Not His Wife novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: License

He took the box out of his coat and held it in both hands.

Inside lay a thin gold ring with a small garnet, worn smooth on one side.

"It was my mother's," he said. "She wore it for forty years. I've never put it in front of anyone."

"Put it in front of me."

"Ivy Tolbert."

"Yes," I said, before he had finished the question.

He laughed, and his eyes were wet.

The ring went on my finger.

I kissed him on my mother's back step with a plate of pound cake going warm beside us.

Then I took his hand and led him inside.

In the front hall the framed certificate still hung over the table, flat seal and ribbon and all.

I took it down off its nail.

I turned it face down on the table, and the glass clinked on the wood.

"You hated that thing all week," Anson said.

"I'm done looking at it."

I put my hands on his chest and walked him back until his shoulders met the wall by the stairs.

"Not here," he said, grinning. "Not on the landing again."

"No. Here."

I undid his belt.

He caught his breath, and I knelt on my mother's hall rug.

I took him in my mouth, slowly, and his head went back against the wall.

"Ivy."

I used my hand where my mouth could not reach, and I looked up at him the whole time.

His fingers shook in my hair.

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