HEATHER - TUESDAY

Lachlan looked up at me and smiled.  A cold wind whipped around us.  We'd only been back from the Temple a few days but it seems we'd missed the end of summer.  The weather had turned while we were away and the first storm of the season was nearly here.  We'd roused ourselves from our quiet afternoon idle to come out and fish the paddleboat from the lake and stow it on the dock before it got filled with water.

I bent to grab the rope but I felt Lachlan's arms come around me and we spent a few minutes just standing at the end of the dock looking out over the water.  The trees across the lake were beginning to turn.  Right now there were just a few golden tips here and there but soon the entire hillside would be a riot of fall colors.  My favorite time of year.  The wind whipped down the valley, bending the trees gently.  You could smell the rain. 

We giggled like idiots when we felt the first few fat drops hit us.  Even before the Temple we seemed to have developed a habit of doing that.  Losing time.  We'd get caught up in a moment together and forget ourselves.  Since we'd been home, dinner had been late twice.  Lunch too.  We'd missed a movie yesterday.  A bath I'd drawn had grown cold.  Today it had been the tea Lachlan had made for us earlier. 

This time, however, our little lapse had more immediate consequences.  By the time we had the boat pulled up and had brought in all the other accoutrements of summer, we were soaked.  Lachlan's white t-shirt was plastered to his body and my hair was hanging in a wet tangle. 

"Blue?"  I didn't even hear him.  I was caught mid perve, watching his muscles bunch and flex under his clothes.  "The rope, sweetheart."  He made the 'give it here' motion with his hand but he was grinning smugly all the while.  Of course, he had absolutely no room to talk.  I don't think his eyes had risen above my collarbones for the last five minutes or so.  We hadn't exactly dressed to come out here.  We just rushed out when we noticed the weather, both of us barefoot, him in just a t-shirt and jeans and me in my usual tank top and jeans.  My top was pale yellow and at the moment, nearly transparent.  Sexy but cold.  Nothing to ruin a good perve like the chattering of teeth. 

He finished tying down the boat and pushed his wet hair back from his face.  We'd shared a lazy morning.  He hadn't yet shaved.  In a giddy mood, I was torn between wanting to touch his jaw to feel the stubble and wanting to give him a friendly little nudge.  He was so very close to the end of the dock and I could see the blue-gray expanse of water tempting me just over his shoulder... 

He chuckled.  "Don't even think it, girl."  He stood, rising up to his full height, forcing me to look up at him as he wagged his finger at me.  "Contrary to popular opinion, I am not a seal and God knows you'd have to be one not to freeze your tits off in that water."  He gave me a playfully affronted look when I snapped my teeth at his finger.  "Hey!" He advanced on me, grinning widely.  "Not that I dislike a good dunking, mind...."

I snorted and turned my face to the sky.  "Good thing."  It was raining harder; water was beginning to gush from the gutter spouts.  Droplets glittered in his eyelashes and ran in little trickles down the thick column of his throat.  He touched my arm, his eyes going from playful to intense in a matter of heartbeats.  We kissed slowly, with no real care to hurry despite the cold damp weather.  He tasted of rain and man and of the spicy gingersnap cookies we'd been eating before we made our mad dash outside. 

He lifted his head with a smile and spun us round.  Mischief danced in his eyes as he held me at the dock's edge, caught up in his powerful grip.  If he let go, I'd go right over the side.  "Lachlan Curry, you wouldn't dare!"  Of course, I loved being at his mercy just as much as he loved having me there.

"You bet your sweet arse I would, love."

Unfortunately, it seemed we both had the same idea at the same moment; I leaned back to throw his balance off just as he shifted his weight to let me dangle a bit further out over the edge.  One or the other would have been fine, but not both.  My eyes went wide and he shouted, "Oh, bugger it!" and over we went with a noisy splash.   

We surfaced sputtering and gasping from the cold, laughing like two loons.  "Bloody hell, girl!  I don't think my tits are all I've frozen off!"  He was shivering but his eyes were riveted to my breasts. 

We dragged ourselves from the water onto the grassy bank.  "Some selkie you are, Lach!"  I couldn't stop laughing.  "I guess those magic powers of seduction only work at the seaside."

He kissed me, flicking at my bottom lip with his tongue.  "Bollocks."  Such a smug teasing grin on his face.  "Worked like a charm last night in the wicker chair I just hauled off that bloody dock...." he kissed me again.  "And in the paddleboat the night before that." 

