Chapter 18: Her Order

We ran down the back stairwell with our clothes half buttoned and my jeans in my fist.

On the second landing I stopped to hop into them, and Cyrus held my elbow and laughed silently into his sleeve.

Abercrombie's footsteps went up the other stairwell, heavy and fast, while we slipped out the loading door into the alley.

My car was two blocks away.

I drove with both hands on the wheel and the heater roaring, and we didn't speak until I parked behind the dentist's office in Lakewood.

"Did he see us?"

"He saw the light on in my office," I said. "He'll find a pen cup on the floor."

"And the folders."

"I'll say I was working late."

"On a Friday."

"I'm very dedicated."

He took my hand and kissed the knuckles.

"Come upstairs," I said.

"Yes."

"I mean it. Come up and do what I tell you."

His thumb stopped on my knuckle.

"I always do what you tell me."

"That's not true. You filed six reports behind my back."

"That was before."

"Before what?"

"Before I knew what it was to be told by you."

I got out of the car without answering, because my face had gone hot.

In my bedroom I left the lamp on its lowest setting.

He stood in the middle of the floor and I walked around him once.

"Take your sweater off," I said.

He did.

"The rest."

He did.

I sat on the edge of the narrow bed and looked at him.

He stood naked in the lamplight with his hands at his sides and his scar bright against his ribs.

"You've never let anyone give you orders," I said.

"Not in a hundred years."

"Why me?"

"Because you ask for what you want. And then you take it."

I picked up the green scarf from the bedpost, the long wool one my grandmother knitted.

He saw it and his eyes went dark.

"Give me your wrists."

He held them out, crossed, in front of him.

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