[ December 2001 ]

ANN

The phone rang and I groaned. Turned over in bed and I groaned. Shivered at the cold that wracked my bones and I groaned. Realized it was probably time to take my next dose of antibiotics and I groaned.

God but how I hate being sick.

I may be the worst patient in the world. I can take being sick for like a day and then I am so over it that I cannot stand it anymore.

The phone rang again and this time my hand clawed for it and I just grumbled this hoarse greeting into it and told whoever was there to stop bothering me. But in my lethargy, the phone was still at my ear as I tried to get the strength to hang it up ... and I heard his voice and I cried silent tears.

Just the one single person in the entire world I would have wanted to hear from. He asked me what was wrong, why I sounded so odd and I said, "I'm sick, Terry."

"You sound like shit," he said in that way he has of being brutal in his assessment.

"I feel even worse." I croaked out. Most unflattering sound, let me assure you.

He kinda clucked at me then asked if I was all right. I assured him I was fine ... just a very nasty sinus infection that had devolved into a tiresome bronchitis. But I'd had this kind of thing before so I knew I'd be human again in a few days and I'd call him then, I said. Was someone there taking care of me, he asked. I told him just how much I'd hate that ... imagine having someone there to witness you when you were at your lowest?

"Geez, Terry. I haven't taken a bath in two days and my hair looks like ... Well, I mean, I just look as bad as I sound and I sure don't want anyone seeing me like this. Much less having to hear me cough all the time and ... And I'm grumpy when I'm sick. No way I want anyone near me." I had a coughing fit and then drank some juice and then tried to change the subject. "How's Miami? Did you land the contract?"

"I'll know tomorrow ... I'm worried about you. Can't you get your cousin or a girlfriend to come stay with you? What if you need help?" he asked me, that deep voice of his that sounded like pure man to me.

"I love it that you're worried about me. Makes me feel nice. But don't worry about me. I'll be fine in a few days."

I hung up, felt warmer just to have heard his voice. But I knew I was really sick because even hearing him, I slept on and never even had a sex dream about him.

Not that I didn't miss him. Like hell. I missed him. My lover. My man.

The phone rang again and it was so many hours later. It was night. All I wanted to do was find the energy and will to get up and go to the bathroom. I would have loved nothing more than to take a bath. A long, long, hot soak that would restore some sense of humanity to me.

It was Terry. Calling to check on me. How goes the patient, he asked me. She wants to be shot and put out of her misery, I responded. Let me in and I'll do the honors, he said. I groaned at him and told him I'd consider him my personal hero if he would shoot me dead.

"Let me in then, Annie," he whispered in my ear.

"Baby, I haven't the energy for phone sex. I'm sorry. I can't even get up and take a bath," I told him with a remnant of the voice I used to own.

"No, I mean get your arse out of bed, open your front door and let me the fuck inside."

I swallowed hard down my rough throat and blinked myself more awake. "What?"

He was there ... outside my door. Oh God. I pushed myself upright and thought about this as the room swayed around me. No way did I want him seeing me looking this bad. We were too new into this love to let him see me looking this bad. But he was insistent. He wanted inside. Now. I pleaded with him to go away, my voice cracking and my head throbbing. Now, he said again, or I break the door down.

Somehow, I stumbled from bed, shivered my way to the door, opened it and tried to smile. And then I really saw him and felt what it felt like that he was there. That he'd come all that way just to come be there with me because he wanted to be there when I was feeling so bad. I started sniffling and babbling at him ... and shivering helplessly ... he just dropped his suitcase and a bag of groceries he was clutching ... picked me up and carried me back to bed. Tucked me in the covers and told me to rest.

When he came back in the bedroom, I just watched him. And smiled at him. He asked me what he could do for me and I said that I wanted nothing so much as to take a bath. An hour later, I was clean and he had combed the knots out of my damp hair and he was sitting there at the foot of the bed watching me slurp down chicken noodle soup. First food I'd had in two days. It tasted like heaven. He was like a tonic.

He curled up behind me that night, snuggled in close and it was the first time in three days that I'd been really warm. I whispered that to him as I dropped off to sleep. That I loved him for doing this for me.

