Chapter 11: Orders

Della's POV

He stood in my front hall with his hands at his sides and did not touch anything.

"You said you'd do what I tell you," I said. "Until Saturday."

"I did."

"Then lock the door."

He turned and slid the new deadbolt.

I heard it click, and something low in my stomach went with it.

"Come here."

He crossed the hall in two steps.

I took hold of the front of his jacket and pulled him down.

This time neither of us stopped to be sensible.

His mouth was hot, and he tasted like coffee.

He backed me into the wall beside the stairs, and the picture frames rattled, and I did not care.

I pushed the jacket off his shoulders and it fell on the floor.

"I laughed at you," I said against his mouth. "In June. At the party."

"You did."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry now." His hands were under my sweater, spread across my ribs. "Be here."

He lifted me.

I locked my legs around his waist, and he carried me up the stairs with his mouth on my throat.

At the turn of the landing I bit his ear, and he swore softly.

My bedroom was dark.

He set me down at the foot of the bed.

I pulled the sweater over my head, and he stopped and looked at me in the light from the hall.

I had been looked at for three years by a man who checked his phone while he did it.

Conroy looked at me as though there were nothing else in the house.

"You're the one giving orders," he said, low. "Tell me what you want."

"I want your shirt off."

He took it off in one motion and dropped it.

His chest was broad and scarred in two places, and I put my palms flat against it and felt him breathe.

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