Three nights later the house felt smaller, the air thicker, every creak of the floorboards louder than it had any right to be.
Aliyah had barely slept since the kitchen. She’d lie in her childhood bed staring at the ceiling fan’s slow spin, thighs pressed together, replaying the feel of Steve’s c**k stretching her open on the granite, the way he’d held her afterward like she might disappear if he let go. She told herself she wouldn’t go to him again. Told herself it was a one-time lapse. But the ache between her legs never listened.
At 2:07 a.m. she heard the shower turn on in the master bath.
She waited ten minutes—long enough for steam to build, for the sound of water to mask her footsteps. Then she slipped out of bed in nothing but the same cropped tank and sleep shorts she’d worn th