I felt a blush rise.

"And I reckon it'll be working in the shower in a minute or two."  His eyes twinkled.  "And if you play your cards right, it could very well be working in the hottub later tonight."

"So, all bodies of water then, large and small?"  I plucked at his t-shirt as he pulled me to my feet. 

He chuckled as we made a mad dash to the house.  "Righto."  We fell in the door.  "All bodies of water...."  He stripped off my shirt.  "And the land they're next to..."  He finished stripping me and started on himself.  "And the air above that..."  He dropped the last of his clothes in a sodden pile, grinning.  "And-"

I rolled my eyes at him, laughing at his enthusiasm.  "You've got them all fooled, you know.  Everyone thinks you're so sweet.  They'd never guess you were such a big perve."  I giggled as his long thick fingers tickled over my skin, flushed pink with cold. 

His smirk got bigger.  "Well, you know what they say...  It's always the quiet ones you have to look out for."  He chased me out of the laundry room, through the kitchen (where he grabbed another cookie) and into the bathroom.  Cookie firmly in his teeth, he hummed a song while he started the water in the shower.

I snorted.  "You know far too many dirty songs to ever be considered one of the quiet ones."

He chewed thoughtfully and then groped my bottom with a naughty leer.  "What can I say?  It's a talent...."  He took another bite of cookie and gave me the last piece as he pulled me into the shower with him.  "I also happen to know a whole lot of other dirty things, love."  He made the lowest most obscene laugh I think I've ever heard in my life and grinned wickedly.  "Now c'mere... I want to show you a few of the better ones..."

LACHLAN - WEDNESDAY

This is a nothing like I imagined it would be... and hundred times better than I ever thought it could be.  A home.  Love.  A family of my own.  It's a just a little after two a.m.  A heavy rain on the roof woke us a while ago and we somehow wound up downstairs by the fire, wrapped in a blanket, sharing a spoon and eating a pint of ice cream right out of the carton.  It's got some kind of crazy name I can't remember.  Tasted like strawberry to me.  It's nice to know some things don't change.

In between bites, we had a silly discussion about childhood pets, of all things.  Her eyes were sparkling and her color was high.  Her lips were a bit kiss-swollen too.  We'd made love before we came down but it was sweet and gentle so those were the only telltale signs this time.  We'd been doing that a lot lately, just enjoying the freedom to make love whenever and wherever we wished.  Eating when we felt like it.  Talking late into the night.  Waking up at odd hours, sometimes to make love and sometimes just to raid the kitchen and have a long chat over a cuppa and some cookies.

She ate a bite and then passed me the spoon.  "Your first dog was named Felix?"  

I nodded and dug around in the carton for a chunk of actual strawberry.  You know, this is some bloody good ice cream.  I looked up at her.  "Yup.  Mum named him.  She is- was a teacher.  It's Latin for 'lucky'.  She named our second dog that as well."  I chuckled and turned the carton, picking around for another strawberry.  "Actually, we were on the third Felix when I joined up."

"That's crazy!"

"No, that's mum.  With four boys, what can you expect?"  I handed her back the spoon.  "We were a pack of hoons but Lord, we loved those dogs."  I rolled to my back and stared at the fire.  "Kind of a family joke, the names I mean."  I chuckled.  "Dad said they were worse than us boys.  Always one coming when another one was going."  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. 

"Lucky, lucky, lucky?"

"Yeah.  He told me that when I went off to war, actually.  To be three times lucky since he couldn't replace his son the way he could replace his dog."  I smiled at her.  "Just kind of stuck, I reckon."

Her eyes got misty.  "That's sweet."

"You're sweet."  We shared a kiss that tasted of strawberries and sex.  I pitched the empty carton into the fire and we rearranged ourselves on the floor in front of the hearth.  Heather put her head on my thigh and cupped my groin gently in her palm.  I threaded my fingers in her hair and we lay there together, talking until the fire had dwindled to coals and the chill chased us upstairs to bed.

Rain drummed on the roof and we snuggled under the blankets listening to it.  Our room was lit by two candles and it felt warm and cozy, like that feeling I used to have when I was a boy and mum had put me to bed but I could still hear her and my dad talking downstairs over a cuppa.  Storms never scared me then.  I just felt safe and loved, like nothing could ever hurt me with my Dad watching over us all. 

Now it was my turn.  My house and my family to watch over.  And strangely, I felt just as safe. 

