Jim Chopin in the sack was all about control, all about subtlety and skill and patience. He liked women, and he was self-aware enough to know that he was one up on most men in that he didn't fear them, either. He liked the getting and giving of mutual pleasure, mutually arrived at, mutually satisfying. He was proud of that, taking a certain amount of smug satisfaction in his expertise. He was not into pain, he liked to take his time, and it just wasn't any fun if his partner wasn't enjoying herself as much as he was. Life was too short to have bad sex.

But this time, this one time, he had been hasty, rough, and reckless, frantic to get at her, ridden by a red devil of lust that whipped him on and over the edge into madness. This time, he had displayed all the refinement and sophistication of a moose in rut. This time, he still had most of his clothes on.

So much for control. So much for finesse. Ah, shit.

He summoned the strength from somewhere and raised his head to look down at her. Her eyes were closed, her neat cap of hair a tangled dark halo. Her lips were swollen and parted as she gulped in air. A pulse beat frantically at the base of her throat, and he couldn't resist—he had to bend his head and settle his mouth over it, sucking at the warm, throbbing lifeblood beneath the skin. He could hear her breathing. He could feel her hands on his back, the sting of the scratches she'd left there. She radiated heat like a furnace. He could smell her, the aroma that to him was redolent of a cold draft beer after a long, hot day, a piece of Auntie Vi's fry bread, Bobby's special caribou steaks, quick-fried in hot oil and then baked in a wine and cream sauce, a shot of Ruthe's framboise—every good thing to eat and drink he'd ever had in his life, that's what Kate Shugak smelled like to Jim Chopin. Her pulse beat against his tongue and he wanted to eat her alive. For the first time, he understood the eroticism underlying the story of Dracula, and the unexpected thought made him laugh low in his throat.

He felt her lashes flutter, and he looked up, to see her eyes open.

"Hey," he said, gentling his voice.

She didn't say anything, and that scared him.

"I'm sorry I was so rough." He traced a finger down her cheek. There was blood. It was his, from his temple, where she'd connected with the box. It didn't seem to matter much now. "Did I hurt you?"

"No," she said, her voice a thread of sound.