nightgown, white, and nothing under it.

He saw it, and he stopped breathing.

"Cassian," I said. "I have a day left. I'm not going to spend it being polite."

"You're ill."

"I'm dying. It's different. It means I get to say what I want."

"Linnet."

"I want you to come here and put your hands on me."

He crossed the room.

He took my face in both hands and kissed me, and it wasn't like the study.

It was slow, and it was deep, and it went on until I made a small noise against his mouth and pulled him down by the shirt.

He came down over me on the bed with one knee between my thighs.

His mouth went to my jaw, and to my throat, and I tipped my head back and let him.

"Seven years," he said into my neck. "I could still smell you in the cells."

"Then stop talking and do something about it."

He drew the nightgown up my body in one long pull.

I raised my arms so he could take it off, and the lines on them shone black in the moonlight.

He looked at me.

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