“Come again?”

“I’m thinking of remarrying.” Prettily blushing.

“Anyone I know?”

“Councilman Dauten.”

My fork clanged against the brass charger plate.

“Councilman? Is that what you call him? Doesn’t he have a first name?”

“You sound rather waspish, Adrien,” my mother observed. “Do you not like the idea?”

“Of Councilman Dauten? I’m not sure. Have I met this one?”

Lisa’s eyes narrowed. She said carefully and clearly, “Do you have a problem with the

idea of my remarrying?”

Did I? I wasn’t sure. Whatever I felt – and it was sort of a brakes squealing, glass

smashing, horns blaring reaction – it wasn’t logical. Whereas Lisa marrying was perfectly

logical. She was still young, considering the fact that she was my mum, and beautiful,

considering the fact that she was my mum.

“No, of course not,” I said. We both listened to my tone of voice. I said with more

energy, “No, I mean, if you’re happy. It’s…it’s kind of sudden, isn’t it?”

“It is!” she chirped, like that made it all the more wonderful.

* * * * *

I woke to a giant shadow looming over me. I started up, half asleep.

“Easy, easy. It’s me,” Jake said, sliding between the sheets. His hands and feet were like

ice as he pulled me into his arms.

I subsided, heart thudding hard. “I thought you couldn’t make it tonight?”

“Yeah, well.” He was silent.

The far wall was patterned in snowflake shadows thrown by the street lamps through

the lace window coverings. I heard flecks against the glass panes.

“Is it raining?” I half-lifted my head from the pillow of his chest.

“Just started.” He stroked his cold hand down my back, and as I shivered, gave my ass

an absent squeeze. “They found another one.”

Not fully awake, it took a while for his words to register. “Another what one?”

“Another DB.”

Cop-speak for dead body. Since Jake worked homicide, I knew that it had to be more

than just another body. I finally remembered our conversation of a few days earlier. “You

mean, like a ritual killing?”

He nodded. “Maybe. This one was older. Maybe a year old. Badly decayed. But there

were markings on the tree he was buried beneath.”

“Markings?”

“Symbols. We’ve got people working on them.” He stroked my back again, fingers idly

tracing the links of bone and cartilage. “It’s not like I haven’t seen weird shit. Decapitated

goats, disemboweled cats. Once I saw a cow’s tongue nailed to a tree.”

“Those wacky Baptists.”

Jake snorted. “You’re a funny guy.”

“Funny boy is the way I remember it.”

I felt rather than saw him smile at the memory of our recent vacation in the land that

time forgot, the northern Mother Lode country.

“They estimate there’s like fifty thousand Santeria devotees in LA County. But this

is…different.” He was quiet. I hated to imagine what he was remembering. “Adrien, do you

honestly not know where Angus went?”

I rolled on one elbow, tried to read his face in the gloom. “You’ve got to be kidding me.

Angus ?”

“I’d just like to talk to him.”

“Jake, no damn way was he involved in anything like this. I know him that well.”

“I’m not saying he’s involved. But if he’s on the fringe of that scene, maybe he’s heard

something.” He asked neutrally, “Did you send him up to the ranch?”

“No!” In fact, it hadn’t occurred to me to send Angus to Pine Shadow, the ranch I had

inherited from my grandmother many years before. I wondered why I’d missed such a

simple solution.

At last I said, “I don’t know where he is. I gave him the money and told him to leave

town.”

“Could you take a guess?”

I shook my head. The rain drummed down harder now. We listened to it for a while.

He tugged me back down. I rested my cheek against his chest, listening to the thump of his

heart.

I said, “If he calls, what do you want me to tell him?”

“Whatever you think will get him back here to talk to me.”

We lay like that for a time. I started to relax back into drowsiness, lulled by Jake’s lazy

caresses.

“How tired are you?” he asked, breaking the silence.

I chuckled.

The weight and warmth of our bodies moving in the tangled sheets. The pleasant

friction of rough jaws, and hairy legs and arms, and lightly furred chests brushing against

each other. The softness of mouths and eyelashes and silky hair…

He guided me onto my belly, and I spread my legs, shivering as Jake spread the warm

gel in the cleft between my buttocks. He worked the tip of his finger, pressing against that

first instinctive resistance, always careful, always taking his time, although it wasn’t

necessary these days which I seemed to spend primed and ready for his cock’s penetration.

I sighed, pushing back, and his finger slipped inside the dark heat of my body. I

murmured approval. “More, Jake.”

He eased the second finger in, teased a little, and I caught my breath.

“Good?”

“You know it is.” I drew my knees under me, raising my ass in invitation. Please,

Jake…”

Instead I got a slow, tantalizing third finger working me with maddening, delicious

deliberation. I groaned. “Will you just do it?”

“Do what?”

“Fuck me.”

He murmured, breath against my bare back, “Not sure I caught that.”

“Jake,” I pleaded, humping against his hand. “Fuck me. Please.”

Ah, the magic word.

We shifted around, bed springs squeaking, I got on my hands and knees, and he knelt

behind me, his hand stroking the curve of my ass, lingering. The head of his cock whispered

the password, and my well-massaged ring of sphincter muscle gave him entrance. Arms

braced stiff, his cock buried deep in my body, I rocked back against Jake’s hips. He shoved

back against me. We quickly slipped into our rhythm. The fingers of one hand bit into my

hip, holding me in place as he thrust hard. His other hand wrapped around my cock,

pumping up and down, occasionally losing the pace. I shifted weight onto one hand, moved

my free hand to join Jake’s, working myself.

We knew each other well by now, knew what we liked – and when we liked it. It was