My Father Bet My Year at the Boucherie, So I Signed It Myself and Named the Terms novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: The Door

On Friday Margot went to her great-aunt's for the night, and the camp house went so quiet I could hear the lake.

Seb came in from the plant at seven with mud to his knees.

He took his boots off on the porch, as he did every night, and stood in the kitchen doorway in his socks.

I was stirring a gumbo I did not need to make.

"I want to say something," he said.

"Before you decide anything."

"Say it," I said.

"The door is open."

I turned the burner down.

"It's been open since the pasture," Seb said.

"The front one, the back one and the one on your bedroom.

"There's no lock on the outside of any of them, and there never will be."

He took a breath.

"If you drive away tonight, your father's debt is still paid.

"I'll tell Blake it was my decision, and I'll put it in my own hand.

"You don't owe me one hour of this house."

"Why are you telling me?" I asked.

"Because Wednesday, in the yard, I said things to you that a man shouldn't say to a woman who can't leave."

"I can leave."

"Then you should know it," he said.

"And from tonight every touch is yours to start.

"I'll never start one.

"If you want me to, you'll have to say so."

I looked at him in the yellow kitchen light.

He was thirty-six and tired, with mud drying on his jeans.

He stood as if he expected me to walk past him and out into the dark.

I thought of my father's hand on the plank.

I thought of a man who had been told for four years that he was not allowed to want anything.

I turned off the stove.

I wiped my hands on a dish towel, slowly, and folded it in thirds.

"You said you wanted me on that table," I said.

"I did."

"Say it again."

His eyes did not leave mine.

"I want you on that table with your back against the wood," he said, very low.

"And my mouth on you until you can't say my name properly."

"All right," I said.

I took off my fleece and let it drop on the floor.

I pulled the clip out of my hair, and it fell over my shoulders.

His breath went out of him in a sound I felt in my stomach.

I walked to the old cypress table, put my hands behind me on the edge and lifted myself up onto it.

"Come here," I said.

He crossed the kitchen in three strides.

He stopped in front of me with his hands at his sides.

I took hold of the front of his shirt and pulled him in until he stood between my knees.

"Kiss me first," I said.

He kissed me.

It was slow at the start.

Then his mouth opened under mine and he made a rough sound in his throat, and I got my fingers in his hair.

His hands stayed on the edge of the table on either side of my hips.

He kept them there, white-knuckled, until I took one of them and put it on my thigh.

"I said I'd start," I said against his mouth.

"I'm starting.

"Touch me."

His palm slid up the outside of my thigh, over my jeans, and I felt his fingers shake.

I kissed along his jaw to the scar through his eyebrow, and he shut his eyes.

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