Page 83 of Shatter

My eyes burn so fast I have to shut them.

She says it again, barely a breath, and I feel it hit somewhere under my ribs and stay there.

Then she kisses me.

Slow, at first.

A delicate press of her lips, the taste of her toothpaste and the salt of the tears she cried a few minutes ago.

Then her hand fists in my T-shirt and she opens her mouth under mine.

It isn't delicate anymore.

I let her take it.

My hand stays flat on the blanket between us.

Keeping it there is harder than anything I've ever asked my body to do.

She pulls back an inch.

Her breath is fast against my lips.

"Get under the blanket." Her voice shakes, but her fingers don't. "With me."

For eight weeks, I've slept on top of this blanket.

Weeks of keeping it between us like a wall.

"You sure?" It comes out rough.

"Espen." My name again, and a small, fierce edge to it. "I'm sure."

She lifts the edge of the blanket.

I slide under, and the sheets are warm from her.

The heat of her body finds mine all down one side, her knee against my thigh, her bare feet against my shins.

Neither of us moves for a second.

Rain ticks against the window while the fan turns overhead.

Then she tugs at the hem of my shirt.

"Can I?" She's already lifting it.

"Yeah." I sit up enough to let her drag it over my head.

The cool air hits my chest.

She looks at me in the thin gray light from the window, and her fingertips come up and follow the black lines of ink across my chest, slow, over the knots and hooks, out across my shoulder and down the sleeve on my right arm.

I don't breathe.

Nobody's ever looked at me like this, like the ink means something, like I do.

Her thumb stops on the inside of my elbow, where the design winds tight, and her eyes come back up to mine.