Chapter eleven
The Violence Between Notes
Róisín
Iwaketoquiet.Notthe fragile kind, the heavy kind—like the house itself is holding its breath.
The bed is wide and cool where his body should be. Linen tangled at my hips. My skin bare to the morning air. I register the ache first—deep, lived-in soreness that settles into my bones rather than screaming. Bruises bloom like ink beneath my skin, fingerprints and teeth and memory mapped across me with a care that feels almost reverent in hindsight.
Marked.
I shift, slow. Every movement answers back. Not pain exactly—more like proof. Proof I’m still here, proof something broke last night and something else, quieter, started knitting itselftogether. The room smells faintly of smoke and soap and him. The aftertaste of vows and violence. Of truth finally dragged into the light and left there, blinking.
Alone. Naked. Breathing.
I stare at the ceiling and let the silence sit on my chest, counting the spaces between my heartbeats like rests in a score—waiting to hear what comes next.
I pull a robe from the back of a chair and slip it on, the fabric brushing over skin that still feels too aware of itself. Every place he touched answers back—bruised, sore, marked—but not broken. Not anymore.
I follow the smell before I fully register where I’m going. The kitchen is already alive. Finn stands at the stove like this is a normal morning. Like the world didn’t split open last night and swallow us whole. Sleeves rolled, hair damp, bare forearms flexing as he flips something in a pan with steady hands. Eggs. Bacon. Coffee brewing. The low, domestic hiss of heat and oil fills the space.
It’s… wrong.Psychotic, really.
My body freezes just inside the doorway, robe cinched tight around me, bare feet on cool stone. He moves with easy confidence, reaching for salt, adjusting the heat, utterly at home in the aftermath of everything we did and said and survived.
As if he didn’t kneel in blood and lace with me hours ago. As if he didn’t hold me while I cried myself empty. As if vows and violence aren’t still clinging to my skin. The normalcy is almost louder than screaming.
I watch him for a long moment, heart thudding slow and heavy, counting the seconds between movements like rests between notes. Waiting. Measuring. Trying to decide if this quiet is peace—or just another kind of danger.
I step fully into the kitchen and let the silence sit between us, thick and charged, neither of us breaking it yet. I decide not to look at him.
I move around the kitchen like he isn’t there, pouring myself coffee, standing at the counter instead of sitting across from him. I keep my eyes on the mug, on the steam curling upward, on anything that isn’t the man who married me yesterday and broke me open on the floor like a confession.
Behind me, plates slide onto the table, silverware set with care, two places for both of us.I ignore that too.
I turn, finally, and sit—pulling out the chair furthest from him, robe falling open just enough to remind my body what it remembers. I tell myself the ache is just soreness. That the heat crawling under my skin is nothing.
I’m lifted before I can react—hands firm, sure, familiar—my breath leaving me in a sharp, startled sound as he pulls me backinto his space. Onto his lap. Solid. Warm. Alive. My hands brace against his shoulders automatically, instinct older than reason.
I huff, planting my palms against his chest. “What are you doing?”
His shoulders lift in a careless shrug, like I’m asking about the weather instead of the way my body has gone tight and traitorous in his lap. He reaches for a fork, spears a strawberry, and brings it up between us.
“To eatin’,” he says mildly. The fork touches my lips. “Eat, wee Rose.”
I shove the fork away, sharp and offended. “I do not need you feeding me.”
The corner of his mouth ticks—not a smile, not quite. More like satisfaction. He doesn’t move me off his lap. Doesn’t loosen his grip. Just leans back in the chair, one arm banded tight around my waist, the other settling on my thigh like it belongs there.
“You will,” he says quietly. “Sit here and eat like agood girl.”
I inhale sharply—until his hand slides, slow and deliberate, up the inside of my robe. Skin on skin. No rush. No apology. Just heat and memory and the unbearable awareness of him beneath me, solid and unrepentant. My breath stutters.Traitor.
“You’re impossible,” I mutter, even as my body betrays me, even as I don’t move away.
“Aye,” he agrees easily. His thumb presses at my hip, grounding. Claiming. Not asking. “And you’re sittin’.”
His hand slides higher beneath my robe, finding me wet already for him. I jolt at the contact, my coffee sloshing dangerously.