"No man I've ever known has ever taken care of me like this, Terry," I told him and he hugged me in tight. "You are too good to me."

"Yeah, well, I'm only doing it so you'll show me gratitude later. Catch my meaning?" Saying it with this low growl but then turning from teasing to loving as he whispered that he'd watch over me while I slept.

When I woke, he was gone. I felt strong enough to stumble to the bathroom and while I was standing there washing my hands and brushing my teeth, he came in to ask if hot tea and toast sounded good.

I tried to answer him but found that, like clockwork, laryngitis had come in to steal my voice. I stood there coughing and he patted my back and then carried me back to bed. Then sat and read the day's headlines to me as I nibbled at toast and drank my tea. And smiled at him.

Most of the day, I spent on the couch. It was like him coming in to care for me had made me improve overnight. I might not have been well, but it was so great to feel strong enough to feel like getting out of bed. I nestled under a throw on the couch and pretended to be reading a book but I was really watching him as he worked on his computer, answering email ... and listening as he talked on the phone to clients and to Dino.

Damn. Just his presence. It was amazing how it made me feel to have him there. It was like I barely lived anymore unless he was with me. He just filled up the spaces in my life.

Later, I was dozing after he'd fed me a dinner of soup and crackers and juice ... when I woke, it was night again and he was sitting on the floor, his back leaning into the couch in front of me, reading a book and sipping a scotch. I stroked his shoulder and grinned at him when he turned to ask me how I felt.

Mouthed out the word 'better' and saw that smile of his. The one that seemed so unguarded. And then his face changed ... his eyes got serious and he rubbed a hand along his chin ... I raised my eyebrows in question.

"This is wrong," he whispered, so serious, and I felt my heart lurch in preparation for bad news. He must have seen the panic in my eyes because he was shaking his head and reaching to hold my hand. "I mean, it's not right that you're too far from me for me to take care of you."

I smoothed a hand down his jaw, felt the stubble there and tried to convey with my eyes that this was okay ... I didn't need taking care of ... this sickness was a temporary thing ...

"Annie, I want to take care of you." I smiled at him and tried to mouth to him that he was doing a fine job of it, that I was feeling so much better. "No, that's not what I mean ... Fuck ... I mean I want to take care of you forever."

My eyes widened at him and I shook my head. I tried to croak out the words to tell him not to go down this road but my voice would not cooperate.

"Do you love me?" he asked me in this hard voice.

I nodded. He gave me this nervous smile of his. I watched as he drew himself up and then turned until he was on one knee before me and I think my eyes probably got huge.

"I've never met a woman like you before, Annie. I love you like no other. Never really thought I'd find that but I have and I won't let it get away from me. If you marry me, I promise you that I will find the way to make sure you feel happy and safe and loved always."

Our eyes stayed on each other. I felt the room get so small that it seemed to only hold me and him. He was holding out this ring and it shined and glittered ... and it was a diamond ... and I didn't have a fucking clue he felt this deeply about me. I only knew I loved him. I really and truly did. But all I could do in that moment was cry ... it was like all my emotions got locked into one automatic response ... and tears were flowing and he was looking so confused ... but still, he asked it ...

"Marry me, Annie?"

Everything in my life had led to this moment. Now or never. Take a leap or stay safe. Grab for life or remain alone. Risk it all for love. Change your life for this chance that this was the life that meant true love. Take the big risk.

I nodded at him ... at first, so slow but then very firm and definite. And this emotion swept over his face just as he gathered me into his arms and we hugged into each other and both blurbled tears against the other.

It wasn't until the next morning that I really looked at the ring. I laid there in the bathtub and he was behind me, washing my body, his hands on my breasts and I caught the glint of the ring and I just sat there with it on my finger and looked at it.

"This is so beautiful," I croaked softly to him and we both giggled that I had a semblance of a voice back. I turned in his arms and touched his face. "I'm so happy right now, Terry. I can't believe you asked me to marry you."

We made love ... right there in the tub ... so slow ... so deliberate. I was starved for the feel of him ... like coming off this fever had lit the fever for his body. But I was still weak enough that he had to be the one to do the majority of the work. Just the way he made me come took every bit of strength from me. I slept for hours after that and woke to find that he'd combed my hair and dried it the best he could with the towel. And I knew I must have been better because he made fun of the way I looked when I stumbled in all bleary-eyed and wild hair everywhere to find him ensconced behind his laptop at my dining room table. I slid between him and the table so he could hold me.

