Phoebe got ready to do the second layout — the one for Alan’s daughter — over the top of the reading she’d done on Alan.

But Alan put a hand over hers before she could shuffle or deal the cards, and her nerves gave a little skitter.

“No more cards,” he said. “I don’t think I can stand to find out the rest of this. I thought I could, but she’s my kid, and...” He shook his head, and Phoebe saw that he had grown pale.

“We can do it another time if you want,” she said, and started to scoop the cards into a pile.

Ice air slammed into Phoebe like a gut punch and drove right through her, straight into her bones and her blood, so hard and fierce that for just a second she couldn’t breathe. Her skin crawled, and a voice whispered in her ear, close and urgent. A child’s voice.

Phoebe swallowed hard and gripped the edge of the desk.

Alan shivered, staring into her eyes. “What is it?”

And Phoebe found the breath to say, “She’s here.”

“My daughter?”

“She says you call her Chick. She can’t stay long. She says she’s tired from yesterday — that just getting here is hard for her, and making me hear her is almost impossible.”

Phoebe stood, unsteady, heart racing, hanging on to the desk for support. “She says this can’t wait. That you can’t not listen to her. If you don’t listen, one of us will be dead before a birthday. Either yours or mine — either I’m having a hard time hearing her or she’s being intentionally vague.”

Alan leaned against the desk, and Phoebe could see sweat beading on his upper lip. “I never told you her nickname,” he said.

“She did,” Phoebe said. “She’s showing me pictures now — those are easier for her, I think.” Phoebe relaxed and let the words and the images she was getting tumble out without censorship. “A tall, golden blonde woman. Green dress. A silver sports car. Convertible. The top down. Camaro? No. More expensive. I suck at identifying cars. Foreign, though, I think. Smarmy young man, good-looking, has that sort of tennis-pro country-club ooze about him. Alcohol — a lot of it. And your little girl, in the backseat, no seat belt. She says she’s sorry she sneaked out.”

“Chick sneaked out?”

Phoebe sat still for a moment, trying to read the images and catch the words and impressions that flowed over her. “She didn’t want her mother to leave. She saw the suitcase and thought if she hid in the back of the car, she could find a way to make her mother stay — to make her come home and be a good mommy.”

Alan had tears running down his cheeks; his eyes were tightly closed. “That sounds just like her,” he said, and his voice was tight. “All this time, I thought Janet was just being irresponsible again for not having anything packed for Chick. That she was stealing her... but not because she wanted her. Just because she... knew... I... wanted her.”

Phoebe touched his arm and said, “I’m sorry. I cannot imagine what it would be like to lose a child.”

She didn’t say anything about losing a spouse — especially not a spouse who had turned out to be a nightmare. She didn’t offer any sympathies for the loss of Janet, either. She had the powerful impression that, at the end, the loss of his wife had not been a loss Alan regretted much.

Alan’s body was rigid, his arms tight at his sides, his fists clenched. “This isn’t happening,” he said.

Phoebe looked at him and said, “Your daughter says she had her lucky stone in her pocket at the time of the accident. That you have it in your wallet now.”

“She told you about her lucky stone?” He shook his head. “She can’t have told you that.”

“She says it’s in your pocket. That you have to believe, so she told me. Because you’re in danger. We’re both in danger, and you have to believe.”

Alan pulled his wallet out of his back pocket. It had a lump in one side where the leather had stretched and worn over a long period of time. He hooked a finger into the billfold and came out with a flat white stone about the size of an old silver half-dollar. On one side Phoebe saw a flower in bright blue with a yellow center, done in paint — lopsided, smeared, and worn away by time and much handling. “Forget-me-not, she said,” Alan whispered. “She made it when she was four.”

He stared at the stone lying in the palm of his hand, frozen. Then he slid bonelessly to the floor, to his knees, and his shoulders started shaking, and he began to sob. His fingers wrapped tighter and tighter around the stone until his knuckles went bone white and the veins at his wrist popped up. His head dropped to the carpet.

Chick was gone. The cold drained away, and Phoebe cautiously knelt beside Alan on the floor and put an arm around his shoulder. “Hey,” she whispered, and stroked his hair. “Hey. She showed you she’s okay. She showed you that she still loves you. She’s watching out for you.”

Phoebe sagged a little from the relief of being alone in her own head again. Her relief didn’t last long, though. Alan’s grief bled over to her, inescapable and overwhelming. He clutched that little rock like a drowning man hanging on to floating wreckage. “I... she was really here.”

“I know,” Phoebe said. “She wants you to be all right, and she says you haven’t been.”

