Page 42

“Good,” she says against my hair. “This is how you get put away tonight.”

She takes another section. The bristles scrape my scalp. My cock twitches against my leg. I close my eyes. The floor is tacky under my skin. Her hands are careful in my hair.

“Beautiful,” she says again, quieter.

Come cools beneath me. The brush moves through my hair. Heather’s knees hold me where she wants me.

The door isn’t locked yet.

I close my eyes.

CHAPTER 11

Heather

Iput Jamie’s dinner in front of him and set the pill beside his fork.

His eyes move from the pill to me while I sit down with my own plate. “You’re going out.”

“Yes.”

He looks at the pill again, leaves it beside his fork, and starts cutting into his chicken instead. I let the pill wait. Once he swallows it, his questions will slow. I want to hear how ugly jealousy makes him first.

He eats two bites before he looks at me again. “Where are you going?”

“I have errands.”

“What kind of errands?”

I take a drink of water. Jamie watches me over the rim of his glass, waiting.

He’s been more curious lately. About my work. About where things in the house came from. About what I do when I leave him upstairs. Questions are useful. They show me where his mind goes when I’m not directing it.

Jamie’s fork stops against his plate. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“It’s time.”

His expression changes. “For what?”

I reach across the table and slide the pill a little closer to him.

“To get Oliver.”

Jamie looks at the pill, then back at me. “Who the fuck is Oliver?”

“He teaches literature at the university,” I say. “There’s a reading series on campus once a month. He usually reads poetry, but sometimes he reads from whatever he’s teaching.”

Jamie picks up his fork again, though he doesn’t eat anything. “And you go to these?”

“Tonight will be the sixth.”

The fork stops against his plate.

I’ve been looking forward to tonight. Oliver’s room has been ready almost as long as Jamie’s, and I finished washing the last of his new clothes yesterday. I still need to decide whether the blue sweater belongs in his dresser or should be hung.

Jamie is still staring at me. “You’ve been following him for six months?”

“Longer. I’ve only been going to the readings for six.”