The Uninvited by Cat Winters Page B

to come to my bed with me.”
    I stepped back, and he lowered his arm and blinked as if his request had startled him as much as it had me.
    “You want honesty, Fräulein?” he asked in that strange harsh and musical accent. “That is the only thing that would make me feel better, and I’m not even sure that would work.”
    My hands trembled, and my legs wobbled and dipped as if made out of rubber. “But . . . I-I-I can’t. I’m a respectable woman . . .”
    “This is wartime, Ivy. Morality and righteousness mean nothing .”
    “The war is overseas. Not here.”
    “Are you sure about that?” He glowered at the damaged chairs and the faded pink stains on the floor.
    My skin chilled, and my eyes stung with tears—not from sorrow or shame or fear, but tears from that pustulant wound of guilt that oozed in the middle of my gut with unrelenting agony. I rubbed at the gooseflesh on my arms and thought of Peter’s bruised fingers, Father’s blood-spattered overalls, and the burn mark on Daniel’s neck—that wicked ghost of a noose, which seemed to grow darker and redder the more I hesitated. The lining of my stomach boiled.
    I turned my eyes toward the faded stains on the floor. “Do you really think it might help?”
    “I don’t know. As I said, I’m not sure . . .”
    Out of the corner of my eye, I viewed his broad shoulders and the slim spread of his stomach, and a small flutter of unexpected arousal stirred inside me. Perhaps some primal call to procreate awakened—a deep human instinct for survival, spurred on by the threat of annihilation from the influenza and the war.
    Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
    Old time is still a-flying;
    And this same flower that smiles today
    Tomorrow will be dying.
    Daniel cleared his throat. “You don’t have to—”
    “You would have to promise to be gentle,” I found myself saying, and my face and neck warmed. I cupped my hands over my cheeks, imagining terrible splotchy patches, which, according to my brothers, is how my blushes often appeared.
    Daniel swallowed and ran a hand through his hair. I thought he might grab my arm and toss me out of his store again, but instead he said in little more than a murmur, “My apartment is upstairs.”
    We locked eyes, and he seemed to test me, while I tested him, each of us waiting to call the other’s bluff.
    I drew a sharp breath. “Let’s go upstairs then.”
    “All right. Let’s go.”
    He turned, and I followed him toward a back doorway that led inside a sawdust-scented workroom crowded with planks of wood, tools, paints, glosses, harsh-smelling varnishes, fabrics, and wide worktables that reminded me of the picnic furniture out at Minter Lake. We trekked through golden flecks of wood that made my nose itch, and we reached a flight of stairs that bent up to the right. Neither of us said a word on our journey up to the second floor. Only our footsteps spoke, his more hurried than mine, although mine moved with far more urgency than I would have ever expected of such a moment. I found myself staring at the back of his neck . . . and wondering what he would taste like if I ran my tongue across that smooth patch of skin below his brown hair. I didn’t normally wonder such things about men, but there it was—a strange and brazen urge. I pondered if his skin, up close, would smell of beer, as people insinuated about Germans.
    Upstairs, we entered a small living room, well furnished, of course, considering the occupant. A Victrola with a painted brass horn sat on a mahogany stand in front of the leftmost window, and a photograph of a middle-aged couple in dark clothing and hats—his parents perhaps—stood on the mantelpiece of a brick fireplace. I saw a cream-colored cookstove and a wooden icebox through a doorway to the left.
    “Do you live alone?” I asked.
    “Yes.” Daniel pursed his lips. “I do now.”
    “Oh. I-I’m sorry. I should have known.” I glanced at the photograph of the couple again. “Are