Limited Love novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: The Terms

"Eileen?"

His voice came from the dark of the hallway, rough and out of breath.

"Kitchen," I said.

I heard him bump into the wall, swear, and keep coming.

I had not turned on my phone light.

I stood at the sink with the water running over the last plate, and I finished rinsing it by feel.

"The whole building's dark," he said, in the doorway. "The generator failed. I took the stairs from the forty-first floor."

"That's a lot of stairs."

"I drove here at ninety." He stopped. "You're standing in the dark."

"I'm doing the dishes."

"You hate the dark."

I turned off the tap.

"I did."

He crossed the kitchen, and I felt more than saw him stop an arm's length away.

"The winter I worked all night," he said, quietly. "The power went out at the tower, and you came to find me in your pajamas. You walked the whole floor with your hands on the walls."

I remembered it too.

I remembered the cold floor under my bare feet and the sound of my own voice calling his name, over and over, high and thin.

"Twenty minutes," I said.

"You were shaking so hard I thought you'd break."

"I was."

"You're not shaking now."

"No."

He was quiet for a long moment.

"What happened to you?" he said.

I could have said, you let me die in the rain.

"I got tired of being afraid," I said.

Something moved in the dark, and his hand found my cheek, and his thumb ran along my jaw.

I turned my face into his palm.

"Eileen," he said, low, like a warning.

"I know," I said.

His breath went out of him.

"Three things first," I said.

"Eileen."

"One. Tonight is tonight. It doesn't promise anything about tomorrow."

His thumb stopped on my lip.

"Two. No talking about it in the morning. No conversation, no apologies, no questions."

"And three?"

"I sleep in my own room."

"That's the guest room."

"That's mine."

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