Neither Heather nor I were talking much now.  We were just touching each other gently in the candlelight and I suddenly knew the moment was right.  I'd planned to do this after a romantic dinner or at sunset out on the dock, but something inside me told me now was the right time.  I had something I wanted to give her.  I'd had it since before she left for the Temple, but the timing was wrong.  I wanted it to be a symbol of love not ownership. 

I stroked her cheek gently.  "Close your eyes."  I kissed her and whispered in her ear that she had to keep her eyes closed until I told her to open them.  I moved away and returned, sliding back under the covers but leaving them bunched around our hips.  Holding the precious gift in my hand, I waited for it to warm with the heat of my palm while I worked on leaving a little trail of kisses down her body; temple, jaw, shoulder, breast, nipple, rib, navel, belly....

Her brow furrowed as she heard the soft melodic sound it made as I shifted it in my fingers, grabbing it by the clasp so I could slowly lower it to form a golden pool in her navel.  I knew she would feel the weight and the warmth of the metal.  I rolled back to my side, propping my head up in one hand but leaving the other to trail down over her hip and back up again.  Lazily.  The gold glowed softly in the candlelight.  Almost as pretty as her skin.

I stroked her belly gently.  "Open your eyes, Blue."  Her hand skimmed down her body but hesitated a bit over my gift.  "Go on," I encouraged softly.

She lifted it, eyes widening when she saw what it was and then filling with tears as she lifted it to look at it more closely.  Not a necklace and not a ring either.  What we have isn't a traditional marriage and giving her that customary symbol didn't feel right to me.  We have something special and different and I wanted my choice to reflect that.

"From that night on the dock... that song...."  Her voice was husky with emotion

I nodded, softly crooning the words to her while she touched the bracelet reverently, fingering each of the small golden charms I'd had specially made for it. 

Got an angel on my shoulder
Got a penny in my pocket
And I found a four leaf clover
And I put it in my locket

The first was a tiny golden pair of wings.  Angel's wings...  Pilot's wings too, I reckon.  Next a mustard seed, encased in glass and ringed in gold.  An old symbol of faith.  And then like the song, a lucky penny, but the one I'd had made was a replica of an Australian penny from the year I was born, only smaller and made of gold not copper.  Then a replica of a Manilian peso with this year's date.  A four leaf clover.  A small disk of blue Australian opal, ringed in a circle of gold.   

Wished on all the stars above me
And I caught the nearest rainbow
Gonna find someone to love me
Gonna find someone to love

Then a diamond, round and brilliant, held securely in a gold setting but without the actual ring.  It twinkled like the stars did that night I took her to be mine.  Next a small golden seal.  She smiled as she fingered that one.  Then an ankh, like my tattoo.  A symbol of everlasting life, the life I wanted to spend with her.  And lastly, a small golden heart inscribed with the words 'Ever & Always'. 

And I want a love that lingers
And is stronger through and through
So I'm gonna cross my fingers
That I'd find the boy to love me true
And I'm gonna love him too

We whispered the last verse together.  She turned the bracelet in her hands.  At odd times the golden charms would touch, creating a soft silvery sound like tiny bells.  I liked the quiet arrhythmic tinkle and I liked the idea of her hearing that sound when I was away and thinking of me and this special moment we made together tonight in our bed. 

"Oh Lachlan, it's beautiful."  She had tears in her eyes.  "I don't know what to say." 

"Say yes."  

She smiled at me and I could feel the love in it.  "Yes."  She held out her left wrist.  "I love it and I love you."  I drew it around her wrist and closed the clasp carefully, kissing her palm as I did so.  She turned her wrist and it chimed softly.  We both smiled.  It felt so good to see it there.  So right. 

Her eyes met mine.  "I have something for you too..."  She kissed me tenderly.  "It's not... it's not grand like this, though."

I nodded, touched she had something to give me as well.  "Go get it."  She slid away and retrieved something from the dresser.  She kept concealed in her palm and returned to me, sliding in close and tangling her legs with mine.  She kissed my palm as I had done to her and tucked her gift into my hand, closing my fingers over it shyly. 

I felt the heavy circle and knew instantly what it was.  The similarity in our gifts made me smile when I opened my hand and saw it.  It was a man's wedding band suspended from a cord.  A gift meant to be worn around the neck rather than in the traditional way.  A symbol of our love that acknowledged our relationship was anything but traditional.

