"Go about two more blocks and then start looking for a s.p.a.ce."

"They don't have parking?"

"I told you, it's a hole-in-the-wall."

The car came to rest at a stop light. There was another coffee shop, a corner store, and a Laundromat. He could see a few bars and restaurants ahead, past a street-spanning sign shaped like a trolley car. "Around here?"

She nodded. "It's right up there on the left. If you see a s.p.a.ce, grab it."

He slowed a bit. Both sides of the street were packed. A few cars crowded driveways. "So why are we here?"

"Because I'm guessing you've never had good Mexican food."

"No," he said, "seriously. Why are we here?"

Jamie sighed. "Again?"

"Sorry," he said. "This just doesn't feel right."

"How so?"

He turned right onto a side street. "I've been here a week, and now out of nowhere you want to know all these little details about me."

"I'm old-fashioned," she said. "I don't like to sleep with strangers."

"And that," he said. "The over-friendliness. I just don't buy it."

"Oh, for Christ's sake," she said. She undid her seatbelt and threw her leg across his waist. The car jerked to a halt as she rolled into his lap, wedging herself between his body and the steering wheel. "Stop talking."

"Are you-"

Jamie leaned into his face and kissed him. Hard. The tip of her tongue darted out to tap his. She found his wrists, pulled his hands up, and pressed his palms against her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Then, just as fast, she slid off him and back into her seat. "Okay," she said, "do you still think I'm here just because Arthur asked me to be friendly?"

He pressed his foot down and the car rolled forward. "No."

"Do you think I have any ulterior motives?"

"Well," he said, "not the same ones I thought you had a minute ago."

"Are you hungry?"

"What?"

"Do you still want to get dinner?"

"Does it make me shallow if I say no?"

The corners of her mouth twitched into a grin. "If it does, I'm shallow, too."

THIRTY-TWO.

They didn't speak at all on the drive back to campus. Jamie gestured at road signs and made a point of not looking him in the eyes. He drove around the main building and parked his car by the trailers.

Mike shut the engine off. "Mine or yours?"

"Mine," she said. "I don't want to be worried about Magnus spying on us."

"I don't think he randomly checks in."

"You're talking again," she said with a smile.

They kept their hands off each other until it was clear there was no one else around the trailers. Then she was kissing him and pulling at his belt, even as his hands slid around her back and beneath her shirt. They paused so she could fumble with her keys and they stumbled into her trailer.

Glitch the cat let out a confused meow. It turned into a hiss as they walked past his food bowl and b.u.mped into the table. He danced around their legs and vanished.

Mike's heart pounded, and he could feel his pulse in his fingers and his face. He kissed her mouth, her chin, her cheeks, and her ears.

Jamie yanked her own shirt open and then pulled his over his head. She pressed herself against him and kissed him hard. Her kiss was filled with l.u.s.t and hunger and desperation. They wrestled with each other's jeans and tangled themselves in the curtains that divided the room.

The back of his legs. .h.i.t her bed and he fell backward onto the blanket. She didn't let go, riding him down. The springs squealed under their combined weight, and Glitch threw himself off the bed with another hiss.

Mike rolled on top of her and pulled away the last bits of her clothing. Her skin was like silk against his. She was warm and moist and wrapped her legs around him. He bent his head to her chest and she gasped and grabbed a fistful of hair.

It was very hard for Mike to get lost in the moment. So many things could set off memories and comparisons, spurring the ants into action. More than a few times he'd had the mood ruined by a deluge of images and sounds inside his head.

This time his mind was blissfully silent.

Half an hour later he heard a thump. A few moments later, Glitch hopped onto the bed, and shoved his head into Jamie's arm. He meowed, shifted his paws, and leaned his forehead against her shoulder.

"He has no boundaries," said Mike.

"He's a little perv," she said. "He watches me in the shower sometimes."

She twisted beneath him, and he slid behind her. His arms wrapped around her. Glitch sat on the bed and watched them.

"Does he want to be fed?"

"He wants his treats," Jamie said. "Whenever I come home late, I give him some extra cat food or Greenies or something. He's a creature of habit."

"Sorry to mess up the schedule."

"It's okay," she said. She reached up and held his arms. "I didn't want to wait on my treats."

"Clever."

She chuckled and tugged his arms a little tighter around her. "Are you staying for the night?"

"Do you want me to?"

"I wouldn't complain."

"We wouldn't get much sleep."

"Oh, really?"

"Just being honest."

"You ready to go again?"

"Give me a few more minutes to catch my breath."

"I'm not so sure I'm still in the mood."

"Really?"

She half-turned to him and her teeth gleamed in the darkness. "You can try to change my mind, if you think you can."

"I think I could make a few compelling arguments."

"Go for it."

He kissed his way down her back, tasting her sweat on his lips. She sighed. He stopped at her tailbone and reached up to run his fingertips across the smooth glistening skin of her shoulders, tracing lines alongside her spine.

Then he paused, and frowned.

"Jamie?"

"Mmmmmm?" She closed her legs around his left thigh. She was still wet.

He squinted at her in the dim light of the bungalow. "There's nothing wrong with your back."

"Great to know," she said. "Did you have a problem with the front?"

"No, seriously, where are your scars?"

She twisted around, smiling. "My what?"

He set his hand on her shoulder and gently rolled her onto her stomach again, pushing her into the thin shaft of light that seeped around the blinds in her trailer. He ran his fingers down her spine and looked at her skin. Her flawless skin. There were faint tan lines framing her a.s.s and another one across her back. "Your scars," he said. "You told me your back was a mess."

She turned to face him. "What?"

"The motorcycle crash in high school. The awful prom dress. Apologizing for freaking out on me when I touched your shoulders."

Jamie's smile dipped at the edges. She shook her head. "What are you talking about?"

He rolled onto his knees. "You're serious? You don't remember telling me all this at the bar?"

She sat up and leaned against the wall. "I told you about Tramp at the bar, and then we flirted for almost an hour. I thought I freaked you out being so forward, and that's why you've been kind of distant."

"And you don't have any scars?"

"Have you noticed any?"

The ants got out.

They carried out pictures and sounds and a.s.sociations. Jamie in Washington the first time he saw her. Nine other women he'd been casually naked with (seven girlfriends, two friends with benefits). Jamie bending over and showing off the biker shorts under her clothes. Jamie in the bar talking about her cat dying and the motorcycle crash. Taking his own cat, Jake, to be put down. The baseball. Jamie standing on the other side of the three rings, about to step through, knowing she might be walking to her death. His mother dying. Bob dying. Jamie standing in front of him on the pathway, unharmed and uninjured.

The baseball that wasn't there anymore.

Bob with cancer from months of radiation exposure.

Jamie standing in front of him with no injuries.

Talking about her cat in the bar.

He replayed her crosswalk in his mind. She'd come through okay, so he'd barely studied it. Not the way he'd obsessed over Bob's. He pulled up before and after images. Her in Washington. The first time he saw her in San Diego. In her trailer. Watching the rings. Driving on the freeway.

"Oh, h.e.l.l," he said. The ants carried out Reggie's words from the other day. What they know, what they don't know, and what they don't know that they don't know.

"What? What's wrong?"

Mike took her by the hands and tugged her toward the center of the mattress. She rolled onto her knees and shuffled where he guided her. He turned her toward the window. Her skin gleamed in the light.

He brushed her hair away from her face. He shook his head. "h.e.l.l," he said again.

Jamie reached up to feel her cheeks and nose and forehead. "What is it?"

He rolled out of bed and searched for his boxers. "Don't take this the wrong way," Mike said, "but you're not the woman I thought I was going to bed with."

THIRTY-THREE.