Chapter 13: The Office Behind the Coat Check

The whole gallery turned to look at Dexter.

He lifted his glass to the coat check as if it were a guest.

"Go on, Quinton," he said. "Finish your question."

Quinton did not move.

His hand had gone still on my back.

"Dexter," Odette said from across the room.

She did not raise her voice, and the room went quiet anyway.

"You are drunk in my foundation's gallery," she said. "Two men will walk you to a car."

"Mother, I'm celebrating."

"You are leaving."

Two guards in black took him by the elbows.

He let them, smiling.

At the door he twisted around to find me.

"Ask him anything, Lin," he called. "He'll tell you. He's dying to."

Then the doors closed behind him, and the noise of the party came back all at once.

My heart was going hard.

I looked up at Quinton.

His ears were red, and a muscle jumped in his jaw.

"Ask me," he said. "I told you I would answer."

"Not here."

"Linnea."

"Not with two hundred people watching your face."

I took his hand.

There was a staff door beside the coat check, and I had seen waiters use it all night.

I pulled him through it and down a bare corridor that smelled of packing paper.

At the end was a small office with a leather sofa, a desk, and a lamp somebody had left on.

I shut the door and turned the lock.

"Rule two," Quinton said behind me.

"Is it in force?"

"It is the only thing I have left."

"Then I'm taking it."

I walked him back until his legs met the edge of the sofa.

He sat, because I put my hand on his chest and pushed.

He looked up at me with his lips parted and his eyes nearly black.

I stood between his knees and took the pins out of my hair, one by one, and dropped them on the desk.

"Linnea."

"Tell me to stop."

"I can't."

"Good."

I kissed him.

There was no pretending in it this time.

His hands came up and gripped my hips hard, and he groaned into my mouth.

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