He raised his head, closed his eyes tightly, and took a deep breath. It took him a few moments, but when he had himself under control, he said, “I buried myself the day I buried Chick. I’ve never believed in anything beyond this life — and Chick was my life. Especially once her mother...” He shook his head. “Her mother was wild. I don’t know that Janet was faithful a single day of our marriage. I do know that Chick was mine, but only because when we had to draw blood on her once, I had a friend check for me. It wouldn’t have changed the way I felt about Chick if she hadn’t been mine,” he said, turning to look at Phoebe. “But knowing that I had a legal claim to her that her mother couldn’t refute gave me options, I thought. There at the end, I’d started looking for options.”

Phoebe nodded and slid her hand into his, and squeezed, offering what comfort she could. “I know all about hunting for options,” she said.

Alan met her gaze and took a slow, shaky breath. And squeezed back, and Phoebe realized how warm his hand was, and how strong. How big. How good it felt touching hers. He said, “I know more about avoiding them. I didn’t want anything to change. I wanted Janet to love me. I’d loved her since we were both kids, and for a long time I thought she would eventually see how much I loved her and that would win her over.” He laughed a little, sounding bitter. “It didn’t. She might have been capable of loving someone, but not me. And not Chick.”

And Phoebe heard what he was saying, but her focus was on their hands touching, on the feel of his skin against hers. Simple touch, and it undid her, and she ached for something she’d never had, something she never would have. The caring touch of a man.

She looked away from him, afraid that he would see her need and think that she was after him, that everything she had done had been an attempt to seduce him — as insane as that sounded even to her with her fogged thoughts and her galloping pulse. She started to get back to her feet, easing her bad leg straight underneath her, preparing herself for a quick exit.

Alan stood with an easy, smooth grace that Phoebe, struggling to get to her own feet, envied. Then he gave her an odd, intense little smile and bent down to slide an arm around her waist. “That has to be hell,” he said.

She shrugged as he lifted her to her feet. “I’m not dead. Under the circumstances, I’m inclined to treat the knee as no big deal.”

He left his arm around her waist and she felt her mouth go dry and her pulse tear faster through her arteries. Alan stared into her eyes, and she saw a hunger there unlike anything she’d ever experienced. Naked desire. Real desire. For her. He licked his upper lip — just the quickest nervous darting of the tip of his tongue. In that instant he no longer looked so ordinary. To her, he looked exciting. Wild. Beautiful.

She had time only to notice that his breathing was as quick and uneven as hers; then he tightened his arm around her and stepped in to pull her against the length of his body, and he leaned down to kiss her.

In the back of her mind, the nervous voice of reason said, Put a stop to this right now. Get out of here. Go home. But Phoebe answered that sensible little voice with an irritated Shut up.

She slid her hands up over his shoulders. Thrilled by the unexpected power and the incredible flood of desire she felt, she pulled him closer. His lips moved across hers, hard and hungry, demanding instead of asking. She gave as good as she got, tangling her fingers in his hair, darting her tongue with desperate stabs against his, and sliding her right thigh up the outside of his leg to his hip. He groaned as she arched against the length of his erection and he lifted her off the ground, his hands under her skirt, hot on the soft cotton of her panties. She wrapped her strong left leg around him and stared straight into his eyes, which were suddenly level with hers.

“Oh, my God... you have to go now or I’m going to go crazy,” he said, his voice lower, rough, as if he was having a hard time forcing the words out.

The sensible little voice — the same one that had told her to marry Michael because she’d promised to, the same one that had told her that nice girls didn’t have sex before marriage, the same one that had said if her fiancé didn’t touch her before the wedding it was because he respected her and not because something was wrong, the same one that had told her after the wedding that if Michael hurt her it was because she was doing something wrong — that voice said, You are not going to lower yourself to doing anything vile and degrading with this complete stranger because you aren’t that sort of woman. And Phoebe knew that, just once, she could find out what it was like to be touched by someone who wanted her. Who desired her. Just once.

More than anything, at that moment she wanted to know. So she countered that worried little voice by taking a deep breath and pressing her lips softly against Alan’s ear and saying words she had never in her life even dared to think before: “You’re not going to go crazy. You’re going to lay me down on the floor and pull my panties off and have your way with me.”

And then she bit his ear.

Alan growled and his eyes went black with passion, and he tightened his grip on her and carried her out of the office to the soft, plush decorator rug on the carpeted floor of the loft. He knelt quickly, gently lowering her to the floor, still holding her, and — staring into her eyes — pulled up her skirt and grabbed her panties. He didn’t pull them down, though. He slid them down fast, his hands burning a line along her bare skin, and she kicked free of the panties and watched as he tossed them and they went sailing over the balcony. He moved in, shoved her thighs apart with his. He leaned over her, and she could feel his hardness through his jeans. She reached for his zipper, but he shook his head. “My job,” he said, and kissed her again, so perfectly that she thought she’d gladly give up breathing if he just wouldn’t quit, and he caught her wrists in one hand and pulled them over her head. With his other hand, he grabbed the hem of her blouse and pulled it over her head.

