Somehow I knew it would point at him. When the bottle quivered to a stop, I followed its neck to the groin it was pointing at. By the time I looked into his eyes, he had already decided. I could see it there.

There was like this collective quiet around the circle. And then I started laughing because it was just really far too perfect. Besides, I was a bit looped. Everything seemed funny at the time.

Even when he rose to his feet, took two giant steps through the center of the circle, bent to wrap his arms around my waist and hoisted me up. Next thing I knew, I was staring down at the circle and saw all these shocked faces. It made me laugh.

"Let's get the fuck outta here," Hando growled out. I might have squealed.

Jack's outraged bellow stopped him in his tracks. "Avast there! Unhand her, you whoreson scoundrel!"

I felt myself whipped around and realized Hando had turned to face them all. The only thing I could see? Hando's ass. Not a bad view.

"She's the one who spun. The rest of ya can have your fun. I'll have mine. No sense waiting to see what else happens."

"Put her down, Hando," I heard Maximus' voice. "Allow the game to proceed."

I started laughing again. "I think the game's proceeding just fine. Are we going to do this or not?"

Hando giggled, delighted that I was on his side, and he turned back around. I looked back up, grinned at them all.

Then saw Jack's face. "Jack! It's all right, my love. Truly. Hando and I are buddies. I'll be fine. Have fun tonight!"

An instant later, we were in the corridor leading to the cabins. It suddenly dawned on me. Where would we go? And I rather knew what Hando had in mind. I whacked his ass and told him, "Anywhere but the Captain's cabin, Hando. And I don't want to go to you and Teener's room either."

He stopped, pulled me off his shoulder and glared down at me. "Why not the Captain's cabin? We're first out. Why can't we claim it?"

"You know why. Don't try to act like a jerk. Some things are inviolate. I will not spend the night in our bed with another man. Even you."

Got his evil grin and he backed me into the wall. "You like that you got me, don't you?"

"I couldn't have had a better outcome. I wet myself when the bottle stopped on you."

"Let me feel."

My hand on his chest and my own evil smile for him. "Thought you had the power to smell when a woman got excited over you."

"You owe me a few you know."

"So you said in Miami. Shall we start making it up to you?"

"Where to then, spitfire?"

"Plenty of empty cabins on the ship. C'mon. Let's find one we like."

In a million years, I'm not sure I would have thought I'd feel this way. I'm usually very shy and unsure when mixed in with a group of men and women who start suggesting engaging in libido games like naked hot tub parties and spin the bottle. Guess it's because there's still this part of me that figures I might not be chosen in such games.

But Hando has always made me feel desired. Craved even. Like sometimes he needs a "fix" of me and nothing else will do.

So in the uncomfortable giddiness of that little game upstairs, in the sweat of worry that the bottle might have stopped on the one person I could never have felt like anything but worthless with ... to have it stop on Hando and for him to immediately act like he was thrilled to have me? Forgive me, heh? This was a dream.

We wandered down the corridor and checked out a few of the rooms. Eventually, we agreed on one. It wasn't anything that different than the others. An outside cabin with one of those oversized window portholes. Lots of teak on the walls made it glow in the dim light of the bedside table. Bedcovering and drapes and carpet done in soft colors of the sea.

I wandered around, checking it out. Then stopped and looked back at him. He was standing in the center of the room and watching me.

"So. What shall we do? Think you've mentioned several times about me making things up to you."

"Just you and me, Annie. Down and dirty. Let's go, love."

I walked over and stood in front of him. Ran my fingers over his bare torso. His tan had turned his skin golden. It only added to his magnificence. I traced the tattoo in the middle of his chest. My fingers followed the outlines: flags, the figure. Down to his navel. His cut off jeans below. The metal clasp there.

I looked up into his eyes. "Do you have any idea you do that?" I whispered to him. "That little tremble you get in your tummy? You try so hard to control it but I always see it."

