I.

Two figures, long and lank, moved across the round, white moon in the Hong Kong skyline. They drifted around lazily most of the time and only when they came to move around one another did they pick up speed. Twirling in and out as they did, the pair eventually arrived at a railed bridge overlooking a small canal that went straight into the ocean. Brilliant Chinese décor lavished their surroundings in quaintly lit businesses as they located and procured a spot to themselves. Jake leaned over the rail a bit, not quite sure what to say - Sun waited.

"I had fun." He dared.

She chuckled a deep, womanly chuckle.

"That's something someone says on their first date, right?"

"What do you think?"

Jake didn't return her humor. "Is this wrong?" he moved his brown eyes to meet hers.

"Does it feel wrong?" Some of Sun's joking vanished.

They stayed quiet, looking back and forth at each other unsurely for a few minutes. As the moon seemed to lose a little of it's fullness, as the sounds of what could have been people in the distance made their way into earshot, Sun Park leaned forward with a devious smile on her face past Jake's downcast eyes. Before he could react, the woman bestowed a kiss upon his cheek. Jake became aware now and then slipped her a sly look. Sun ceremoniously took his hand and led him over to the start of a closed restaurant overlooking the bay. Not far out a shipyard lay abandoned and a coin - operated machine you could use to spy on it stood ready for it's next customer. Sun situated them both between this and the restaurant.

"Let me show you something." She said in her normal, authoritative voice. Jake watched as the woman placed her hands on his shoulders, bent down and met his widened eyes. It all finally dawned on him what his friends had been trying to say. This was wrong. He should -

Her velvet - soft lips enclosing his came as a blessing in disguise, enveloping him in great sweeps of desire and atonement. Somehow, her sealing mouth was actually crushing any remaining resistance Jake had and calming the tense wave of doubt that crashed into the weak, fragile muscle clinging to life in his chest. It was beating achingly in loneliness and heart break over the love loss and sense of displacement he felt. But as Sun's lips moved down to his neck, grazing his throat a little with her lower, energy spiked inside his heart.

How could Jake say "no" to feeling alive?

II. - In New York, in front of the Longs' brownstone home…

"Call Jake!" Fu Dog shouted.

Trixie flushed. "But what if he - ?"

The Sharpe growled at her hesitation. "Never mind what he says or does, just call him!"

"Jonathon!" Susan cried as tears filled her eyes.

The wail of sirens filled the night once more as paramedics rushed her husband off.

Jethro wailed along with them.

"It's true?" Haley asked in a warbled voice. "Jake is having an affair with my teacher?"

Fu Dog turned away from watching Trixie try to reach Jake; her efforts ending in ringing.

It was the endless ring of no contact. There was no voicemail, there was no options at all.

"Yeah, kid." his brown eyes grew from dismayed to defeated in the darkness. "I'm sorry."

To be continued…

~Lavenderpaw~