Chapter 10: The Camera in the Corner

The lift doors closed on the two of them, dripping.

Neither of them spoke.

Her coat was soaked through, and so was his.

She stood against the mirrored wall with the folder crushed to her chest, and she watched the numbers climb.

He stood a step away with his hands at his sides and did not touch her.

"Rule three," she said.

"Yes."

"Nobody's watching."

"There's a camera in the corner."

"You said that yesterday."

"It's still a smoke detector," Weston said.

She laughed, and it broke in the middle.

The doors opened on his floor.

He held the apartment door for her, and she walked in, and she dropped the folder on the table in the hall.

The room was dark and warm and smelled of coffee and rain.

She turned around.

He had shut the door and stood against it, wet to the skin, looking at her.

"Say it," she said.

"Say what?"

"Whatever you're waiting to say."

"I'm waiting for you to tell me to go to my room."

"I'm not going to."

His breath went out of him in a rough sound.

He crossed the hall in three steps.

She had her hands in his lapels before he reached her, and she pulled him down.

This time there was no hurry in it for the first moment.

His mouth was cold from the rain and then it was not.

He kissed her slowly, with his hand spread flat in the middle of her back.

She did not want slowly.

She pushed his wet coat off his shoulders and it fell, and she found the buttons of his shirt.

They were small and her fingers were clumsy, and she heard him laugh against her mouth.

"Let me."

"No."

She tore the last one.

Underneath he was hot and hard and damp.

She put both hands flat on his chest and felt how fast his heart was going.

"Claire."

"Take me to bed."

"You're angry."

"Yes."

"Not like this," he said, and caught her wrists, gently.

It stopped her.

He held them against his chest and looked down at her, breathing hard.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Nine Rejected Marriages, I Wed My Ex's Rival from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.