His eyes glinted. He always looked like a dangerous, feral animal when he looked down at me like that. "Take them off."

Licked my lips. This was promising as a start. That voice. That look. That coldness. He could hide from me all he wanted, but I knew. My fingers slowly released the clasp and then carefully lowered his zipper. I watched him the whole time. I watched him watching me. I saw the first bead of sweat begin to form above his lip. I reached up and licked it off just before I slid down to lower his jeans to his ankles. He was bare before me.

My sex god.

I trailed my fingers over his hardness as I retook my feet. My eyes still locked to his. Not challenging him. Just his match.

His hands started at my neck. Caressing it like he was trying to decide. Then they melted down my arms. I saw the quick flick of a grin and knew he'd decided. His hands wrapped around my wrists and he pulled my arms straight up over my head.

"On your knees." Saying it quiet. Saying it hard. Saying it with menace. Saying it pure and unadulterated Hando. I felt that delicious lick of fear that I might not be up to whatever he had in mind.

I complied slowly. Sinking down while he held my wrists. Looking up at him. His tongue peeking out at me. That always did me in. Just staring down at me like he ruled me in that night. Sweat beading on his lip.

Waiting for his approval before I did anything else. Something passed between us and I got permission. I looked before me and saw his cock. Sometimes, I think of his cock as angry. As if it's the seat of his anger. His tool for dispensing his mean emotions. This time, all I saw is that it was there for me. That first dewy drop glistened because of me.

He let me proceed without interference at first. Without my hands, I felt at a disadvantage. They have always been partners with my mouth, my tongue, my teeth. But before I was into it very far, I felt him shift his hold on my wrists and only one hand now bound them together. He jerked up on them, making me feel stretched and somehow more vulnerable. Then his other hand grabbed my hair and began to dictate that it would be about up and down. At his chosen pace. At his chosen style.

All for him.

But much for me. For this is something that has always thrilled me about Hando. When he helps me just let go and be this other woman with him. I always steel myself and know that it is what he is capable of giving me. But if I were to ask more of him ... if I were to ask him to read the other things I might want of a man, he would be wounded. It's not how it's ever been for us - it would be like breaking a pact with him. It might make him feel he's let me down in some way. So I won't do that to him. I owe him far too much.

His breathing became labored and I loved the way he worked so hard to control it. But then I heard him take in that big breath he does to stifle his own moan of enjoyment. It was the moment he would shove me down all the way and pump into me.

But he didn't come. I felt this wave of disappointment as he pulled me off of him. Neither of us moved for a while. He was trying to regain control of his breathing; I was waiting to see what he wanted next.

Still holding my wrists, he walked around my body until he was behind me. I just waited. "Little Annie. Do you trust me?"

"Yes," I whispered, barely a breath. Closed my eyes and believed in him.

"Why?"

"You never lie to me."

"I trust you as well, Annie."

"Why?"

"You never play games with me." He pulled me to my feet and then, still holding my wrists up above me, he walked me to the wall. With such control, he simply placed the palms of my hand on the wall. I held them there, over my head, while he nudged my feet to spread apart. I leaned forward and placed my forehead on the wall. And waited.

His hands lifted my hair off my neck and he kissed me there. At first so soft and then ending with a rough nip. I felt myself become pliant. His hands cupped my breasts and kneaded them through the tank top I wore. When he told me to take it off, I did. I put my hands back exactly where they'd been before.

I leaned my head back into his chest as his hands caressed my breasts. Moved my hips back so I could gently move into his groin. His breathing sped up just a bit as his hands pushed the soft gauze pants from me to leave them puddled on the floor before he held my breasts again. I heard my own ragged breath and put my cheek to the wall.

One hand moved hard over my belly. It crashed between my legs with a suddenness that made me jump back against him and he chuckled in my ear. A long lick up my neck because he knew it drove me insane. Attention diverted there, it took me a moment to realize how insistent his fingers were with me.

