My heart sped up again, but I took a little step back from her. "Yeah. Shiela, I knew I wouldn't be able to focus on the rest of tonight if I didn't look in on you first."

She nodded then, and folded her arms. "All right. But when you're finished with this, there's something I'd like to talk to you about."

"What?" I asked.

She shook her head and put her hand on my arm. "It would take some time to explain it. If you think you need your focus for tonight, I don't want to distract you with anything."

I looked at her, and then deliberately down her, and said, "That's probably best. I'm finding you very distracting right now."

She flushed brighter. "No. That's just you reacting to being in danger. You're afraid that you're going to die, and sex is very life affirming."

"Is that what it is?" I drawled.

"Among other things," she said.

For a few seconds my hormones did their best to lobby for overcoming distraction by means of indulgence, but I reined them in. Shiela was right: I was in pain and in fear and in danger, and those kinds of circumstances have a tendency to make you pay attention to different things— the soft shine of candlelight on Shiela's hair, for example, or the soft scent of rose oil and flowered soap on her skin—and Shiela had been in danger for part of that time as well.

I didn't want to take advantage of that. And I didn't want to start anything with her that I wasn't going to be able to finish. For all I knew I'd be dead before another day was out, and it wouldn't be right to allow things to go any further just because I was afraid.

On the other hand, though, there was nothing wrong with savoring life while you still had it.

I leaned down to her, lifted her chin gently with my right hand, and kissed her mouth again. She quivered and returned it with a slow, hesitant shyness. I stayed like that for a moment, tasting her lips, my fingertips light on her chin, and then straightened, breaking it off very slowly.

She opened her eyes a moment later, her breathing a little fast.

I touched her cheek with my fingertips and smiled at her. "I'll call you soon."

She nodded, her eyes clouding with concern. "Be careful."

"Harry?" called a voice.

I blinked and looked around.

"Harry!" he called again, and I recognized Butters's voice. There was a curious quality to the acoustics of his voice—as if he were standing in an empty room, with no furniture or carpeting to absorb any sound.

Shiela froze, looking toward her door, and then said, "Dammit."

I blinked at her. "What?"

"I didn't want this to distract you," she said, and her tone was enigmatic.