"I will not take advantage when you're vulnerable," Lanier said.

"Advantage? I need you. I'd be taking advantage of you. I am taking advantage, I know, but—I just know what would help. I'm not a little girl. Right now, I have thoughts in my head even these people haven't come up with. Olmy knows that. But if I think any more, I'm going to loose all of it. Snap."

She clicked the fingers of her free hand.

"I'm probably not very good in bed," she said.

"Patricia," Lanier said, trying to remove his hand from hers, yet not wanting to.

She stepped closer to him and laid her hand on his stomach. "I'll be unfair if I have to be. Body's a tiger, brain's a dragon. Feed one to keep the other."

"You'll drive me over the edge, too," Lanier said quietly.

She lowered her hand to his erection. "I'm not just an awkward little genius."

"No," he said.

Patricia leaned her head back, feeling him, and smiled ecstatically, eyes closed. There was no more resistance left in Lanier. She let go of his hand and he reached up to unbutton her blouse.

When they were naked, they held each other tightly. Lanier kneeled to kiss her breasts. His eyes moistened at the feel of her nipples between his lips. Her breasts were medium size, very slightly pendulous, one noticeably larger than the other, the skin between them freckled a darker brown. Their size and shape did not matter. Lanier felt a sudden clean flow of passion, taking away all conflicting emotions. She led him to the bedroom and lay beside him as they kissed, nested shallowly together. He took hold of her hips and angled them and slipped deep inside, the muscles of his stomach and buttocks tight, compulsive. Then they rolled over, Patricia on top, and she slid against him, eyes closed but relaxed, as if she were making a gentle wish. She raised herself up and Lanier watched their connected motion without his usual isolation, knowing instead a completion and wholeness that made no sense. There had been not a hint of this between them—simply of duty, working together. He had had that with others.

And now he was in bed with Hoffman's little Chicana genius. He had been dismayed on first seeing her, he realized only now; his respect for Hoffman's judgment had hidden that initial reaction to Patricia's apparent fragility. He was inside that fragility, taking pleasure from her, all in the name of duty and that was a laugh.

Part of his dismay had been attraction.

Patricia moved of her own volition to the expected climax. With Paul, she had found herself to be a natural at lovemaking. She could feel the state subsiding, storing itself away rather than dissipating. Her thoughts became pellucid. Here was a focus.