Chapter 8: Three in the Morning

At three in the morning I woke up wanting him, and he was asleep.

I hadn't planned for that.

He lay on his back in the dark with one arm over his head.

His breathing was slow and deep, and a line of moonlight lay across his chest.

I put my hand flat on his stomach.

His eyes opened.

"Get up," I whispered. "Don't turn the light on."

He sat up. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong. Follow me. Don't say anything."

I took his hand.

We went down the back stairs in the dark, me in his flannel shirt and nothing under it, him in his shorts.

Every step creaked.

The old kitchen was silver with moon.

The long table gleamed.

The fridge hummed, and the clock on the stove said 3:04.

The whole sleeping house felt like it was holding its breath around us.

There was a row of tall stools along the island.

I pulled one out into the middle of the floor.

"Sit."

He sat, on the round wooden seat, facing me, with his hands on his knees.

The stool squeaked.

We both froze.

Nothing moved upstairs.

I let out my breath.

"Take your shorts off."

He lifted his hips and pushed them down and off, and dropped them on the tile.

He was already hard.

He sat there in the moonlight, naked, with his thighs apart and his cock standing up against his belly.

He looked at me with his lips slightly parted, waiting.

"Hands behind you," I said. "Hold the edge of the seat."

He reached back and gripped the seat on either side of him.

It put his chest out.

It made his shoulders look even wider.

"You can say my name," I said. "That's all you can say."

"Jodi."

"Good."

I knelt on the cold tile between his knees.

I looked at him for a long time.

I put both hands on his thighs and ran them up slowly, and watched his stomach flinch.

"Jodi," he said again, hardly a breath.

I leaned in.

I licked a slow wet stripe up the underside of him, from the base to the tip, and tasted salt and clean skin.