There was a 'pop!' as she pulled her mouth free of him. Then she whipped back around, straddling him.

She laced her fingers behind his neck and jerked him into a sitting position. "I want you," she growled, sounding uncommonly like the kid from The Exorcist . She smelled strongly of pickles. Her breasts pressed against his chest.

"That's swell," he said, "because I want you, too, but maybe we could slow down a little—"

"Less talk," she murmured. "More fucking."

"Okey dokey."

She seized him, accidentally catching several pubic hairs. He let out a yelp, but by then she was stuffing him inside her. She rode him enthusiastically, squealing happily every time she impaled herself. Her breasts bobbed. Pickle juice dripped from her shoulders. He held onto the side of the bed for dear life as his orgasm thundered closer, closer...

She twisted, jerked, bounced. He started to come at the exact moment her momentum pushed him from the bed. He slammed into the—

—the—

Floor.

Jared jerked awake, staring at the ceiling. The armadillo suit was gone. So was the lingering odor of pickles and, of course, Kara. He had semen on his stomach and one fuck of a headache.

"Jesus Christ," he gasped, then started the long climb back into bed.

* * * * *

The 'thump' of Jared flailing his way off the bed inserted itself into Kara's dream as his bedroom door slamming open.

She sat up on the couch and saw him walking softly toward her, splendidly naked. His shoulders were broad and his chest was lightly furred with crisp black hair, hair that tapered down past his belly button into his lush pubic hair. His sex jutted toward her. He wasn't smiling.

She saw, with no real surprise, that she was naked, too.

"Come closer," he said, even as he did so himself, and then he was standing before her, his hand on the back of her neck, urging her forward. "Touch me."

"I—"

"With your mouth, Kara. Touch me with your mouth. I want you to, and you want you to."

"It's a secret." The wanting. The craving.

"I won't tell." The pressure on the back of her neck increased, and she opened her lips and took him.

His long, rolling purr of satisfaction kindled her own excitement.

His palms were on either side of her face as he rocked his hips against her mouth. Then he pulled away and knelt between her legs. He spread her thighs wide and pushed her back, then pulled her legs across his. His hands were busy at the small of her back, pulling her toward him, and she felt him enter her with sweet and delicious slowness.

She tried to bring her arms around him but, strangely, couldn't move them an inch. She was pushed back so far, her legs were so wide. He crouched and rode her, rode her. It was hard to get a breath. It was hard to even want to.

"When I'm done," he said, perfectly calm, "I'll leave."

"Yes, that's—"

"—what people do, yes. I know. You didn't think you could have a normal life with me, did you?"

"Why can't I?"

"Why should you?" He pulled out and, with savage swiftness, flipped her over. Shoved her, hard. She grabbed wildly for the couch, and found herself bent over the armrest. Felt him grip her ass, part her cheeks, and brutally shove himself inside her.. Red agony slashed across her vision as he shoved and withdrew and pushed some more. His fingers dug into her flesh, marking it, and she squirmed to get away. To her extreme humiliation, beneath the pain she could sense something else begin to stir.

"Say it."

She said nothing. He shoved , harder than he ever had, so hard she could almost feel his cock in the back of her throat. His fingers were busy between her legs, pinching the tender lips, pulling on them. He withdrew almost all the way and she went limp, thinking he was done, and then he rammed himself into her again. She made a sound between a moan and a scream.

"Say it or I'll stop."

Everything was tightening, was getting hotter, and it hurt, God it hurt, but it felt embarrassingly marvelous, too, and he couldn't stop before she found her climax, he couldn't: "Everybody leaves."

"Good. Yes. Everybody leaves." Although his brutal thrusting didn't stop, his fingers between her thighs became gentle, toyed with her throbbing clit, swept over it, squeezed it, rubbed, rubbed, rubbed...

Things went dark, very dark around the edges as her orgasm screamed through her. She lay across the arm rest for a moment, gasping, then turned over.

He was gone.

* * * * *

The next morning, Jared and Kara managed to get up, refresh themselves, have a pleasant conversation, and leave together without actually making eye contact.

Jared crept around the apartment feeling guilty, and nearly screamed when he opened the fridge and saw the jar of pickles on the second shelf.

For her part, Kara was mortified. She prayed Jared couldn't read her expression. She didn't like pain, she had never liked pain, so what was with that dream? In real life, if Jared ever tried such a thing, she'd break his arm in two places.

Right?

