Free Forever and a Day by Delilah Marvelle

having that pointed out. Robinson released her hand and hurried up the remaining stairs, boldly taking two at a time in the darkness. Angling past her warmth, he jumped onto the landing with an impressive thud. “ There . Did Raymond ever skip stairs in the darkness the way I just did?”
“Never mock a dead man who doesn’t deserve it.” Her hand caught his arm. She tugged him toward the end of what appeared to be a blackened corridor. “There are two floors and four tenements on each floor. Most of the people livin’ here are men. Don’t know how that came to be, but don’t think the worst of me. It’s just how it is. Unlike them, I’m fortunate enough to afford my own tenement. Raymond knew the landlord, so I only pay three dollars a month for what could easily be six.”
She released his hand and patted his arm. “Stay where you are.” There was a chink of a key being pushed into a lock and then a click and the door creaked open.
Her heels echoed against the floorboards and he could hear the flint being struck. A glass oil lamp sputtered to life, brilliantly illuminating not only her pale face but a small yellow-wallpapered kitchen one could easily cross in but three strides. The heavy scent of starch, lye and soap drifted toward him.
“You’ll get used to the smell,” she offered conversationally. “It’s better than the one outside, to be sure. I do all of my work in the front room as opposed to the yard outside, see. That way nothin’ gets stolen.”
She set the glass lamp onto a wooden table set across from a brick hearth bearing a cauldron. She loosened the tie beneath her chin, the blue ribbons cascading in a flutter to her slim shoulders. She stripped the oval bonnet from her head with a sigh and glanced down, neatly retying the ribbon into a perfect bow. Bustling toward the wall, she leaned over a coal bin and hung her bonnet gently from a nail positioned next to another nail that held a faded wooden rosary.
Her thick bundled hair appeared almost brown in the dim light, with only hints of bright red as she turned back to the chair and swept up a plaid apron. She affixed it around her waist with three quick movements.
His eyes dropped from her slim shoulders to her aproned waist. It was like being her husband and peering into a very intimate routine. He rather liked it. It made him feel as if he were walking into his own home and into the arms of a woman who was his.
Remembering the way her hot, wet tongue had eagerly moved against his own, he gripped the wood trim harder to force out any thoughts of wanting her in that way again. It was obvious she didn’t want more of it. Not from him, anyway.
She glanced up and turned toward him. “Are you goin’ to stand there and let the world know I’m home? Shut the door.”
He cleared his throat and stepped into the small room, shutting the door with a thud. He paused, noting three metal bolts. He gestured toward them. “Do you want me to bolt all three?”
“That’s what they’re there for, Brit. To keep the world out. Unless your boxing skills are better than mine.”
She had a reply for everything. He affixed all of the metal latches into place and turned back toward her. Sensing she was still annoyed with him, he held up both hands in truce. Meeting her gaze, he set them behind his back, locking a hand over a wrist against his spine. “I won’t grab for you.”
She smiled, pulled out one of the two chairs from beside the small table and gestured toward it. “Sit. I’m over it.”
If only he was.
He strode toward the chair, pressing his hands tightly against his back, and sat, causing the chair to creak in protest. It wobbled beneath him. Carefully sliding back into it out of fear he’d break it, he slipped his hands out from behind his back and set them on his knees. He shifted, eyeing the small kitchen, and leaned forward to scan the two other adjoining rooms that light didn’t spread into.
She gestured toward one of the small rooms he