Page 66 of Shatter

I don't feel like a piece of property.

Slowly, tentatively, I decide I want to be closer.

I shift my body, sliding upward until my head is resting against his chest, my ear pressed over his heart.

I feel him stiffen for a second, surprised by the movement, and then he relaxes, his arm tightening just a fraction around me.

He doesn't call me "Katie."

He doesn't use the name I've been using to hide from the world.

He doesn't use any name at all.

In this silence, in the aftermath of the most intense experience of my life, names don't matter.

The only thing that matters is the weight of his arm, the heat of his skin, and the knowledge that I’m safe.

I close my eyes, the scent of him filling my senses.

I drift toward sleep, not with the dread of what might happen in the dark, but with the certainty that if the nightmares return, he’ll be the one waiting to pull me back to the surface.

I fall asleep wrapped in the strength of a man who knows how to take, but more importantly, knows how to let go.

The window stays shut.

I don't get up to check it.

For the first time in nine months, I don't even think to.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Hakon

Her hair smells like my shampoo.

It's what I notice first when I wake up, before I open my eyes, before I remember where I am or why my left arm has gone numb from the shoulder down.

Cheap drugstore shampoo, the green bottle I've bought for years, and under it something warmer and all her own.

She's asleep with her cheek on my chest.

I'm still on top of the covers, and she's still under them, the blanket bunched between us like a wall neither of us built on purpose.

Her fingers are curled in the front of my T-shirt.

I don't move.

Gray light is starting to come through the window.

Somewhere outside, a bike fires up and pulls away, and she doesn't stir.

Last night comes back in pieces.

Her hand around my wrist, dragging my palm where she wanted it, and the sound she made when she came.

My fingers brushing the back of her neck, and her body locking up under me like somebody flipped a switch.

I close my eyes.