I turned the flat gold band over in my fingers.  It was simple and plain as I would have chosen for myself had our vows been said in a different World.  Her hands joined mine and she tilted it so I could see the inscription.  'Ever and Always'.  It was written in a flowing script on the inside of the band.

She took it from me and slid it onto my finger, twining her fingers with mine.  God, seeing it there choked me up....A husband.  Her tiny hand safe and secure in mine.  My girl.  Mine to protect and love for all time.  My eyes burned and my heart felt about five sizes too big for my chest.  I nodded and kissed her then, slow and deep and long.  When we parted, I removed the ring and she smiled as she slipped the cord over my head and settled the golden circle above my heart. 

Our eyes met.  "It's perfect.  Simple and traditional with a twist....  like us, I reckon."  Heather would always be my blue and my gold.  She wasn't flashy like diamonds or jewels.  She was like gold.  Warm and enduring but still soft and yielding when worked with a gentle, caring hand.  My hand.  My heart.

I loved her then, showing her all the things I could not say with symbols of gold or words whispered from my heart to hers.          

HEATHER - THURSDAY  

For the third morning in a row, three a.m. found us up, making love.  It was quiet.  Intense.  The sound of panting.  The soft rhythmic creak of the bed.  The gentle tinkle of my bracelet.  He was helping me move over him, hands on my hips, thrusting up into me.  There was something different about him tonight.  There had been since he'd given me the bracelet.  Not like he was distracted, really.  More like he was focused inward instead of outward when we were making love.  It was enough to give me pause, but what he made me feel was so very good it was impossible to think let alone speak coherently with his hands touching me and his body buried inside mine.

His eyes were heavy-lidded.  Stormy.  Tongue on his lip.  Soft words making my face heat and my eyes prickle with the intensity of what he could coax from my body.  He was pulling me down into his upstroke now, knowing I was close.  My fingers skated over the sweaty skin of his chest, too deep inside my own pleasure to do anything more than just feel him with my palms, my fingers.  Feel the salt on his flesh.  Feel his heart, beating so fast.  Feel how much he wanted me.  Body tight, his face a beautiful grimace of pleasure as he held back to watch me. 

"That's right, girl....move on me....get your pleasure, love...."  His breath hitched as the combination of his hands, his smoky voice and the sweet friction of his cock pushed me over into the streaming starlight.  "Yes....Fuck!  Come, Blue....come on me....so tight... so good....Jesus... Jesus...."

His eyes were closed, his head thrown back, tendons in his neck straining as he fought for control, mouth open and panting freely, unembarrassed to show me how much he loved to feel me come on him.  I hadn't even fully come back to myself when I felt a sudden desire to share a different intimacy with him.  A deeper intimacy.  Something triggered by whatever wildness I could feel him holding inside himself.  I didn't think.  I just moved.  I pulled off him before my body had even stopped fluttering around him and slid down his large frame.  His eyes snapped open as I took him in my mouth, loving that part of him that had just given me such pleasure.

I had fellated him many times, but never in the seconds immediately following my own climax.  A strangled groan rumbled deep in his chest and he tangled his fingers in my hair, panting, eyes wild and dark.  Whatever was moving inside of him, I was responding to it, driven to make a deeper connection.  To use my body to show him love and to feel love in return.  Loving him, adoring him with my mouth, it was another way to experience our togetherness.  His taste and mine. 

I knew what he was thinking.  It was there in his eyes as he watched me suck.  He was thinking about how my mouth was nursing where my cunt had just been.  You could see it as clearly as if he'd spoken the words.  I think something inside me knew he'd find such an intimacy both shocking and erotic, and that perhaps it would free him into revealing his own shocking intimacies. 

My face flushed as I sucked and kissed, surprised at my own boldness with him, but I could feel us hovering at the edge of something wild and exciting and for as much as I was scared, I wanted to see where we might go with the last of the walls torn down between us.  His hands never left me as I loved him with my mouth.  They almost never do.  He prefers to take in the full measure of the act with all his senses.  His fingers feeling my cheeks hollow, fingertips brushing over his cock and my lips, hands in my hair, feeling the silky texture, the contrast between hair and skin.  Sometimes stroking my throat or pushing a finger in my mouth along with his cock. 

