“I’m glad you understand,” Daniel said as he started sifting through another stack of books. “Few women do.”

“Oh, they do. They’re just afraid to admit it. Yeah, equal pay for equal work and our bodies our selves and Gloria Steinem and all that jazz...but in that dusty dark little corner of every woman’s heart where we keep our maps of Tierra del Fuego lives the hunger to fetch a powerful man his slippers on her hands and knees.”

Eleanor was pleased to see her words had a similar effect on Daniel as his did on her. His breath quickened just slightly as his hands deliberately stroked the leather binding of the book in his hand.

“So you,” she said, meeting his eyes, “are a librarian. What does that make me then? A seven-day loan?”

Daniel laughed as he set his book aside. He moved toward her and lightly gripped her knees.

“Seven-day loan...I’m not sure I like the thought of giving you back.” He slid his hands up her thighs and took her by the hips.

“But what about the overdue fines?” she asked, playfully flashing her eyes at him.

“I think I can afford them,” he said. Eleanor tried to voice another protest but his mouth was already on hers.

He kissed her with an urgency she hadn’t felt last night. Last night he’d discovered, taken for his own. This morning she felt the need to have her. It wasn’t about her body as a stand-in for his wife. Eleanor had made him laugh, given him a break, if only momentary, from three years of pain. This time he wasn’t conquering. This time he was just grateful.

Daniel pulled her from her seat on the desk. She wondered if he would take her on the floor or take her back to his bedroom. Instead he turned her so she stood with her back to his chest. He laid one slow, possessive kiss along the length of her neck before pushing her forward onto the desk.

Eleanor forced a deep calming breath as Daniel stripped her naked from the waist down. She braced for his entrance, expecting it to be as sudden and fierce as last night’s. But he waited, running his hands over her thighs, across her lower back, slipping a hand between her legs to caress her outer lips until she was so eager for him she stood on her tiptoes in readiness. When he finally penetrated her it was slow and methodical. He gripped the back of her neck as he began thrusting. He didn’t go as deep today as last night either but moved in spirals in and out of her, reaching every corner inside her.

She moaned quietly, her hot breath steaming a patch of the cool mahogany of the desk under her cheek.

“You like it from behind,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

“God, yes,” she confessed without shame.

“There’s more than one way to enter from behind.”

“If you think that’s a threat, then you don’t know me very well,” she said, smug even while squirming underneath him.