The Dog Park Regular Remembered My Name, My Dog's, and My Divorce novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: Lights On

He had answered my Wednesday with: Thursday. Your rule. I'll be there at nine.

At nine exactly he stood in my doorway with a grocery bag in one hand and a six-pack in the other.

Tank was not with him.

"He's got a couch he's not allowed on and a dog door," Beau said. "He's fine."

Waffles went straight past me and stood on his boots.

I shut her in the living room with a bone and led him down the hall, because I had decided that if I talked about it I'd lose my nerve.

My bedroom was the one room I had bought for myself.

New bed, a gray comforter, the two lamps I'd chosen alone, and nothing on the walls yet.

He stopped just inside the door and looked at the bed and then at me.

"This is nice," he said.

"It's a bed."

"It's yours. That's what's nice."

I didn't know what to do with that, so I kissed him.

He put down the beer and the bag and kissed me back with both hands in my hair.

I reached for the lamp.

I had slept with the lights off for four years.

I had gone to the bathroom in the dark to take my clothes off for even longer.

His hand closed over mine on the switch.

"Leave it on," he said.

"Beau."

"Please. I want to see you."

I looked at the lamp, and at his hand over mine, and I took mine away.

"Fine," I said. "It's on."

"Thank you."

He unbuttoned my blouse one button at a time.

Each button he undid he kissed the skin it uncovered, until the blouse hung open and I was standing in the light with my bra on and my heart pounding.

He slid it off my shoulders and put his mouth against the freckles there.

"These," he said. "Every one."

"There are hundreds."

"I know. I'm going to need a while."

I pulled his shirt off, and his jeans open, and shoved them down.

He kicked them away and stood there in his boxers, hard, and we both looked at that for a second and laughed.

"Get on the bed," I said.

"Yes, ma'am."

He lay back on my gray comforter with his curls spread on the pillow and his arms behind his head, waiting.

I climbed on and straddled his hips and looked at him.

I looked at all of him in the lamplight.

He let me, and he didn't squirm.

"Hands on me," I said.

He put his hands on my thighs.

I took off my bra, and then my underwear, and knelt over him naked with the lamp on my skin.

I wanted to cover myself so badly that I locked my arms at my sides.

"Look at you," he said.

His voice had gone rough.

"Your tits are perfect. Your stomach, your hips, that soft place under your ribs. Tara, you're so fucking beautiful it hurts to look at you, and I'm going to look anyway."

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