“Not such a huge leap,” said Nikki. “Tell me what I do isn’t part acting, part storytelling.”

“True. But that’s the what. I’m curious about the why.”

The murder.

The end of innocence.

The life changer.

She thought it over and said, “It’s personal. Maybe when we know each other better.”

“Personal. Is that code for ‘because of a guy’?”

“Rook, we’ve been riding together for how many weeks? Knowing what you know about me, do you think I would make a choice like that for a guy?”

“The jury will disregard my question.”

“No, this is good, I want to know,” she said, and scooted closer to him. “Would you change what you do for a woman?”

“I can’t answer that.”

“You have to, I’m interrogating your ass. Would you change what you do for a woman?”

“In a vacuum…I can’t see it.”

“All right, then.”

“But,” he said and paused to form his thought, “for the right woman?…I’d like to think I’d do just about anything.” He seemed satisfied with what he’d said, even affirmed it to her with a nod, and when he did, he raised his eyebrows, and at that moment, Jamie Rook didn’t look like a globetrotter on the cover of a glossy magazine at all but like a kid in a Norman Rockwell, truthful and absent of guile.

“I think we need better alcohol,” she said.

“There’s a blackout, I could loot a liquor store. Do you have a stocking I can borrow to pull over my face?”

The exact contents of her liquor cupboard in the kitchen were a quarter bottle of cooking sherry, a bottle of peach Bellini wine cocktail that had no freshness date but years ago had separated and taken on the look and hue of nuclear fissionable material…Aha! And a half bottle of tequila.

Rook held the light and Nikki rose up from the crisper drawer of the refrigerator brandishing a sad little lime as if she’d snagged a Barry Bonds ball complete with hologram. “Too bad I don’t have any triple sec or Cointreau, we could have margaritas.”

“Please,” he said. “You’re in my area now.” They returned to the couch and he set up shop on the coffee table with a paring knife, a salt shaker, the lime, and the tequila. “Today, class, we’re making what we call hand margaritas. Observe.” He sliced a lime wedge, poured a shot of tequila, then licked the web of his hand at the thumb and forefinger and sprinkled salt on it. He licked the salt, tossed back the shot, then bit the lime. “Whoa-yeah. That’s what I’m talkin’ about,” he said. “I learned how to do this from Desmond Tutu,” he added and she laughed. “Now you.”

In one fluid move Nikki picked up the knife, sliced a wedge, salted her hand, and brought it all home. She saw his expression and said, “Where the hell you think I’ve been all these years?”

Rook smiled at her and prepared another, and as she watched him, she felt herself relaxing her sore shoulders and, inch by inch, coming untethered from the state of alertness she had unwittingly adopted as a lifestyle. But when he was ready, Rook didn’t down this shot. Instead, he held out his hand to her. She looked down at the salt on his skin and the lime between his thumb and finger. Nikki didn’t look up at him because she was afraid if she did she would change her mind instead of taking the leap. She bent toward his hand and darted her tongue out, quickly at first, but then, choosing to slow the moment down, she lingered there licking the salt off his skin. He offered her the shot and she fired it back and then, cradling his wrist in her fingers, she guided the lime wedge he was holding to her lips. The burst of lime juice cleansed her palate, and as she swallowed, the warmth from the tequila spread from her stomach to her limbs, filling her with a luxurious buoyancy. She closed her eyes and ran her tongue on her lips again, tasting the citrus and salt. Nikki wasn’t at all drunk, it was something else. She was letting go. The simple things people take for granted. For the first time she could remember in a long time, she was flat-out relaxed.

That’s when she realized she was still holding Rook’s wrist. He didn’t seem to mind.

They didn’t speak. Nikki licked her own hand and salted it. Held a wedge. Poured a shot. And then she offered her hand to him. Unlike her, he didn’t avert his gaze. He brought her hand up to him and put his lips on it and tasted the salt and then the saltiness of her skin around it as they stared at each other. Then he drank the shot and bit the lime she gave to him. They held eye contact like that, neither one moving, the extended-play version of their perfume ad moment on Matthew Starr’s balcony. Only this time Nikki didn’t break off.

Tentatively, slowly, each drew an inch closer, each still silent, each still holding the other’s steady gaze. Whatever worry or uncertainty or conflict she’d felt before, she pushed it aside as too much thinking. At that moment, Nikki Heat didn’t want to think. She wanted to be. She reached out and gently touched his jaw where she had struck him earlier. She rose up on one knee and leaned forward to him and, rising above him, lightly kissed his cheek. Nikki hovered there, studying the play of shadows and candlelight on his face. The soft ends of her hair dangled down and brushed him. He reached out, gently smoothing one side back, lightly stroking her temple as he did. Leaning there above him, Nikki could feel the warmth from his chest coming up to meet hers and she inhaled the mild scent of his cologne. The flickering of the candles gave the room a feeling of motion, the way it looked to Nikki when the plane she was in flew through a cloud. She pressed herself down to him and he came to meet her, the two of them not so much moving as drifting weightless toward each other, attracted by some irresistible force in nature that had no name, color, or taste, only heat.

And then what began so gently took on its own life. They flew to each other, locking open mouths together, crossing some line that dared them, and they took it. They tasted deeply and touched each other with a frenzy of eagerness fired by wonder and craving, the two of them released at last to test the edge of their passion.

A votive candle on the coffee table began to sputter and pop. Nikki pulled away from Rook, tearing herself away from him, and sat up. Chest heaving, soaked with perspiration, both his and her own, she watched the candle’s glowing ember fade out, and when it had been consumed by the darkness, she stood. She held out her hand to Rook and he took it, rising up to stand with her.

One candle had sparked brightly and died but one was still burning. Nikki picked that one up and used it to light the way for them to her bedroom.

TEN

Nikki led him wordlessly into her bedroom and set the candle on her dresser, in front of the trifold mirror, which multiplied its light. She turned to find Rook there, close to her, magnetic. She folded her arms around his neck and drew his mouth to hers; he wrapped his long arms around her waist and tugged her body to him. Their kisses were deep and urgent, familiar all at once, her tongue finding the depth and sweetness of his open mouth while he explored hers. One of his hands began to reach for her blouse but hesitated. She clutched it and placed it on her breast. The heat of the room was tropical, and as he touched her, Nikki felt his fingers ride the slick of perspiration above the dampness of her bra. She lowered her hand and found him and he moaned softly. Nikki began to sway, then he did, too, both doing a slow dance in some sort of delicious vertigo.

Rook walked her backward toward her bed. When her calves met the edge of it, she let herself do a slow fall back, pulling him with her. As they both floated down, Heat pulled him closer and twisted, surprising Rook by landing on top of him. He looked up at her from the mattress and said, “You’re good.”