Page 22

"I've heard yours," I say. "Friday night. One very long creak, like a ship settling. Then a sigh."

"I do not sigh."

"You sigh like a man who's been carrying something heavy up a hill."

He looks at me. Then he's across the room, and his hands are on either side of my face, and he kisses me.

It's slower than the Common or the bridge, rougher, hungrier, as though he'd been rationing it all day and has finally run out. His mouth moves over mine with purpose. I feel the rasp of his beard, the heat of his breath. My hands find the front of his jacket and push, and it drops to the floor.

I make a sound against his mouth. His arms close around my waist, and he lifts me.

Not an inch. He lifts me all the way off the floor, my toes dangling, my whole weight in his hands. He holds me there for three full seconds without so much as a shift in his stance.

My breath leaves me in a shocked laugh. I wrap my arms around his neck and my legs around his hips, and he turns us, walking me backward to the bed.

"Put me down," I say against his mouth, "and I'll show you what I've got on under this dress."

"I'd like that."

"It's a very good bra."

"I'd like that more."

He sets me on the edge of the bed, slow and careful, and steps back. I reach for the lamp. It's what I do. I've turned the lights out on every man who ever saw me undressed. My hand stops on the switch.

Ben's fingers cover mine. "Leave it," he says. "If you can. I'd like to see you." He pauses. "Only if you'd like to be seen."

"I'm not sure I do."

It comes out so honest it startles me. He doesn't flinch from it. He nods and slides the little dial on the base with his thumb, lowering the light to a warm, honey-colored glow.

"Then we start here," he says. "And you tell me."

"Okay."

"May I?" He touches the knot at my waist.

I nod.

He draws the loose end through, slowly. The wine-red fabric slips and falls open. The cool air touches my skin. I stand there in plum lace and the soft rolls of my stomach and the long line of my thighs, in front of a man in a lamplit room.

My arms go across my belly. I don't decide to. They just go.

He takes my wrists. Gently, he lifts them to his shoulders. Kisses the inside of one, then the other. He doesn't say don't. He doesn't say you're beautiful. He looks. He looks at me, and his throat works. His hands rest at the dip of my waist, and they're shaking.

"Bought it in March," I say, because the silence is too big. "The bra. For nobody."

"For you."

"For me," I say. It lands in my chest. I realize it's true.

He sits me on the edge of the bed and kneels on my rug. A man six foot three on his knees. He rolls down one stocking with the slow patience of someone unwrapping a gift he's been given only once. His mouth follows his hands. He kisses my ankle. My calf. The inside of my knee.

Then he pauses.

He's looking at the inside of my thigh, where the stocking ended. At the silver marks that run across the soft skin like frost on a window.

I hold my breath.