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"I know." She meets my eyes. Her mouth turns up at one side. "Then I'll have to be quick."

She drags my T-shirt up and over my head herself and tosses it toward the chair. Then her palms are on my bare chest. They've warmed up. She moves them down slowly, over the dark hair on my chest and my ribs and the muscles of my stomach. Her eyes follow the movement. Then she leans in and puts her mouth on the center of my chest and keeps it there.

"You're doing that on purpose," I say.

"I'm a professional."

"Of course you are."

I kneel on the rug in front of her and look up. She sits down on the edge of the bed. I pull her boots off one at a time and set them side by side, then unbutton her jeans. She lifts her hips and I drag the denim off, over the thick curve of her thighs and down her calves. She watches me with her head tilted.

In black underwear that matches the bra, she's the best thing I've seen in a very long time. Across her hips and the tops of her thighs run pale silvery lines, fine as thread, catching the lamplight.

I put my thumb on one of them. "What are these?"

"Stretch marks." She says it plainly. "I got most of them at fourteen. They've been with me ever since."

"They're beautiful."

"You don't have to say that."

"I'm not saying it for you." I lean in and kiss the longest one, along the outside of her hip, then follow it with my tongue to where it fades near her thigh.

She gasps. Her fingers curl into the quilt. "I've been wondering what you'd do when you saw them since you put your hands on my hips in the orchard."

"You couldn't have known I'd get that far."

"I'm very talented."

She laughs, shaky, and tugs me up by the shoulders. I climb onto the bed over her. She moves back to make room. The iron frame gives a low metallic groan. We both freeze.

After a second she says, "The bed's older than both of us," and I say, "I trust it more than the stairs."

Then I'm kissing her again, with my weight held on my forearms. She pulls me down against her until there's nothing between my chest and her breasts but heat.

I kiss her mouth for a long time. Then I kiss down her jaw, along her throat, over the line of her collarbone. She arches under me and says, "Yes," on a breath. I take one breast in my hand and draw her nipple into my mouth. She makes a low, startled sound and her back lifts off the quilt. I do it slowly, with my tongue and then a little of my teeth. She grips my hair hard enough to hurt. I don't mind.

I move to the other side and her whole body shifts under me. Her thighs fall open around my hips. She presses up against me and I feel exactly how much she wants this through two layers of cloth.

"Tell me what you like," I say against her skin.

"That. Just that. Don't stop that."

"Where else?"

"Lower."

I lift my head and look at her. Her eyes are half closed, her cheeks are red, and the hair around her face is wild across the pillow. "Is that an instruction?"

"It's an order."

"Yes, ma'am."

I take my time getting there. I kiss down the soft slope of her stomach, over the freckles, to the waistband of her underwear. Hook my fingers in it. She lifts her hips for me. I slide it down her legs and drop it somewhere on the floor.

I settle on my stomach between her thighs with my hands under her hips and just look for a second. She's wet already and flushed pink. Her thighs shake a little where they rest on my shoulders.

"Ethan," she says, "you're looking."