I loved him as he prefers, wet and messy.  Loud sucks and slurps.  Nothing held back.  No barriers between us.  No modesty.  I loved him as I prefer too.  Kisses and nuzzles.  He tasted of me at first but the more I sucked and kissed, the stronger his taste became, blooming over my tongue as I flicked it into the tiny hole.  He cursed, a stream of profanity and love words, tugging at my hair.  He gasped.  I pulled away, only to bury my face in the dark tangle of hair at his groin.  It was damp and smelled not of him or of me, but some amalgamation of the two.  A scent that I can only define as us. 

I rubbed my cheek against him but he was having none of it.  He pulled me up his body roughly, his breath coming in harsh pants.  "God, Blue....I can't stand it....  Inside....Fuck, I need to be inside you..."  He put his thumb at the base of his cock and pushed upwards, offering himself.  He grunted as I sank down on him and his hands clenched tight on my hips, forcing me to still so he wouldn't come before he was ready. 

He took several deep, shuddering breaths before he started moving under me.  His eyes were closed again, his head thrown back into the pillows.  He left one hand at my hip, holding me in place and caressing the hollow of my hipbone with his thumb as his hips rose under mine.  His other hand had moved from the small of my back down to my buttocks and was caressing between them absently, circling his fingers over the sensitive ring of muscle there. 

It neither surprised or shocked me.  There was no place he couldn't or shouldn't touch me and he felt the same about his own body.  What surprised me was that his eyes were closed and his thrusts were keeping time to the fingers between my cheeks not the ones idly rubbing my hip. 

A fantasy then.  

He had a smile on his face.  It faded when I stilled my hips and covered his hands - both of them - with mine, tangling our fingers together.  He wet his lips and his eyes opened, glittering with green fire as they searched mine.  Lachlan was almost never embarrassed with me about his body or his sexual thoughts, but we all have personal, private fantasies and it seemed I'd stumbled across one of his.  Usually I was the shy one, preferring to follow his lead rather than to be the leader myself but I noticed that the few times he'd been hesitant with me, it was more often due to the conditioning of his time rather than his own personal feelings about something.

Take the goodie bag, for example.  He knew what most of the stuff in there was, and had no doubt used it at some point in his life (not that he'd kiss and tell, but his deftness with certain articles made that a moot point anyway), but in his time, good girls just didn't have open conversations about dildos and clit cream and handcuffs.  We spent the most incredibly red-faced giggly evening going through it together the night after we got back.  He particularly enjoyed wielding the feather and we're out of the vanilla flavored powder already, but that's neither here nor there.  What I'm really getting at is that for Lachlan, what he wants and what he thinks it's OK to tell me he wants can sometimes be two entirely different things.     

Like now.

"Blue?"  His voice was steady if not a little bit rough, but his eyes were absolutely on fire as he stared up at me.  Neither of us moved our hands.  Sitting on him so still, I could literally feel his heartbeat inside me.  It was wild and thready.  I felt us move closer to the edge and I somehow managed to find the courage to give him the push he needed to take us over.

"Tell me, Lach."

He swallowed hard and his eyes flicked down to where we were joined before darting back up to mine.  "Have you ever..."  He touched me purposefully, rubbing his fingers between my cheeks and sucking in a sharp breath as my body unconsciously tightened on his. 

I shook my head. "No."  The fire in his eyes blazed hotter.  I could actually feel him getting harder.  Throbbing.  "Have you?"

He looked away and then his eyes came back to mine.  "Not with a lady," he admitted quietly.  With whores, not with a woman he loved.  He didn't say the words, but I heard them anyway.  I squeezed his hands, willing him to say the words.  Told him with my eyes and my body that I wanted him in whatever way he chose to have me.  My beautiful selkie man.  He could seduce me into anything and he knew it.  Sometimes I think that was part of what held him back. 

"Tell me," I whispered to him.

I saw it flair in his eyes.  Words from his past, whispering to him that honorable men did not do to good girls what he wanted to do with me.  I also saw that light become eclipsed by the force of his desire, by the same need that had possessed me to take him into my mouth as I had tonight.  The fierce undeniable desire to bind ourselves together as intimately as we could.  To make a memory neither of us had made before with anyone.  To give each other parts of ourselves that were precious and private.

"I want you here."  His voice was hesitant but his touch was not.  Fingers on the one place he'd never been with me, pressing but not penetrating.  So Lachlan.  His body has always told me more than his mouth.  His words became deeper, gruffer, not hesitant now.  The light in his eyes was both primal and tender.  "I dream of it.  Covering you.  Taking you... Christ and you've never.....  I want to be the first.  The only..."  He reinforced his words with a firm thrust of his hips.  "Let me love you this way, Blue."

