Heaven's Prisoners (Dave Robicheaux 2)

"I had to take an old man to the Sally in Lafayette."

She kissed my shoulder and traced her hand down my chest. Her body was still warm from sleep.

"It sounds like somebody didn't sleep too well," she said.

"I guess not."

"I know a good way to wake up in the morning," she said, and touched me with her hand.

She felt me jerk involuntarily.

"You got your chastity belt on this morning?" she said. "Scruples about mommy again?"

"I blew away Victor Romero last night."

I felt her go quiet and stiff next to me. Then she said in a hushed voice, "You killed Victor Romero?"

"He dealt it."

Then she was quiet again. She might have been a tough girl raised in a welfare project, but she was no different from anyone else in her reaction to being in proximity to someone who has recently killed another human being.

"It comes with the fucking territory, Robin."

"I know that. I wasn't judging you." She placed her hand on my back.

I stared out the window at the yard, my hands on my knees. The redwood picnic table was dark with moisture.

"You want me to fix breakfast for you?" she said finally.

"Not now."

"I'll make toast in a pan, the way you like it."

"I don't want anything to eat right now."

She put her arms around me and squeezed me. I could feel her cheek and her hair on my shoulder.

"Do you love me, Dave?" she said.

I didn't answer.

"Come on, Streak. Fair and square. Do you love me?"

"Yes."

"No, you don't. You love things about me. There's a difference. It's a big one."

"I'm not up to this today, Robin."

"What I'm telling you is I understand and I got no complaint. You were decent to me when nobody else was. You know what it meant to me when you took me to midnight Mass at the Cathedral? I never had a man treat me with that kind of respect before. Mommy thought she had Cinderella's glass slippers on."

She picked up my hand in hers and kissed it on the back. Then, almost in a whisper, she said, "I'll always be your friend. Anytime, anywhere, for anything."

I slipped my hand up her back, under her pajama top, and kissed the corner of her eye. Then I drew her against me, felt her breath on my chest, felt her fingers on my thighs and stomach, and I lay down next to her and looked at her eyes, the tanned smoothness of her skin, the way her lips parted when I touched her; then she pressed hard against me for a brief moment, got up from the bed and slid the bolt on the door, and took off her pajamas. She sat beside me, leaned over my face and kissed me, her mouth smiling as though she were looking at a little boy. I pulled off my undershorts, and she sat on top of me, her eyes closing, her mouth opening silently, as she took me inside her. She put her hands in my hair, kissed my ear, then stretched herself out against my body and tucked her feet inside my calves.

A moment later she felt me tense and try to hold back before I gave in to that old male desire that simply wants to complete that bursting moment of fulfillment, whether the other person gets to participate or not. But she raised herself on her arms and knees and smiled at me and never stopped her motion, and when I went weak inside and felt sweat break out on my forehead and felt my loins heat like a flame burning in a circle through paper, she leaned down on my chest again and kissed my mouth and neck and forced her hands under my back as though some part of me might elude her in that final, heart-twisting moment.

Later we lay on top of the sheets under the fan while the sunlight grew brighter in the tree limbs outside. She turned on her side, looking at my profile, and took my fingers in hers.