Chapter 23: The Suite

Phyllis had booked a suite at the hotel across the street, on the ninth floor, and nobody had asked her to.

The key card was in an envelope at the front desk with a note in her neat hand.

Do not answer your phones. H.

Winston held the door.

I walked in ahead of him, in my boots and my green dress and the gray hoodie.

He closed the door behind us and turned the lock.

The room was warm and dim, with a sofa, a low lamp, and a bed as wide as a lake.

Through the window, the lit dome of the Cathedral of Learning stood over the dark city.

We stood a yard apart and looked at each other.

My ears were still ringing.

Four hundred people had clapped for a stranger in a hoodie.

Neither of us said anything.

It was the first time all month I had nothing to tell him.

I had no order.

I felt, for the first time, how much I'd been holding.

"I don't have anything to say," I said.

"Neither do I."

"I thought you'd give an order."

"I thought you would."

We both laughed, a little.

Then the laugh went away, and he crossed the room and took my face in his hands.

He kissed me.

It was slow, and deep, and it asked nothing.

His mouth moved on mine.

My hands went to his lapels, then up to his jaw, and I felt his pulse hammering under my thumbs.

"Daria," he said, against my lips.

"Yes."

"I just want to."

"Me too."

He eased the hoodie off my shoulders and let it fall.

He found the zipper at the back of my dress and drew it down an inch at a time.

He kissed each inch of skin as it came bare.

The wool slid off my hips.

I stood in my underwear and boots, shivering a little, and he knelt in front of me.

He untied my laces.

He unlaced my right boot slowly, with great care, and slid it off, and set it neatly beside the sofa.

Then the left.

He kissed the arch of my foot.

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