Page 28 of Over Her Dead Body

I don’t wait for him to do anything clever.

I grab the front of his shirt and kiss him.

Hard.

Not romantic. Not tentative.

Certainly not forgiving.

For one second he doesn’t move.

Then his hand closes around my waist and the whole thing becomes exactly as bad an idea as advertised.

His mouth is familiar.

I hate that immediately.

Not because it proves anything.

Because my body remembers things I have had the good manners to leave buried.

The angle of his head. His hand at my jaw. The pressure of his thumb against my hip.

Ten years disappear for half a second.

I bite his lower lip hard enough to bring them back.

He makes a sound against my mouth.

Better.

His shirt comes open under my hands. Mine follows. Something hits the floor. I don’t look to see what.

There is no tenderness in it.

No reunion.

No miraculous return.

Just two people making an already terrible night substantially worse.

He backs me toward the bed.

I catch my knee on the mattress and nearly fall.

He catches me.

“Don’t,” I say.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were going to.”

“I really wasn’t.”

I push him backward.

“That’s better.”