“Is that courtyard public?” he asked.

Reaching far to her right, Talia groped the surface of a small table and came up with a remote. She pressed a button, then dropped the device to the floor.

Drex turned his head, saw the shade silently lowering over the window, and said, “I need to get one of those.”

She grabbed his hair with both hands and brought him back around to her. He began rubbing openmouthed kisses down her throat, across her chest, over her breasts. Pecking at her nipple, he asked, “What time are your clients due?”

“You’re not the only liar. No one’s due. But we should probably lock the door. You never know who will just wander in uninvited.”

“Don’t go anywhere.”

On the short trip to the door and back, he worked open the button on his waistband and unzipped. Talia was bent over squirming out of her skirt. When she straightened up, he was stunned by the sight. Between her thighs was a V of material the same color as her skin, too sheer and pale to hide what was underneath.

“Damn.”

He’d said he wanted to claim her. Physically, without question. But as much as that, he wanted an understanding reached, a pact made, a possession consecrated, and he wanted it now.

He went to her and lifted her onto him. The coupling was swift and absolute, the stroking urgent and unrestrained. They pushed and pulled against each other, with each other. When they came, it was together, with groans of gratification and sighs that spoke volumes without words.

They sealed it with a deep, ardent, soul-melding kiss.

He sat on the floor with his back to the wall, Talia lying across his lap. She lightly scratched her nails over his scruffy chin and cheeks. “I’m reading The Count of Monte Cristo again.”

He traced the waistband of her panties from hipbone to hipbone, a tantalizing caress for both of them. “Have I told you how much I like these?”

“About a dozen times. And stop trying to distract me from the subject.”

“I’m absorbed in this subject.” His fingers drew lazy designs on the sheer fabric.

To get his attention, she rose up and bit his lower lip. “I wanted to kill you, you know.”

“That came across.”

“But I’ve ached to see you. I want to tell you all about me. I want to know all about you.”

“There’ll be time for that. We have a lot to talk out, and we will. That is, if you want you and I to be a ‘we.’”

“I thought I’d spent the last few minutes proving that I do. Either that, or I’m just really slutty.”

“I adore you really slutty. Take this sorry excuse for panties, for instance.”

“You’re incorrigible.” Her scold was meaningless; her smile packed a thousand watts.

A sassy side of her was emerging now that she was no longer living under Jasper’s influence, and Drex loved it. She probably didn’t even realize until after he was gone how subtly he had suppressed aspects of her personality.

Drex had learned from Mike and Gif that she was completely out of the house and that it was up for sale. They’d told him that she had withstood with remarkable aplomb the tsunami of media coverage generated by the exposure of Jasper’s history. Loyal clients and friends had rallied around her, protecting her, lending unflagging support until the hubbub eventually ebbed. He saw no reason to bring all that up now. He would wait for her to introduce the subject.

However, he did ask where she was living.

“I’m leasing a townhouse while deciding on something more permanent. I needed a place to work, though, so I rented this office.”

“Do you have an extra key for that townhouse?”

“I’ll see if I can scare one up.” She snuggled against him, burrowing her nose in his chest hair. “Where are you going on your trip?”

“Alaska.”

She tipped her head back and looked up at him.

He fiddled with a strand of her hair. “Because of the buttons, all those cold cases are being revisited. Eventually one of the buttons could be connected to my mother. If it is, and I get it back, I’ll put it in a hermetically sealed box, take it up to Alaska, and bury it there next to Dad.”

“I think he would like that,” she said, her voice rough with emotion.

“In the meantime, I thought I’d go up, plant a tree, add a headstone, something that would represent closure to me.”

“The fulfillment of your oath.”

“That sounds so lofty, but I guess, yeah. I would like for you to go with me.”

She kissed her fingertip and pressed it to his lips. “If you would like me to, I will.”

He sank his fingers into her hair and massaged her scalp, while his other hand drifted back and forth across her breasts. “I want to volunteer.”

“For what?”

“To be the sperm donor when you thaw those eggs out.”

She rubbed her cheek against his pec. “You already have been.”

Both of his hands fell still. “What?”

“One of my eggs that wasn’t harvested proved to be more robust than those that were.”

His gaze moved down to the feminine landscape that had entranced him minutes earlier, then came back up to meet her eyes.

Shyly she said, “We were both a bit primitive that night.” Drex just looked at her. After a time, she asked, “Are you ever going to blink?”

He did.

Then he pulled her into a hug, and they did something they had never done together: They laughed, out loud, and long.