Chapter 10: Hers

He carried me inside and kicked the broken door shut behind us.

"Your knee," I said.

"My knee is fine."

"You limp when it's cold."

"Marit." He set me down on the edge of the bed. "I'm going to need you to stop talking about my knee."

I laughed, and it turned into a gasp, because he'd gone down on one knee on the rug and put his mouth against the inside of my wrist.

His beard scraped my skin.

His tongue found the pulse there.

"Tell me what you want," he said.

"You."

"That's not an answer."

"All of you," I said. "I want to stop thinking about anything but you."

He looked up.

For a second his face was so open that I almost couldn't stand it.

"I need to ask you one thing first."

"Lars."

"Is he still in you?" His jaw was tight. "The bond. Tell me honestly. If I touch you and some part of you is still hearing him, I can't."

I took his hand and pressed it flat to my throat, over the gray mark.

"There's nothing there," I said. "I bit it out myself. It's dead, and there's only me."

He closed his eyes.

"Then take your shirt off," he said. "Slowly. I want to watch."

My heart was beating in my ears.

I had never done anything slowly in my life.

I let the quilt fall off my shoulders, and he sat perfectly still on the rug.

I peeled off my sweater and the camisole under it.

Then I sat there in the stove light with my breasts heavy and tender and my belly round between us.

He looked at me for a long time.

"Look at you," he said hoarsely.

"I'm enormous."

"You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

He wasn't saying it to be kind.

I could tell by the way his hands shook when he spread them over my ribs.

I could tell by the thickness of his voice, and by what was straining the front of his torn jeans.

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