Definitely Dead

knew of, and Quinn thought that Jake must have been killed for the embarrassment it would cause Hadley, rather than for any sin of Jake’s own.
    I saw neither hide nor hair of Amelia, and I wondered if she’d gone home with the Mormonish Bob. Or maybe he’d stayed with her, and they were having a fabulous time in Amelia’s apartment. Maybe he was a real ball of fire under that white shirt and those black pants. I looked around the courtyard. Yes, Bob’s bicycle was still propped against the brick wall. Since the sky was getting darker by the minute, I put the bike in the little shed, too.
    Being with Quinn all day was stoking my fire a bit hotter every moment. He was down to a tank top and jeans, and I found myself wondering what he’d look like without those. And I didn’t think I was the only one conjecturing about what people would look like naked. I could catch a flash from Quinn’s mind every now and then as he was toting a bag down the stairs or packing pots and pans into a box, and those flashes weren’t about opening his mail or doing his laundry.
    I had enough practical presence of mind left to switch on a lamp when I heard the first peal of thunder in the distance. The Big Easy was about to be drenched.
    Then it was back to flirting with Quinn wordlessly—making sure he had a good view when I stretched up to get a glass down from the cabinets or bent down to wrap that glass in newspaper. Maybe a quarter of me was embarrassed, but the rest of me was having fun. Fun had not been a big factor in my life recently—well, ever—and I was enjoying my little toddle on the wild side.
    Downstairs, I felt Amelia’s brain click on, after a fashion. I was familiar with the feel of this, from working in a bar: Amelia had a hangover. I smiled to myself as the witch thought of Bob, who was still asleep beside her. Aside from a basic, “How could I?” Amelia’s most coherent thought was that she needed coffee. She needed it bad. She couldn’t even turn on a light in the apartment, which was darkening steadily with the approach of the storm. A light would hurt her eyes too much.
    I turned with a smile on my lips, ready to tell Quinn we might be hearing from Amelia soon, only to find he was right behind me, and his face was intent with a look I could not mistake. He was ready for something entirely different.
    “Tell me you don’t want me to kiss you, and I’ll back off,” he said, and then he was kissing me.
    I didn’t say a word.
    When the height difference became an issue, Quinn just picked me up and put me on the edge of the kitchen counter. A clap of thunder sounded outside as I parted my knees to let him get as close to me as he could. I wrapped my legs around him. He pulled the elastic band out of my hair, not a totally pain-free process, and ran his fingers through the tangles. He crushed my hair in his hand and inhaled deeply, as if he were extracting the perfume from a flower.
    “This is okay?” he asked raggedly, as his fingers found the bottom back edge of my tank top and sneaked up under it. He examined my bra tactilely and figured out how to open it in record time.
    “Okay?” I said, in a daze. I wasn’t sure whether I meant, “Okay? Hell, yes, hurry up!” or “Which part of this is okay, you want to know?” but Quinn naturally took it as a green light. His hands pushed the bra aside and he ran his thumbs across my nipples, which were already hard. I thought I was going to explode, and only the sure anticipation of better things to come kept me from losing it right then and there. I wriggled even further to the edge of the counter, so the big bulge in the front of Quinn’s jeans was pressed against the notch in my pants. Just amazing, how they fit. He pressed against me, released, pressed again, the ridge formed by the stretch of the jeans over his penis hitting just the right spot, so easy to reach through the thin and stretchy spandex. Once more, and I cried out, holding on to him through the blind moment of orgasm when I could swear I’d been catapulted into another universe. My breathing was more like sobbing, and I wrapped myself around him like he was my hero. In that moment, he certainly was.
    His breathing was still ragged, and he moved against me again, seeking his own release, since I had so loudly had mine. I sucked on his neck while my hand went down between us, and stroked him through his jeans, and suddenly he gave a cry as ragged as mine had been, and his arms