A single nod from me was all it took.  Lachlan does nothing in half measures.  

"Get on your hands and knees, sweetheart," he crooned to me, helping me off him.  He shuddered as he pulled out, fighting himself for control.  He moved, reaching unerringly into the dresser drawer where we'd dumped the goodie bag and retrieved a small bottle, dropping it into the sheets at my knee as he moved over me, pressing his body to mine. 

For the longest moment, he didn't touch me in a sexual way, he simply dropped his forehead to my back and kissed my spine so tenderly I ached with it.  His hands touched me then.  Stroking my body, my breasts, down my sides and between my legs.  I heard his breath catch.  This is his favorite position.  The soft curve of my buttocks fit to his groin.  He told me once he didn't think there was anything sexier than the smooth skin of a woman's back, how her sides taper to her waist and flair to the ripe swell of her hips.  He likes watching it, touching it.  Seeing it stretched gracefully before him in supplication.  Placing little kisses down a woman's spine. 

He also likes how deep he can go in this position and there is something both tender and primal about it.  Animals fuck this way.  Men do too, but despite the instinctive feelings stirred by this position, it can be so sweet and gentle.  When he covers my body with his this way, I feel both taken and protected.  Sheltered from the world, from everything but his love and desire, revered in the special place he's made for us with his body. 

I started at the cool gel but he tossed the bottle aside and crooned as he touched me, touched himself, readying both of us for what was to come.  His fingers circled, penetrated, opening me to him until I was gasping and shaking.  He was so sure of himself, of what he was doing and how gloriously lost he made me feel.  I didn't feel the slightest touch of fear until he moved behind me and positioned the head of his cock against me. 

He felt me tense and murmured to me, a litany of love words and reassurance.  "I won't hurt you, Blue.  I'd never hurt you....trust me....Oh God..." He pushed gently.  I gasped at the blunt pressure and we breathed together, one body, one heart, one mind as he slowly pushed inside me until his hips were flush against my buttocks.

Neither of us spoke.  It wasn't some wild cathartic rush to physical ecstasy.  In truth, we hardly moved at all.  I was too sensitive and he was too close for us to do anything more than rock together gently.  It was an act of love, an act of sex, but most importantly, it was an act of trust.

A baptism of sorts.  It felt holy.  Sacred.  A union of souls as much as it was a union of flesh.  The forbidden nature of it gave it a darkly erotic shading and the position itself spoke of a primal coupling, but he was so exquisitely tender with me that it overshadowed everything else.  Each sigh, a benediction.  Each soft caress, a communion.  An exchange of faith, of love, of trust.

Taking his body inside mine in a way that was just for him.  Sheltering him as he sheltered me.  In that moment, he was my entire world.  Nothing existed outside the circle of his arms.  Blood throbbed.  His heartbeat.  I could feel it against my back and deep inside my body.  His life.  His love.  Entrusted into my care.  His strength and vulnerability revealed to me in this most intimate way.  The sensations he created were transcendent, heightened all the more for our near stillness. 

Just that gentle rocking.  The barest hint of motion.  Exquisite friction blossoming into frissons of rapture.  His chest sliding against the sweaty skin of my back.  His hand between my legs, more pressing than stroking.  His thick girth penetrating me.  My hands were shaking.  His body twitched.  I don't know who came first.  I just felt this great wave of pleasure build and ripple outward.  His harsh cry and mine, blending in the night, in a place beyond words where we only existed as luminous waves breaking around each other.

It was beautiful, this silent language of Lachlan's.  In his most private moments, he talks to me with his body and I am learning to respond in kind.  In the language most dear to his heart.  He waited until he'd softened before he withdrew.  I felt his wetness on my skin.  Felt surrounded by his scent and touch, by his very presence.

He gathered me into his arms and held me close.  I felt exposed, my soul bared to him.  I knew from the cadence of his breathing and the wet sparkle in his eyes that it had been just as moving for him.  Into the silence, he walked that path prepared by his body, whispering to me the deepest desires of his most secret heart.  Things he could only voice in the wake of such profound intimacy.  We wept.  We loved.  We healed.  We dreamed.  And finally, as the first fingers of dawn began to chase away the starlight, we slept.

A man and his woman, bound by bits of precious gold.  By love.  By fate.  And by the Game, who calls us all for her own secret reasons.