I take that hard, little button and tease it and she’s leaning the top of her head into my chest, one hand fisted there, the other pushing against me. Her breathing is coming in gasps and I think she’ll come soon and I want to see her come. It’s what I want most in the world right now.

She looks up at me. I grip her pussy, tug her toward me. I rub her clit again, watch her eyes when I do.

But then she moves her hands underneath my jacket and she’s feeling my chest, and I know the instant she touches the cold steel of my gun because she freezes.

Fuck.

I watch her. She blinks and that desire is turning into something else.

I clear my throat. “You should tell me to go,” I tell her again, my voice hoarse. It’s the right thing to do. I know it. She knows it.

I slide my hand out of her panties, my fingers wet with her.

She takes hold of either side of my jacket and pushes it back just off my shoulders and looks at the holstered gun, but she doesn’t speak. Instead, she touches it. I watch her tentative fingers, delicate and fragile. But when she closes her hand over the handle, I take hold of her wrist and pull her hand off and push her away, turn my back to her as I lean against the counter, holding her at arm’s length, needing a moment. Needing many moments. I adjust the crotch of my pants and when I finally look at her again she’s watching me.

This time it’s me who doesn’t speak. Instead, I release her wrist. I adjust the cups of her bra and take one more look at her before I turn, pick up my coat. I don’t bother to put it on before I open the door, even though it’s icy out, and I walk out of the house without a goodbye.

8

Natalie

I lay awake for a long time after he left and kept waking up throughout the night, remembering. It’s the first thing I think of this morning.

He didn’t say goodbye. And I didn’t get a chance to say a word before he was gone. The door closed behind him and he vanished. Disappeared into the night like a ghost. Like he wasn’t here at all.

And it’s the strangest thing. The most unsettling feeling—something I can’t put my finger on—but it’s almost a premonition. Sergio here, then gone.

Just like that.

Like a ghost.

Pepper’s barking alerts me that there’s someone at the door. The doorbell’s been broken forever. I get up, pull a hoodie on, and glance out the window. I know it’s not Sergio. Pepper wouldn’t have barked at him.