The house is dark when Christopher’s car pulls into the drive. How many times have I come here after working late in the library? I shouldn’t have been in the library, though. It wasn’t safe, which feels ridiculous right now. Who cares about safety? Death is inevitable.
I’m Scarlett come home after the war, the place a husk of its former self. The walls aren’t blackened with fire, but they might as well be. The house rings hollow.
Christopher puts me to bed with gentle insistence, undressing me like I’m a child. I press my face into his chest and breathe deep, taking comfort I don’t deserve from his scent. My mouth opens to taste him, to bite him. I would swallow him whole if I could, but he sets me back an inch. “Not tonight,” he says, and I hiss at him like an animal.
“Yes, tonight.”
