Her eyes were moist and so were her palms as she pulled them down my cheeks, began to lean back on her haunches.

I caught her hands gently at the wrists, and she leaned forward again. Her right hand moved into my hair, pushing it back off my forehead as she lowered her body onto mine and her thighs slid in between mine and her left foot grazed my right as she pushed the sheet down to the foot of the bed.

A strand of her hair tickled my left eye and we both froze with our faces almost touching. I could smell fear on her breath, fear in our hair, on our skin.

Her dark eyes peered into my face with a mixture of curiosity, determination, and the ghosts of old ancient hurts we never talked about. Her fingers dug deeply into my hair and her pelvic bone drove down against my own.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” she said.

“No,” I said.

“What about Grace?” she whispered.

I let the question hang there because I didn’t have an answer.

“What about Phil?” I said.

“Phil’s over,” she said.

“There are good reasons we haven’t done this in seventeen years,” I said.

“I know. I’m trying to remember them.”

I raised my hand, pushed it through the hair along her left temple and she nipped at my wrist with her teeth and arched her back, drove her pelvic bone even deeper.

“Renee,” she said and gripped the hair by my temples with a sudden anger.

“Renee’s gone.” I gripped her hair just as roughly.

“You’re so sure?”

“You ever hear me talk about her?” I slid my left leg along the edge of her right, hooked my ankle over hers.

“Conspicuously,” she said. Her left hand slid down my chest, squeezed my hip at the place where bare skin met boxer shorts. “You conspicuously don’t talk about a woman you married.” The heel of her hand nudged an edge of underwear over my hip.

“Ange—”

“Don’t say my name.”

“What?”

“Not when we’re talking about you and my sister.”

There it was. A full decade since we’d so much as broached the subject, and it was back out again with all its sordid implications.

She leaned back until she was sitting on my thighs and my hands had fallen to her hips.

“I’ve paid enough for her,” I said.

She shook her head. “No.”

“Yes.”

She shrugged. “I’m beyond the point of caring about it, though. At the moment anyway.”

“Ange—”

She put a finger to my lips, then she leaned back again and peeled her T-shirt off her body. She tossed it to the side of the bed and grasped my hands and pulled them up over her rib cage and placed them on her breasts.

She lowered her head and her hair fell over my hands. “I’ve missed you for seventeen years,” she murmured.

“Me too,” I said hoarsely.

“Good,” she whispered.

Her hair fell in my face again as her lips hovered over mine and her knees locked against my thighs and pushed my underwear down my legs. Her slim tongue flicked against my upper lip. “Good,” she said again.