Chapter 8: The Workbench

Hollander Boat Works sat at the end of a gravel road on the harbor, with a long steel shed and a loft built over the office.

Gabe unlocked the side door and flicked on one lamp.

The loft was one room.

There was a bed with a plain gray blanket, a wood stove, and a window that looked straight out at the black water.

It smelled of cedar and woodsmoke.

I stood in the doorway with my coat still on.

"I haven't done this in three years," I said. "I haven't done it right in longer than that."

He shut the door behind us and hung my coat on a hook.

"Tell me what you want."

"Dalton never asked."

"I'm asking."

My mouth was dry.

"I want you to do what you said at the dinner."

His eyes went dark.

"Take off the apron," he said.

I untied it and let it drop.

He lifted me by the waist and sat me on the edge of the workbench against the wall, among the clamps and the coiled rope.

His hands were rough, and they were not steady.

They shook against my hips for one breath, and then they stopped.

He pushed my dress up my thighs.

"Look at me," he said.

I looked.

He hooked his fingers in my tights and my underwear and drew them down my legs, slowly, and dropped them on the floor.

I was already wet.

I knew he could see it.

He knelt on the boards between my knees, and he put his mouth on the inside of my thigh.

"Gabe."

"Not yet."

He kissed his way up, and his beard scraped me, and I gripped the edge of the bench.

Then his tongue found my clit, one long slow stroke, and my head hit the wall.

"Oh, fuck."

"That's it."

He licked me again, harder, and wrapped his arms around my thighs to hold me open.

I had never been held like that.

Three years of a man who finished in four minutes and rolled over, and I had thought that was what it was.

Gabe took his time.

He sucked my clit between his lips and flicked it with his tongue until my hips were rocking against his mouth.

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