Chapter 8: Night Six

I did not ask for a door.

I ate dinner at his long table with the whole pack watching, and I did not taste any of it.

Every time he passed me the bread, our fingers touched, and the silver line on my wrist flared.

At ten o'clock he walked me to the foot of the stairs and said goodnight, politely and far too formally.

I stood on the third step with my hand on the rail and listened to him go down the hall.

Then I followed him.

His room was at the end of the ground floor, with a fire going and the window open to the cold.

He was standing at it with his back to me and his shirt already off.

He did not turn around.

"Valerie," he said. "That wasn't a door."

"I know."

"Then go back upstairs."

"Your rules," I said. "You don't touch me unless I ask."

His shoulders went tight.

"So I'm asking," I said.

He turned.

His eyes were black in the firelight, and he looked at me hungrily.

"You said it was only the cold," he said, very low.

"I lied."

"Say what you want."

My mouth was dry.

I had been engaged for a year and I had never said a thing like this out loud to anyone.

"I want you to kiss me," I said. "I want your hands on me. I want you inside me, and I don't want you to be careful."

He crossed the room in two steps.

His mouth came down on mine, and this time there was nothing clumsy in it.

He kissed me until I was against the wall, with my hands in his hair.

One of his knees was between my legs.

His palm slid under the sweater and spread across my bare back.

I made a noise I did not know I could make.

"Again," he said into my neck. "Make that sound again."

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