Chapter 8: His Rule

He kissed me slowly, as if he had been waiting seven years to do it, and then not slowly at all.

His mouth was hard and then it was not, and my hands were in his shirt before I decided to put them there.

The chair rocked under me.

He caught the back of it with one hand and held it still and kept kissing me, and his other hand came up and cupped my jaw, very carefully.

I was not fragile, and I told him so by biting his lip.

I pulled him closer by the collar until he had to brace himself against the table on either side of me.

"Mara," he said against my mouth.

"Don't talk."

"I have to ask."

"You asked. I didn't say no."

He laughed, low and shaky, and put his forehead against mine.

Then he kissed me again, longer, and I opened for him.

I felt every inch of the wanting I had packed down for seven years.

I had thought it was dead along with my legs.

It was not dead.

It was awake and furious and it wanted him on top of me.

His hand slid down my throat, down over my collarbone, and stopped at the neckline of my only dress.

I took his wrist and put his palm flat over my breast.

He made a sound I felt in my own chest.

"Mara."

"Say it again," I said. "Like that."

"Mara."

He pushed the strap off my shoulder with his thumb and put his mouth on the skin he had uncovered.

I tipped my head back and my breath came out as a gasp that echoed in the big kitchen.

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