Chapter 19: The Night

The phone rang out and went dark.

Nate had not moved his hand from my waist.

"You can take it," he said. "I'll wait."

"She can wait too."

I turned the phone face-down on the boards.

Then I looked at him in the dark, and I put my forehead against his.

"Is there anyone in the house besides my parents?"

"No."

"Is there a room with a door that locks?"

"The loft." His voice had gone rough. "Jenna, you don't have to."

"I know what I don't have to do."

I stood up and held out my hand.

He took it, and we walked up the lawn together without speaking, past the row of cuttings by the fence.

The east room window was dark.

Inside the house we took the back stairs on the balls of our feet.

My parents were asleep below us, and I almost laughed at how I was creeping through a house.

I was thirty-three, and I was free, and I was going to enjoy it.

The loft door shut behind us, and Nate turned the lock.

I put my back against the wood.

He stood a step away from me in the lamplight, breathing hard, and he did not touch me yet.

"Tell me what you want," he said.

"I want your hands."

"Where?"

"Everywhere you can reach."

He closed the step between us and slid both hands down my arms to my wrists, and then up again, slowly, over my shoulders.

He found the zipper at the back of my sundress and drew it down an inch at a time.

I felt his mouth on the nape of my neck, and then the cool air on my spine.

The dress fell to my feet.

I stood in my underwear and he looked at me, from my collarbone down to my knees, and the look was open and unhurried.

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