Owned by My Sinful Guardian novel · Chapter 11 of 32

Chapter 11: A Night to Think

I blinked through the white spots.

A man with a camera was already walking away fast down the block.

He got into a gray car and was gone before I could see his face.

I stood on the Shadyside sidewalk in a borrowed dress with an address in my hand.

Then I took the bus home to Gretchen's.

On Friday I thought about it.

He'd told me to, and I didn't want him to be able to say I hadn't.

I thought about it while I scrubbed the pie case with vinegar and newspaper.

I thought about it while the hood guys hammered on the roof.

I thought about it while I sanded the red paint on the stools.

I thought about the washroom, the walk-in door, the desk.

I thought about the photo the man in the gray car had taken, and what Randall would do with it.

I thought about my dad, who'd hired a runaway with a black eye and given him a bed.

Gretchen came in at four with two coffees and sat on the cracked stool.

"So," she said. "Are you going?"

"Going where?"

"Quarles. You've wiped that same spot on the counter for ten minutes."

I put the rag down.

"He's forty-two."

"He's a forty-two-year-old who looks like he could carry a fridge up three flights of stairs. Next."

"He was my guardian."

"He was your bank. You met him a week ago. In a toilet." She sipped her coffee. "Next."

"Randall's going to make it ugly."

"Randall's going to make it ugly whether you go or not. Next."

I didn't have a next.

"Do you want him?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Then I don't see the problem." She stood up and pointed at me with her cup. "But if he hurts you, I'll put his hand on the flat-top. Tell him I said that."

At eleven that night a cab let me out in Highland Park.

The house was stone, set back from the street behind two old trees, with one light on downstairs.

I'd changed my mind four times about what to wear.

In the end I wore my own jeans and a black sweater and nothing under the sweater.

I knocked.

He opened the door almost at once.

He was in a gray T-shirt and old jeans, barefoot, with his hair loose on his shoulders.

He didn't say anything.

He looked at me like he hadn't thought I'd come.

"I thought about it," I said. "All day. Like you said."

"And?"

"I want you. Not because you're the only man who's ever touched me right. Not because I'm angry at Randall or Landry." My voice wobbled, and I made it stop. "Because I like you. You're stubborn and you lie about hash, and I like you."

The corner of his mouth moved.

"I don't lie about hash."

"And I've never done this," I said. "Not all the way. I want it to be you. Tonight. In your bed."

He stepped back to let me in.

He closed the door behind me and leaned against it, the way I'd backed him into the walk-in.

"Twenty-one," he said softly.

"Twenty-one," I said. "And yes."

He came off the door.

He took my face in both his hands and kissed me slowly.

He kissed me slowly in the front hall, his hands still on my face, and I felt the whole day of thinking unspool out of me.

I had been sure of this in the cab.

I was surer now.

His thumbs moved along my jaw, and he tilted my head back and looked at me.

"You're shaking," he said.

"I'm not cold."

"I know you're not."

He kissed me again, deeper this time, and I opened my mouth for him and tasted him for the first time outside a restaurant.

His hands left my face and settled on my hips.

He pulled me a step closer, and I felt the wall of his chest through the thin gray T-shirt.

I fisted my hands in the shirt and dragged him the last inch.

He made a sound low in his throat and walked me backward until my shoulder blades hit the wall next to the door.

Then his mouth was on my neck, open and hot, and his thigh pushed between my legs.

I made a noise I didn't recognize.

His hands came up under my sweater and found bare skin, and he went still against my neck.

He pulled back just enough to look at me.

"Nothing under it," he said. It wasn't a question.

"I didn't want to waste time."

His eyes went dark and something moved in his jaw.

"Upstairs," he said. "Now."

He didn't wait for an answer.

He took my hand and led me up a wide staircase with a runner on it, past a landing with a window, and into a bedroom at the end of the hall.

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