She shuddered and lifted her hips and tightened her thighs against his hips, shoving herself upward against him. The denim of his jeans separated his skin from hers, but the teasing closeness just made her hungrier to pull him inside her. She hooked her left leg over the small of his back and whispered, “I want you.”

He smiled just a little and shook his head. “Not just yet.” He undid the front hook on her bra and tugged the bra under her back and up. Blouse and bra tangled around her wrists; she squirmed out of them and started to touch Alan.

He kissed her and caught both of her hands in one of his and held them over her head. “Not yet. You’ll distract me,” he said. Then he stretched out over her and lowered his body onto hers.

She whispered, “Yes.” He remained fully dressed while she lay, captive to his touch and nearly naked, with her skirt pooled around her waist and her sandals still on.

She should have felt helpless. But Phoebe had never felt more powerful in her life. She nuzzled the soft skin at the juncture of his shoulder and neck, licking and nipping, then slid her lips to the hollow of his throat and kissed him, and when she heard him gasp, caught the smooth skin of his throat in her teeth. He trembled at her touch, and she heard the sharp intake of his breath.

“Give me,” she said without letting go.

He lifted himself off of her and broke away from the grip of her legs around him. He gently lowered her right leg, and let her fend for the left one herself. He sat looking down at her, lips parted, breathing hard, pupils huge. He placed one hand flat on her belly, just above the soft nest of curled hair, and she thought he would slide it down between her legs, to the desperate, yearning, aching nub hidden there. “Yes,” she whispered. But he moved upward instead, his hand tracing a line from belly to ribs to tingling breasts and tight, erect nipples.

He caught one nipple between finger and thumb, tugging and teasing, and she moaned and dug her fingers into the carpet. He pressed his thumb hard into the lower curve of her breast, circled it around the outside of the nipple, and she closed her eyes and bit her lower lip to keep from crying out at the pleasure of it.

Then he was stroking both her breasts, kneading and tugging her nipples, and she squirmed beneath him, excited by his hunger, by the fierce yearning in his touch, by her own raging desire. He suddenly dropped his mouth to one breast and started sucking and licking, and while he did, he held himself above her with one hand and moved the other between her legs, stroking the inside of her thighs, still withholding the contact she craved, the penetration of him into her.

“Don’t tease me,” she groaned, her eyes tightly shut, her body arching against his hand, trying to force him where she wanted him.

She reached for his buttons, and he caught her hands and pushed them over her head again. “Leave them there.”

His shirt against her bare skin drove her crazy. “Take your clothes off,” she begged him. “I want to feel your skin on mine. I want you in me.”

He lifted his mouth from her breast and grinned at her. “Hush,” he said. “You’re in too big a hurry. It’s been... a while for me. I want this to last. So you have to go first.”

He lowered his head again and began licking and nibbling down the center of her chest, down her belly, and then between her legs. His thumbs separated the folds that hid her clitoris, and she whimpered and hung on to the leg of the coffee table as he licked and sucked, bit and teased.

“Oh God.” The intensity of the pleasure was too much — in her whole life she’d never felt anything like it. She shuddered and her body trembled at his every touch. Heat flooded her, spreading upward, and waves of little explosions from deep inside her rocked her, and she cried out, wordless, eyes closed, thrashing to get away from pleasure so fierce she didn’t think she could take any more. She pushed against the table, felt it slide, squirmed upward, pushed again.

Alan grabbed her hips and dragged her back down to him, laughing at her response, and started in with his tongue again — but this time he slid two fingers deep inside her, moving them while he caught her clitoris lightly between his teeth and flicked it with his tongue. Phoebe lost her breath and her entire body went rigid, and inside she exploded. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t speak, she couldn’t do anything but moan and tremble, while the thrill of his touch drove her to the brink of passing out.

He stopped, and pulled his shirt off, and then his jeans. She watched him undress through eyes heavy-lidded with lust — but her eyes opened wide as he slid out of his Jockeys.

He moved over her, a satyr’s wicked smile on his lips, his gaze fierce and ravenous, and he lowered himself until the soft furring of his chest brushed her breasts and the heavy head of his cock pushed against her.

She lifted her hips up to him, crazy with desire.

