The empty side of the bed was a cold monument. Every night, Clara pressed herself against the far edge, as if giving the vast, chilled space the respect a grave deserved. It had been six months. The silence in the old house was a thick, suffocating blanket.
But tonight, the silence had a different quality. A waiting quality.
She was almost asleep when she felt it.
A whisper of cold air drifted across her collarbone, raising goosebumps in its wake. She shivered, pulling the duvet tighter. Just a draft, she told herself, from the old window frame.
Then it came again. Not a draft. This was… deliberate. A distinct, circling sensation just above her left breast. A slow, lazy circle that dipped, for a heartbeat, against the stiff peak of her n****e straining against her cotton nightshirt.
C
