to my belt, unfastening it, and then she slid her hand down and began to caress me and then we were
moving together.
“Oh, God, Jake,” she moaned, “where have you been?”
I lowered her slowly to the cushions in the boat and she stretched out before me, her hands over her
head as I teased her, my hand barely touching her soft down, until suddenly she thrust up against my
hand. She began to tremble under my touch, took my hand and pressed it harder, and began to move
my hand with hers, showing me where to touch, what to explore, orchestrating her pleasure. Her
hands groped for something to hang on to, found the edge of the seat and clutched it. Every muscle in
her body seemed to be responding. She was moving back and forth as my fingers sought all her secret
places.
She started to whimper and the whimper became a growl, deep in her throat, and she stiffened
suddenly, wrapped her arms around me, buried her head in my shoulder, and her cries were muffled
against my flesh. She reached down, searching with desperate fingers, and turning slightly, guided me
into her. Then there was only the feel of her, her soft muscles engulfing me, urging me to come with
her, and the rush of her mouth against mine.
There was nothing else.
No Ciscos, no Taglianis, no hooligans, no wounds or screams of grief. There were only our own cries
of joy and relief, whisked to sea on the wind.
34
LATE CALL
The tape recorder had run its course and turned itself off and I had pulled my Windbreaker over us,
although I didn?t need it. Her warm body lay across mine like a blanket. We didn?t say much, we just
lay there holding each other. Half an hour crept by and then my beeper broke the spell like a phone
that?s been left off the hook too long.
I shifted under her enough to reach tip onto the dock and riffle through my clothes until I found it and
turned it off. My watch said eleven fifteen.
She twisted back against me and sighed. “What was that?” she asked.
I was wondering who would be beeping me at this time of night.
“The beeper,” I whispered. “I gotta call the office.”
She rose up an inch or so, a tousled head peering through tangled hair with one half-open eye.
“What time is it?”
“Past eleven.”
“You have to call the office at this time of night?”
