Chapter 16: Warner

We never made it to the spare room.

Erin took me by the front of the shirt and walked me backward down the hall into my own bedroom.

She hadn't been in it once all week.

She stopped just inside the door and looked at the bed, the lamp, the window with the blinds half open on the dark.

"Sit," she said.

I sat on the edge of the mattress.

She stood between my knees with her coat still on, and she took her time unbuttoning it.

"Last time, you were in charge," she said.

"I don't remember it that way."

"I was in a hurry. You were in the way." She let the coat fall. "Tonight I'm not in a hurry."

Her hands went to the hem of her sweater.

She pulled it over her head slowly and dropped it on the floor, and the chain with the ring swung against her bare collarbone.

Her bra was plain black cotton, practical, and I had never seen anything that made my mouth so dry.

"Look at me," she said.

"I am."

"No. Look."

I looked at the freckles on her shoulders, the dip of her waist, the little scar below her ribs.

She took my hand, the cut one, and kissed the middle of the bandage.

Then she put it on her hip, and held it there.

"Keep it dry," she said.

"You said that once."

"I'm saying it again."

She unhooked the bra herself.

I made a sound I'd have been embarrassed by in daylight.

She stepped in closer, and I pressed my mouth against her breast, and her fingers went into my hair and held tight.

She tasted like salt and cold air.

I used my tongue and then my teeth, very lightly, and she hissed my name.

Not my surname.

"Warner."

Everything in me stopped, and then everything in me started again, harder.

"Say it again."

"Warner." She had her eyes shut. "I'm breaking rule three. I don't care."

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