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Jackie’s was crowded and noisy, even at six o’clock. But of course, construction workers started early and they’d already been drinking for hours now. She got plenty of looks as she worked her way to the bar, but shrugged them off with practiced disdain. She wasn’t interested in these blue-collar louts, and she could project that with just a twitch of her hair, or merely by the way she walked. Rejecting men before they could even speak to her was a defensive skill she had mastered long ago.

She bought a pint, because she didn’t want to be standing around looking unoccupied. Then she put a dent in it, drinking it a third of the way down to establish that she had been here a while, and was perfectly fine on her own. Now sufficiently entrenched, she let herself look around the room, trying to ignore the slightly dizzy feeling from the quick intake of alcohol and its heady fumes.

He was at a large table at the end of the room. Not the center of attention, but a comfortable fixture in a group of men and women, laughing and joking with them. Just watching him, at ease with his friends, made her feel his simple decency.

Then she glimpsed the belt, a dark band around his waist, and caught her breath. Under his gentle movements were hard muscles, under his soft flannel shirt and blue jeans was a strip of tough leather, bound by a steel buckle. The contrast fascinated her.

Her breasts agreed. The thin silk of her blouse utterly failed to conceal the nipples that suddenly stood out, sharp points that would not fail to draw every man’s eye. She cursed herself for having taken off her brassiere. There was only one man she wanted looking at her, and she didn’t want him looking there. She certainly didn’t want her body betraying her, revealing feelings or desires she hadn’t decided to have.

But it was too late to change her mind now. He was making his way to the bar, an empty pitcher in his hand, buying a new round for his mates. She watched his face as his gaze ran up her body, his eyebrows crinkled in admiration. When he met her eyes, he grinned.

“Hello again,” he said. She waited for him to say something catty, to force her to acknowledge that she had sought him out, but he just stood there and smiled.

“Hello,” she said, frustrated at her inability to predict or manipulate him. Why couldn’t he act like a normal man? He wasn’t even staring at her breasts, despite the way her nipples strained for attention.

But she was staring at his waist, her mind drawn to the flat, black leather, a sensation like falling into a murky well of unfathomable depth.

“Does it still look good on me?”

She fought off a blush, and cast about for a way out of the conversational hole she had fallen into. “Where did you find it? There weren’t any more on the rack. I couldn’t even find a place for it.”

He shrugged, unconcerned. “It was just the first plain one I saw. Do you want to join us for a drink?” The pitcher was full now, and he was paying the bartender. Soon he would walk away again, and she could not bear the thought.

“All right.” She followed him across the room, her eyes fixed on the belt, ignoring his broad back and tight buttocks.

His friends included her in the festivities without question, extending her the friendliness that radiated from him. She made small talk and wondered what she was doing there. To keep her distance from the group, she found herself drinking more than she had intended. Just when she realized she should start taking it easy, the party broke up.

“Early day tomorrow,” he explained to her. “For all of us.” They were pouring concrete for a road, or a building, or something. She hadn’t really paid much attention to their laborer’s talk. Mostly she had concentrated on not staring at the belt. Several times she had become bored, and thought about leaving, but then her eyes would glimpse it again, and she would remain.

“Did you track down my address, detective?” he asked her on the way out, smiling.

She cut off his flirtation instantly, reflexively. “No.” But in the brief silence that followed, she surprised herself by saying, “Is it close? I could use a cup of coffee before I try to drive.”

He grinned. “Yes, it’s quite close.” They walked across the street together, not holding hands, but still a pair instead of two individuals.

“Welcome to my humble abode.” With a laugh, he unlocked the front door of a multi-story townhouse. They climbed three flights to the top floor, and she found herself in a small apartment with a huge bay window facing out across the tavern.

The apartment was sparsely furnished, but not barren, and reasonably neat and clean, although mostly from disuse. The rumpled bed in front of the main window was the surest sign that anyone actually lived there. Drawn to its disheveled covers and comfortably disarrayed pillows, she found that the apartment towered over the tavern, and the window looked out over the sea. She stared at the nighttime ocean, the gentle stars competing with the rigging of an occasional ship, the dock lights hard and silent.

“I rented it for the view.” He came out of the kitchen with cups of instant coffee. “But I should move now, I suppose.”

She should have asked why, but that was too much like interest, too much like caring. “Why do your friends call you chief?” she asked instead. The cup was still cool in her hands, not yet warmed by the heat of the coffee.

“Habit.” He put his arm around her, looking out to sea and drinking his own coffee.

This was what she was here for, wasn’t it? Why she had tracked him down at the pub. Why she had left her underwear in her purse. Why she had come up to his apartment and immediately run to his bedroom. Then why did she feel so distant, so uninvolved?

Like she always did.

Disappointed again, she began making up an exit strategy. She started to shrug his arm off, lowering her eyes demurely from the hypnotic vision of the bay, but then her gaze fell on the belt, and she stopped in mid-action.

The buckle gleamed faintly, reflecting the lights that shimmered off the sea. It called to her with a pull she could not understand or name.

He could not fail to see. “You really like this belt, don’t you?” Putting down his coffee, he began to take it off.

The sight made her knees weak, and she had to turn away.

“I’m sorry.” He laughed, misunderstanding. “I didn’t mean to imply… I was just going to show it to you.”

She was too confused by her inner turmoil to respond. Standing there, with her back to him, it was only natural that he should playfully snap the belt across her buttocks, trying to get her attention. “Hey there,” he said, chuckling.

It was only a slap, hardly more than a tickle, but the sensation arced through her spine like an electric shock, making her entire body twitch.