Chapter 20: Her Own Bed

I crossed Boylston Street against the light, and a taxi leaned on its horn.

Nathaniel met me in the middle of the road.

"You didn't wait," he said.

"You did."

"I wanted to see you choose."

"I chose," I said, and took his coat in both hands and kissed him there, between the two hotels, with the cab still honking.

When we broke apart he was laughing.

"Take me home," I said. "Mine. Not yours."

"Which is the one over the bakery."

"The only one I ever bought."

We took the back stairs at a run.

Dee had left a note on the landing, taped to the door.

Closed for family reasons. I'm sleeping at my sister's. Be loud. Don't wake the dough.

I tore it off and shoved it in my pocket and pulled him inside.

The room was small and clean, and the late sun came gold through the front window onto the bed.

It had never looked like this, in all the years I had slept in it.

"Sit," I said.

He sat on the edge of the mattress.

I stood in front of him and unbuttoned his shirt, one button at a time, with no hurry in it at all.

"You've been in control since the lobby," I said. "Tonight I am."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Don't be funny."

"I'm not." His voice was rough. "I'm yours to use."

I took off his shirt and ran my hands slowly down his chest, over the hard line of his stomach, to his belt.

His breath caught.

I pushed him back on the quilt and took off his shoes, and his socks, and his trousers, and left him lying in the sun in nothing at all.

He was beautiful.

I had not looked at him properly before, in the dark, or the flour, or the leather chair.

I looked now.

He let me, and the color rose in his throat.

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Made Her His Wife for Seven Days. I Made Him My Ex. from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.