Chapter 23: The Inch

Darek's apartment was on the fourth floor, with a radiator that knocked and a couch with a blanket thrown over one arm.

He shut the door behind us and stood with his back against it, and neither of us turned on a light.

"You can still say go home," he said.

"I know."

"I'd walk you."

"Darek." I put my scarf down on the nearest chair. "Come here."

He crossed the room in two steps.

This time nobody was going to interrupt us, and we both knew it.

He kissed me slowly, taking his time.

I took hold of his shirt and kissed him back harder.

"You've been thinking about this," I said against his mouth.

"Since a porch in Charleston. Since your shoulder was an inch from mine."

"That was you."

"That was both of us." His hands framed my face. "I counted the inch."

I laughed, and he swallowed it, and then the laughing turned into something else.

He backed me toward the bedroom with his mouth on my jaw and my throat and the collar of my dress.

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

"Slow," he said into my neck.

"No."

"No?"

"I've been slow for two years," I said. "I've been polite for two years."

His breath caught.

"Tell me what you want."

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