The Shadow Hunter

buzzed.
    She answered it, irritated. “Yes?”
    “Mr. Stevens is here to see you,” one of the lobby guards said.
    “Okay, Vince. Send him up.”
    Stevens was the name Travis used when he stopped by. The guards weren’t supposed to know that Abby had any connection to the security field, and Travis’s name had been well publicized recently.
    She waited, wondering why Travis had returned.
    When the doorbell chimed, she opened the door, and he stepped inside without a word.
    “Hey, Paul. Forget something?”
    “Not exactly. I changed my mind.”
    “About what?”
    “The urgency of my return to the office.”
    She smiled, relaxing and at the same time feeling a rush of pleasant tension. “Did you?”
    “What’s that they say about all work and no play?” He took a look around the apartment. “Place looks the same as I remember it.”
    “Hasn’t been that long since you were here,” Abby said, then realized she was wrong. It had been weeks, and not only because she had been traveling. Even when she was in LA, she had seen less of Travis in the past few months—since the Devin Corbal case.
    He circled toward the balcony. “I see your view hasn’t improved.” Late last year an office tower had been erected across the street, coal-black and butt-ugly and, so far, unoccupied; some financial or legal screw-up had interrupted construction during the finishing stages.
    “I’m used to it,” Abby said, “though I have to admit, it doesn’t do a lot for the neighborhood. All that vacant office space…”
    She stopped. Both of them were silent for a moment, and she knew Travis was thinking of the empty offices in the TPS suite. She wanted to kick herself.
    But when Travis turned away from the balcony, he was smiling. “Do I hear water running?”
    “I’m drawing a bath.”
    “Sounds intriguing.”
    “I don’t think there’s room for two.”
    “Have you ever tested that hypothesis?”
    “Actually, no.”
    “You should. Why don’t you see if the water’s gotten hot?”
    “Why don’t I?”
    She left him in the living room and retreated down the hall to check the tub. It was half-full and the perfect temperature. The air in the bathroom was sensuously humid, thick with steam. Bath oil didn’t seem like a bad idea anymore. When she added it to the water, a lather of white bubbles sprang up, reflecting the overhead light in a bevy of rainbows. She took off the robe, hung it on the back of the door, and lowered herself into the tub. The space wascramped, and she thought pessimistically that she’d been right: there wasn’t room for two.
    Then he came in. He had left his clothes outside, and she saw him through the steamy haze. He bent over the tub and kissed her, and she felt a small disturbance in the water as he slid his hand into the bath to caress her breast. It was a slow circular caress—the light touch of his fingers, the firmer pressure of his palm—and then with his other hand he was stroking her hair, her neck, the lingering tension in her shoulders.
    “I still think you won’t fit,” she said mischievously.
    “We’ll see.”
    Travis reached behind her and turned off the tap, then stroked the lean, toned muscles of her back. The bathwater, leavened with oil, was smooth, supple, some exotic new liquid, not ordinary water at all.
    “I’ve missed you,” Travis said.
    She was briefly surprised. He was never sentimental.
    “I…” Why was this so hard for her to say? “I missed you too.”
    The water rose around her. He entered the tub, straddling her, his knees against her hips, as the water sloshed lazily around them and stray bubbles detached themselves from the lather to burst in small pops. “I’m not sure the circumstances allow for much finesse,” Travis said apologetically.
    She giggled. “Finesse isn’t always essential.”
    They rocked gently in the water and steam. She let her head fall back, her mop of wet hair cushioning her against the tiled wall. In the ceiling the exhaust fan hummed. The faucet dripped. She heard her heartbeat and Travis’s breath.
    “Abby,” he said.
    She shut her eyes.
    “Abby.”
    He was inside her.
    “
Abby…
”
    Pumping harder. Driving deeper.
    Her back arched, lifting her halfway out of the water, and her hair spilled across her face in a dark tangle, and distantly she was aware that she’d banged her head on the damn tiles, but it didn’t matter.
    He withdrew himself and held her, the two of them entwined amid soapsuds and