She glanced down, then back at me. She pushed a few strands of clinging hair back from her face. “That run made me warm,” she said.

I wiped water from my face and thought, Time to go.

But I remained.

“Thanks for an interesting evening,” she said, after a pause. “You’re not a bad guy, for a stalker.”

I gave her a half-smile. “That’s what people tell me.”

There was an odd moment of quiet. Then she stepped in close and hugged me, her face against my shoulder.

I was surprised. My arms moved reflexively around her.

Just a little comfort, I thought. You were rough on her before. Let her go feeling good.

I was distantly aware that this sounded like a rationalization. It troubled me vaguely. Ordinarily I get along well without.

I could feel her soft shape, the heat of her, conducted with electric clarity through the wet of our clothes.

I felt my body responding. I knew she felt it, too. Ah, shit.

She lifted her head from my shoulder. Her mouth was very close to my ear. I heard her say, “Come inside.”

The last person I’d gotten involved with when I should have treated her only as an asset was Midori. I was still paying the price on that one.

Don’t be stupid again, I thought. Don’t get too close. Don’t blur the line.

But the thoughts were disconnected. No one seemed to be listening.

She’s a bargirl. You don’t know where her loyalties lie.

That one was unconvincing. No one had directed her against me-I was the one who had been pursuing her. She hadn’t needed to warn me about the bugs. My gut told me she wasn’t dissembling.

She put a hand on my chest. “You haven’t… been with someone for a long time,” she said.

I reminded myself that this was part of the reason I’ve lived so long.

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“I can tell. The way you look at me.”

Her hand pressed closer. “I can feel your heart,” she said.

Between her hand over my heart and her hips at my crotch, she might as well have been administering a polygraph.

I looked out at the street beyond the overhang. The rain was coming in at gray angled streaks. One of my hands moved to her cheek. I closed my eyes. Her skin was wet from the rain and I thought of tears.

She lifted her head and I felt the side of her face settle against mine. Her head moved up and down just slightly, as though in time to some music I could almost hear. I kept my eyes closed, thinking, Don’t do it, don’t be stupid.

I could hear my own breath, flowing through my nose, moving past my teeth.

I started to pull back, sliding my wet cheek past hers. She moved one of her hands to the back of my neck and stopped me.

I shifted my head slightly. The corners of our mouths brushed together. I felt her breath on my cheek.

Then we were kissing. Her mouth was warm and soft. Our tongues entwined and simultaneously I thought Oh you fucking idiot and Oh that feels so good.

My hands found their way inside her coat to her waist. She took my face between her palms and kissed me harder.

I squeezed her hips, then ran my hands up and over the curve of her ribs to her breasts. Her nipples were hard under the wet fabric of her dress. Her body radiated heat. I heard myself groan. It sounded like capitulation.

She stepped back and fumbled in her purse. She pulled out a key and looked at me, her eyes dark, her breathing heavy.

“Come inside,” she said.

She turned and put her key in the lock. The door slid open and we went in.

We kept kissing in the elevator on the brief ride to the fifth floor. On the way down the corridor we were pulling at each other’s clothes.

We moved inside her apartment, into a foyer at the end of a short hallway. There was a living area beyond. Everything was dimly illuminated by the reflected gray light of the street without.

She closed the door behind me and pushed me back against it. She started kissing me again, hungrily, her hands unbuttoning my shirt. Ordinarily I don’t get comfortable in a place until I’ve had a chance to look around it, but the narrow hallway, with Naomi between me and any potential attackers, wouldn’t have worked well for an ambush. I didn’t pick up any danger vibes, at least not of those kind. And Harry’s bug and video detector was blessedly quiescent.

I eased her coat off her shoulders and let it fall behind her. She kissed my neck, my chest, while her fingers worked on my belt and pants. I reached around and undid the zipper at the back of her dress. I moved the straps off her shoulders and the dress slipped soundlessly to the floor. I felt her kick off her shoes.

She pushed my blazer back, but the wet material clung to me. I shrugged out of it and pulled off my shirt. She put a warm hand against my belly for a moment as though to freeze me in that position. I felt the diamond bracelet, a small cold circle around her wrist. Then she reached lower and started to ease my pants down. I stopped her so I could get my shoes and socks off first. Pants-pooled-at-the-ankles is too helpless a posture for me.

I stepped out of my pants and undershorts and kicked them aside. She pushed me back against the door again, circled her arms around my lower back, and pulled us tightly together. Her breasts and belly pressed against me, warm and soft and insanely inviting, and at that instant I didn’t care what this was all going to cost me. What it might cost her.

I took her face gently in both my hands and eased her head back slightly. I looked into her eyes. In the dim light of the hall they seemed to have their own quiet luminescence.

Her hands dropped to my hips and she lowered herself in front of me. I watched her, breathing faster now. The door was cold on my naked back and then her mouth engulfed me and for a moment I couldn’t feel anything else.

One of her hands rose to my belly and I took it in mine, then let it go. My head dropped back against the door with a quiet thump. Some stray hair brushed against my thigh. I could feel every strand of it, as though I’d been stroked with hot filament.

One of my hands drifted down and traced the edge of her ear, the curve of her cheek, the line of her jaw. I exhaled hard, tightening my abdomen until there was nothing left in my lungs, then breathed in sharply through my nose.

I dipped my fingers under her chin and tried to draw her upward.

She tilted her head back and looked up at me. “I want to finish,” she said.

I stooped, placed my hands on her upper ribs, and raised her to her feet. I slipped one arm behind her neck and the other under her ass, stepped forward, and scooped her up. She laughed in surprise and clasped her arms around my neck.

“There’s something I want to finish,” I told her.

The living room was attached to a small kitchen and an only slightly larger bedroom. I headed toward the latter. I was dimly aware of my hard-on swaying before me like some absurd blind man’s cane as I walked.

There was a futon on the floor just inside the bedroom doorway. I stepped onto it and gently set her down on her back. She slipped her arms from around my neck, her palms brushing past my ears and face. I reached down with both hands and eased the thong over the flat of her pelvis. She raised her hips and the garment moved over the curve of her ass. I pulled it past her ankles and tossed it aside.

I put my hands on the futon on either side of her and kissed her throat, her breasts, her belly. I made my way to the creases of her thighs. She grabbed a fistful of hair at the back of my head and pulled hard enough to make it hurt, but I made her wait longer before I gave her what she wanted.

When I did, she exhaled sharply and tightened her grip on my hair. I drew my knees up and took her ass in both hands, raising it off the futon. I heard her say, “Isso, isso, continua,” felt her other hand move to the back of my neck. I glanced up. Her stomach muscles were clenched tight, her breasts trembling slightly from the action of my head and hands.