Before I Forget His Name novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: The Rule

At ten o'clock I stopped pretending I was going to sleep.

My room was dark except for the lamp, and I had taken off the scarf.

I sat on the edge of the bed with my bare head and the long pink scar behind my ear, and I waited.

He didn't knock this time.

He stood in the open doorway with the corridor light behind him, and he waited for me.

"It's after nine," I said.

"I'm aware."

"So the rule is dead."

"The rule was mine." He stepped inside and shut the door. "Tonight it's yours."

I stood up in my nightshirt.

My hands weren't steady, and I wasn't afraid of him.

I was afraid of what he would see.

"I look different," I said.

"You do."

"My hair is gone and there's a scar, and I weigh nothing, and I forget the words for things."

"Livia." He said it very low. "Come here."

I crossed the floor, and he put his hands on either side of my face and looked at me for a long time.

Then he bent and kissed the scar behind my ear.

His mouth was slow and warm on it, and he kissed every inch of the line, and something in my chest came loose.

"This is the part of you that stayed alive," he said into my skin.

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I have."

I pulled his shirt out of his belt and slid my hands up his stomach, over hard muscle and the old scars he never showed anyone.

"Take it off," I said.

He did, and the buttons made a small sound on the floor.

I took off my nightshirt, and he didn't look away from my face.

"Tell me what you want," he said.

"I want you in me. I want to watch your face when you stop being careful."

His breath went out of him.

I put my hand on his belt.

"I thought you couldn't be trained," I said.

"I told you what I was trained for."

He lifted me and laid me down on the sheets, and then he knelt over me and took his time.

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