I Left My Husband Bleeding, and the Mob Boss Said Good novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Mine to Hold

On Saturday night I turned my brass key from the inside for the first time since the night I said I'm saying.

Marwan stood in the middle of my room, with his coat still on.

The room at the end of the hall had a narrow iron bed, a rug and a window onto the back garden.

I had slept in it six nights out of sixty.

It had been mine from the first morning, and I had never once taken him into it.

"The lock," he said.

"The lock is for me. So I can open it."

I put the key on the nightstand, where we could both see it.

"Take your coat off."

He took it off and laid it over the chair.

"Sit on the bed."

He sat on the edge of the mattress with his hands on his knees and looked up at me.

I stood in front of him in my slip and a cardigan and took the cardigan off.

I took his right hand by the wrist and lifted it.

"I want something," I said.

"Tell me," he said.

"I want you to put this here," I said.

I laid his palm against my throat.

His hand went rigid.

It lay on the front of my neck, over the place where there had been four marks in November.

It did not press.

It was warm and heavy and still, and it shook.

"Nahla," he said.

"Don't take it away," I said.

"Habibti, I cannot," he said.

"I know exactly what you can do," I said. "I know what a hand can do."

I held his eyes.

"Yours has been on my face and my hip and my wrist, and it has never once done what his did."

I swallowed against his palm.

I felt my own pulse go into his hand.

"This is mine," I said. "He took it. I'm taking it back, and I'm giving you the right to hold it."

His thumb moved, very slightly, along my jaw.

His eyes were bright and fixed on mine.

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