"Fuck me, Hando. I'm dying for you." Harsh, rougher than rough, another voice I never used. Except with him. The woman he could touch. The woman who knew she was always using him to reach this high this way. So unfair to him in so many ways.

His arm wrapped around my waist and he hoisted me up until his cock was poised at my opening. "This?" His voice taunted me. I whimpered. "Beg me."

I turned my face to his and found his mouth. Kissed him in an obscene display of my needs. Of my shameful abuse of the only part of him I wanted in that night. With my lips still against him, I said it low and hungry: "You are my sex god. I worship at your altar. I die a thousand deaths a moment until you will fuck me. Please show me mercy."

He giggled. "You having a good time then, spitfire?"

I could have strangled him. There he had me, right on the cusp of satisfaction and he was going to leave me hanging? "Please, Hando," I whispered. "Please fuck me."

The girth, the length. It filled me near to overflowing. It entered me with a force that seemed to be from another world. Within moments, I was grunting with the effort of absorbing his thrusts. And then he put both arms around my waist and the pumping grew even faster. I hadn't realized that at some point I had dragged my hands down the wall until I put my mouth over my arm and screamed into it. My coming was nearly as vicious as his.

We leaned together into the wall; neither able to move for so long. And then he let me go and I stumbled; if I hadn't been braced against the wall, I would have fallen to my knees. No pretense; we'd just taken out our sexual desires on each other. I followed him to the bed and we took separate paths to sleep.

Sometime in the darkness, I came to with startling clarity. I turned to watch him sleeping. His face so soft. At times like this, I felt such tenderness toward him and wondered why I always hid this part of myself from him? Not that I ever felt like I was out and out mean to him, but I kept him neat in the Hando box - raw sex god who made me feel brazen that there was a part of me that liked being treated roughly.

I had come back from my portal questioning many of the ways I did things in playing with this group. I wondered in that moment, did Hando ever want more from us women than we gave him? Did we ever consider that he might have wanted the honest, simple chance to grow? I mean, we read his messages and stories he writes for us; we said we applauded his search for the changes that would make him easier in his skin and in our world. But, other than Teener, did we put ourselves out to help him? Perhaps other women did and just owed it to him not to tell the rest of us; but I know I hadn't. Not that he might have wanted me to, but I never even gave him the opening.

Sure, he and I talked about a lot of things. And I know he felt he could show me some parts of him that I hadn't seen the first time we were together. But ... so far? All I'd done was listen. I never asked him if he might have wanted me to do more for him.

And then, in that quiet night, I heard it. Distant strains of a moving piece of music. Jack's violin. His heart soaring in the exploration of a piece by Corelli. Like he'd just reached out to me but it wasn't me he was reaching for. It was the woman he was with just then. This was being played for her ... and because of her. Because of what they'd shared in that night.

I didn't even realize I was crying until Hando reached for me. "You wishing you were with your sailor boy?" he asked me. His voice was quiet in the night but it was rough and I wondered what emotion he was hiding from me.

"I'm glad to be with you," I said and hugged him. "Who knows why I'm crying. Maybe it was just ... I guess it's just that I know him well enough to know that what he just shared with her was special. He always does things like that - these little touches that give you parts of him that you know, right down to the depth of your soul, are only for you. It just moves me, that's all."

"And what we did? Not so special for you, I guess."

Wiped my wet face into his chest and kissed his nipples, wondering at how quickly they peaked. "I have no complaints. Do you?"

Ignoring my comment, he said, "You like that, then? That sissy shit? The fucking violin?"

I giggled and he pushed me away from him, glaring into me. "Oh, baby, I'm sorry. It's just that ... How can I explain it to you? I think I'm a woman who does like to know she's touched a man. Jack shows it in many ways but when he plays his violin for me after we've made love, it's a gift only he can give me and I feel I can see his soul. Does that make any sense?"

"I ain't playing no fucking violin for ya, Annie," he growled out and I knew he was uncomfortable with where this conversation was going.

