In Silence, I Let You Go novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Daylight

I woke at nine on Sunday to a bar of sun across his bed.

It was the first morning in a month that I had woken up without a plan.

Colter lay on his side facing me, awake, with his head on his arm.

He had been watching me sleep for a while, and he did not pretend otherwise.

"Good morning," he said.

"You're staring."

"I'm allowed. The rule is finished."

"I said that in front of two hundred people."

"I remember," he said. "I haven't stopped thinking about it."

The night before, we had barely made it through his door.

We had eaten crackers standing at the counter.

He had fallen asleep with his hand on my hip before either of us said anything important.

Now there was nothing standing between us but the sheet.

I looked at the gray at his temples in the daylight.

I looked at the line of his shoulder, and a faint pale scar on his collarbone that I had not seen in the dark.

"What's that from?" I asked.

"A bicycle. I was nine."

"I like it."

"You can like it from closer."

I laughed, and pushed him onto his back, and sat across his hips.

I had never been the one on top with the light on.

Tim had liked the dark, and he had liked to finish first.

Colter put his hands on my thighs and did not move them.

"Hannah," he said, and it was quiet. "Whatever you want."

"I want to look at you."

"All right."

"For a while."

I put my palms flat on his chest and moved them slowly down.

His stomach tightened under my hands.

He was already hard against me, and I rocked once over him, slowly, so that he felt it.

He shut his eyes and breathed out through his teeth.

"That's not fair," he said.

"I've been fair for a month."

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