My Stepbrother Banned My Fish Fry, So I Made Him Beg novel · Chapter 21 of 24
Chapter 21: Karl's POV: Slow
Karl's POV
I locked the tavern at one in the morning and carried the till upstairs myself.
My hands were not steady.
They had not been steady since I put the chalk down.
The flat was dark except for the lamp in my bedroom, which Basia had turned on.
She sat on the edge of my narrow bed with her boots off and the last of the fryer oil still on her forearms.
She had not changed out of her whites.
She looked up when I came in, and her face did something that I had never seen it do in front of me.
It opened.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi."
"You asked for seconds," she said. "In front of ninety people."
"I did."
"You said please."
"I'm going to say it again," I said. "Come here."
She stood.
I put the till on the dresser and took her face in both hands.
Nine years I had run that room.
Not once had I stood in the middle of it and felt it hold still for me.
"I'm not going anywhere tonight," I said. "And I'm not going fast."
"Good."
I undid the buttons of her whites one at a time.
I did it slowly, as she had done mine in the walk-in, and she let me.
I folded the jacket over the chair.
I took off her undershirt and her bra, and her pants after, and I knelt on the rug to slide them down her legs.
She stood in the lamplight with her braid over one shoulder.
Her forearms were crossed with old burns, white and pink, four years of Chicago and ten weeks of my father's fryer.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of My Stepbrother Banned My Fish Fry, So I Made Him Beg are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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