Chapter 19: Her Terms

Jonas kissed her back like a man who had waited two lives to do it.

His hands came up and stopped an inch from her face, shaking.

"You don't have to," he said against her mouth.

"I know I don't."

"Leigh, I watched you die."

"Then stop watching," she said. "Touch me."

He made a sound she had never heard from him, low and broken, and then his palms were on her face and he was kissing her hard and without stopping.

She pulled him toward the sofa by his shirt.

He let her.

The backs of her knees hit the cushions and she sat, and he went down on one knee between her feet.

He took her bandaged wrists in his hands and turned them over.

He kissed the gauze, once on each side, so lightly that she felt it in her stomach.

"They tied you," he said. "Tonight I got there in time."

"You got there."

"Not the first time."

"This is the first time," she said. "Come here."

She tugged the gray coat off his shoulders and it fell to the floor, and he did not even look at it.

His shirt buttons were small.

She undid them one by one while he watched her fingers, and by the fourth he had stopped breathing evenly.

"Condition three," she said.

He went still.

"You said I had to tell you when I was afraid. You never said anything about you."

"I'm not afraid."

"Your hands are shaking."

"That isn't fear."

"Jonas." She slid her palms flat over his chest, and felt his heart slam against her hand. "Say it."

He closed his eyes.

"I'm afraid," he said, hoarse. "I'm afraid I'll wake up in that bed again and it will all be the other morning."

"Open your eyes."

He did.

"I'm here," she said. "I'm warm. I'm bossy. Ask me for something."

"Can I take you upstairs?"

"Yes."

He stood and swung her up against his chest.

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