Alle Kapitel von 37 Times You Called My Name : Kapitel 151 – Kapitel 160

MIA POV The fear had started to lose its sense of timing. It still knew how to find me in the first seconds of waking, but the window was narrowing. Some mornings it arrived late and left early. Other mornings it barely checked in at all before the present answered it with the sound of Ryder’s breathing or the weight of his arm or the ordinary click of the coffee machine in the kitchen. I was beginning to trust the pattern the way I had once trusted the opposite pattern—through repetition, through evidence, through the quiet accumulation of days in which the predicted disaster failed to arrive. I woke on a clear morning to the absence of the usual sharp spike. There was only a faint, almost polite murmur at the edge of my awareness, and then the present: Ryder’s chest against my back, his hand resting open on my hip, sunlight already moving across the sheets. I lay still and waited for the fear to escalate. It did not. It simply existed,

MIA POVI woke to the warm, heavy reality of what we had done.Sunlight had moved further across the bed. My body felt used in the best way—tender between my legs, skin still sensitive where his mouth and hands had been, the faint ache of being stretched and filled lingering like proof. Ryder’s arm was draped across my waist, his chest against my back, his breathing deep and even. For a long moment I simply lay still and let the morning register in stages.The fear checked in late, softer than it had been in weeks.*You let him in. You came apart for him. What if that changes everything.*I named it. Old wiring. Then I checked the present. His hand flexed once against my stomach when I shifted. The sheets smelled like sex and skin and the two of us. My body felt like it belonged to me again, not like something that had been taken or managed. The present held.I turned carefully in his arms. His eyes opened at the movement, alread

MIA POV The days after settled into a rhythm that felt less like recovery and more like living. I woke most mornings to the solid warmth of Ryder’s body and the late, soft check-in of the fear—present, but no longer first and no longer loud. Some mornings it barely arrived at all before the present answered it with the weight of his arm or the sound of his breathing or the ordinary smell of coffee already starting in the kitchen. I was learning to trust the quieter sequence the way I had once trusted the sharp one: through repetition, through evidence, through the steady accumulation of days in which the ground held. On a clear morning I woke before him and lay watching the light move across his face. The residual ache between my legs had faded into something I only noticed if I looked for it. My body felt like mine. The wanting that lived under my skin felt like mine too. I reached out and traced the line of his brow with one finger, and his eyes opened slowly, focusing on me with

MIA POVThe quieter mornings had begun to make space for things that were not about fear at all.I woke to sunlight and the solid warmth of Ryder’s body, and for a long stretch there was only the present. The alarm checked in late and soft, then receded without argument when the room answered it. I lay still and listened to the difference. The old urgency was still capable of speaking, but it no longer arrived with the assumption that it would be obeyed.“Morning,” he said when he felt me wake.“Morning.”“Volume?”“Low. Background. The room was here first.”His arm tightened around me briefly. I turned to face him and touched the corner of his mouth, watching his eyes soften the way they did when the morning was easy. The wanting under my skin stirred, familiar and uncomplicated by shame. I leaned in and kissed him—slow, unhurried—and he kissed me back the same way, one hand resting warm at the side of my neck.

MIA POV The morning I reached for him first had started something I could feel in the hours that followed. I woke to sunlight and the solid heat of Ryder’s body, and the fear arrived so late it barely registered before the present answered it. I turned into him without performing the old inventory first. His mouth found mine, slow and warm with sleep, and for a long stretch there was only the quiet fact of wanting him and being allowed to act on it. “Morning,” he said against my lips. “Morning.” “Volume?” “Almost nothing. I didn’t check before I reached.” His hand spread across my bare back, steady and open. “Keep doing that whenever you want.” We stayed in bed until the light moved further across the sheets. There was no urgency to turn the closeness into more than it was. His fingers traced the line of my spine. I closed my eyes and let the quieter sequence hold without testing it for cracks. When the fear stayed secondary, the space it left open felt like something I could