Page 5 of Zenith Court

Astra stopped in the doorway, her hair loose from sleep and her feet bare on the flags. An old shirt fell to her knees.

“Your line was loud,” she said. “It woke my wrist.”

“I’ll ask it to whisper.”

She crossed the kitchen and perched on the end of the worktable. “Third night this week. What’s keeping you up?”

“I was hoping I’d know before you asked.”

“Do you?”

“No.”

She waited while I folded the dough.

I set it in its bowl, covered it with the cloth, and wiped my hands on the apron.

“Some nights I miss the countdown.”

She didn’t flinch. The coals settled behind me, and her breathing stayed even.

“I don’t miss dying,” I said. “I miss knowing what came next.”

She slid off the table but stopped short of touching me. “And now?”

“Now I lie there waiting for the count to start again.”

She took both my wrists, flour and all.

“What time is it?”

“Ten past two. The bread needs another hour and a half.”

“Then we have time.” Her thumbs rested over my pulse. “Do you want me to stay?”

“Yes.”

“Say it.”

“Stay.”

She lifted my hand and kissed the flour off one knuckle.

I kissed her slowly, then picked her up and set her on the table’s end. My right shoulder took half her weight without complaint; I noticed and let it pass. Her knees opened to bring me in against her. The shirt rode up, and my hands left flour prints on her thighs, ghost-white on warm skin. She looked down at them, laughed low—“Mark of the trade”—and pulled me back to her mouth.

She tasted of sleep and well water. The oven breathed at my back; her hands worked the tie from my locks until they came loose around my face, unhurried, in a dark that smelled of ash and proofing dough. I ran my palm up the inside of her thigh and stopped, asking with stillness. She answered by taking my wrist and setting my hand exactly where she wanted it — already wet, her breath going shallow the moment my fingers found her clit.

“Quarter past two,” I said against her ear, drawing slow circles. “We have time.”

She laughed, and then she stopped laughing.

I gave her two fingers, curled to the spot that made her grip go white on the table edge, the heel of my hand firm against her clit, and kept the pace slow and even. She rode my hand with her heels behind my thighs. Her head tipped back. Her breath came in small pieces, quiet for the sake of the sleeping house, and the effort to stay quiet made it hotter. When she came, her mouth pressed to my collarbone to bury the cry.

“Half two,” I told her when she caught her breath. “Approximately. I lost the thread near the end.”

“Liar. You never lose the thread.”

“I’m learning.”