Bitter Burn novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: Cologne

I put the folder in my bag and the transfer slip in my pocket and I called my father from the yard.

"Nothing yet," I said.

"There's a lot of paper. I'll go through it tomorrow."

"Good girl," he said, and hung up.

I sat in Finbar's chair a minute longer with my own signature burning a hole in my pocket.

Then I drove to Curtis Bay.

Bridie's lamp was off, and the lane was dark.

I let myself into the boathouse at eleven.

Finbar stood by the stove with his back to me, in the grey trousers and a fisherman's sweater of Bridie's.

His collar lay on the table where I had left it.

"You're late," he said.

"There was a wake."

"I know."

He turned around.

He did not look like he had slept at all.

His eyes went over me once, from my black dress to my hair, and then his nostrils flared.

He took a step closer, and another.

"You smell like him," he said.

"Like who?"

"Don't."

His voice was flat and very quiet.

"Tyson's cologne.

"Cedar and something sweet. It's on your neck, and it's on your back."

I felt my face go hot.

"He put his hand on me at the wake, Finbar.

"And he took it off after he'd had a good long feel."

I stared at him.

"How do you know that?"

He didn't answer.

He crossed the last two steps and stopped so close that I felt the heat coming off his skin.

I had never seen him this way.

On Fridays he was warm and bowed and obedient, and on every other day he was dry and gentle and funny.

Now he looked taut, poised on the razor edge of something dangerous.

"I don't want to kneel tonight," Finbar said.

"I want to put you on that table and make you forget his hands."

My throat went tight.

"That isn't how this works."

"I know it isn't."

"You're asking me to give up control."

"I'm asking you for one night."

"I'm asking you to let me be jealous out loud, and to stay while I do it."

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