John turned his face away from her as if she had said something painful, his gaze fixed on a point in the dark yard. Then he made a small sound, a half sigh of surrender, and without warning he leaned past her to turn off the lamp with a sound like the snap of a wishbone.

“There,” he said, his voice low and steady. “That takes care of Peggy Hillard. Now let’s take care of you.”

He put his hands on her to draw her toward him. John felt her first startle and then soften in acquiescence, in welcome, in pleasure. She curled against him and he put his hands in her hair, tilted her head up.

“I shouldn’t have come. Maybe if you weren’t wearing this particular T-shirt I could leave. But you are, and I can’t.”

She met his kiss with a hint of nervousness that gave way immediately, her mouth soft and warm and familiar, the kiss spiraling down and down, drawing them together at breast and belly and hip. There was an instantaneous heavy stirring in his groin. He ran his hands up her back under the T-shirt, his thumb skidding along the indentation of her spine and drawing a shudder from her.

John smiled against her mouth and she took his face between her hands and drew him down over her, smiling, too, both of them on the verge of laughter that they should find themselves like this after so long. Finally. She nipped his ear and he yelped and she ran her tongue down the bristling line of his jaw. And then she did laugh, a low laugh full of anticipation.

“This is right,” she said, a little breathlessly. A statement of fact.

“Oh, yeah.” He smoothed her hair away from her face. “I should never have let you go. I never did let you go, not really.”

He kissed her breathless while he rocked into her on the broad old sofa, pressing himself against her, relearning her touch and feel, the curves and hollows and the taste of her. She flexed, and then gave in and up and let go, went fluid beneath him. Her T-shirt came off first, leaving her in nothing but the shorts that she wouldn’t let him draw down her legs, not yet, not yet. Not until she had pulled his shirt over his head and set to work on his pants, peeling them down over his hips and stopping to kiss his belly, her mouth open and wet. She looked up at him, her face an oval in the dark, her eyes gleaming, and reached into his pants pocket, pulled out his wallet and flipped it open, fished with two fingers and then held up the condom like a magic coin.

“You are such a boy scout. Always prepared.”