How long can you stay, I asked him because I somehow knew he'd be leaving now that I was on the mend. Until tomorrow, he told me. I tried not to cry but I made the mistake of telling him I was sure going to miss him.

No man had ever made me feel the way Terry did. This wish to hide in him and let him take care of me mixed in with wanting to be his full partner who was strong enough to walk our path together. No man ever made me feel secure enough to show the part of me that liked having a man to care for her. On the other hand ... I was pretty used to men who were safe and easy. He never was either of those things and I really think it's why he made me feel the way he did. No man ever made me realize how much I'd have to fight for the right to keep him from taking over ... but no man ever made me feel it was worth it before to realize I had to look at things a different way.

It was like the way he broached the issue of where we'd live. No. I said that wrong ... he never once said anything approaching, "Gee, Ann, we're both professionals and we live in different cities. When we're married, we have to live together. Which city shall we make our home in? How shall we accommodate both our careers?"

Hah. Terry? No way. He just took it as conventional wisdom that I was moving to DC. Okay, well, I did, too, but at least I realized it meant changing my entire life to go live with him. Nope, the way he broached it was to gruffly ask me in a phone call how much it was going to cost him to buy out the lease on my loft and when did I have the movers coming to pack me up.

"Eh? I don't lease this place, man of mine. I own it. And packers? Why?" I replied, just trying to make a point really ... just on this side of being put out that he was assuming this and that he was trying to take over. "And besides, if I make the choice to move to DC, I'll take care of the move myself. And I'm not moving there until I have a job, Terry. I'm not made of money, you know. I need to work."

"Not anymore, Ann. I do make plenty enough to support my wife."

"Well, excuse me, but I'm not about to become dependent on any man."

Okay, so this was a great argument. I'd so love to report we were a bit adult about it. But we weren't. We weren't getting anywhere ... okay, so I was defensive and petty while he was blunt and nasty ... And then he said, "I expect you to put the loft on the market tomorrow."

I hung up on him. The next day, I was sitting at my desk at work, emailing my resume to a former editor who worked at one of the dailies in DC when Terry called me. In front of me was this vase of wildflowers with a card from him with the phone number of some local real estate agent. I was seething.

But there was some quality to his voice and I suddenly looked at this picture of him that I had in a frame sitting on my cluttered desk. While his hard voice prattled in my ear, terse words asking me what was going on with me, I thought about that. What was it? And I knew ... I was proud of the independence I'd carved out and I could feel myself about to slip away from 'me' and into 'his wife' and it was happening too fast. And I was being such a fool.

"Terry?" I whispered in the phone, cutting him off. Making a decision to go with my gut and just take the risk. "Look. Here's the deal. The loft's listed already. I had it listed for sale the day after you left. And as soon as I find a job in DC, which I'm also working on, I want to move up there with you. Is that okay? I just don't want to be alone down here anymore. I want to be with you."

He didn't say anything at first but I felt like I could feel him taking a new look at things. "I need you here, Annie. With me. I want us to start our life."

That was our bottom line, then. 

It was like fate. Well, it felt like fate but it wasn't, really. After almost two weeks of not getting encouraging bites on my initial queries with the dailies in DC, I got a call from a monthly magazine that needed a political reporter and they said they heard about me from this award I'd gotten a few months back. It never dawned on me to question this; it wasn't for months that I found out that it had been Dino making a phone call to the publisher that got me the job. But I didn't know that ... all I knew was they were dangling a salary at me that made me see this as a great, if totally unexpected, career jump that couldn't have come at a better time. I flew up for the interview ... delighted Terry by calling him for a date while I was leaving the magazine's office ... talked the offer over with Terry at dinner ... accepted the job the next day ... flew home that afternoon ... gave my notice at the paper ... and I was packing up my loft two weeks later.

