Chapter 12: The Night

The girls were across the hall at Odette's for a sleepover, and the apartment was so quiet that I could hear the refrigerator.

I had told Conal to come at nine, to sign the lawyer's papers.

I had not said which papers.

He stood in my doorway with a pen in his hand and a folder under his arm.

I took the folder out of his fingers and put it on the hall table.

"Leandra."

"Be quiet."

"The papers-"

"Are not what we're doing tonight."

I took his tie, which he had put on for the lawyer, and I pulled him in by it and shut the door with my cane.

He kissed me before it clicked.

It was not gentle.

His mouth was hot and hungry, and four and a half years came out of him in a sound against my lips.

I dropped the cane.

I did not hear it hit the floor.

His hands came up and cupped my face, and they were shaking.

"Don't you dare stop," I said against his mouth. "Say my name, Conal."

"Leandra."

He kissed me again, and the rest of the world went out.

I got his jacket off his shoulders.

He got me up against the wall, with his arm under my hips, taking my weight so my knee would not matter.

I wrapped my legs around him.

I heard the zipper on the gray dress, because I had worn it again on purpose, and I heard him laugh into my neck.

"You wore it for me."

"I wore it so you'd have something to take off."

"Slowly," he said. "I told you."

He carried me to the bedroom, and he did it slowly.

He set me on the edge of the bed and knelt on the floor in front of me.

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