Page 122 of Gravehouse

Because we’re still playing fucking house.

With his heart beating against my back, I feel myself slowly relax, tracing circles on his forearm and finding ridges of old scars I’ve never asked about. There’s too many. Too many stories written into his skin that I’ll never know.

“I can hear you thinking,” he murmurs against my hair.

“I’m not,” I lie, because the small ones don’t count.

“You are.” His hand flattens against my belly, pulling me closer. “It’s loud.”

I don’t answer, just listen to the clock on the wall tick forward.

His thumb moves against my ribs in a slow stroke.

“Stop,” I sob with a hiccup.

“Stop what?” he asks roughly.

“Being gentle,” I tell him, the words scraping out.

His hand stills. The silence stretches until I can’t stand it, and I turn in his arms to face him. Wish I hadn’t. Moonlight from theback window catches his eyes, making them brighter than they have any right to be.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” I breathe, my chest tightening.

His lip twitches. “Everything.”

“That’s not an answer.” My fingers dig into his chest.

He shifts a little. “It’s the only one I have.”

I study his face, the defined curve of his jaw, the effortless way his hair is always styled. Beautiful yet brutal. Mine and not mine.

“Ask me again,” he says quietly.

“Ask you what?” Every second it gets harder to breathe.

Silence.

“Anything,” he answers, mouth moving over my lips. “Anything.”

I hesitate. It’s a question I want to ask, but at the same time terrified to ask it.

“Are you hiding anything else from me?”

It’s the only way I’d know if I can move forward with him.

“Because Emeric is going to know now. He’s going to see us right now, in this bed, stuck together. Do you have a plan?”

He holds my eyes for a moment, then leans forward and catches my bottom lip with his teeth. “The plan right now is sleep.”

His mouth brushes my forehead, and nineteen years of weight finally shifts off my shoulders. I want to say something, want to hold onto this moment a little longer, but my body has already decided for me.

I lovedDésamour at this hour. It’s all empty streets and silence, with the exception of fruit workers who were just starting their day. Our final weekend was here, come Monday,and we’d be back in the States starting new lives. Or one thousand of the same... hard to tell which anymore.

Shuttered storefronts stay closed as I walk through the township, and for the first time ever, it feels like home. Cobblestone pathways, buildings that have weathered decades through time. I didn’t know anything about Désamour, yet it kept me safe for years.

My feet stop when I see the old chapel that sits on the corner of the main street. Spires jut skyward, and a cross hangs from the front. The structure is so old it might’ve stood here when Christ himself walked.

Should I…