Northern Lights

like a couple of outfielders shagging pop flies.
    "You . . . used to steal."
    "I don't really equate shoplifting with stealing."
    "Taking things, not paying for them."
    "Okay, okay." She rolled her eyes. "But it was really more of a rite of passage, at least for me. And I was too slick to get caught like those kids you bagged today. I never took anything I had any use for. It was more: Hmm, wonder if I can get away with this. Then I'd hide the booty in my room and take it all out at night and gloat over it. I'd take it all back within a couple of days, which was nearly as dangerous and thrilling. I think I'd have been a good criminal if I lived somewhere else, because I got that it's not so much what you get as the getting of it."
    "You don't still . . ."
    "No, but now that you mention it, it might be fun to see if I still have the knack. And if I get busted, I have this in with the chief of police." She dropped her feet, leaned over to pat his thigh while he studied her with those serious, gray eyes. "Don't look so worried. Everybody in town knows I'm crazy and wouldn't hold it against me."
    She rose. "Let's get these dishes out of the way. Why don't you let the dogs out? They like a good run this time of day."
    Once the kitchen was tidied to her specifications and the dogs settled down on the floor with a couple of tibia-sized rawhide bones, she wandered into the living room to flip through her CD list.
    "I don't think Puccini sets the right tone for the next portion of our evening."
    "Is that what that was? The opera stuff ?"
    "Well, I guess that answers the question of your opinion on that area of music."
    "I just don't know anything about it. I liked the way it sounded outside when I drove up. Sort of full and strange and heart-wrecking."
    "There may be hope for you. Hmm, could pull out Barry White, but it seems pretty obvious. What do you think of Billie Holiday?"
    "Ah, dead blues singer?"
    She turned to him. "Okay, what do you know about music?"
    "I know stuff. What's on the radio or, you know, VH1." Her amused stare had him stuffing his hands in his pockets. "I like Norah Jones."
    "Norah Jones it is, then." She found a number, then programmed her unit to select it.
    "And Black Crowes," he continued in his own defense. "And actually, Jewel's new stuff is pretty hot. Springsteen's still The Boss. And there's—"
    "Don't sweat it." She laughed and grabbed his hand. "Jones works fine for me." She began drawing him up the stairs. "If you do me right, I'll hear my own music anyway."
    "But no pressure."
    "Bet you can handle it." At the top of the stairs, she turned into him, backed him through a doorway. "Handle me, chief. I've been wanting you to."
    "I think about you all the time. At inappropriate moments."
    She hooked her arms around his waist. She'd been needing him, she'd been wanting him. So strange, so new for her to need and want so very specifically. "Such as?"
    "Like picturing you naked when I was going over the weekly rotation with Peach. It can be disconcerting."
    "I like you picturing me naked, especially at inappropriate times." She grazed her teeth over his jaw. "Why don't you get me that way now?"
    "I like you dressed, too. Just FYI," he said as he tugged her sweater up.
    He liked the feel of her body under his hands and how he had to go layer by layer before he reached skin. And how warm that skin was, how smooth. And despite the fleece and wool and cotton, despite all that practicality, there was the secret, sexy scent of her under it.
    She touched him, easily and eagerly, stripping those layers from him as he did from her. And she lit something inside him, something more than lust. Something that had been hibernating far too long.
    He could lose himself in her without feeling lost. Let himself go without worrying if he'd find his way back. When his mouth closed over hers, tasted both surrender and demand, he had all he needed.
    They circled toward the bed, lowered to it. He heard her sigh and wondered if she could be as relieved or as needy as he. She drew him down, arched and offered when his mouth roamed her throat, when his teeth nipped their way to her nape. He felt her heart kick lightly against his and the firm, welcoming stroke of her hands on his back.
    She wanted him to take what he needed. That was rare for her, a woman who preferred seeing to her own needs first—and often last as well. But she wanted to give to him, to ease away that smudge of sorrow that haunted his eyes. And she