Chapter 38: Silence

"Wow..." Naomi exclaimed. She couldn’t even imagine it.

Ginny smiled as she gathered the loose papers around her wedding binder. "I hope to have their kind of marriage. It’s not one hundred percent perfect, but it’s theirs. They make it work."

She liked that. It sounded different from the kind of relationships she had grown up watching, where people stayed because leaving was shameful or difficult or financially impossible.

Maurice and Eleanor didn’t seem trapped together. They seemed to choose each other. A few minutes later, Ginny finally gave up on wedding planning.

She closed the binder with a tired sigh. "I’m spent. Come on. I’ll get you something to wear."

They made their way deeper into the house, and Ginny disappeared into her bedroom for a moment before returning with a nightdress still sealed in its original packaging.

"Walk straight down the hall. Third door on your left. That’s your room."

Naomi accepted it. "Thank you."

Ginny smiled. Naomi didn’t move. There was something she wanted to say, but suddenly the words felt too big for her mouth.

"Not... not just for the sleepwear or the contract or the..." She breathed out. "Just... thank you."

Ginny tilted her head. "Family, huh..."

Naomi nodded. She tried very hard to keep the sting behind her eyes steady. She cleared her throat. "Good night."

Ginny gave her a small wave. "Night."

Naomi followed the directions. Straight down the hallway. Third door on the left.

Easy enough.

She reached the room, opened the door and stopped dead. Dorian was in the bed.

Already settled.

He had changed out of his dinner clothes and was leaning back against the pillows.

"Oh! I think this is the wrong room!"

"Your thought would be wrong."

Naomi remained in the doorway. "They put us in the same room."

Dorian gave her a long, deeply unimpressed look. "What did you expect?"

"I don’t know!"

"Did you stop to think that was why I was adamant about us leaving? But no. You wanted to discuss weddings and food." His voice was painfully dry.

"You could have told me."

"How? Between you three, I couldn’t get a word in."

Naomi finally stepped inside and closed the door behind her. The room was spacious. There was a large bed.

And, most importantly, a wide sofa against the opposite wall. That could work. It looked comfortable enough.

She had slept in worse places. She walked farther into the room, holding the nightdress against her chest.

The sofa wasn’t really the problem. The problem was currently stretched across the bed wearing really loose pants and nothing on his upper body.

She pulled out the nightdress out of the bag and tried not to think about the last time she had shared a room with him. She took the sleepwear and disappeared into the walk-in bathroom.

Dorian barely looked up. He kept his attention on his phone while he heard the bathroom door close, then the faint rustling from inside.

The bathroom door opened a few minutes later. He looked up then. She stepped out wearing the pink heart-print sleepwear Ginny had given her. The thin-strapped top hugged her body, while the matching shorts showed considerably more leg than Dorian’s current peace of mind required.

She walked toward the sofa as though he weren’t there. He dragged his attention back to his phone. She was going to sleep on the sofa. He was going to sleep in the bed.

They would wake up tomorrow morning, return to Manhattan and continue their strange little contractual marriage exactly as planned.

Naomi curled into the sofa. He turned off his phone. Then the first problem arrived.

Silence.

He frowned. The room was quiet. Deeply, offensively wrong quiet. He stared at the ceiling. He hated it.

A lot.

Him and Naomi? They didn’t equal silence. Granted, she did most of the talking, but still. His townhouse hadn’t been properly quiet since she moved into it, and somehow, within a matter of days, his brain had adjusted to the chaos.

Now she was barely ten feet away from him, and there was nothing. He shifted against the pillow.

He wasn’t going to say anything. She had made her decision. She chose the sofa. She chose silence. He should leave it at that. He closed his eyes.

Five seconds later, they opened again. The sofa wasn’t even made for sleeping. It was wide enough for Naomi because she was tiny, but that didn’t mean it was comfortable for an entire night.

He glanced over. She had curled herself into the cushions with her knees slightly drawn up. She would probably catch a cold before morning.

Not his problem. He rolled onto his side. A minute passed. Her neck was going to hurt. Her back would probably hurt too.

She would wake up tomorrow complaining, which would somehow become his problem even though he had explicitly tried to get them home tonight.

He should sleep. He shut his eyes again. For fuck’s sake. "Ah... fuck me!" He threw the covers aside.

Naomi opened her eyes when his shadow fell over her. Before she could properly sit up, he bent down and lifted her. Her eyes flew wide. "What are you doing?"

Excellent question.

"I have no fucking idea!" he admitted, carrying her toward the bed. "I just know the room is too quiet. I need you to talk."

"You complain when I talk! You tell me I talk too much!"

"Naomi, please don’t make me examine the logic. I’m already regretting this." He reached the bed and lowered her onto it.

Naomi landed against the pillows, still staring at him as though he had finally lost whatever remained of his mind.

Dorian pulled the covers over her and turned to walk around to his side of the bed. She caught his wrist. He barely had time to register the expression on her face before she pulled him toward her.

Then her mouth was on his. He kissed her back like he had been waiting far longer than a few days to taste her again.

His hand came up to cup the side of her face as he took control of the kiss, deepening it until Naomi made a soft sound against his mouth that went straight through him.

She tangled both arms around his neck. He lowered himself farther over her, bracing one arm beside her.

The kiss became hotter and hungrier. Her fingers slid into his hair. He groaned into her mouth. Looks like neither of them knew what the fuck they were doing.

Finally, sense kicked in. He broke the kiss. Her arms were still around his neck. Their faces remained dangerously close.

He stared down at her. "What was that for?" he asked.