Claire’s POV
Giving me another long kiss, Jeremy leaves with a quiet promise in his eyes, keys in hand, his jacket shrugged on, like nothing in this house has been tilted off its axis. The door closes behind him, and the silence rushes in, thick and buzzing, and my legs nearly give out. I brace my back against the wall, wrapped in my white robe, palms flatly pressed on my thighs, breath uneven, as if my body is still catching up to what just happened.
I clean the kitchen first, because we prepare food here. My skin feels awake, sensitized, because I’ve never been touched this way. He did everything right. Not in a rehearsed way, not like something learned from experience alone, but like he listened with his hands, like he knew exactly where I would soften and where I would break open. I
