"Do you want me?"

Did I dare tell him? The truth? Oh, sweet Lord. Well, for you, Diary, the truth: by the time he asked me that, I'd realized I might have been born wanting him.

Think about that for just a fraction of a second. Fresh from my mother's womb and I was already searching for him.

So I didn't need to answer him, did I? He already knew. Maybe he just wanted me to verbalize it. Instead, I communicated it with my body. But then that's me. Never quite what's expected but still eager to please.

I knew I hadn't been what he expected since he'd met me. He'd been a bit of a surprise to me, as well. Within an hour of meeting him, I knew two important things about him that I would never have guessed: he shared my appreciation of classic Motown music and he had no problem making me laugh. I really liked both those qualities in a man.

Seeing him, the first time, had been scary. In that way that takes your heart flying out of your body and you just know it's either going to be squished like a bug or it's going to be jolted by a thrill ride.

We had agreed to meet at the hotel in the French Quarter where I'd gotten us a suite. I had wanted to meet him at the airport but he said he was taking whatever flight he could and with such an iffy schedule, it made more sense to meet him at the hotel. Besides, I wasn't sure until the last minute exactly when I'd be back home in New Orleans after making a bruising road trip for clients.

Let's meet in the hotel bar, I had replied. "I know the bartender."

He hesitated, probably trying to figure out why I'd told him that little gem of totally irrelevant information. "Okay. That'll do. And how will I know you?"

"I'll know you. Don't worry." 

The Hotel Monteleone is classic, old New Orleans charm and gilt smack in the midst of the wildness of the French Quarter. One block south of Bourbon Street, the fact that it's on Royal Street is so appropriate given its storied legend as the favored temporary abode for visiting royalty and public figures. The creamy cement exterior makes her look like a dowdy matron, but inside she still has some crazy showgirl chops. Every politician I ever covered loved the Hotel Monteleone. I never understood that. It had been the scene of so many fucking crazy press conferences. I used to joke with other reporters that the Monteleone must have been possessed by the ghost of Uncle Earl, one of the famous Long governors and a nut we still adored for his lunatic antics many years and many governors after his death. What other possible explanation could there be for the number of insane words these politicians somehow found themselves boldly uttering at press conferences in that hotel?

But truthfully, the thing I loved about the Monteleone the most was the bar. I'd had many a good drink there and many a great drunken conversation. What's the coolest thing about this bar is the bar itself. You belly up atop one of the elaborate high stools, the bartender fills your liquor order and then you spin. Literally. It's known as the Carousel Bar because the entire bar area revolves round in a circle, just like a carousel. Above the bar is the top of the carousel, but it's done up in whites and blues and lights and big faces - the way a carousel would look as a Mardi Gras float, I've often thought.

I was sitting there at the bar, spinning slowly in the circle and watching the door leading to the hotel's lobby. Waiting for him and getting nervous. Also getting just a bit tight. My bartender buddy found it highly amusing.

And then, he was just there. In the doorway, checking things out as I checked him out. Wearing form fitting blue jeans, navy sports coat and a navy polo shirt. And looking so hot I was actually afraid the sprinklers were about to go off. He made such an impact on me that I was more than just speechless - I was immobile.

His eyes swept the room. I watched him register each person he saw. And then his eyes fell over me and came back. Like he knew who I was and he should never have been able to pick me out. I'd never told him what I looked like. When he smiled at me, my heart was still hovering in the air, waiting to see what he'd do with it.

I got up to go greet him but he waved at me, as if to say, 'stay there, I'm coming to get you.' Well, at least, that's what I wanted that little gesture to mean. So I stayed there, my back straight and my heart waiting.

Damn. He smelled good. I sniffed him when he leaned in to plant a chaste kiss on my cheek after he double-checked that I was indeed who he thought I was.

We drank a beer together and made small talk about his trip. Talking easily right up until he paused, put his hand on my neck, looked into my eyes and said, "I've really been looking forward to this."

Okay. So my heart was happy because he was going to treat it right. "Knowing something of your reputation," I said, with a little evil laugh that made him grin, "I thought you might like a night on Bourbon Street. Ready to start?"

When I had found out that Terry was coming to visit, our first visit, I just knew he was the kind of man to party on Bourbon with. One of the first bars I took him to played nothing but classic Motown tunes. It was a great place to dance, flirt, drink and goof. He did all those things like a champ. We left there after an hour and weaved through the crowds of tourists.

He stopped dead in his tracks outside Chris Owen's place. Ah, yes. He was a natural. Some sixth sense told him this was a place to be bad. Big grin on his face as I took his hand and backed in through the door, tugging him easily along with me into the bawdiness of Bourbon's best classic strip joint. He was the first man up on stage when Chris called for volunteers. He was the last man she let sit down.

