Chapter 4: The Stone House, Late

"Watch," I said.

Rory's mouth quirked against my temple.

"Thought so," he said.

"I want to sit at the end of that table, and I want them to talk first."

"Then keep your hands off me till then," he said, setting me back on my feet.

"Because if I keep kissing you in a barn, Monday is going to be a problem."

He tucked my hair behind my ear with one rough finger, and walked out into the cold.

The storm came in at dusk.

By nine o'clock the wind was throwing sleet against the library windows, and the lights flickered twice and went out.

I was alone in the big stone house with a fire I'd built myself and a blanket around my shoulders.

The back door banged.

Boots crossed the kitchen, and Rory filled the library doorway, wet through, carrying a lantern.

"Line's down on the lower road," he said. "I came to make sure you had a fire."

"I have a fire."

"I see that."

He didn't leave.

He stood there with sleet melting off his shoulders, looking at me on the rug in his dead employer's library.

"Take your coat off," I said. "You're dripping on my floor."

"It's your floor now."

"Then you should do what I say."

His grey eyes went dark.

He set the lantern on the desk, took off his hat, and then slowly peeled off the wet coat and let it drop.

I stood up.

I let the blanket slide to the rug.

I was wearing a flannel shirt of his and nothing else but my underwear.

It was all I had that was dry.

His eyes went down my bare legs and up again.

"Ada," he said, low and ragged.

"Come here."

He came.

He kissed me the way he'd kissed me in the barn, but with nothing between us this time, nothing in the way.

His mouth was hot and hard, and his hands went to the hem of the flannel and pushed it up over my hips.

I tore at the buttons of his shirt.

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