"I'd never want you do, Hando. You don't have to be Jack or any other man for me to like being with you like this. We have a different way of being with each other."

He nodded briefly, then got up to get his cigarettes from his shorts. He climbed back in next to me, leaned against the headboard and smoked. I crawled up to him and laid my head on his chest, wrapped my arm around his waist. In minutes, the sound of his heart beneath my ear lulled me to that semi-sleep place. We listened to Jack playing. When it stopped, I sighed and nestled in against Hando.

"You and me, Annie, no games. 'K?"

"For sure. No games between us."

A long pause and then he said, "You know that Peter Gabriel song? In Your Eyes."

"Barely."

"It reminds me of you." A gruff voice. Waiting to regret those words. Not willing to say more just yet.

My heart lurched to a slow thudding movement. I felt instantly alert and absolutely unsure what the right thing was to do in this moment. A hesitant voice from me: "Really? Why?"

"Something about your eyes. The way you watch me. Sometimes ..." He faltered and I kept my mouth shut. Whatever was happening, he needed to find his own way. "Sometimes, when I see you watch me come, you make me feel ... different."

I swallowed hard against him. Hugged him in tighter. For the first time since I'd really known him, I realized I didn't know him.

"There's a part of the song ... I think of it sometimes when I watch you come," he said softly. "I see the light and the heat ... in your eyes ...oh, I want to be that complete ... I want to touch the light ... the heat I see in your eyes."

Something hard clutched my heart. The words had sounded like heaven falling from his mouth in that 'I'm still trying to be cool even though I'm trying to be sweet for you' voice of his. And it dawned on me ... he was trying to give me something that was just for me. I was no longer thinking about what was the right thing in that moment. He deserved my honest reaction for the gift he'd just given me. It came out as an awed whisper, choked with how it made me feel: "Oh, Hando. God. You have no idea how much that touches me."

And a moment later, I was crying against his chest. I felt him shift and knew somewhere dim within the moment that he was putting his cigarette down and reaching to stroke his hands down my back. Soft. Tender. Warm. Vulnerable.

"Hando? Do you ever get scared?"

He never answered me verbally. And maybe I was reading things into what he did. But I think maybe if I hadn't been able to see what it had cost him to give me that display ... to acknowledge that he did it for me, not for himself ... I think maybe I would have broken our pact. No games between us. No need for them in the end.

Turning me over, he buried his face in my neck. His body moved against mine, almost awkward in its intent to be gentle with me. I put my hands on his face, pulled him to my lips and we kissed in this bare feather of a wisp against the other's mouth. My eyes closed, fully into the sensual nature of this encounter with him.

We never said a word. Our sounds were soft, slight. Reserved only for the other.

Deep, wet, nurturing kisses of skin. Languid, searching strokes of the other. Testing for the limit of our willingness to be open. Touch and taste only. His tongue, my mouth. His nudging sucks to bring me rising up to seek the deepest of releases. My tender suckling of him, easing him to a height he clung to and refused to move beyond until ... changing positions to bury himself deep within me. Rocking gently, methodically. Our eyes open and seeking. And then closing in the relief ... the unspeakably utter, sheer relief of riding out the crest to find more behind and to let that moment go on until the waves finally released us.

This time, we had been different with each other. It made every other time make sense. It was in the exception that he proved that allowing ourselves to desire intense, rougher, rawer sex with each other was an instinctual knowledge of the other. But in this further, rare way of relating, our trust with each other grew.

I left him sleeping. It was as much for him as for me. If what we'd just shared had required trust, so did knowing he'd not want to destroy what he'd just given me by letting me see any fear or regret that might come instinctively to him upon waking. I was always clear-headed about Hando, I think. No games. Just honesty.

In the end, all things revert to form.

On deck, I leaned against the rail and watched the sun come up. I felt my own sense of the portal. I felt the need for Jack envelope me and I wondered when I could see him again.