My Father Gave Me a New Big Brother, and the Only Man I Could Run To Was the One Who Put Him There novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Hers to Start

The Ostatua closes on Mondays, so I spent the day in the front rooms with a dust cloth, and I said "Yes, Aitor" six times.

At eight I texted him: Going to see to the lamb. Back late.

He answered in under a minute: Eleven.

I drove my mother's old Subaru out the Mountain Home highway with the windows down, and I did not turn around.

The clinic light was on over the door.

Mateo was at the front desk in a flannel shirt, writing in a chart.

He looked up when the bell rang.

He didn't smile at once.

He looked at my face, and then at the carton in my hand.

"I had eggs," I said. "Three. Fried. With toast."

"That's a lot of eggs."

"Then I slept four hours. I've been rested and fed since two o'clock."

I put the carton down on his desk.

"Ask me again, you said."

"I said you should ask me."

He didn't smile yet.

"I'm asking."

He set down the pen.

The lamb bleated from the back room, fat and fine, and neither of us turned our heads.

"Rali," Mateo said, and he stood up. "Tell me what you want."

It was a thing I had never been asked, by anyone, in twenty-four years.

It went through me and left me unsteady.

"Lock the front door," I said.

He crossed the room and turned the deadbolt and flipped the sign.

"Turn off the light over the desk."

He did.

The only light left came from the heat lamp over the lamb's pen.

It came through the open exam room door and made everything gold.

"Come here," I said, and he came.

I took his shirt in both fists and kissed him.

He tasted of coffee and peppermint, and he made a low sound into my mouth that went straight down through me.

His hands came up and stopped in the air above my waist.

"Where?" he said.

"Everywhere. I'll tell you."

I took his hands and put them on my hips, and I felt him breathe in.

"Slower," I said, against his jaw. "I've been fast all my life."

So he went slow.

He kissed my mouth until my knees weren't mine.

Then he kissed my throat, and the place under my ear, and waited between each one for me to say yes.

I said it every time.

I said it out loud, because he wanted to hear it, and because it was new in my mouth.

"Take off my shirt."

He undid the buttons one at a time, slowly.

He pushed it off my shoulders and looked at me in the gold light.

I wore my plain black bra, the one I wear for service.

"God," he said, in a rough voice. "You're beautiful. You know that? You really are."

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