"Callahan." My name, but the usual edge is missing.
"Rome's not here now."
I stop in front of her, close enough to see her pulse jumping in her throat. Her hands are gripping the counter behind her like she needs something to hold onto.
I put one hand on the counter beside her hip, closing the space between us. So she understands it belongs to me now.
"What I showed you last night was me being careful with you. I was gentle because it was our first time and I didn't know what you could handle. I was sweet because you deserve sweet."
I lean closer, my mouth next to her ear. A shiver runs through her before I've said a word.
"Tonight you deserve something else."
Her breath hitches. A small, involuntary catch she couldn't have hidden if she tried.
"You're going to walk into that bedroom right now," I tell her, "and you're not going to say a single smart thing between here and there."
She stares up at me, eyes wide open, the brat gone. I see her fighting it, the instinct to fire back, to say something sharp and reclaim the upper hand. It's written across her face like a war.
Then she slides out from between me and the counter and walks toward the bedroom without a word.
I stay in the kitchen for a full minute. Partly because I want her to sit with the anticipation, to sit in the silence and wonder what's coming. Partly because I need sixty seconds to get my own pulse under control. The sight of her doing what she's told without argument has just done more damage to my composure than anything at that dinner table.
I roll my sleeves to my elbows. I turn off the kitchen light. Then I go to her. She's sitting on the edge of the bed when I reach the doorway. Hands in her lap, knees together, back straight. She looks like she’s waiting for a job interview. Under any other circumstances it would be funny.
I stop in the doorway and lean against the frame. The overhead light is off. She's turned on the lamp by the bed, a small one with a warm bulb that casts her in gold and shadow.
"Stand up."
She stands. Her hands stay at her sides, her eyes stay on mine. I see the effort that stillness is costing her. Lily's natural state is motion, talking and teasing and fidgeting and filling every space with her energy. Making her be still is its own kind of provocation. She knows it, and I know she knows it, and the knowing is part of it.
"Take it off."
She reaches for the hem of her shirt and pulls it over her head in one smooth movement, dropping it on the floor beside her. No bra underneath. Just her, bare from the waist up. Those small breasts she'd been self-conscious about last night, the ones that have my mouth watering, are on full display. Collarbones sharp in the lamplight. The bruise I left above the left one fully visible, purple at the edges.
She stands there, the same shamelessness from last night, that refusal to shrink or cover or apologize for any part of herself. I love her like this.
"The rest."
Her thumbs hook into the waistband of her panties. She pushes them down, steps out of them, straightens up.
She stands very still, eyes locked on mine across the room.
"I'm going to do as I please tonight," I say. "If you want to stop, you say stop and everything stops. No questions, no discussion. That's the only rule."
"Okay," she breathes.
"If I ask you something, you answer honestly. Not what you think I want to hear."
"Okay."
"And Lily."
I cross to her and lean down until my mouth is close to hers. Not touching, just the heat of proximity, the charge of the space between us.
"When I tell you to use your words, you use them. All of them. Even the ones that embarrass you."
Her breath comes out shaky against my lips. "Okay."
