Oasis of Night by J.S. Cook Page B

It’s nice and cool out there with the windows open.”
    â€œSure, if you like.”
    For a while we sat there, drinking coffee and talking of nothing much, which was good, because my mind certainly wasn’t on the conversation. I watched his mouth as he talked, and the flutter of his long lashes, and his graceful hands, reaching to pour coffee or add sugar, and I reminded myself that he was married, with four children. “You said you wanted to talk about Jonah Octavian.”
    He didn’t waste time with preamble. “You believe Jonah Octavian was behind the abduction of Constable Picco and yourself. You also believe he is responsible for the murder of the beggar Johnny Mahoney in front of your cafe.”
    â€œI never thought of him that way.” But the word “beggar” fit Mahoney and all the others like him.
    â€œForgive me if I offend you. In my country there are a great many beggars, and what we call baksheesh boys, always with their hands out, eager to exploit all possible sources. Some consider it an honorable profession.” He tilted his head to the side, regarding me. “What would you have called him?”
    â€œI dunno. A pain in the ass?”
    Sam laughed long and hard at this, and I was glad. I liked to see him laugh. It did wonderful things to his lean, tanned face and the sculpted lines of his mouth. “Such colloquialisms! You are a funny man, Jack.” He clasped my forearm and then he was leaning down and our faces were close together in the dark. “Does it really matter that I am married?”
    My heartbeat speeded up, thumping double-time in my chest, and maybe I made some little sound in my throat, I don’t know for sure. His lips ghosted over mine as the very tip of his tongue slipped into my mouth, and the night and the Cafe swirled into nothing as I gave myself to the kiss. When I opened my eyes, my hands were clenched in the front of his shirt, several of his buttons were undone, and he was breathing heavily, his eyes closed and his long, thick lashes fanned against his cheeks.
    He swallowed hard and drew back, and we looked at each other in silence until he broke the gaze to take a hurried sip of his coffee. “I came here to ask you if you might not allow Jonah Octavian his freedom—at least for a little while longer.”
    I rubbed the ball of my thumb against his lips. “Why would the British Consulate care about Jonah Octavian?”
    â€œYou know I can’t tell you that.” He captured my hand in his, drew my thumb into his mouth, and sucked on it.
    â€œOh, Sam… for the love of God, stop that.”
    He disengaged my thumb and drew my index finger briefly into his mouth, sucked it strongly, and the motion of his lips set up an answering pulse deep inside my belly. “Your people are too hasty, Jack. You are always in a hurry.” His mouth hovered over mine, our breaths mingling in the space above my lips. “You do not allow yourself to understand the enormous debt you owe to pleasure, nor the many barriers you have erected against it.” He kissed me again, a slow caress that deepened gradually. “You need to be shown how to love.” He stroked my cheek with a raw tenderness as sublime as it was painful; his long, agile fingers traced the contours of my face till I was drowning in sensation. “ Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there .”
    â€œWhat is that?” My whisper sounded abnormally loud. “That’s from something, isn’t it? What is it?”
    â€œAn old poet, long dead—a Sufi mystic named Rumi.” He kissed my mouth gently and rose to go. “Good night, Jack.”
    â€œGood night, Sam.”
    I stood at the back door of my cafe and watched him disappear into the night, and I thought about old stories of fairies, ghosts, and djinn as his slight figure moved in and out of the pools of pale light