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“So I can return them.”

Her nails press into my mouth. “Every time?”

“Every time.”

The answer moves against her palm.

Heather removes her hand. “Now finish.”

“Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.”

She catches my throat and rides me harder. My hand remains at the back of her neck. The other grips her hip while she sets the pace neither of us pretends I control.

One key slides beneath my shoulder when my body arches.

Her fingers tighten around my throat. “Again.”

I repeat the final line.

Her body clenches around me before I reach the end. She keeps moving through her orgasm, using my cock while the words break against her grip.

I hold myself beneath her until control becomes another form of pain. I dig my fingers into her hip, and the hand at her neck tries to draw her closer.

Heather sits upright and keeps me exactly where she wants me. “Again,” she says.

I recite the line for a third time.

Heather presses her thumb against my pulse. “Now.”

I come inside her.

She rides every pulse out of me with her hand around my throat and the keys trapped beneath my shoulder. My hips try to follow when she slows, but she keeps me against the mattress until my body has nothing left to offer her.

Only then does she stop. She reaches beneath me and retrieves the keys, lays them in my palm and closes my fingers around the ring.

She climbs off me.

I sit up slowly. Jamie’s miniature lies crooked near the pillow, displaced by everything we did. She smooths his black hair and puts him back beneath the blanket. I offer her the keys.

She closes my fingers around them again. “You asked to sleep in my bed.”

“Yes.”

“Then make room for yourself.”

She glances toward the door. I leave her bedroom carrying the keys.

The house is quiet. Jamie and Simon have gone upstairs.

I enter the playroom and open the dollhouse. My miniature sits in its chair with a book across its lap exactly where Heather left it. I take the little Oliver from the room. The painted glasses sit slightly crooked. I straighten them with my thumb before closing the house.

When I return, she’s lying in the center of her bed with Jamie’s doll beside her pillow. I place mine next to it.

She looks at the arrangement. “Too close.” She lifts the Oliver doll and moves it half an inch away from Jamie. Then she turns its face toward hers and adjusts the tiny green shirt.

I set the deadbolt keys on the nightstand. She points to the empty place beside her. I get into the bed.

She positions me on my back, takes off my glasses and places them beside the keys. Then she turns off the mushroom lamp.