Not with fear.
With embarrassment. Want. Freedom trying to learn how to speak.
She looks down, then back up at me. “There.”
My restraint suffers a fatal head wound.
I lift one hand slowly, giving her every chance to stop me, and cup her through the shirt. Lightly at first. Barely. Her eyes flutter shut, and she bites her lip like she is trying to keep the sound inside.
No.
Not tonight.
No more swallowing every noise so a man doesn’t react.
“Let me hear you,” I say.
Her eyes open.
“Derby.”
“Not for me.” My thumb moves once, slow, over the tight peak beneath cotton. She shudders. “For you.”
That breaks something.
A moan slips out of her, soft and shocked and so damn sweet I almost drop my head to the counter.
I kiss her throat instead.
Her pulse jumps under my mouth. Her hands clutch my shoulders. I keep one hand at her breast, the other on her hip, holding her steady while I taste the skin below her ear. She smells like soap from my bathroom and smoke from the Lockup. Her breath catches when I scrape my teeth lightly over her neck.
Then she goes still.
Not frozen.
Listening.
I hear it a second later.
A small sound from the hallway.
August.
Everything in her body changes.
Mother comes back before lover can blink.
She pushes lightly at my chest. I step back so fast I nearly hit the opposite counter.
“Go,” I say.
She slides off the counter, legs unsteady. I reach out, then stop myself.
She sees it.
Something soft and wrecked moves over her face.
Then she turns and hurries down the hall.