Chapter 21: Eyes Open

I carried a quilt and a lantern down to the end of the dock myself.

It was past midnight, and the lake lay flat and black under a half moon.

The boards still held the day's heat.

Denton and Tucker came down the path behind Byron, three big men in the dark, and none of them spoke.

I spread the quilt out on the planks.

Then I held out the old blue bowl from the hall table.

"Phones," I said.

Denton laughed under his breath and dropped his in.

Tucker followed, and then Byron.

I set the bowl on a mooring post, face down in the dark, where no one would reach for it.

"Nobody moves unless I say," I said.

"Yes, ma'am," Tucker said, very softly, and Denton made a sound that was almost a groan.

I pulled the yard t-shirt over my head and let it drop.

They stared.

I stood naked at the end of the dock in the lantern light, with the lake at my back.

I let every one of them look as long as he liked.

I had spent three weeks being looked at in the dark by men who thought I could not see.

Now I looked back.

"Byron," I said. "On the quilt."

He lay down on his back, and I knelt over his hips and took him in my hand.

"Eyes open," I said. "All of you."

I sank onto him slowly, and he swore, and his hands clamped on my thighs and waited.

"Touch me."

His thumbs moved over my skin, low and certain, and the heat came up my spine.

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