I rose up just enough, like a version of an ab crunch, so I could watch him slide in and out of me, but as his rhythm sped I had to spill back along the desk and just let my body ride the sensations of him inside me. I looked up into that face, and he stared down at me so that we were drowning in each other’s eyes as he fucked me on the desk, my body moving with the push and pull of him, his hands tight on my hips to keep me on the edge of the desk. That deeper pleasure began to build like a weight of anticipation in a part of my body that he couldn’t actually touch, but it felt as if every deep thrust, every pull-out over that one spot just inside, touched things that no light would ever see, no hand could ever touch, but he could; Jean-Claude could find all the dark happy places inside me.

His eyes bled to vampire glow, as if a night sky could blaze with its own light and let you know that even in the darkest hour the sky is still blue. The press of pleasure built and built as he conjured it closer and closer to the surface, and then from one moment to the next, one stroke of his body to the next, he brought me screaming, my hands scrambling across the smooth empty surface of the desk.

He held on to his rhythm until he’d brought me multiple times and I was almost boneless on the desk, my body half-conscious from the pleasure of it all. Only then did he let himself speed his thrusts for himself without aiming at the sweet spots inside me, and finally let go of all that control. I watched his face through half-closed eyes as his head came forward, all that hair spilling around him, hiding his face, and then his spine bowed backward, taking his head with it so that he was curved above me, face slack with his own pleasure.

His breathing was ragged, and I could see his pulse against the side of his neck. The sex brought him to “life” more than almost anything else. I loved watching his body react like any man’s with a light dew of sweat on that pale, muscled chest. There was a faint pink shine to the dew of sweat on his chest from the blood he’d drunk from me. He might not be able to wear a white shirt to work tonight. I was okay with that, and I was pretty sure so was he.

8

JEAN-CLAUDE AND I cleaned up in the half bath that was in the back of the office. Ever the gentleman, he let me clean up first, but also because he’d take longer in the bathroom than I would, and he knew patience wasn’t my greatest virtue. The compromise was that I came out of the bathroom in my bra and undies and would dress out in the office, so he could fuss in the bathroom longer. I checked my phone before I put on anything else, but there was no message from Manny, no missed call. Screw it. I called Manny again. My first phone message had been simply, “Call me.” This one needed more details.

It went straight to voice mail, so he was on the phone. Damn it. “Manny, this is Anita again. I really need to talk to you about a case. I need your input.” I stopped short of mentioning Dominga Salvador for two reasons. One, I tried not to share any information about ongoing federal investigations that I didn’t have to, and two, his wife, Rosita, checked his phone regularly. She knew he and Dominga had been lovers once. She’d never forgiven him for sleeping with any women besides herself, even those who were years before she and Manny met. I didn’t really understand jealousy to that degree, but I didn’t want to make his life hard if I could avoid it. But if he didn’t call me back soon, I was going to have to mention the name, because I knew that would make him call. She was dead, but it was like talking too much about the devil; you always wondered if they heard you. In Dominga’s case, hearing us from hell seemed totally reasonable. Yes, she had been that kind of evil scary.

I sat there staring at the phone and thought about texting him, but Manny was like a lot of people over fifty. He had a smart phone, but he treated it like it was still just a portable phone. He never returned texts. I wasn’t even sure he read them.

My phone rang, but I knew it wasn’t Manny, because it was Micah Callahan’s ring tone: “Lovefool” by the Cardigans. “Hey, short, dark, and handsome,” I said, and was smiling as I said it.

“Hey, beautiful.” And I could hear the smile in his voice, too. “I heard that the jewelry appointment was cut short.”

“Wow, that’s fast gossip.”

“I told Lisandro I needed to talk to Jean-Claude and you if there was a free moment, so he told me.”

“Okay, but I will have to leave in about forty-five minutes. I can’t leave clients waiting for long.”

He laughed. “They get nervous if you leave them alone in graveyards, I know.”

“Cemeteries are actually damned peaceful. They just spook themselves,” I said.

“I know that, too.”

“Do you want us to come to you?”

“I just came up all those damned stairs, so no. I’ll come to you. I love you, Anita.”

“I love you more.”

“I love you most.”

“I love you mostest.”

We hung up and I turned to find Jean-Claude out of the bathroom shirtless, but with his leather pants fastened. He was as dressed as he could get until he was sure it was safe to put the white shirt back on or he got a second, darker shirt.

“I really do like you in the blue; thank you for not getting dressed yet. Which of our cats was on the phone, for that is your endearment only to the two of them,” he said.

I ignored the compliment, because saying that it had been accidental rather than undressing for him on purpose seemed the wrong thing to say, so I said, “Glad you like it, and it was Micah; apparently he told Lisandro to alert him if we had any free time to talk.”