Chapter 278: Blue Eyes.
I braced my hand and looked at her, and she was already smiling.
"Okay." She said it more to herself than to me, hands finding the sheets, fingers curling into the fabric. "Okay."
"Have you done this before?"
I asked it to fill the space. Not because I needed to know. The question sat between us for a second, light, almost ordinary, while everything underneath it was anything but.
"I don’t know." The smile widened. Soft. Unsteady at the edges.
"What do you mean you don’t—"
The question came apart somewhere in the middle, because her eyes had rolled back and her mouth had opened and I forgot the shape of the rest of it. The sound that left her was low and broken and completely unguarded. Her body tightened under me for a second—thighs, stomach, the small muscles along her ribs—then released.
"Oh." The sound got away from her. "Wait."
I stopped. Completely. The heat of her still around me, the pressure of her, but no movement. Waiting.
She breathed out. Twice. Slow, deliberate, as if she was counting the air. Then the small smile came back, quieter this time, almost private.
"You good?"
"I’m good." Her breath was ragged around the edges of it. "Don’t stop."
"Okay," I said.
Something got away from her at the exact moment something screamed outside the window—high, distant, cut short.
Neither of us heard the second one.
"Say something."
"What?"
"Anything, I don’t—" She stopped. Her eyes were closed again. "It’s too quiet in my head. I hate it when it’s—"
"You talk. I’ll listen."
"That’s not—" A breath went out of her sideways, half laugh, half something else. "That’s not fair."
"Why not."
"Because I can’t. I can’t even—" The laugh came apart before it finished. "Bram, I can’t think of one word. Not one."
"Then don’t."
"Okay. Okay."
Quiet for a while. Just her breathing—shallow, then deeper, then shallow again—and the soft shift of the sheets under us, and something far off outside that neither of us named.
Then, small: "I dreamed about this."
I looked down at her. The blue of her hair was dark against the pillow. A thin sheen of sweat had started at her temple.
"Not this. Just—" Her eyes stayed closed. "You. Since I was four. Do you know what that does to a—"
"No."
"Neither do—OH."
The word broke open. Her whole body arched for half a second, then settled. I stopped again, instinctive, the same careful halt as before.
"No." Her hand came up fast and caught the back of my neck, fingers digging in, holding me exactly where I was. "No, don’t. Don’t stop, I didn’t mean—"
"Okay."
"God." It came out flattened, almost crushed. "God."
"Venna."
"Don’t say my name like that."
"Like what."
"Like you’re sorry for something." Her fingers dug in harder. The pressure was almost painful and completely necessary. "Not tonight. Don’t you dare be sorry tonight."
I didn’t answer. The refusal lived in the quiet between us.
"Bram."
"Yeah."
"Is it always—" Her voice broke in the middle and rebuilt itself, thinner than before. "Is it always like this."
"No," I said. "It isn’t."
She opened her eyes.
The blue of them was darker now, wide, taking me in as if she was trying to memorize the exact shape of the moment. Then she pulled me down—hand still locked at the back of my neck—and stopped talking altogether.
She didn’t stay quiet long.
"Bram."
"Mm."
"Are you—" She swallowed it. The unfinished question hung between us for a second, soft and unfinished. "Never mind."
"Say it."
"No... OH."
The sound broke open. Her body tightened under me—shoulders, stomach, the long line of her thighs—then released in a slow, involuntary wave. I pulled back onto my hands and looked at her properly.
The grey light through the window put half her face in it and left the rest to me. Her eyes were shut. Her brow had drawn together in the middle like she was working something out, some difficult problem that lived only behind her eyelids, and her mouth was slightly open and not doing anything about it. A thin sheen of sweat caught the light along her temple and the bridge of her nose.
I watched her lose the thread of whatever she’d been about to say. Watched it go—watched the concentration slip, the thought dissolve, the expression open into something simpler and more complete.
"You’re staring," she said, eyes still closed. The words came out thinner than usual, almost careful.
"I am."
"Why."
"Because I want to see it."
Her eyes opened. Found mine. Something moved across her face—surprise, recognition, something quieter—and settled. The blue of them was darker in the low light, almost black at the centre.
"Then stay there," she said. "Don’t come back down. Stay there and—" Her chin lifted and the sentence went with it, unfinished, as if the rest of the words had been taken from her mid-breath.
I stayed there.
I watched her jaw tighten. Watched her turn her head into the pillow and turn it back because she couldn’t decide which direction was safer. Watched the frown come and go and come back deeper, a small vertical line between her brows that had nothing to do with pain and everything to do with concentration. Her hands had found the sheets again. The fabric bunched under her knuckles.
"Say my name," she said.
"You told me not to."
"I know what I—" A laugh, cracked in half, almost a gasp. "Say it different. Say it like it’s only my name."
"Venna."
Her whole face changed. The line between her brows smoothed. Her mouth opened a fraction wider. Something soft and unguarded moved through her expression and stayed.
"Again."
"Venna."
"Ohh—" And she turned into the pillow and took the rest of it with her. The sound was muffled against the fabric, low and continuous, the kind that lives in the throat before it ever becomes words. Her shoulders shook once, then settled.
Outside, close to the building now, something dragged itself along the wall—slow, heavy, the wet scrape of something that had forgotten how to walk cleanly. The sound was deliberate, searching.
"Don’t listen to that," I said.
"I’m not." Muffled, barely words. Her face stayed turned into the pillow. "I’m not, I’m not, I’m—"
*****
A/N: Just wanted to try something a bit different with this scene.
Instead of going heavy on descriptions, I let the dialogue do most of the work, letting their words, pauses, and reactions show what’s going on and leaving a bit more room for your imagination.
I’d really love to hear what you think. Did this work for you, or would you prefer I go back to how I used to create these scenes? Your feedback really does help shape the story.