I press the flat to her skin so she can feel the weight of it. I move slow enough that she could step away without it ever being a dodge. When I slide to her thigh, I rest my free hand above her knee and wait for her nod. She gives it, eyes on mine, mouth open around a breath she doesn’t rush.
“You own this,” I say. “You own me.”
Her lips part. Her fingers curl in my hair. “Say it again.”
“You own me,” I repeat. It isn’t a vow anymore. It’s a statement of the world as it is.
Her laugh is soft and feral at once. “Good.”
I trace a line up the outside of her thigh, slow, the edge turned away, the cool of the steel drawing out heat like ink in water. I talk while I do it. Not filth. Not jokes. The truth. About the map on the table. About the plan. About how I was sixteen and thought wanting her made me a traitor. About how years later that same want makes me better.
“I don’t need a good man,” she says, breath coming fast. “I need a man who is good to me.”
“I can do that,” I say. “I can be violent and still be kind.”
Her palm covers my cheek. “You already are.”
She doesn’t flinch when I slide the cool metal up to where her tee hangs loose. She lifts her arms and lets the hem ride higher. She arches into the blade’s shadow by choice. I keep my eyes on her face and find the looks that tell me she isn’t visiting the container. She’s here. With me. In a room where her name is the only word that means stop.
“Say when,” I tell her.
“I will,” she says, and then: “Don’t stop yet.”
I don’t. I draw the blade’s spine under her breastbone and across to the opposite rib, a slow line that leaves a faint red trail not from damage but from attention. I kiss the path the metal made with my mouth after, soft pressure that replaces cold with heat and has nothing to do with wounding. She makes a sound that is half sob and half laugh. I keep going until the sound is only laughter, and then only breath.
Her hands leave my hair and go to my shoulders, pushing lightly. I stand and step in. The knife goes back to the towel. I wrapmy arms around her and hold her while her body shakes off the adrenaline. She smells like clean cotton and the salt air coming through the window. Her heart thumps against my chest with purpose.
“I want more,” she says into my throat. “I want all of it.”
“Green?” I ask, not because I don’t know, but because hearing it saves me from every old version of myself.
She leans back. Her eyes are clear. “Green.”
“Then we go slow,” I say, and grin when she rolls her eyes at the obvious. “I fuck you after.”
“God,” she says, and shakes her head like she can’t believe I undo her this fast without even laying a hand between her legs.
For the first time all day, the knot behind my ribs eases all the way.
Beyond the window, the marsh breathes. In the den, a plan is inked and hung. Out there, our parents think the rules were made so they could break them. In here, we make our own and follow them because we respect the people we love.
“Let me own the dangerous parts,” I tell her. “Give them to me. I’ll hand them back when you ask.”
She smiles, fierce. “Do it,” she says.
I do.
And then the room narrows to the whisper of cloth, the clean, bright way she says my name, and the soft click of the blade case closing because tonight it did its job and tomorrow there will be other work to do.
26
Conrad
Bull River Bridgewears the night like an expensive suit, all clean lines and black water. I idle on the shoulder just before the rise, lights off, engine ticking down. The beam of his sedan’s headlights sweeps the guardrail, then finds me. He slows out of instinct and rolls to a stop.
I step into his headlights.
He lowers his window two inches. “Conrad,” he says, like an invitation to behave. “What in the world are you… Move the car.”
