“You’re going to think I’m a real bum,” she said, her voice thick. Her laugh rose and cracked like breaking glass. “A bum,” she repeated. “A cheap one-night stand for the first guy she meets. Please, Danny, I don’t want you to think that way. Let me go, Danny I Please let me go! I’ll . . .”
 
The fire was there in her mouth and her teeth slashed at him as he kissed her. He tasted the salt of his own blood and he cursed her and kissed her harder. Her fingernails bruised his flesh, digging in.
 
Maybe she was a bum, or a tramp—or any one of the number of things that it was possible for a woman to be.
 
Originally published as Cabin Fever.
 
HE DIDN’T KNOW. HE DIDN’T CARE. SHE WAS A WOMAN -AND HE WANTED HER.