* * * * *

After driving downtown to find a restaurant, they'd parked the car and walked, enjoying the unseasonably warm weather. Indian summer had been going on for more than a month. Chicago in October , Kara mused. You gotta love it .

Jared stopped in his tracks so suddenly, she went two steps past him before realizing he wasn’t walking.

“You want to eat here?”

Surprised, Kara turned to look at him. “You said I could choose. If you don’t like sushi, they have other things. You can have a steak, or—”

“It’s not that.”

The man looked decidedly nervous; she wondered what was up. Jared seemed singularly unconcerned about his life being in danger, but ill at ease when confronted with the prospect of a Japanese restaurant.

“What’s wrong?”

He was looking through the front window, shading his eyes and squinting. “It’s okay,” he said at last. “I don’t think he’s working right now. We can go in.”

He pulled open the door to Ish , a trendy sushi restaurant with a terrible name and astonishing food. He held the door for her and, with a wary look inside, she went in. The interior, like every Japanese restaurant she had ever been in, was understated and completely different from the outside. The building housing this restaurant was gray cement, the entrance to the restaurant shaded with a dirty green awning.

Inside, however, the carpet was pearl gray and immaculate, plain ink prints decorated the walls, the tables were low and the wood had been rubbed to a mellow glow. Muted music tinkled over the speakers, waitresses wearing beautiful kimonos shuffled quietly to and fro and the air smelled of soup and delicate Japanese spices.

Kara took an appreciative breath while they waited for a table. She loved the way the Japanese did things, their understated efficiency, the beauty of their food presentation, their droll humor and could have eaten sushi three times daily. Too bad Jared looked ready to jump out of his skin. She could sense no danger to him here, but resolved to keep her eyes open.

The hostess stepped toward them, dressed in a sapphire blue kimono embroidered with white seagull silhouettes. She bowed a greeting, then asked them pleasantly if they wanted smoking or non.

“Non,” they said in unison, then followed her to a table by the window.

“Excuse me,” Kara said, “but we’d prefer a table at the back of the room, if you please.”

The hostess apologized and led them to a booth in the back. When she was gone, while they were wiping their faces with the hot, damp washcloths she had left them, Jared said, “You don’t want me sitting by the window, huh?”

Kara shrugged. “Force of habit. Listen, you’re making me nervous. What’s the problem? Why don’t you like this place?”

“I love this place,” he assured her. “The food is fabulous, the service is great.”

“Then why—”

“It’s a long story. Never mind. What are you having?”

Before she could answer, a voice boomed, “Ah, Dr. Dean!” and Jared sighed.

“Busted,” he muttered, just before a middle-aged Japanese man rushed to their table. The man was wiry and looked strong. His head was so bald and shiny Kara itched to touch it, to see if it felt as smooth as it looked.

“Hello, hello! So nice to see you again and you’ve brought a lovely lady friend, too, how wonderful.”

“Ishiguro, this is Kara. Kara, this is the owner, Ishiguro. Listen, pal,” Jared said to the beaming man,

“let’s not do this, okay?”

Kara edged closer to the edge of the booth, ready to pound the man into jelly if he so much as twitched a trigger finger. Jared promptly stuck his foot up onto her seat, barring her way.

Ishiguro quit smiling and looked stubborn. He snapped his fingers and a waitress appeared, bowing to him and then to Jared and Kara. “These are my friends,” he said, “and they must have anything they want. Bring appetizers. Dr. Dean is partial to seafood.”

The waitress bowed again and practically sprinted to the kitchen.

“Ishiguro,” Jared said warningly.

The man rapped something sharp in Japanese and Jared shut up. Ishiguro turned to Kara and said, “Do you know the story of how the wonderful Dr. Dean saved my only son from hideous death?”

“He probably would have been able to cough it up on his own,” Jared mumbled.

“Please tell me,” Kara said politely.

“It’s not that big a deal,” Jared protested.

Ishiguro ignored him. “There he was, my poor Yoshi, gagging and turning blue and staggering and we pounded on his back and prayed an ambulance would come, when Dr. Dean leaped from his chair, over the table—”

“I did not .”

“—and with a squeeze of his mighty arms—”

“For God’s sake.”

“—forced the offending fish from my son’s throat. Ah! He breathed, he lived, he is first in his class at Harvard Business, he is married and his lovely wife is pregnant with my first grandchild.” Ishiguro stopped and looked at Jared admiringly. “All because of Dr. Dean. So.”