Chapter 21: Mornings

Jude's POV

She led me up the back stairs of the Tern House by the hand.

It was a quarter to eleven, and Frances had gone to bed with the door shut and the radio on, loud enough to prove a point.

Hanna's room was at the end of the hall, with the sea window and the white iron bed.

Her mother's quilt lay folded at the foot of it.

She shut the door and stood with her back against it, still in her wet coat.

"You've never been up here," she said.

"No."

"I wanted it to be this room. Not the one I had with him."

I took her coat and hung it on the hook.

Then I put both hands on her face and kissed her, slow, and she opened her mouth and let me in.

She tasted like peppermint tea.

She unbuttoned my shirt without hurrying, one button at a time, and pushed it off my shoulders.

Her palms were warm on my chest.

"Mornings," she said against my mouth.

"Mornings."

I got the cardigan off her and the shirt under it, and I knelt to unlace her boots, which she had put on for the snow.

She laughed breathlessly and held my shoulder to keep her balance.

When I stood up, I unhooked her bra and let it fall.

Her breasts were fuller than they had been in the shed, and her nipples tightened in the cool air.

I put my mouth on one and sucked, and she made a low sound and put her fingers through my hair.

I walked her backward to the bed and laid her down, and she lifted her hips so I could take off her jeans.

She lay there in the lamplight with nothing on, and she did not cover herself.

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