Chapter 23: Rule Five

"Yes," I said.

Ansel did not move.

"Yes to what?"

"Yes, I'll stay." I put the pen down on the checkbook. "No terms, no nights counted. I'm done with rules."

"All of them?"

"I'll keep one."

"Which one?"

"Rule five," I said. "No more envelopes. Whatever you have to say, you say it to my face."

His mouth shook, and then he smiled, slowly, the whole way.

"That one I can live with."

Darla had the babies on the couch and a casserole in the oven, and she had no questions for either of us.

At nine, Ansel took my hand and led me upstairs.

He stopped at the door at the end of the hall, which I had never once opened.

"This is mine," he said.

"Do you knock?"

"On my own door?" He pushed it open. "Tonight, I think you do."

I knocked on the frame with one knuckle, and he laughed, and pulled me in.

The room was big and plain, with a dark wood bed and a window onto the maple tree.

It smelled like him.

He kissed me against the door, before it was even shut.

One hand was flat beside my head and the other at the back of my neck.

I was already wet.

I had been wet since the stairwell, and I told him so.

"Good," he said against my throat. "Tell me more."

"I want your mouth. I want your hands. I want you inside me, and I don't want you gentle."

He pulled back and looked at me.

"You've been driving me out of my mind all week," he said.

"Good," I said. "I want all of it."

His eyes went dark.

"Then we'll go slow with the first one," he said. "And hard with the second."

He undid my dress at the back, one button at a time, and the dress slid to the floor.

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