Chapter 12: Nothing Between Us

Colleen looked at me, looked at the street, and looked at me again.

"Go," she said. "Text me in the morning. Don't text me details."

I went down the metal stairs in my socks.

The rain had stopped, and the pavement shone under the streetlights.

I crossed to the grey van and knocked on the driver's window with one knuckle.

It rolled down.

Brogan sat behind the wheel with his hands on his knees.

"You never left," I said.

"You said business."

"I did."

"So I waited in case business needed a ride."

"His own mother walked out on him tonight," I said. "In front of me. In front of the neighbors."

"That's not what finished means, Mara."

"Then I'll say what it means." I put both hands on the open window. "I'm finished waiting."

He looked at me for one long second.

Then he opened the door, and I kissed him.

It wasn't careful.

I got my fingers into his hair and my mouth against his, and he made a rough sound in his throat and dragged me in against his chest.

He tasted like cold coffee and rain.

I climbed half across him in the doorway of the van, and his hands slid down my back and gripped my hips.

"The workshop," he said into my mouth. "Now."

"Drive."

He drove with one hand on the wheel and the other clamped on my thigh, and I didn't take my eyes off his profile the whole way.

At the garage he got the door open with a kick.

We went up the wooden stairs together, tangled, and my shoulder hit the wall, and I laughed against his neck.

The loft was one narrow room with a slanted ceiling and a lamp.

There was a bed, made up tight with a grey wool blanket.

The rain started again on the tin roof.

I pushed his jacket off his shoulders, and it hit the floor.

I dragged his shirt over his head.

His chest was broad and scarred in places, and the hair across it was dark, and I pressed my palm flat against his heart.

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