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He handed me every key to this door. I want to know what his hands feel like on me when I'm the one who asked him to put them there.

I get up and set the keys on the table beside Royce's knife, and I leave the knife there. I turn the deadbolt back, step out, and pull the door shut behind me without locking it.

I haven't stepped off this porch since Knox brought me here. The grass in the yard is cool and damp under my bare feet. The night air comes right through Knox's flannel. My ribs catch with every step, and I keep one arm pressed against my side the whole way across.

The kitchen window glows yellow ahead of me. Through it I can see Knox standing with his head down and both hands braced flat on the counter.

I take the back steps one at a time and put my hand on the knob. I don't knock.

4

KNOX

There’s no knock and the back door opens beside me. I turn before it finishes its swing, my hand already halfway to the rifle leaning by the pantry.

Delilah stands on the mat in my old flannel shirt and sweatpants, barefoot, with wet grass stuck to her feet and her right arm clamped across her left ribs. She looks me dead in the face. "I want you to take me. Don't kiss me."

I drop my hand. For a second I can't do anything but stand there.

I didn't see her cross the yard. I had my head down over the sink. She's barefoot, so she didn't make a sound on the back steps. Nobody should get that close to me without my knowing it.

Now she's in my kitchen, asking me to take her to bed, the one thing I swore to myself I'd never do with her. Back when she was nineteen, she was the preacher's daughter, and I was the man running illegal fights out of my family's barn.

The lamp over the stove throws enough light that I can see all of her. The bruises on her face have gone darker since this morning. Her hair is still ragged at the jaw. Her right hand is wrapped in the purple vet wrap Nell put on it, and my shirt hangs off her shoulders.

She's standing straight with her chin up, and she isn't looking away from me.

"You going to say something," she says, "or just stand there?"

"I'm going to ask you one time. Are you sure?"

"I walked across your yard barefoot with cracked ribs. Ask me something smarter."

I almost laugh.

"One rule," she says. "You don't kiss me. Not on the mouth. Not once."

"Then I won't." I say it so she knows I mean it. "Your mouth's off-limits. Everything else is mine tonight."

She's blushing, but she doesn't take her rule back.

"Here's mine," I tell her. "You say stop, and I stop. Doesn't matter where we are or how far along. And once we start, I lead. You don't run this. I do."

Her lips part, and she swallows hard. I can see on her face how much she wants this.

"That's what I came for," she says.

I've laid down those terms before, in a room in San Antonio, to women who'd signed paper first. I've never said them in this house. I've sure as hell never said them to her.

I keep my face still and my voice even, so she can't read anything on me.

"One more thing before I touch you," I say. "Protection."

She doesn't flinch. "I've got an implant in my arm. They put it there." She says it flat, daring me to ask who they are.

I don't ask. "I get tested every few months, and I'm clean. I'm wearing a condom until you've been tested and the results come back clean."

The club I go to in San Antonio won't let a member through the door without current test results. I don't tell her that part.