Chapter 8: Breaking the Rule

We got back to Marlow Street after midnight.

The doctor had said my father was stable, and that he needed a quiet week and no more shocks.

I did not feel anything about that yet.

I stood in my mother's front room with my coat still on and my hands shaking so hard I could not undo the buttons.

Dermot took my hands in his and held them still.

"Breathe," he said.

"He begged me not to wear it. He never begs."

"I know."

"I don't know who to believe, Dermot. Not her. Not him. Not you."

His thumbs moved over my knuckles.

"Believe what you see," he said. "I'm standing here, and I haven't asked you for a single thing."

That was true.

Three years I had let him walk out of every room I was in, and he had never asked me for anything.

I looked up at him.

"Ask me," he said, very quietly. "Whatever you want. Just say it."

My mouth was dry.

"Touch me," I said.

He did not move.

"I broke my own rule, so say it back. I want you to touch me."

His hands came up to my face.

He kissed me.

It was not careful.

It was three years of silence, and it knocked the breath out of me.

I got my hands into his hair, and he pushed me back against the wall and kissed me until my coat came off my shoulders and fell to the floor.

"Bedroom," I said against his mouth.

He lifted me.

I wrapped my legs around his hips, and he carried me down the hall, kissing my throat.

My mother's photographs rattled in their frames as we went by.

He put me down on the edge of the narrow bed and knelt on the floor in front of me.

His hands went up under my dress, along the outside of my thighs, and stopped at the waistband of my tights.

"Tell me again," he said.

"Take them off."

He peeled them down my legs.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Necklace They Gave Me Last from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.