Rule Four of the Lease Said No Overnight Guests novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Silk

At eight that night I knocked on Lena's door in my long wool coat and nothing else.

The hallway was cold.

The wool scratched my nipples with every breath, and the envelope with the rent check shook in my hand.

Lena opened the door in her undershirt and jeans, barefoot, with her glasses pushed up on her head.

Her eyes went down the coat and back up.

"Rent," she said.

"In person."

"Late."

"Very late."

I held out the envelope, and my other hand held the blue scarf in my coat pocket.

She took it and set it on the hall table without looking at it.

"Bedroom," Lena said.

I walked ahead of her, and the coat swung against my bare thighs.

The lamp was lit.

She had turned the quilt back, and the sheets were pale and cool.

At the foot of the bed I turned around.

"Take off your shirt," I said.

She did not move.

"Lena. Take it off."

Her mouth parted a little.

She pulled the undershirt over her head and dropped it.

Her breasts were small and pale, and her nipples were tight in the cold air.

The chain with the ring lay between them.

"Jeans."

She unbuttoned them and pushed them down and stepped out.

She wore nothing under them either.

"You planned this," I said.

"I hoped."

"Lie down on your back."

"Mina."

"In the middle. Head by the headboard."

She looked at me for a long breath, tall and naked in the lamplight with her hands open at her sides.

She lay down on Hannah's side of the bed, then moved to the center of it.

She put her head on the pillow.

I let the coat fall.

She watched it hit the floor and watched me come to the bed, and I heard her swallow.

I climbed up and knelt over her hips.

"Hands up."

Lena raised her arms above her head, slowly, until her wrists were against the carved slats of the headboard.

I held the scarf by its ends, and the silk poured through my fingers.

"Tell me if this is wrong," I said. "It's Hannah's scarf."

"It's right." Her voice was thick. "She'd have wanted it used."

I wound the silk twice around her wrists.

I tied it to the slat in a bow that opened with one tug.

The birds fluttered white against her skin.

I tested it with two fingers.

"Pull."

She pulled, and the knot held, and she let out a small unsteady sound.

"Oh," she said.

"Too tight?"

"No." Her hips moved on the sheet. "It's exactly right. I can't do anything."

"No," I said. "You can't."

I leaned down and kissed her.

It was a slow kiss, lazy and wet, and I took my time with her lower lip.

Her arms strained against the silk, and she tried to follow my mouth when I lifted away.

"Stay still," I said.

"You're cruel."

"I learned from the best."

I kissed her jaw, her throat above the chain, and the hollow where her collarbone met her shoulder.

I took the ring between my teeth for a second and let it fall.

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