Anvil novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Nothing Between Us

Lizzie's POV

The house was so quiet I could hear the refrigerator.

Birdie's friend's mother had come at six, and my daughter had waved from the back seat with her sleeping bag in her lap.

Tucker had stood on the porch with his split eyebrow stitched shut with tape and watched the taillights out of sight.

Now it was nine, and he stood in my kitchen with his back against the counter and his arms folded.

He had not touched me once since the diner.

"Rule three," he said.

"I wrote it."

"Say it."

"Nothing between you and me."

"Then tell me to leave."

I crossed the kitchen.

I put my hands flat on his chest, on the gray flannel, over a heart that was going as hard as mine.

"If you leave tonight, Tucker Lockwood, I will put you in the river."

He kissed me.

It was not careful and it was not sweet.

His hand locked in my hair, his mouth opened mine, and seven years went out of me in one sound.

He tasted like coffee and the blood from his lip.

I got my fingers into his shirt and pulled, and buttons hit the floor.

"Nothing between us, you said," he murmured against my jaw. "Look at that. There's nothing between us now."

"Then keep it that way. Bedroom."

"Stairs."

He lifted me.

I locked my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck.

He carried me up in the dark without letting go of my mouth.

My bedroom door banged the wall.

He set me on my feet at the foot of the bed and stood back to look at me.

Then he took the hem of my sweater and drew it up and off, and he made a low sound in his throat.

"Look at you."

"You look. I'm busy."

I peeled his shirt open the rest of the way.

He was harder than I remembered. There was a new scar under his ribs, and gray in the hair on his chest.

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