Chapter 10: Touch the Leg

I didn't go back to Nell's that night.

Gideon made eggs in the garage kitchen because neither of us had eaten, and I sat on the counter and watched him crack them one-handed.

"She was smiling at the end," I said. "Paige. When the director said the Foundation would pull the show."

"I saw."

"I keep thinking I should have said something sharper."

"You said the right thing. You asked her what day." He set a plate next to my knee. "Eat."

I ate three bites and put the fork down.

My hands were still not quite steady.

For four days I had been standing up straight in front of people, and now there was no one left to stand for.

"Gideon."

"Yeah."

"I don't want to talk about her anymore."

He turned the burner off.

"What do you want to talk about?"

"I don't want to talk."

He was across the kitchen in two steps, but he stopped with the counter edge between us and his hands flat on it.

"Say it plainly," he said.

"I want you to take me upstairs."

His breath went out of him in a rough laugh.

"That I can do."

I slid off the counter and caught his shirt in my fist.

We climbed the loft stairs together with my mouth on his the whole way, and at the top he put his back against the rail and let me push him there.

He was big and warm, and he kissed me.

I pulled his shirt up over his head.

He had a long scar across his ribs that I hadn't expected, and a heavy, muscled chest with dark hair that ran down his stomach.

I put my palm flat against it and felt his heart slamming.

"Margo," he said, rough. "Whatever you want. Whatever, and I stop when you say."

"I know."

I sat on the edge of the bed.

The big window was dark now and showed us both to ourselves: his bare shoulders, my flushed face, the shape of my left leg ending where it ended.

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Ex Threw Me Away, Now He's Bleeding for Me from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.