Chapter 7: Say So

We didn't speak in the car.

We didn't speak in the elevator either, forty floors up, with the mirrored wall showing both of us.

The doors opened on the dark penthouse.

I walked in, put my bag on the floor and turned around.

"You kept it from me for four years," I said.

"Yes."

"You let me cry about him in your room."

"Yes."

"Say it again," I said. "What you said at the table."

Malachi stood very still in the open elevator doors.

"Kate."

"Say it."

"I'm going to ruin that dress with my hands," he said. His voice was rough. "And you're going to let me."

The elevator doors closed behind him.

"Term two," I said. "You don't touch me unless I say so."

"I remember."

"I'm saying so."

He crossed the floor in three steps.

His hands came up and held my face, both of them, big and warm and not gentle at all.

He kissed me.

It was a hard kiss, with teeth, four years overdue.

I grabbed his lapels and kissed him back just as hard.

He tasted like whiskey and the cold air off the bay.

I made a noise into his mouth that I had never made in my life.

He lifted me by the backs of my thighs and set me on the kitchen island.

My dress rode up. He pushed between my knees, and I felt how hard he already was.

"You said you were going to ruin it," I said, breathless.

"I am."

He took the zipper at my back and pulled it down slowly, all the way.

The green dress fell off my shoulders and pooled at my waist.

I wasn't wearing a bra. I hadn't wanted the straps to show.

He looked at me.

His breath came out ragged, and his eyes went black.

"Kate," he said. "Look at you."

"Don't." My arms started to come up. "Don't look at me like that."

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