Page 278
She stops with her hand on the second earring.
“You may ask.”
Which isn’t the same as yes, and both of us know it.
“The night Tova called us married married. The second time. You moved my right arm.”
Her hand comes down off her ear.
“I remember.”
“You put it where it could take weight. You didn’t say a word about it, and you wouldn’t tell me why.”
“No.”
“I’m asking now.”
She looks at the dresser instead of at me long enough that I figure I’ve spent the whole night on one question. Then she turns around.
“For eleven weeks I put my hands on that arm to find out what was wrong with it.”
“Yeah.”
“That is all I have ever used my training for. Finding out what is wrong.” She folds her arms, which is what she does right before she says something she means. “I wanted one night of using it for something else.”
“That’s it?”
“That is not a small thing.”
“No.” I have to clear my throat. “It isn’t.”
“Colt.”
“Yeah.”
“I am not going to be able to do this if we discuss it any more.”
“Then we’re done discussing.”
She crosses the room before I can. She pulls my shirt up and over my head and drags her nails down my chest on the way back, and when I reach for the zipper at the back of her dress she catches my wrist and puts my hand back down at my side.
“Not yet.”
She steps back and undoes the zipper herself. One shoulder of the dress, then the other, and she lets it go to the floor and stands there with her eyes on mine. She reaches behind her for the clasp and takes her time about it. The bra goes. Her nipples are already tight. She hooks her thumbs in the lace at her hips and slides it down her legs, and she knows exactly what it’s doing to me, and she lets me stand there with it.
Three weeks. My cock’s so hard it hurts, straining at the front of my sweatpants, and I haven’t put a hand on her yet. She looks at it. Then she looks back up at me and doesn’t hurry.
“Astrid.”
“Yes?”
“I’m done standing here.”
I get my hands under her thighs and lift, and she wraps her legs around my waist like she’s been waiting for me to. My right arm takes her weight like it’s been doing it all its life, which it hasn’t, which is her doing. I walk her back to the bed and put her down on it and come down over her, and the heat of her through my sweatpants nearly ends me right there.
Her two fingers land on my wrist before I’m all the way there. Not to stop me. To show me she still can. I turn my hand over so they’re sitting on my pulse, and I keep going.
I kiss her until she’s pulling my hair. Then her throat. Then her breasts, and I take my time there, her nipple in my mouth and my tongue circling it until her back comes up off the bed, then the other one, until she says my name like she’s angry about it. Her ribs. Her stomach. The crease of her hip.
