Chapter 11: The Bakery

I looked at the deadbolt.

I looked at him.

"No," I said.

He went very still in the doorway.

"No, you won't lock it?"

"No, I won't lock it."

His hand tightened on the frame until the knuckles went white over the old scars.

"You don't know what you're saying."

"I'm a Yale-trained lawyer, Valerio. I always know what I'm saying."

He didn't move.

He was still waiting. Still on the other side of the line I'd written in his margin.

I stood up from the desk.

"Come here," I said. "That's me saying so."

He crossed the room in three steps.

He didn't grab me. He stopped close enough that I could feel the heat off him through my pajamas.

He put one hand on the side of my face, slowly.

I turned my mouth into his palm.

Then he kissed me.

It wasn't the dinner table.

There was no one to perform for and he didn't pretend to be careful.

His mouth was hot and hungry and he kissed me.

I pulled his shirt open the rest of the way.

His chest was warm and hard, and his heart was slamming under my hand.

The ink on his neck ran down over his shoulder, and I followed it with my fingers.

He made a sound low in his throat and lifted me onto the desk.

My bar book hit the floor.

Neither of us looked at it.

He pushed the cardigan off my shoulders and kissed the side of my neck, then lower, then the hollow of my collarbone.

My breath came in pieces.

"Tell me," he said against my skin.

"Don't stop."

His hands slid under the hem of my pajama top and spread across my back, skin on skin.

I shivered all the way down.

He pulled me to the edge of the desk, against him, and I felt exactly how much he wanted me.

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