Would I have taken that job if I'd had any clue that I hadn't come to their attention quite as they said? Who knows. As it turned out, it was a great move for me. I had to travel for the job, but it was only about a week or two a month. The rest of the time, I was based in DC.  I loved the work; took a while to get used to the slower, more deliberate pace; flourished in this career move that let me really delve into politics like I would never have thought I'd be able to.

The night of the job interview, I was walking with Terry from this neighborhood restaurant to his apartment building. We passed this townhouse and I sighed out to him that it had sold since the last time I'd been up there to see him. He didn't have a clue what I was talking about, he said, so I punched him in his arm and reminded him that I'd fallen in love with the place the first time I'd seen it. How I had weaved this whole fantasy for him about it being a friendly, warm shelter for a family ... and how he'd chuckled at my unexpected sentimentality ... and how I'd been offended that he seemed to think I didn't have it in me to be sentimental or romantic ... and how he'd said I was wrong, that he loved that side to me ... and how that had made me feel all sentimental and romantic toward him.

Ah, Terry. The things he does for people he loves.

The day my stuff was due to show up in the moving van, he took off work to help me. We were going to be putting most everything I owned in storage as his apartment just wasn't big enough to absorb my furniture in addition to his nice stuff. I have such eclectic tastes ...nothing really goes together ... it's all this haphazard collection of things that were either given me by my grandmothers or just seemed like it would fit in some space in the loft ... not much of it would have fit in with his much more sophisticated and synchronized furnishings.

So when the van arrived, we walked down to look inside and cull out the two or three pieces we had agreed to put in the apartment ... when Terry suddenly gets all tense. Nope, he tells me, none of this seems right for his apartment. He no longer wants it in there.

I grabbed his arm and yanked him away from the movers who were giving us the amused eye they must give to every couple who starts arguing on moving day. "What the fuck's your problem? We agreed on what I could have in your place," I hissed at him.

"Let's take a walk," he said. "See if we can negotiate this."

"No negotiating," I said but he just put an arm around my back and dragged me down the street with him. "Terry, you promised."

"I lied."

"What?"

"I'm a bastard but you love me anyway." Grinning at me and I wanted to slug him so fucking hard.

"No. I hate you. You're not charming your way out of this. It's not right that I can't have some of my things around me, Terry. Surely that makes sense to you?"

"Perfect sense. It's why I thought maybe you'd rather have all your shit around you."

This was how the big rat introduced me to the townhouse ... the one I'd fallen in love with from the outside ... the one that I ran up and down the stairs inside of and squealed at the top of my lungs that he'd gone and bought it just so I'd know how happy he was that I was moving into his life. He wanted to put it in my name but I insisted it be in both our names ... symbolic that this was the house we'd live in as husband and wife, see?

This was Terry to me, in so many ways. Always loving the grand gesture but also giving me the little things. Like the way he bought that home for us because he knew I'd love it but also the way he made sure he was in town the first day I went to work at the new job so he could sweep in and take me to lunch to be sure I wasn't lonely that first day among strangers.

[ FEBRUARY 2002 ]

ANN

New jobs are tough, aren't they? I mean, you're always so glad to get them but then the reality of leaning new tasks, meeting new deadlines, maneuvering around new co-workers, figuring out the new boss, finding out where you'll go for lunch, deciding whether or not you are ready for that first fight to have your way on your story, understanding the new office politics and how that affects which of your co-workers it's safe to go out drinking with on Thursday nights, getting used to taking the Metro back and forth to the office because driving in DC just sucks, settling in enough to actually not be afraid to state your opinions in an assertive manner at the editorial story budget meetings ...

So there I was, settling in. And I was leaving the story budget meeting for the next edition and couldn't wait to tell the photographer who'd been with me on the last assignment that we had something to toast on Thursday night at the weekly 'let's all go grab a beer' ritual with the co-workers ...

Something shifted near me and I looked toward the door just as I was hugging said photographer after giving him the good news ...

And there he stood in the reception area. Looking at me. His overcoat open and his suit looked ... rumpled.

God. Just the way he looked at me made my knees weak. I wanted to run jump in his arms but we're both strangely affected by such behavior not just in public but especially around our work environments.

But I was still rushing up to where he was standing there with the receptionist twittering at him in her voice she gives to all good looking men who come anywhere near her beauty. And he was still letting me reach for him and we were hugging.

