Chapter 7: Not Under Contract

The lodge was dark when we got in, and I did not turn on a lamp.

Mal hung his jacket on the hook beside mine, and the sound of it was so domestic that I laughed once, shakily, in the dark.

"What?" he said.

"We just walked out on my ex-husband in front of the whole club."

"We did."

"You called me your wife."

"You are my wife. It's in the county records."

I turned around.

He stood in the middle of my kitchen with the streetlight cutting across his shoulders, and I could hear him breathing.

I walked to the drawer under the phone and took out the sheet of school letterhead with our four terms in my handwriting.

I held it up between us.

"This says it buys nothing from me."

"It does."

"It says if you touch me, it's not because paper told you to."

"I wrote that."

"I know."

I put it back in the drawer and shut it.

"So it's not in here. It's not in there. It's just me."

His throat moved.

"You said you were lying about something," I said. "I don't care what it is. I'm choosing this with the lie in the room. That's mine to choose."

"Edie."

"Tell me tomorrow. Tonight I want you to put your hands on me."

He crossed the kitchen in two strides.

His mouth landed on mine hard, and I made a sound that wasn't a word and grabbed his shirt in both fists.

He lifted me by the thighs and set me on the counter, and the cold of the laminate went through my dress.

"Say it again," he said against my lips.

"Touch me."

"Say it like you mean it."

"Mal, I swear to God, I will die if you don't put your hands on me."

He growled.

He dragged my dress up around my hips.

His palms ran up the outside of my thighs, rough and warm, and hooked my underwear and slid it down my legs.

I was already wet.

I was embarrassingly wet, and he saw it, and he looked at me.

"Look at you," he said hoarsely.

He knelt.

He put his hands under my knees, pushed my thighs wide on the counter and set his mouth on me.

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