Chapter 19: Her Terms

I did not speak to him all afternoon.

I ate dinner with my mother and Concetta, and I let Alessio's chair stay empty.

At ten I went upstairs to the room that had been mine and shut the door.

I sat on the bed with my hands between my knees.

He knocked once.

"Go away," I said.

"No." The door opened. "I came to give you what I took."

He stood in the doorway in his shirtsleeves.

In one hand he held his steel watch.

"Take it," Alessio said.

"I don't want your watch."

"You've never seen me without it."

He crossed the floor and put it in my palm.

"My father wore it until the day he died. Nobody has ever taken it off me."

The metal was warm from his wrist.

"What am I supposed to do with it?"

"Whatever you want. Tonight you decide, and I do what you say."

I looked up at him.

"Everything?"

"Everything." His jaw worked. "I broke a term, Lenora. Now I'm yours to use as you like, until you say I'm not."

I set the watch on the nightstand.

Then I stood and took hold of his tie.

"Sit on the bed," I said.

He sat.

I stood between his knees and slid the tie free and wrapped it twice around his wrists.

He watched me do it, his eyes steady.

"Not tight," he said.

"Tight enough." I pushed him back against the headboard and knotted the tie to the rail. "You'll tell me if it's wrong."

"It isn't."

"Good."

I took off my dress slowly, with my back turned halfway and then my face.

His breath changed.

I climbed over his lap in my underwear and held my mouth just out of reach of his.

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