Chapter 22: Oakmere Drive

The house on Oakmere Drive smelled like dust and the lemon cleaner Megan had left under the sink.

Thatcher carried in my bag and set it by the door, and he stood in the front hall with his hands at his sides.

"Is this all right?" he asked.

"It's my house," I said. "Come in."

I walked him through it, because I wanted to.

The kitchen where I had stood on my feet for six years.

The dining table, bare and scarred, with the one pale mark where a ring had sat for a week.

The back bedroom where I had pulled out my own cables in October.

"This is where I work," I said.

"It's a good room."

"It needs a lamp."

"I'll bring one."

I stopped in the hall outside the last door.

I had slept in that room for four years and left it with a pillow on the floor.

"I want it to be mine," I said. "Tonight. Not his."

"Whatever you want."

"I want you in it."

He didn't move.

"Say it again," he said.

"I want you in my bed, Thatcher. I've wanted you since you handed me the ginger tea."

He crossed the hall in two steps, and his mouth came down on mine.

It was nothing like the kiss in the cafe.

It was slow and deep and certain, and his hand slid up the back of my neck and into my hair.

I pulled him through the doorway.

Somewhere in the dark my cardigan was on the floor, and then the buttons of his shirt were under my fingers, and I was dragging it off his shoulders.