Chapter 8: The Night

The car Nathan ordered came, and I gave the driver no address.

We circled the block twice with my hands tight in my lap.

The second time, I asked him to stop under the brewery's yellow sign.

The photos were already out.

I couldn't take back one kiss that the whole city was about to see.

I could only decide whether to make it worth the trouble.

Nathan answered the buzzer himself.

He had taken off his jacket, and he stood in the doorway of his loft with his shirt open at the throat.

"You said you were thinking," he said.

"I thought."

"And?"

"I'm thirty-three, and I've been careful my whole life." I stepped past him into the room. "Close the door."

He closed it.

The loft was one long brick room with a bed on a platform at the far end and a window full of city lights.

He crossed the floor to me slowly.

I didn't run.

I put both hands on his chest and felt his heart pounding under my palms.

"I want this," I said. "Not for Bryce, not to get even. For me."

"Good," he said roughly. "Because I've wanted you since you said eleven."

"Eleven what?"

"Minutes. The bridge. You corrected me through a door chain at two in the morning."

I laughed, and then his mouth was on mine and the laugh broke apart.

He kissed me.

His hands found the zipper at my back and drew it down one slow inch at a time.

The navy dress fell around my feet.

The air touched my skin.

He looked at me in my plain white underwear, and his throat moved.

"God, Odessa."

"Take your shirt off."

He did, one-handed, and threw it behind him.

He had a dock worker's shoulders, wide and scarred, and a flat hard stomach with dark hair trailing down.

I put my mouth on his collarbone and felt him shudder.

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