The only other time he'd been to my office had been to meet me for lunch ... he'd done it twice ... the first day I was there and the day before he was leaving on this job he'd left for a week earlier. He had not told me he was returning so soon; he'd said it could be a month and I'd been unprepared for how it had made me feel to face the reality he'd always been upfront with me about ... that he might not be around as much as either of us would like. You know, it wasn't that I didn't know his job could take him away for months at a time ... I just didn't know how it would feel when he'd leave. It had been a lot easier when he left after the visits in New Orleans. It was murder when he left me alone in this city where I barely knew anyone and where I was living in a house that we were sharing.

So I hugged him hard and tried not to get too emotional ... just to feel his arms around me, smell his scent, hear his voice ...

When I released him, I saw this wince of pain across his rugged face. "You okay?" I asked him. He gave me that tough guy nod of his. I took his hand and dragged him with me to my office.

As we passed the photographer, I introduced them. Leo grinned and said what a pleasure it was to meet him; Terry grunted out the word, "Mate," and acted bored. I actually have to admit to knowing Terry well enough by then to wonder if he was about to whip his dick out and pee a circle around me to mark his property as off limits to this other man.

Inside my office, I shut the door and watched him fidget around. He kept picking up things on my desk, setting them down, looking out the window ... anything but looking at me. I pulled his coat off and pushed him into my desk chair. Knelt before him and asked him if he was okay.

His hand on my face. A shadow in his eyes. "I need you, Annie," he told me.

"You have me," I whispered back and leaned up to kiss him. His lips held mine, drawing out the kiss, his hand on my face sliding behind my neck and ... his tongue just lingering inside me. When he let me go, I leaned into his chest and held him. "What's wrong, Terry? Did something happen on this job?"

His dangerous work. Was this what it would feel like always for me? To shut out the way I worried just so I could go on living when he was away because if I didn't, I'd spend all my time thinking over all the reasons he might not come back to me?

"Come home with me, love."

I heard something in his voice ... it made me still. "Will you tell me what's happened?"

"Annie ... please. I just need to be with you."

"How badly were you hurt?"

"I'm fine. Let's go home."

"Jesus, Terry. Just talk to me for once. I'm not going to crumble if you tell me about what happened." I heard that harsh tone in my voice and knew it was the wrong one. I looked away from his eyes, searching for calm by looking out my window. "I have to work. I'll be home in a few hours. Can we talk then?"

"Annie."

Just the way he said my name. I stood up and told him I'd go see about getting the rest of the day off. But his hand on my wrist brought me to a stop and our eyes met. Get more time than that, he said. How much time, I asked. At least a week, he replied.

My mouth was open to tell him to not be ridiculous. But his intensity and his need were so clear to me that I hesitated.

"I don't think I can ask them to let me have a week or two off. I've only been on the job less than two months and don't even have a lick of vacation time built up yet ... Terry? What's going on?"

His eyes suddenly got hard. His mouth was a straight line. "Did you move here for the job or me?"

"For you, of course. What kind of question is that?" Saying it soft but meaning it.

"Then fucking do this for me without it having to be a war between us. Do it only because I ask you to do it."

There was just something about him ... like this might have been about the most important thing he'd ever ask me to do for him. So I just nodded at him, turned to leave and my hand was on the knob when I looked back and found him staring out the window.

That was how I felt. I'd give up the job if that's what it took to do this for him. It was my choice. But I also just knew ... whatever it was that was going on with him, he needed me and I wanted him to need me that way. So it wasn't totally selfless, but it would have been a huge sacrifice for me. In the end, when I said I had a personal emergency, the editor was pretty steamed but he said ... take time without pay, but this better be the last time.

At home, Terry dropped his suitcases by the door and stripped me and had me on the couch in maybe a minute. Needy sex, is what I thought it was. Only later did I find out ... it was life-affirming sex for him.

He was kissing me and murmuring to me about how he'd missed me ... how cold he'd been without me. And I was so greedy that all I wanted was to touch him and feel him ... and when I did, I thought I'd come when he first moved a slow finger up into my slickness and told me in a rough voice how much that turned him on that I was so ready for him.

