Chapter 8: On Her Terms

We did not talk about the post on the way up the stairs.

He carried me again, over my protests, and I held on with my arms around his neck.

At the top, outside my door, he set me on my good foot and waited.

"I'll go across the hall," he said. "If you want."

"Do you want to?"

"No."

I opened the door and pulled him in by the front of his shirt.

"This isn't a promise," I said against his mouth. "I'm not promising anything. Nothing's fixed. She's still pregnant and your father still hates me."

"I know."

"I want tonight. That's all."

"Then I'll take tonight."

He kicked the door shut behind us.

He kissed me up against it, slowly this time, his hand cupping my jaw.

I bit his lower lip until he groaned.

I wanted none of that gentleness.

I pulled his shirt up over his head and threw it across the room.

His chest was warm and hard under my palms, with a line of dark blond hair running down his stomach.

I put my mouth on the hollow of his throat and tasted soap and sweat.

"Clara," he said, rough. "Your ankle."

"Then be careful with it and fuck me anyway."

He laughed, a short startled breath, and walked me back to the couch.

He laid me down with my bad foot propped on a cushion.

He pulled my sweater over my head and unhooked my bra with one hand, and when my breasts came free he stopped and just looked.

"Seven years," he said, "and I've never once seen you in the light."

"Look all you want."

He bent and took one nipple into his mouth.

I arched off the couch and said his name in a voice I did not know.

His tongue circled and his teeth grazed, and his hand slid down my stomach and opened my jeans.

He peeled them off me with my underwear, over the sprained ankle, with infinite care, and then he knelt on the floor between my knees.

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