Page 28

He stands. The chair scrapes back. He turns in one motion, the kitchen lamp throwing his shadow long across the floor. Then he's in front of me, close, bare to the waist, with his hands at my hips. The kiss that follows isn't upside down and isn't sweet. It's slow and deep and hungry, his mouth open on mine. I put both hands flat on his chest and feel the heat of his skin and the hard fast beat of his heart under it.

He walks me backward until my hips meet the counter. The edge of it presses into me. His hands slide up from my waist to my ribs.

"Quiet," he breathes against my mouth. "She's right upstairs."

"I know."

"I'm serious."

"So am I." I slide my fingers up through the hair on his chest to his collarbone. "Are you going to be quiet?"

"I'm very quiet."

"You are not."

"I'm trying," he says, and kisses my neck, below my ear. I bite my lip hard to stop a sound. His beard scrapes the soft skin of my throat and his mouth opens against the pulse there. His hands go under the hem of my T-shirt and flatten against my stomach, warm and broad. I feel the muscles of my belly flinch under his palms and then soften.

"Is this okay?"

"Yes."

"I want to take this off."

"Yes."

I lift my arms. He pulls the T-shirt up over my head slowly, the cotton catching on my chest and then releasing, and drops it on the chair. I'm not wearing a bra. My breasts come free and heavy into the lamplight. He goes absolutely still. His eyes move over me. They go from my face to my throat to the full, soft weight of my breasts and the dark tight peaks of my nipples. When he lets out his breath it shakes.

"God. Look at you."

"You've seen me."

"Not in this light." He lifts a hand and cups one breast, his thumb moving across the nipple. My head tips back against the cabinet behind me. "Not in my kitchen."

I reach for the table without looking, grope until my fingers find his folded glasses, and push them into his hand.

"Put these on."

He blinks. "What?"

"The glasses. Put them on."

A slow, astonished grin spreads across his face. "Is that a request?"

"It's a clinical recommendation."

He puts them on. They sit crooked on his nose. He pushes them up with one knuckle the way he did over the report. I make a sound I'm glad to have kept quiet. He looks down at me through the lenses, with that steady, interested, slightly amused look.

"I thought you'd like these."

"I like them very much."

"Good." He lowers his head. "Don't make any noise."

His mouth closes over my nipple and the sound that tries to leave me gets bitten off against the back of my hand. His tongue is hot and slow and exact. His beard is rough on the soft underside of my breast. I feel the pull all the way down my body, low and tight between my thighs. His other hand slides to my back and holds me up against him. My fingers tangle in his hair. The glasses press cool against my skin and I feel the faint scrape of the frame, and that small, ridiculous, perfect detail is nearly what undoes me.

He moves to the other breast. I grip the edge of the counter with one hand and his shoulder with the other, the right one, gentle of the left. My hips push toward him on their own.

"Ethan."