How to Tame a Silver Fox novel · Chapter 5 of 32

Chapter 5: Round One

I did not go to dinner.

I sat on my bed in the dark with the demolition notice in my fist until the house went quiet.

At eleven I knocked on the wall.

Nothing answered, so I walked down the corridor in my pajama shorts and my mother's cardigan and knocked on his door instead.

"It's open," Arlen said.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed in a grey T-shirt and suit trousers with a laptop beside him.

His feet were bare.

I had not expected his feet to make my chest hurt.

I held up the notice.

"You signed it."

"I signed an application."

"For my mother's studio."

"For a permit." He closed the laptop. "The town takes six weeks to clear one. That's why the party is on the nineteenth, and why your father's crossed out the date and written his own."

"What does that mean?"

"It means the paper that got taped to your door doesn't have a town stamp. It has your father's pen." He looked at me steadily. "Nobody is tearing anything down until the town says so, and I haven't signed the next page."

I blinked.

"You haven't signed it."

"And I'm not going to."

"Then why did you sign the first?"

"Because if I'd refused, he would've hired someone else to sign everything by Friday." He shrugged. "A man can slow a deal down from the inside."

I stood in the doorway with my fist around a worthless piece of paper.

He had been on my side for a week and had let me hate him for all of it.

"You should have told me," I said.

"You'd have stopped the game."

"I should stop the game."

"Do you want to?"

I looked at him, and I looked at the bed.

"No," I said.

"Then you lost the first round."

"I lost what?"

"I said you'd have to make me say it." The corner of his mouth lifted. "I'd like to be clear that I lost the pantry. I'd like to say it was strategy. It was not."

My heart did something unhelpful.

"I'm still going to win," I said.

"I'd expect nothing less."

"I'm going to make you say it."

"Then you'd better start."

I shut the door behind me.

I took off my mother's cardigan and dropped it on a chair, and he watched me and didn't move.

That was his rule: I'd come to him, and he'd wait.

My hands were not steady on the hem of my camisole, but I pulled it over my head anyway.

His eyes went down once and came up again, dark.

"Come here," I said.

"Say it again."

"Come here, Arlen."

He stood.

He stood and I put my palms flat on his chest.

The grey T-shirt was warm from his skin.

I pushed it up, and he lifted his arms once, like it was a chore and not a favor, and let me pull it over his head.

His chest was broad and dusted with dark hair, silver at the edges.

"You're staring," he said.

"I'm planning."

"Plan faster."

I unbuckled his belt.

The leather came through the loops with a sound that made my thighs press together.

I pushed his trousers down and he stepped out of them, barefoot and hard in black boxer briefs.

"These too," I said.

"You're the one doing this."

"Are you going to help at all?"

"Not unless you ask."

I hooked my fingers in the waistband.

"I'm asking."

"Ask like you mean it."

I looked up at him.

"Take them off."

He reached down and slid them off, and his cock came free, thick and flushed, and I forgot how to breathe.

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