When he jumped up and took off his jacket, tossing it back to me before he got up on stage, I was actually hoping Chris would talk him into stripping for us. No such luck. Instead, he charmed Chris into doing one of her routines she'd sworn years ago that she'd retired.

Now, other men who'd tottered up on the stage that night took some off. But the only man the women in the place were truly interested in taking it off didn't do much more than gyrate with the big-boobed star. But it was enough - by the time he made it back to our table, I think I counted five women pressing their phone numbers scribbled on damp paper napkins into his hand.

He slid back into the booth with me, sweating and looking totally pleased with himself. "You're nothing but a big tease, Mr. Thorne," I told him. "I thought you'd be a bit more adventurous."

Without even a pause, his mouth was at my ear and his arm around my waist drew me in tight to him. "You want a strip show outta me? Take me back to the hotel."

I am not entirely sure the last time someone made my entire body blush.

After three more bars, we were so loose with each other. Why is it my courage with new men seems most easily found in a bottle? By the time we hit Jean Lafitte's, our slow dances had turned into vertical, wordless, full-body flirting. Funnily enough, by that point we weren't even drinking any booze. I had switched to colas and he was drinking water. Jetlag, he told me by way of explanation. Experience, I had replied, indicating my soft drink.

Every time a slow song ended, he pulled me back to the table. Wanting to talk, wanting to know me, wanting to understand. But I put in too many years as a reporter and I could dodge questions like a world champ. It was simple to hide from him until I could make up my mind what, if anything, I might reveal.

"You're not making this easy," he growled at one point.

"Nothing worthwhile ever comes easily," I retorted.

He gave me this exaggerated moan and rolled his eyes. And then, like he'd hit a wall, he suddenly was propping his chin up in his hands, elbows on the table, his voice sounding weary. In the subdued lighting, I couldn't really read his expression. "Look, it's really been a tough couple of days. Work. And the long flight ... Well, I hate to even admit it, specially since this is our first night to get to know each other, but I'm just completely knackered. Will you be terribly disappointed if I admitted I just want to go back to the hotel and get some sleep?"

Sweet relief. It rushed over me. The feeling that this wasn't just going to turn into some sordid "Terry Does New Orleans" and that he was actually treating this as if he was something other than my trick for the evening.

"No, I won't be disappointed at all. Bou warned me that you'd be tired and I knew that jetlag would kick in eventually. Let's go back and I'll tuck you in," I smiled at him.

When we were waiting for the elevators, I had the first chance to really look at him in a well-lit area. He had that fatigued bluing under his eyes and the lines in his face seemed more pronounced. My heart went out to him. In a strange city with a virtual stranger.

In our suite, he quickly unpacked and prepared for bed. I tried to occupy myself, not sure what to do. He came looking for me in the living room area of the suite, then sat next to me on the couch. "I promise, a little sleep and I'll be as good as new. Sure I'm not proving a disappointment? Don't want the other women getting cross with me for not showing you a good time."

Serious eyes at him. "Terry, I didn't want you to come here just to show me a good time. I wanted to get to know you. I think it's better this way, anyway. A little slow is good, okay?"

"I've had a good time this evening, although I have to admit I thought you might be a bit more ... well, um ... forward," he told me. When I raised my eyebrows in question, he said, "Well, BeBe gave me the links to some of your stories."

"Those are stories, Terry. They're not even about me. This is about me."

"And, you haven't exactly made it easy to know the real you so far, have you? The only things I feel like I've gotten to know about you so far is that you're a good listener and you don't whinge when things don't go as planned." Growling at me in mock frustration and then leaning toward me, hesitant, as if he was asking if I'd let him kiss me.

Warm lips. That's the sensation I remember most. Not tentative but gentle. Knowing how to make it a great first serious kiss. A long time just to enjoy the feel of lip on lip. And then letting the tip of his tongue come out as he opened his mouth against mine. When I opened in response, he sighed and I wondered if he knew what a fucking turn on that was?

Strong tongue. Not in a hurry but like he was savoring the 'getting to know you' part. And then he pulled away, his eyes staying locked to mine.

"I'll just turn in now but I'll be waiting for you to come to bed. So hurry through all those girlie things you have to do to get ready, okay?" Saying it in this cocky, smart-ass way he had that seemed designed to produce a giggle from me.

One thing he would learn about me was that I didn't do a lot of girlie things. Men were always surprised that I not only could go to the bathroom without another woman tagging along, but that I was in and out quick. I never understood the whole 'stand in front of the mirror and reapply every frigging piece of makeup and comb my hair' routine. I must have been born missing some girlie gene.

But even as fast as I was, it wasn't fast enough. By the time I was pulling the covers back and climbing in next to him, he was dead asleep. Which was actually fine and dandy with me. I tugged the blanket down his chest and looked at him. He was wearing boxers. And nothing else. Still...

