“I…” he said, and then the word was choked off. He shook his head and took hold of her wrists as though preparing to cast her aside, and she sensed that whatever battle was raging inside him, he was losing it.

“Stay with me, John,” she said, trying to get him to look at her again. “Stay with me, please…”

And then he had her face in his hands and he was kissing her, ferociously, desperately, ravening her as though she was the only connection keeping him from being sucked away into some nameless horror. She kissed him back, hard, her mouth open, her hands in his hair, letting him feel her, take whatever he needed from her, making him know with her mouth and her hands and her body that she was there and she wasn’t going to let him go.

He backed her into the bedroom, his hands still on her face, his mouth not leaving hers for an instant. The feel of her jeans rubbing against her as she moved was suddenly maddening, electric, and she realized with a start that she was close to coming from nothing more than the way he was kissing her and the friction of a tight pair of jeans. For a moment, she forgot where they were, she wanted him to just keep kissing her like that, keep moving her like that, yes, just that way…

The back of her thighs bumped against the side of the bed. She was barely thinking now, she just wanted him naked, his skin against her, his weight on her, all of him inside her. He broke the kiss to lift her sweater over her head and was back before he had even tossed it aside, his tongue, his teeth, the taste of whiskey and his own taste, too. She managed to get his belt open, then his pants. She reached inside, and when she felt how hard he was, it excited her even more. She squeezed and felt his breath catch.

She pushed the jacket off his shoulders and tugged it down over his arms, then got his shirt off and threw it aside, never once letting him stop kissing her. He pushed her back on the bed and stepped out of his pants. She realized her bra was gone, she hadn’t even been aware of his doing it. Her groin ached and she was panting. Without thinking, she put her hand on herself, over her jeans, and rubbed. “Hurry,” she said.

Then he was naked, leaning over her, unbuttoning her jeans. He hooked his fingers inside the waistband and peeled the jeans and her panties down over her legs and flung them away. She scrambled back on the bed, spreading her legs and raising her knees, and Rain moved on top of her. She took hold to guide him and she was so wet that he didn’t stop or even slow but buried himself inside her with one violent stroke. She gasped with the mixed pleasure and pain of it and he moved back and thrust again and this time she cried out because she was coming, her back arching, her body shuddering, her hands moving involuntarily to his ass to pull him deeper, deeper. She felt his arms go under hers and he took her face hard in both hands and spread her legs wider with his thighs, his weight on her now, holding her, pinning her to the bed, kissing her hard again, fucking her like some primitive natural force she’d conjured but could now no longer control. He was moaning in her mouth, she could hear it and feel it both, and his movements grew faster, more brutal, and she felt another orgasm welling up from the depths of her. He groaned and squeezed his eyes shut and hammered at her harder than ever, as though enraged, or enraptured, or punishing an enemy he didn’t know how else to kill. Then the groan grew wilder and his body tensed and she felt him coming and she came, too, a shock wave of pleasure reverberating from her groin to her toes, her breasts, her fingertips, her mouth where he was kissing her still.

Slowly, gingerly, she settled back onto the bed, gasping as though she had just surfaced from the deep. Rain dropped his head next to hers and took some weight onto his elbows. She heard him mumble something, she didn’t know what, and she smiled through near delirium.

He remained like that for a few moments, the only movement the gradually slowing rise and fall of his breathing. Then he rolled off her onto his back, but close this time, so their bodies were touching, not the way it had been on the couch. They lay there, and she imagined a pair of shipwreck survivors who had just washed up exhausted onto a beach.

He came to his side to face her and put a hand on her belly. A line of sweat was trickling down his forehead, and she wiped it away with a finger.

“You okay?” he asked.

She smiled. “Okay?”

“I didn’t mean to be so…rough.”

She laughed. “I think you did.”

He dropped his eyes and a little color crept into his cheeks. “Well…”

He looked so appealing to her right then. The tousled hair…the sweat…the sudden shyness after a bout of demonic lovemaking. “Sometimes you’re a little rough, John,” she said, tracing the contours of his face with her fingertips. “It’s part of you. It’s part of what I…like about you.”

Good God, in the raw, dazed honesty of the moment, she had almost said, “What I love about you.” She had been close before to giving voice to those feelings, but had always pulled back out of fear of his reaction.

“Come sit with me in the hot tub,” she said.

He looked at her, sidelong. “I don’t know if I can move.”

She smiled and punched him on the shoulder. “If I can, you can.”

They switched off the patio lights and entered the water slowly, wincing from the heat at first, then enduring, and finally surrendering to it. They sat immersed in the near dark, steam rising into the cool air around them.

“It’s good here, isn’t it?” Delilah said. In the dim light, she could see his eyes, but not make out his expression.

He didn’t answer for a while. He was looking past her, and just as she thought she would take a chance and ask him what he was thinking, he said, “How will I know?”

“Know what?”

“How to make the right choice. Because I never have before.”

She reached through the water and took his hand. “I think you made a good one a few minutes ago. That’s a start.”

19

DOX HAD BECOME adept at reading sounds and other signals on the boat. Whose footsteps belonged to whom; whose muffled voices. The vibration of the engine when they were at sea; its silence when they were in port. The slight dip and rise of the craft when someone stepped on or off it. He knew they were in a port right now, somewhere. Hilger and the blond dude were off the boat; only Uncle Fester and the young-looking guy were still aboard.

He heard footsteps on the stairs and knew from the sound it was Fester. He glanced up a moment later and there he was, looking in through the door window. Dox smiled at him to let him know he wasn’t afraid, and turned up both his hands to offer a double middle finger salute. He heard the lock turning, and Fester poked his head in.

“How you doing, Uncle Fester?” Dox asked, smiling as though the psycho were his best friend.

“I’m good, pendejo. I wanted you to know, I’m going to bring you a surprise.”

“Oh, Fester, you don’t have to put yourself out for me. I know you’ve got important things to do, you know, lawns to mow, fruit to pick, things like that.”

Fester reddened and Dox felt a rush of satisfaction. He had nothing against Mexicans or anyone else for that matter. It was just a good way to push Fester’s buttons.

Fester recovered and broke out in a hundred-watt psycho smile. “Ordinarily, I’d fuck you up for that. But…I think now I’ll wait until next time I see you. I’ll bring the surprise then. I just want you to have it to think about.”

Dox shook his head. “Fester, I’m disappointed in you. It’s sad that a first-class sadist such as yourself should have to resort to such crude and obvious strategies as trying to instill dread in the prisoner. You’ve been reading too many books on interrogation, I think that’s the problem.”