Chapter 22: The Only Bed

The pipes were not frozen, but the furnace was dead.

Nathaniel found a woodpile under the porch and a box of matches in a kitchen drawer.

I found my grandmother's quilt in a cedar chest, folded exactly where she had always kept it.

By eight o'clock there was a fire in the bedroom grate and a bottle of the old man's cider on the nightstand.

The window had no curtain.

I stood by it in my coat and looked at the dark garden.

"You said you'd like one with a curtain," Nathaniel said from the doorway.

"I changed my mind. Nobody's out there but the roses."

He crossed the floorboards and took my coat off my shoulders.

The room smelled of woodsmoke and old cedar.

His hands stayed on my arms.

"I love you," he said, before I turned around. "I wanted to say it first this time."

"You never got the chance the last time."

"Then I'll say it more."

I turned and kissed him, and this time there was nothing in a hurry about it.

His mouth was warm, and his hands moved under my sweater and up my back.

I helped him pull it off.

My bra followed, and then his shirt.

He laid me down on the quilt in front of the fire.

The light moved across his shoulders, red and gold.

He kissed down my throat and between my breasts, and I felt his stubble scrape my ribs.

"Slowly," I whispered. "I want it slowly."

"Then slowly."

He unbuttoned my jeans and worked them down my hips, kissing my stomach, my hipbones, the soft skin inside each thigh.

I was wet before he reached my underwear.

He pulled it off with his teeth, and I laughed, and then I stopped laughing.

He put his mouth on my pussy and licked me with the flat of his tongue, taking his time.

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