Read Online The Other Side of Silence by Celia Ashley - Free Book Online

are taller than my head.  The wind through the leaves is like the
whisper of voices.”
    “I know the sound,” she answered. 
“There’s nothing like it.”
    Pulling her to a halt, he stepped
behind her, closing his arms across her mid-section, his chin propped lightly
on her crown.  “You wouldn’t consider marrying a man you’ve just met, would
you?” he teased.  At least she thought he was teasing.  His voice remained light,
not serious at all, but he held himself very still.
    Leaning back against his chest, Sunny
turned her head to kiss the hard contour of his arm beneath the hem of his
sleeve, and then looked back out over the valley.  “There’s quite a view from
here,” she commented, avoiding any answer.
    Spread below them, the lights of the
long streets of the town cupped in the valley twinkled as the trees between
swayed in the breeze, causing the pinpoints of illumination to wink in and out
of existence like faerie light.  Too far away for modern sound, for reality, it
felt to Sunny as though she looked through time from the past into a fey
future, and she didn’t feel exactly certain on which side she belonged.
    “Once,” he murmured against her hair,
indicating the valley with a sweep of his hand, “you would not have seen even
that.”
    “Do you wish you lived back then?”
she asked, mesmerized by the minuscule circles he’d begun to trace with the tip
of the pointer finger on his other hand around her left nipple through her
shirt.  After a moment he slid his fingers underneath the soft material,
running along the edge of her bra, and then he rested his hand against her
breast and held it still.
    “Not anymore,” he whispered.
    She let the implication of his simple
statement drift and settle in her mind.  When first she agreed to come here to
walk with him, she had thought to tell him about Scott’s drunken message, but
she realized there should be nothing of her ex-husband with them now.  Tonight
was about the two of them only.  Roger’s words had solidified that for her.
    Closing her fingers over his, she
held them there against her, feeling the pounding of her heart through his hand
into hers.  “Roger,” she said. 
    He kissed the side of her throat,
burying his face into her hair.  “Will you stay with me tonight?”
    “Yes,” she answered without
hesitation.
    *        *        *
    The ceilings of the cabin were low,
retaining any gathered heat from the day.  Exposed beams sat so low, in fact,
that given another inch Roger would have been striking his head.  In his bedroom
the plaster between had mellowed with age to an eggshell color, stained with
the residue of wick and fire and oil over the course of many, many years. 
Books lined one wall, a small dresser and a wardrobe sat against another, and
in the center what appeared to be an ancient four-poster bed was barely
contained beneath the ceiling.  When Sunny asked him if the bed was authentic
or a reproduction, he assured her it was the real deal.  Piled high with quilts
and blankets and an odd assortment of pillows, the bed looked inviting and
comfortable and like an oasis one might call home. 
    Beside it, on a low night table,
Roger lit a single candle.  He sat down on the edge of the high mattress, his
hands clasped together between his knees.  “Come here,” he said.
    She did, moving to stand between his
long legs, her own fingers wrapped tightly together to keep her hands from
shaking.  He stared at the interlacing of her fingers for a moment and raised
his hands to her own, gently loosening her grip.  Turning her hands, he lifted
them to his face, kissing the inside of one wrist, then the other, pressing his
mouth to the place where the blood beat blue and rapid beneath the shallow
surface of flesh.
    “Don’t be afraid of this,” he
whispered.
    “I’m not.”
    “No?  I am.  Inside I’m stumbling all
over myself with wanting you, with wanting to take you in every way