Chapter 14: Nobody Sleeps Here

He carried me up the stairs in the dark, and I pointed to the door at the end of the hall.

Nonna's summer room still had the narrow iron bed and the yellow curtains.

He set me on my feet beside it and didn't let go.

"Last chance, Livia."

"If you ask me again, I'll throw you out the window."

He laughed, low, against my neck.

Then he stopped laughing, because I had my hands on his belt.

He pulled my dress up over my head in one move and dropped it on the floor.

He looked at me for a long moment, in the light from the street.

"Three years," he said.

"Don't talk. Touch me."

He put his mouth on my throat and his hand between my legs, over my underwear, and I made a sound I had never made for Ethan.

"Again," he said.

"Bruce."

"Again."

He pushed the cotton aside with two fingers and found me soaking wet.

He said something rough in my ear, and I dug my nails into his shoulders.

"You're so wet," he said. "For me, or for being angry?"

"Both. Keep going."

He slid one finger inside me, then two, and curled them until my knees gave.

He caught me with his free arm and laid me back across the bed.

I lay there with my legs open and he knelt on the floor between them.

"I held back for three years," he said. "I'm not holding back tonight."

"Good."

He pulled my underwear down my legs and put his mouth on my clit.

I came up off the sheets.

His tongue was slow and sure, and he held my hips down with both hands when I tried to move.

"Bruce, please."

"Please what?"

"Don't stop."

"I won't."

He didn't.

He worked me with his tongue and two fingers until I was begging, and I could hear myself and didn't care.

When I came, I shouted his name at the ceiling.