Several of the women had said he slept in the nude. I figured he must have been driven by some chivalrous need to protect my sensibilities by covering up his privates. Well, I mean, after all, we weren't yet ... um ... acquainted in that way, right? It made me feel ... God, he was a nice guy, wasn't he? Like he took the time to care how I'd feel. But the fact that he was nude from the waist up I took as a blessing since that meant I got to see his chest. When my head was on my pillow, I turned and watched him sleep. He was flat on his back, an arm slung above his head, the other one near his waist. I put my hand on the bed near him and could feel the warmth of his body emanating. But I didn't touch him. That somehow seemed ... not me.

But just the act of sharing a bed, even if we weren't touching, even if things hadn't progressed to where I had assumed they would ... Damn, it was nice. I'd wanted to meet him and I'd wanted him to be the first of the Crowe Brothers I met for one reason. He was the one I felt a connection to, the one I thought needed someone who saw him as first among equals.

I turned and snuggled down into the pillow, scrunched up along the edge of that big bed, wanting to give him space to sleep off the jet lag. Going to sleep with a niggling worry about what he thought of me. The cacophony of the Quarter at the height of the revelry hour drifted in as muted, shifting sounds through the heavy drapes over the windows.

Those drapes were semi-legendary in New Orleans. They had this ability to muffle the noise better than even cement. And they blotted out the blare of neon lights and phosphorescent street lamps like nobody's business. But it was their ability to shut out the rising sun's harsh orange rays that won their biggest fans. A worthy attribute for dead heads trying to sleep off the effect of too much booze the night before.

That's why I felt just a small rise of panic when I woke sometime later. The room was absolutely black and I thought I was blind for a second. Then I remembered where I was as my eyes adjusted to the darkness and I was able to pick out shapes of furniture looming in the room.

Another body cradling mine and it made me flash on who I was with as much as where I was. He had an arm draped casually over my waist and a leg plopped over my thighs. His chin was leaning on my shoulder. He was dead to the world. His breathing deep and rhythmic. But he was mumbling near my ear in that strange language of those who talk in their sleep - you know, the one that sounds like it's a mix of Ebonics and sighs?

But his mouth wasn't the only thing in motion and I am sure that the other part of him that was moving was absolutely the thing that woke me up.

He was humping my thigh. Not forcefully and not with any real definable rhythm; but it didn't take any imagination to get what he was doing with that hard on.

Wonder which woman in the group he's fucking in his dream, I thought.

Okay, I was wide awake. And, well, I was curious. That's the lot in life of writers, I think.

My hand dropped down between us and I simply had no will power to stop it. There was a part of me that thought this might have been rude, to be taking advantage of his sleep coma to feel him up. But, Christ, a girl's only got so much temptation she can resist.

As soon, and I mean instantly, as my hand slid beneath the band of his shorts and stroked his cock, his humping slowed. I stopped moving my hand because I was afraid he was awake. But his breathing didn't change and his arm twitched against me. I squeezed his cock tentatively and he still didn't wake. So I ... well, um ... I kind of examined him. And in whatever woman's body he was dreaming he was inside of, he began pumping.

Just as I was smiling into the darkness and congratulating myself on copping this free feel of him, he rumbled softly, "What are you up to, Ann? Surely you're not taking advantage of me in my weakened state?"

"Oh, God." I quickly tried to yank my hand out of his shorts. "I thought you were sleeping. I'm so sorry."

"Don't be sorry." Whispered intent, his voice husky with sleep and arousal. His hand clamped onto mine and drug it back around his cock. He groaned in my ear. "I'm so glad you finally touched me. Was beginning to think you weren't interested."

Swallowing deeply and wallowing in the feeling of him in my hand. Heart was an uneven metronome in the night. His hand left mine and reached for one of my breasts, caressing it firmly through the thin, satiny fabric of my chemise.

He leaned in and I felt his lips against my shoulder, right near the thin strap and then his teeth dragged the strap down over the bend of my shoulder. My breathing turned ragged.

"Nervous?" he asked, his mouth now pressed to my ear as he shifted so he was draped right up over that side of my body.

"God, yes, Terry."

"Don't be. We'll just take our time."

"Right." And I could have kicked myself. 'Right'? Ugh. That was real romantic and so very sexy. I clamped my eyes shut and tried to dredge up the memory of some sexy passage I might have written in a story that I could use right then and there.

It made him chuckle, though. His hand left my breast and tugged on my chin just as his head rose over mine. Pulling me so easily into a kiss that it seemed effortless and natural.

That kiss. That man can definitely kiss. That kiss about melted my entire body. I know most of me had become just a big puddle. I moved into him for more. More mouth and more body. And when I moved against him ... it was the instant I realized just how perfect his body was made for me. We fit against each other like we'd been designed specifically to be that way. And the way he fit into my curves made every single nervous concern I'd been harboring a fleeting memory.

