Chapter 16: Nothing Signed

I didn't go to the hotel.

Desmond said he would, and for once I let him be the one who went.

By evening I was standing in Declan's apartment with my coat still on, watching the harbor lights come up.

He hadn't asked me to come.

He had opened the door and stepped back, and I walked past him.

"You don't have to stay," he said.

"Is that clause fourteen?"

"It's me."

"Then I heard you."

I took off the coat and dropped it on the chair where he had put his, the first night.

He stood in the middle of the room with his hands at his sides, and he looked at me and did not move.

"Come here," I said.

He came.

I put my palm flat on his chest, over the shirt, and felt how hard his heart was working.

"A hundred and ten," I said.

"You're guessing."

"I'm diagnosing."

I undid the first button.

He let me.

I undid the second, and the third, and he drew a breath and held it, and I understood that he was waiting for permission to touch me.

"You can," I said.

"Not yet."

"Declan."

"Let me stand here," he said, "and have you do it."

So I did it slowly.

I pushed the shirt off his shoulders and laid my mouth against the long pale scar below his ribs.

His whole body went still.

"That's mine," I said against it.

"Yes."

"I closed this."

"I know." His voice cracked on the second word. "I know you did."

I kissed the line of it, end to end, and felt him shake.

He put his hand into my hair, and he did not pull.

He only held on.

When I stood up, he kissed me, and it was nothing like the car or the first night.

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