The silence wasn’t awkward.
It was full.
Full of everything we didn’t have words for yet.
He eventually pulled back just enough to look at me, brushing a damp strand of hair from my cheek. His gaze searched mine like he still couldn’t quite believe this was real.
The room had never felt this quiet.
Not even when it was empty.
My head rested on his chest, the rise and fall of his breathing slower now. Calmer. But underneath that calm was a storm I could still feel—like an aftershock beneath my cheek. His heart was steady, but not still. Not indifferent.
Neither was I.
I didn’t speak. Neither did he. The silence between us was full of things we didn’t have names for yet. Not regret. Not exactly comfort. Just… weight. Depth. Meaning.
I tried to memorize this—the scent of him, the warmth of his skin, the way the pads of his fingers traced invisible shapes across the dip of my spine.
But I could feel it already: the shift. The moment after.
The questions starting to crowd in.
I inhaled, slow and quiet, and felt the words forming before I had time to talk myself out of them. “This wasn’t part of the contract.”
His chest stiffened beneath me. One second. Two. Then his hand stilled on my back.
He didn’t say anything right away. Just tilted his head, gaze meeting mine, eyes unreadable. “You regret it?”
“No.” My voice came out softer than I meant. “But I’m not sure what to do now.”
Because the line we’d crossed… we couldn’t uncross it.
And while part of me still hummed from the feel of his hands, the other part—the louder, messier part—was trying to reconcile what this meant.
For him. For me. For us.
Kieren didn’t answer. He didn’t promise me anything, didn’t claim it meant something bigger than what it was. And somehow, that was kinder than any false reassurance could’ve been.
Instead, he reached for my hand and laced his fingers with mine.
Nothing more.
Just that simple act—his thumb brushing over mine like he was still grounding himself in the moment, like he didn’t want to let go just yet.
Neither did I.
Maybe tomorrow the world would look different. Maybe this would feel too complicated in daylight. Maybe we’d both pull away.
But right now… right here…
There was only this.
The quiet. The warmth. The after.
I closed my eyes and let my hand rest in his.
Chapter 22
