They Thought I Was Asleep, So I Let Them Keep Lying novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Hands

Cal and Devin touch her while she plays asleep, until Devin stops it; on the back stairs he says he will tell her in the morning.

Cal's hand circled my ankle and stayed there.

His palm was rough and very warm, and my whole leg went tight under the afghan.

I let it go slack again, slowly, the way a sleeper's would.

"Look at that," Cal said under his breath. "Nothing."

"Cal."

"I'm not doing anything. I'm holding her foot."

His thumb slid up over the bone of my ankle and into the soft place behind it.

A sound tried to climb my throat.

I swallowed it, and breathed through my nose, small and even.

Devin's mouth was still against my wrist.

He had not moved it, and I could feel his breath on the skin, uneven.

"She's shaking a little," he said.

"She's dreaming."

"Is she?"

"Why wouldn't she be?" Cal said. "Her body's tired. It does things."

His hand moved up my calf, under the hem of the black dress, and every nerve I owned went with it.

I was twenty-seven years old, and I had buried my mother that morning.

I was lying very still while a man I'd spoken to maybe ten times pushed my skirt up past my knee.

I had never wanted anything so badly.

The afghan slid off my legs.

Cal folded it and put it aside.

Then Cal's mouth touched the back of my knee, and my hips lifted off the couch before I could stop them.

I froze.

Nobody spoke.

I made my body drop again, boneless, and counted my own breaths.

"Did she..." Devin started.

"She shifted," Cal said. "People shift."

I heard him smile.

I didn't care that he was smiling.

His hand slid up the inside of my thigh, slow.

Each time I thought it would stop, it didn't, and my breath came shorter.

Devin's free hand settled on my stomach, flat, over the dress.

He wasn't doing anything with it.

He only held it there, heavy and steady, and it kept me together.

Then he moved it up, so slowly my ribs ached, until his thumb rested under my breast.

I wanted him to finish the movement so much I almost said it.

"Devin," Cal murmured. "Look at her."

"I am."

"She's not wearing anything under this."

It was true.

I had changed out of tights after the lunch, because my legs had hurt.

Cal's fingers found bare skin at the top of my thigh and went still, and I felt, through every inch of me, how much he wanted to keep going.

Devin said, "Stop."

His voice wasn't loud.

It was hoarse, and it wasn't angry.

"Devin..."

"No. Take your hand off her." He lifted his own from my stomach. "She buried her mother today. She's asleep in a house she's about to lose. This isn't what I'm going to be."

Cal's hand slid out from under my skirt.

He pulled the hem back down over my knees.

He did it carefully, and I felt that, too.

"You're right," Cal said after a moment. "You're right. I'm sorry."

"Don't tell me. She can't hear it."

Nobody said anything for a while.

Then someone shook out the afghan and laid it over me, up to my shoulder, and tucked it under my chin.

I thought it was Devin.

A hand brushed my hair back, and a thumb stroked my cheekbone once, and I almost turned my face into it.

"Sleep, Kate," Devin whispered.

They went down the hall.

I lay there with my skin burning in six places, listening to the back door open and shut, and the porch light click off.

I wasn't ashamed.

I wanted to know why I wasn't.

I wanted to know what had happened to the part of me that always said no.

The house ticked as it cooled.

Then I heard their voices again, low, from the back stairs, because the door hadn't latched.

"I'm telling her in the morning," Devin said. "All of it."

"Tell her what?" Cal said.

"That we did this."

"That we got off on her while she was out cold? You want to say that to a woman whose mother is a day in the ground?"

"I want to say it before she hears it from somebody else."

"There's nobody to hear it from," Cal said. "Devin, listen to me."

A long silence.

"Listen. Sleep on it."

The door finally clicked.

I turned my face into the cushion.

For the first time that day I could cry, and I did.

I did not stop wanting them.

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