Chapter 17: The Silent Vigil
The click of her bedroom door shutting was the loudest sound she’d ever heard. Catriona leaned against it, the wood cool through the thin cotton of her t-shirt—his t-shirt. The lavender scent of her room was cloying, a stark contrast to the musk of him that still clung to her skin. The fantasy had curdled.
He’d held her on the couch until her tears dried, then kissed her temple and said, “Get some sleep.” Just like that. As if he’d turned off a switch. The container, solid and reliable. But the new rule—you stay with me—felt fissured already. She’d left. She’d needed to think, and thinking required being alone.
Her room was a museum of her own hesitation. Boxes of books she couldn’t commit to unpacking. A lace chemise, black and delicate, tossed over a stack of journals. She picked up the dog-eared copy of Fifty Shades from her nightstand, its spine cracked at a particular scene. It felt ridiculous now. Juvenile. The prose was flat where her reality was multidimensional, agonizing.
She couldn’t sit. She poured a finger of the whiskey from the bottle on her floor, wincing as it burned. The journal was in the top drawer. She didn’t open it. She’d promised they’d write their own pages. The blank ones ahead were terrifying.
An hour passed. Then two. The flat was silent. He was in his room. Respecting the boundary she’d erected by leaving. It felt like a punishment.
She stared at the door, the strip of light beneath it. Every nerve was tuned to the hallway. The creak of a floorboard. The sigh of the pipes. Nothing. The waiting was a physical ache, a hollow need below her stomach. He’d seen everything—the screaming, the tears, the surrender—and then he’d let her go. Was that the safety she’d asked for? It felt like abandonment.
She must have dozed, because the shift in light woke her. The strip under the door went dark. A shadow blocked it. She held her breath.
The handle turned. Slowly. The door opened, and he filled the frame, backlit by the weak hall bulb. He was just a shape, broad and solid.
He didn’t speak. He stepped in and closed the door, plunging them into a gloom broken only by the streetlamp’s orange glow through the blinds. She could hear his breathing. She could smell him.
“You left,” he said. His voice was gravel.
“You told me to sleep.”
“I told you to stay with me.” He took a step closer. “Your choice, Cat. Always. But don’t pretend you’re following orders when you’re running.”
The accuracy of it was a slap. She said nothing.
He sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress dipped under his weight, rolling her toward him. “I laid there,” he said, staring at his hands. “Thinking about him coming tomorrow. Thinking I should feel worse. But all I could think about was you, in here, thinking. And I couldn’t fucking stand it.”
He looked at her then. His eyes were black in the dark. “The container’s leaking. All over the floor. This bit… this isn’t in the journal, is it?”
She shook her head.
“Didn’t think so.” He reached out, his fingers brushing the tangled hair from her cheek. “This is the messy part. The part after the screaming. This is where I don’t know what I’m doing.”
His admission undid her. She reached for him. He came down onto her, his weight a welcome anchor. He kissed her, and it was nothing like the kitchen. It was slow, deep, a searching. His hands didn’t grip or demand; they slid under the t-shirt, palming the curve of her waist, the notches of her spine, as if relearning her.
When he entered her, it was with a stifled groan, a careful, inexorable slide that had her arching off the mattress. He was still thick, still stretching her, but the pace was a languid roll, a current pulling her under. He supported his weight on his elbows, his face inches from hers, watching every flicker in her eyes.
“Tell me,” he breathed.
“Tell you what?”
“What you’re thinking. Right now.”
She was thinking that this felt like forgiveness. Like absolution. She was thinking his skin was fever-hot. She was thinking she never wanted him to stop. “I’m thinking… this is the picture,” she whispered, echoing his words from the kitchen, but the meaning had bled and changed.
A sharp, grateful sound escaped him. He buried his face in her neck. His hips kept moving, a relentless, sweet torture. The pleasure built differently—a rising tide, not a crashing wave. It filled her up, from her toes to her throat.
“Aidan.” His name was a prayer.
“I know.”
When she came, it was with a soft, broken cry, her body clasping his in a series of gentle pulses. He followed, his own release a shuddering collapse, a hot flood inside her. He didn’t pull away. He went utterly still, crushed against her, his breath humid on her skin.
Minutes passed. The world seeped back in: a siren in the distance, the patter of renewed rain.
He shifted, sliding out of her, but gathered her immediately, turning them onto their sides. He pulled the duvet over them. His arms were a vice.
“He comes at ten,” Aidan said into her hair, his voice thick. “I want you gone by nine. Go to the library. Lose yourself in the stacks.”
“You shouldn’t have to face him alone.”
“I have to. This is mine.” He paused. “And it’s not about him anymore. It’s about you being somewhere he can’t look at you. I can’t have him looking at you.”
The possessiveness was absolute. It should have chilled her. It set a quiet fire in her bones.
“What happens after?” she asked.
His hand stroked down her back, settling possessively on the curve of her hip. “We stop living in half-unpacked boxes. We take his name off the lease. We write our own pages.” He kissed her forehead, a hard, sealing press. “And I don’t let you run. Even when you think you need to. Especially then.”
Outside, the rain intensified, sheeting against the window. Inside, the labyrinth of boxes seemed less daunting. The fantasy was closed. The journal was irrelevant. What remained was the weight of him, the promise in the dark, and the terrifying, exhilarating freedom of a blank page.