Chapter 6: One Bed

The lake house sat on a limestone point with the water on three sides, and the sun going down red behind the hills.

Jude parked the truck, carried the bags in, and put them down in the front hall without a word.

The house was built of pale wood and glass.

It had a kitchen the size of my clinic, with a long marble counter under a row of pendant lamps.

I stood in the doorway of the main bedroom and looked at the bed.

It was enormous and white, and there was only one of it.

"I'll take the couch," Jude said behind me.

"It's a short couch."

"I've slept on worse," Jude said.

"You're six-two."

"Bryn."

He said my name in a flat voice.

"Go to bed. I'll be out here."

I did not go to bed.

I went into the kitchen, because it was the only room I could think of, and stood with both hands on the cold marble.

My mouth was dry.

Behind me I heard him come to the doorway and stop.

"You said the counter," I said.

I did not turn around.

"Yes."

"You said it in front of sixty people."

"I did," he said.

"Did you mean it?"

He was quiet for so long that I turned to look.

He stood in the light from the hall with his hands loose at his sides.

His chest was moving fast.

"I haven't thought about much else for three days," he said.

"The terms say nothing."

"They do."

"Then I'm breaking them." I leaned back against the counter. "Terms, Jude."

He crossed the room.

He put his hands on my waist and lifted me, and I was sitting on the marble with the cold of it going through my skirt.

He stood between my knees.

His hands went to the hem of my dress, and he pushed it up over my thighs, slowly, watching what it uncovered.

I was wearing plain white cotton.

He looked at it for a long moment.

"Lift," he said.

I lifted my hips.

He pulled my underwear down my legs and dropped it on the floor.

Then he went down on his knees on the tile, gripped the backs of my thighs, and pulled me to the edge of the counter.

I put my hands flat on the marble behind me.

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