Chapter 9: Lights On

The bay cheered for a full minute, and my head nurse sent me home at noon with a stern look and a twitch at the corner of her mouth.

I drove to Cal's house and sat on the porch step until his truck turned in at nine that night.

He got out and stood in the dark drive looking at me.

"Inside," I said.

"Clarissa, the rules."

"You made the rules on a dock, and then I kissed you in front of forty paramedics. Inside."

He crossed the yard, and I stood up to meet him.

He got the front door open with one hand and my waist with the other.

Then we were in the kitchen, and he reached past me and flicked on every light.

The whole room blazed.

"Lights on," he said roughly. "I want to see everything."

My back hit the edge of the counter.

His mouth came down on mine, and I was already pulling at his uniform shirt, getting buttons undone, dragging it off his shoulders.

"Teeth," I said.

"What?"

"I told you I'd take it off with my teeth."

He laughed, a low broken laugh, and let me.

I bit the collar of his undershirt, pulled it up off his body and kissed the long scar low on his ribs.

He had a hard, warm chest and a dark line of hair running down his stomach, and I put my mouth on all of it.

His hands shook in my hair.

"Look at me," he said.

I looked up.

He pulled my scrub top over my head and stood there with his eyes going slowly down my body.

"Clarissa," he said, once, and his voice broke on it.

I had never heard him say my name that way.

He lifted me onto the counter and spread my knees with his hands.

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