That, then, was the moment of truth. He'd asked me, did I want him, and I knew he already knew the answer. 

He dragged me into a sitting position just so he could raise my arms and glide my chemise off me. "It's so dark in here, I can't really see you, love. Guess my hands will have to be my eyes," he said even as his hands made a warm trail up my arms and across my chest. "I like the look of these," he joked to me, holding my breasts as if he were weighing their heft in his palms.

I leaned my entire body into him and kind of squirmed in against him. "You use your hands, Terry.  I'll use my mouth."

He arched his neck to give me full access. And almost before I knew it, I was basically crawling all over him and he was falling backwards onto the bed. I think the thing I liked best about him in this time was the way he was so verbal with his pleasure. Even when he wasn't putting complete sentences together, even when it was mostly just sounds ... he was a great communicator.

I'd tasted his neck, nipples, belly ... and I was heading for the mother lode when he stopped me by some maneuver he might have learned in hand-to-hand training. "Let's not go too fast, love," he whispered as he flipped me easily on my back.

Holding my hands in his, pressing them into the bed above my head and then dragging them down toward my waist, like he couldn't quite decide what he would do next. And then his mouth was so soft on my neck that I simply sighed and relaxed into his hold on me. I felt him press his leg between mine; I started muttering to him as I arched into the pleasure of that sensation.

"What's that, Ann? I can't understand you."

"You feel good."

"So do you."

"Oh. Terry. Damn but you have got a talented mouth."

"You have no idea."

Making me giggle against him. Making him bear down with said mouth. Making me gasp so loud I think it pleased him no end.

"Let me prove it to you," he said as I wriggled against him and I didn't think I'd last much longer. My wriggling only got worse as he sort of slithered down my body. That's really the only way to describe it. How in God's name can I do it justice? The feel of that big body moving slowly, carefully, calculatingly ... and he wasn't even using his hands because they were still gripping mine. But he was using that talented mouth.

I felt him drop from my breasts to my stomach and I could feel ripples running hard through me.

"You're shaking so hard, Annie. You gonna come for me?" Now pausing to kiss along the edges of my hipbones. And then just pitching his voice into this deep, riveting rumble that felt like he was massaging my clit as he told me, "Would you do that for me, hmm? C'mon, Annie girl, come for me before I even touch you there. You're so ready. Show me what I'm doing for you, baby. Come, Annie. Come now."

And just his voice ... it had the power to make me come. I heard myself cry out and heard the shock in my voice at how hard I was coming. The release was a jolt to both of us, I think.

Because I cried over just the sheer feel of his mastery and he whispered soothing sounds into my ear as he held me. When I calmed, I put a hand along one side of his jaw while my mouth nuzzled in along the other side. As I sucked along his throat, I used my fingers to search for his mouth. He sucked in my forefinger and then everything seemed to speed up.

Over me, his thighs spreading mine. Releasing my hands and dragging my finger from his mouth. Diving into my mouth with his tongue and slipping into my slick folds with his hardness. Sucking my tongue into his mouth and waiting on me to catch my breath before finally hilting into me below. Grinding himself against me, making my clit sing.

My hands were around him, feeling the way the muscles in his back moved. And I was grinding back against him and almost grunting in the need to move in concert with his movements. We took our time but we seemed to move up levels of fulfillment, as if we'd reach a plane that we'd stay at until stretching to reach higher. When he knew I was about to come again, his rhythm sped up. He was whispering to me, encouraging me, telling me how good it was making him feel.

Coming so hard I was speechless. My mouth simply gaped open and he couldn't even kiss me anymore because I was no longer responding. He was thrusting his hardness into me quicker and I was still coming. When I finally made a noise, it was to let out this choking sob. Then: "Oh. SWEET. Jesus."

"That's right, baby. That was a good one, wasn't it?"

Nodding into his neck where my face was now buried as I rode out the aftershocks.

And ... oh damn but he was good ... he was coming hard, pumping in deep and giving this halting hitch each time at the end of his final thrusts. Moaning so sweetly that it made me giddy with delight that he had enjoyed this as much as I had.

In the darkness, we listened to each other pant.

Panting, we watched the darkness.

"You don't reveal much about yourself easily, do you?" he whispered to me, wanting to negotiate my depths, holding my hand because he knew I'd try to escape without such a show of tenderness.

I closed my eyes. "What else would you expect from a writer? Hiding behind words is second nature."

He pulled my hand to his mouth and lingered over a warm kiss into my palm. "Maybe you've lived in the land of Mardi Gras for too long. You don't have to hide behind a mask. Not with me."

And so I told him secrets. It seemed, after all, it had been more than my body that had been wanting him.

In the end, Diary, does that suffice? Could you feel it, the way it felt to share an intimacy with him? And did I choose the words to reveal without revealing too much?

My final truth, Diary: He knows far more about me than you do at this point.