Death and the Maiden

This is a brief excerpt from my novel in progress, Death and the Maiden:

We held each other quietly for a few minutes. With my fingertips I felt the soft skin of her neck, then gravity—or a force even stronger—lowered my hand to the top button of her blouse. Against my face, her breath felt like an elixir that might forever entwine us inside Alladin’s Lamp.

Before I realized how mawkish that sounded, my cell phone rang. Beethoven’s four V for Victory notes meant it was Willis Chubb. The ringing stopped and started again, Willis’s signal that it was urgent. Hope’s left breast felt like a hot plate. We looked at each other, Hope’s eyes showing a mixture of lust and resignation. She nodded toward my phone.

I reluctantly answered it. “Hey, Willis.”

“Am I interrupting something?”

“Yes. What’s so important?”

“How’s Hope? I heard.”

“Just fine. You’re on days. How’d you know?”

“Eyes and ears, twenty-four-seven, you know me. It took the city’s finest a half hour to find the perp at Saints ER. The douchebag’s name is Chuck Roswell. He showed up with one of your friend’s fancy fingernails stuck in his eyeball, he’ll probably trade it in for a glass one.”