He held out a hand and helped her off the stool, led her out of the bar with firm and rapid steps.

“You don’t look like the type who came in a car,” she said, once they’d ducked out of the bar’s back entrance and smelled the comparatively fresh air of the alley outside.

“I didn’t.”

The night was warm, but he noticed that her nipples were hard under her dress, and the faint hairs on her arms stood on end. The moon was nearly full.

“We can take mine,” she said. Now she led, with the same fearlessness he’d displayed. Her car was an expensive red number, nicer than her forlorn little cocktail dress had led him to expect. She walked to the passenger side to let him in—an oddly chivalrous gesture.

“What do you do?” he asked as he settled his long body into the front seat.

She fiddled with her purse and put on lip balm. “Do you really care?”

He blinked. “I suppose not.”