Archie flings an arm out, feels blindly for the Taser on the bedside table, and finds it. She is writhing on top of him, half mad, and his body is consumed by pleasure, her fist in his hair, his neck jammed back. He can hear the snapping sound of his hair severing from the roots. His head is twisted at an angle that allows him to look at her. He never let himself imagine he would be with someone who looked like Gretchen Lowell. Every part of her is perfect. He holds the Taser a few inches out, pointed at the dip of her waist. She makes another sound, a gentle mewling.

Archie’s eyes move to the Taser. The gun-shaped grip, the yellow safety logo. The laser sight glows red on Gretchen’s flesh.

She curls over him then, her eyelashes brushing his Adam’s apple. Then she lets go of his hair.

The sudden absence of pain is almost disorienting.

“Do it,” she pleads.

Archie pulls the trigger.

All of her muscles seize as the two darts make contact, sending fifty thousand volts of electrical current coursing through her body, incapacitating her. As her muscles contract, her pelvis and legs tighten around his cock. He comes instantly, and powerfully, inside her. She jerks and falls against him, and he pulls her into his arms, staying inside her as she twitches. He clings to her, counting down in his mind, waiting for the thirty-second energy burst to pass and her central nervous system to come back online. Slowly, her color returns and the rigidity of her body softens. When she lifts her head, she is out of breath and he can feel that her heart is beating as furiously as his. But she is grinning at him, a sheen of saliva on her chin, her eyes bright with pleasure.

He can never stop, he realizes. Everything has changed. It is like having sex for the first time.

He can never have enough of her.

He wants to snatch the moment back, to undo it.

Then, somewhere, far away, he hears something crash and break against a wall. He pulls away from Gretchen, sits up, and turns his head toward the sound.

“Archie?” Gretchen asks.

*   *   *

“Archie?” Gretchen’s voice was a hoarse whisper. Archie blinked and his head jerked up, and she came into focus. Her blue eyes met his gaze and then moved over his face, a small frown line appearing between her eyebrows. He had passed out for a second. Now she was examining him, Archie realized, her eyes roving over him, finger on his pulse, medically assessing him to see how much time he had left. Not long, he figured. But his interest at this point was purely academic. He only needed long enough.