He stilled himself, his body over hers, his muscles bunching beneath her hands, and closed his eyes, and let out a long, slow breath.

“Phoebe...?”

“I’m ready,” she whispered.

And he groaned. “Oh, Phoebe, so am I.”

She dragged her nails lightly down his back and over his buttocks. “Don’t tease me.”

A soft, strangled sound at the back of his throat. “I wish I were teasing you.”

She stroked his shoulders, willing him to get back to touching her, to making love to her. “What’s wrong?”

“I am trying to remember the last time I saw a condom anywhere nearby.”

Condom. Oh, hell. Phoebe had forgotten about condoms. “And that was...?”

“In the hospital restroom.” He grimaced. “I don’t suppose you’re in the habit of carrying condoms in that backpack of yours?”

She dropped her head back on the carpet, but she still couldn’t stop touching him. “Not a chance. I gave up on sex a lifetime ago. You?”

“Haven’t had one in six years. Maybe even a little longer. I decided I was going to be a monk.” He looked down at her. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” He kissed her gently, and with evident regret. “Not so much, now.”

Her hands stroked circles on the small of his back. “I could cast a vote for complete irresponsibility right now,” Phoebe said.

Alan said, “I could, too. You have no idea.” He looked wistful. “Well, maybe you do.” He kissed her forehead, the tip of her nose, her chin, and then he moved gracefully away from her, turning to kneel beside her with his back to her. And he started gathering up his clothes.

No, she thought. “There are things I can do instead,” she whispered, sitting up. She ran a finger up his spine, slowly.

“These days, all those things require a condom, too.”

He turned towards her and ran one hand gently over her shoulder, her breast, along her rib cage, over her hip. “You are so beautiful.”

She could see the resolve in his eyes as he moved away, stood, and pulled on his blue jeans.

Phoebe’s skin pebbled with a sudden chill, and for a moment she could almost believe Chick was returning — and wouldn’t that be embarrassing? But then she realized the air conditioner had kicked on and she was right under the vent.

She couldn’t stand that he had stopped touching her. She wanted to feel his hands on her, to feel his skin beneath her palms. She wanted him inside her.

But he wasn’t going to give in to temptation. With a pang of regret, she stood and looked around the loft. Her bra and blouse were under the coffee table. She fished them out and put them on. The panties were caught high on Alan’s dining room chandelier, she discovered when she looked over the balcony railing for them. They were reachable neither from the loft nor, without a ladder, from downstairs. But the skirt was long enough she could just forget about her panties for the short trip home.

As dressed as she could get, Phoebe stood there looking at Alan for a moment, wanting him even more than she had just moments earlier, when she’d thought she was going to have him.

“You do naked better than anyone I’ve ever seen,” she said. The look he gave her turned his ordinary face beautiful, and the lines of his body, in jeans and nothing else, made her ache to touch him.

“Thank you for the very best time I ever almost had,” he said, and walked over to her and kissed her lightly on the lips. She started to move in, to let her hands explore him, but he pulled away with a soft laugh and a shake of his head. “If we go there again, we aren’t stopping for anything short of the end of the world,” he said. “And if you touch me, we’re going there.”

She laughed a little, amazed at how shaky her voice sounded. “Well. Thank you for the very best time I ever had,” she said.

Neither of them said, “Let’s do this again.” Neither of them suggested a quick trip to the drugstore, or a date for the next day. This had been a one-time thing, Phoebe knew — Alan had been emotionally shattered. Phoebe had let herself take advantage of that. She’d matched him challenge for challenge and pushed his buttons and let her passion stand in the way of her good sense. And it had been worth it, and she wasn’t the slightest bit sorry. In her entire life, no one had ever touched her with such passion, or looked at her with such hunger, or made her feel so good. She would have paid a thousand dollars for a single condom right then, because she wanted to finish what they’d started before Alan came to his senses.

But she didn’t have a thousand dollars, and no one had a condom, and this moment had passed. It wouldn’t come again.

Alan was, in fact, looking at her strangely. Of course. He was already having second thoughts, wondering what the hell he’d been thinking. Time, she thought, to make a graceful exit, before he realized she was evidently every bit the sex-crazed slut Michael had accused her of being for most of their relationship.

Pity it hadn’t been true at the time, she thought, caught up in a wave of rebelliousness. She’d never imagined how delicious it was to be a slut.

She gathered up her tarot cards. He gave her his home and work numbers in case Chick left her any messages. She wrote her home number on the back of an envelope for him in case Chick tried to reach him. They said polite good-byes, all very proper and distant and she made her way carefully down the stairs, just a little thrilled by the breezes that blew up her skirt as she descended and the wicked depravity of walking home wearing no underwear.