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This time, he didn’t pull her back down. He took another sip of wine, decided that was enough, and resigned himself. He’d asked. She’d said no. That was it. He’d need to find somebody else, that was all. Somebody who turned him on like she had the key and made him laugh and frustrated the hell out of him, until she didn’t.
And a babysitter, of course, because he wasn’t asking Quinn. Or coming downstairs when another man was here, unless he heard something that sounded like she needed help. And if that was hard, heaps of things were hard. That didn’t excuse you from doing them.
Right. Another long, hot, frustrating night ahead, when satisfying yourself wasn’t satisfying one bit. He was familiar. He’d been fifteen. He’d survived it then, hadn’t he?
He’d survive it now, too.
She was picking up wine glasses, and he stood with her and grabbed the bottle and the s’mores plate, on which half of her extremely neat wallboard-and-sugar sandwich still rested. She ate until she’d had just enough, and then she stopped. Another way they weren’t compatible, because when he was enjoying something, he could never get enough.
He tossed the thing in the rubbish and shoved the plate in the dishwasher, then added the wine glasses and told her, “Good night, then. I won’t say I’ll forget this happened, because I won’t, but I’ll do my best to get past it.”
“Oh.” She looked confused again. “So you don’t want to do it anymore? I killed it with the questions, I guess. Not the first time. All right. See you tomorrow morning. House cleaning before Gentle Swim. I figure with four of us—well, five, including Violet—it’ll only take, what, an hour and a half? Say we start at eight-thirty.”
He had his hand in his hair again. “Quinn. I still want to do it. I’m nevernotgoing to want to do it. Doyouwant to do it?”
“Why do you think I told you I liked the holding my thighs apart idea?” she asked, looking as frustrated as he felt. “That’s not the kind of thing I go around saying to random men! I thought we were negotiating the terms.”
“Negotiating the …” He tried to think of what to say, and couldn’t.
“Yes,” she said. “You kept doing it, so I assumed it was part of your process.”
“My …” He didn’t seem to be able to finish a sentence.
“So either kiss me,” she said, “and let’s go lock my bedroom door, or go to bed and quittorturingme. One or the other, because I. Am. Completely—” Her palm was banging against her thigh with every word. “Out. Of. Ideas! Matter of fact—I’m going outside. I’m going to walk it off. Just forget it. I don’t need this anymore.”
Which was when she headed straight out through the laundry room, and he heard the back door bang.
30
INTO THE DARK
She couldn’t think. Thinking was her superpower, but not now. Or maybe it wasn’t that at all. Maybe it was that she didn’t want to feel. She was in way over her head here and she knew it, so she headed around the side of the house fast, shivering in the chill, as dried leaves rustled under her feet and blew past her face and stars shone overhead in the clear, cold October night.
She was too cold, and she felt too stupid, so she started to run. Down the sidewalk, her feet hitting the concrete hard in her fuzzy socks. She adjusted her technique, picked up the pace, and unwrapped her arms from around herself until she was flying like the crows. Until she was soaring, imagining her black wings spreading wide.
Fast and free, into the dark.
One moment, her legs were pumping, and so were her arms. The next, she was grabbed with an arm around her waist and swung around so fast, nearly stumbling with her momentum, that she lost her breath.
He turned her in a whole dizzying circle, until finally, they were standing still, and he was dipping her back over his arm and kissing her.
His lips hard on hers, his tongue in her mouth. Held up only by his arm, her back arching hard. Her hand was beating against the air, and then it was on his shoulder, and she was hanging on.
He stopped kissing her, but he didn’t let her up. “Bedroom,” he said.
“Uh …” She had apparently lost the power of speech. Her body was cold, and it was burning hot, too.
He picked her up and started walking, and she lost a few more brain cells. She tried, though. “Beckett! We’re almost three blocks from home! You can’t carry me that far.”
“Don’t care,” he said. Not even out of breath.
“My neighbors will see,” she tried next.
“Do you want to have another chat about this,” he asked, “or do you want me to throw you on the bed and rip off your clothes?”
She wanted to say, “I’ll take the bed thing.” Instead, she said, “I’m too heavy.” He didn’t even bother to answer that, just picked up the pace until he was striding up the back steps again and saying, “Open the door.”
Through the kitchen, then, and into the hallway. Past the bathroom, and through the bedroom door she’d left open. She saw their reflection in the silvery shadow of her closet-door mirror for a split second. Muscles straining on Beckett’s arms and shoulders, a flash of blue-jeaned thigh, and then she was on her back on the bed, bouncing a little, struggling up onto her elbows as he went back, shut the door, and pressed the lock.
