Page 31 of Silent as Sin
He didn’t turn when I drew closer, but I knew he felt me. He always did.
“You can’t sleep either,” he said softly, voice carrying like gravel over stone. Not a question.
I shook my head, pulling the blanket tighter around me as I lowered onto the step beside him. Not close enough to touch. Just near enough that the heat of his body brushed the edge of the chill clinging to my skin.
For a while, neither of us spoke. The silence stretched, but it wasn’t heavy. It just was. Easy in its own way.
Ashen tapped ash off the cigarette, his eyes on the horizon where the desert rolled away into blackness. “This place gets loud,” he murmured. “Clubhouse. Brothers. Deals. Always noise. But out here?” He lifted the cigarette slightly, like he was offering the dark sky itself. “Out here it’s just the land. Doesn’t lie to you. Doesn’t play games.”
I followed his gaze. The stars swallowed me whole—bright and sharp, spread wide across the heavens like they’d been scattered by some careless hand. I was still getting used to what it felt like to breathe air that wasn’t pressed against four walls. For a moment, it was like the world stretched wide enough to hold even me.
The words burned inside me, pressing hard against my throat.Thank you.Two small words that felt as heavy as stone. I wanted to give them to him. Wanted him to know.
But the same damn fear clamped down, sealing them inside.
Instead, I shifted. Just enough that my shoulder brushed his arm. Not leaning. Not bold. Just a touch, enough to feel the solid warmth of him.
Ashen’s body stilled at the contact, then eased again. He didn’t pull away. Didn’t move closer. Just sat steady beside me, letting me have the choice.
After a while, he dragged the last pull from his cigarette, flicked it into the dirt, and braced his elbows on his knees. His voice came low, almost casual, but it carried weight.
“You want me to crash in your room tonight? I’ll take the floor. Just so you feel safe.”
The words caught me off guard, striking deep.Safe.The word slammed against the wall inside me, knocking hard at the silence I’d wrapped around myself for years.
My lips parted. My throat scraped, raw from disuse. And before I could stop it, before I could shove the sound back down, it slipped free.
“Yes.”
Just one word.
Ashen’s head turned sharply, his eyes catching mine in the dim porch light. For a heartbeat he didn’t move, like he wasn’t sure he’d heard right. Then the corner of his mouth curved, soft and fierce all at once.
“Then that’s where I’ll be.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE FLOOR WAShard, but I didn’t give a damn.I stretched out against the boards beside her bed, one arm folded under my head, the other resting across my chest.
I could hear her breathing above me, soft and uneven, like every breath was a fight. The blanket rustled when she shifted, restless even in sleep.
I’d offered the floor, but the truth was, I didn’t plan on sleeping much anyway. Not with her here. Not with the weightof Roxy back in the clubhouse and every ghost Wren carried pressing down on her shoulders.
But even with all that noise clawing at me, I kept coming back to one thing.
Her voice.
One word, rough and cracked from disuse, but real.Yes.
I hadn’t realized how much I’d needed to hear her until she gave it to me. That whisper had cut deeper than a scream, burrowed under my ribs and lodged there like a brand. She could’ve told me no. She could’ve stayed silent, hidden behind the wall she built between herself and the world. But she didn’t. She let me hear her. She trusted me enough to let that piece of herself out.
And fuck, the way it made feel. I can’t put it into words.
It wasn’t long before the first sound tore out of her throat.
A whimper, broken and low. Then another. She tossed, the mattress creaking as her legs kicked, caught in whatever hell her dreams dragged her back to.
“Wren,” I murmured, already up, climbing onto the bed.
