Kiss Me One Last Time novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Once

He drove me back to Fisk Street, and neither of us said a word.

Lester's car was gone from the curb.

On the kitchen table was a note in his square handwriting.

Gone to the market with the neighbor. Back at four. The upstairs bed is made.

I read it twice.

He had done that on purpose, and I decided I would thank him later.

"Come up," I said.

Finley stood in the kitchen doorway in his ruined suit.

"Suzette, I don't think..."

"I didn't ask what you think."

I climbed the stairs one at a time, holding the rail.

Behind me I heard him follow.

My mother's bedroom was at the back of the house, over the little yard.

Lester had made up her iron bed with the quilt.

The afternoon light came through the glass in long gold bars.

I turned around in the middle of the floor.

Finley stopped in the doorway.

"Close the door," I said.

He closed it.

"Come here."

He crossed the room slowly.

I took his hand and put it against the side of my face, and felt his fingers shake against my cheek.

"I'm not going to break," I said.

"You're so thin."

"Yes."

"I should have seen it."

"Yes. You should have."

His eyes filled.

I had not seen him cry since his father's funeral.

"Kiss me," I said.

He bent his head.

The first touch was barely anything, a brush of his mouth against mine, dry and trembling.

I had wanted it for two years, and now that it was here I felt it everywhere at once.

I slid my hand into his hair and held him there.

He made a sound low in his throat, and kissed me again, deeper.

His hands came up to my waist, and then around my back, and he pulled me against him hard.

I could feel his heart slamming through his shirt.

"Suzette," he said against my mouth. "I'm sorry. God, I'm sorry."

"I know. Be quiet."

I unbuttoned his shirt myself, because his fingers were useless.

His skin under it was hot and smooth, and I pressed my palm flat to his chest and watched him shudder.

I was thirty-one years old, and I had not been touched by my husband in a year.

He was thirty-five, and he looked at me.

"Take this off," I said, and tugged at my cardigan.

He did it carefully.

The cardigan went to the floor, then the thin blouse beneath it, and then he stood there looking at me.

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