Chapter 11: One Week

I pushed my phone into my jacket pocket without reading it, and I left it there.

Dexter could wait one night.

He had made me wait six years.

Kurt's hotel was four blocks away, a squat brick building with a vending machine in the hall.

His key stuck in the lock.

He fought it open, and I laughed against his shoulder.

Then the door swung wide, and neither of us was laughing anymore.

He kicked it shut behind us.

The room had one lamp and one bed with a green blanket.

I stood in the middle of it with my jacket half off, suddenly shy.

"We can stop," Kurt said. "Anytime. You say it, I stop."

"I don't want to stop."

"Good. I've been thinking about this since the kayak."

"Since the kayak?"

"My hand on your back. I could still feel your spine two days later."

He crossed the room and pushed the jacket off my shoulders.

It hit the floor.

His mouth found my throat, slow now, and the slowness was worse than the hurry had been.

I got my hands under his shirt.

His stomach was hard and warm.

I dragged my nails up it, and he drew a breath through his teeth.

"You like that," I said.

"I like all of it."

He tugged my sweater over my head and stood looking at me in my plain gray bra.

"Casey," he said. "You're beautiful."

I wasn't used to hearing it.

I reached behind me, unhooked the bra myself, and let it fall.

He made a sound I felt in my knees.

His hands covered my breasts, and his thumbs dragged across my nipples until they ached.

I arched into him and said his name.

"Bed," he said roughly.

We fell onto it together.

He undid my jeans and pulled them down, and I kicked free of them.

Then I lay there in cotton underwear while he looked at me and did not look away.

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