We were moving way too fast but that was always how it seemed to be the first time we'd be together after being apart ... how many times had he burst into my loft in New Orleans and we'd simply gone at each other like we'd never had sex before?

I was under him on the couch, feeling him carefully let me absorb the weight of his body as he leaned on his elbows but then I caught another wince of pain on his face and I was tearing at his shirt until I saw ...

"Oh my God. Terry, you're hurt ... what happened?"

But he cut me off with a kiss and then thrust up into me without another wasted effort. By the time his mouth left mine and he dove into my neck, I had a hard time thinking of anything but the selfish drive toward release. My hand brushed the bandage on his bicep and he moaned in pain and I whimpered at how it felt to have hurt him through my clumsiness ... but then he was pumping into me and muttering passion words of how he wanted me coming around his cock like I'd never stop ... how he wanted me to grip his cock inside me ... make him come ... do it ... now ... come for him ... now.

Blistering coming.

So fast, too hard, raw. Screaming out his name and then panting to catch my breath as he whispered in my ear, "Good girl. That's my girl. Come again for me, love. I can feel you want to. Thassrightbabycomeforme."

Grabbing his ass just to help me grind against him in this madness he called up in me. And then feeling his thrusts get mean, fast, selfish ... God I loved when he came like that.

I also loved how he'd collapse on top of me in moments like this. I liked it when it felt like he gave so much up to me that he'd be weak.

And after ... cradling his head against my breasts as I sat up on the couch and held him to me and tried to function with the knowledge that I'd been meandering aimlessly around this place I shared with him during the exact moment he'd been shot at in Croatia ... and not even known that I'd been that close to losing him right after we'd found each other. My fingers touched at the edges of the bandage on his arm, lifting it up to look at what a bullet does when it grazes a man's skin.

He didn't tell me much about what had happened ... and I didn't yet feel I should push him to share everything with me. A part of Terry felt like if he told me too much, he'd place too big of a burden on me. So I didn't press, I only let him know that I'd hear whatever he wanted to tell me. Curt words from him about a 'close call' during a negotiated release of a hostage that was supposed to have been a simple exchange of cash for a life. But, he said, some bozo got nervous and then shots were fired just as they were nearly out of the danger zone. And that after it was all over, after the adrenalin rush, after he and Dino's team had safely delivered the hostage ... he'd taken this deep breath and thought about how he'd sworn to himself that he wasn't going to make the old mistakes. He wasn't going to let himself fall away from the people he loved just to help him put up an emotional wall between him and his job's brutality.

"Come away with me, Annie. Let's go somewhere warm and lush together. I need you to keep me connected to you, baby," he whispered to me as he put my hand over his heart.

What could I do? Only one thing sufficed to honor that honesty and vulnerability he showed me ... and to acknowledge within myself that, while I didn't want Terry to see it, this was a wake up call for me to have this harsh reality of how life with him meant death was too close. Quick shower, packed a suitcase and I was all his for a week. He told me on the way to the airport that he'd known I'd do it ... that he'd been sure enough of me that he'd booked a flight to the British Virgin Isles and a cabana at this private island resort he knew about ... Guana Island.

"God, you are such a cocky bastard now, aren't you? You never were that sure of me. Admit it," I grumped at him, hating to even really think he was that sure and yet in a big way, glad he'd been that sure of me.

"You can't resist me and you know it," he said with this smirk. I would have hit him only he was right.

I might have given him the evil eye and acted put out ... but we both knew what was going on. I was turning a blind eye, not an evil one, to the truth he wanted to not talk about. And besides, it did feel good to believe he knew I'd put him first.

But more than anything, it felt good that when he was in need, it was me he thought could fill it up for him.

Grand Terry Style. That's how I'd come to think of the sweeping gestures he'd do. Probably had made the arrangements on his flight home and just needed it so bad he knew he could force it on me. And then lavishing on me the way he loved to take my breath away. Like it was nothing to him to know how to do it.

We landed at Tortola, the biggest island in BVI. Someone from the resort met our flight, packed us onto a launch and we were tearing off over blue-green waves even as the sun was setting around us. He was all hands as darkness cloaked us as he held on to me, sitting with me on thin cushions in the back of the boat with spray and wind forming the air into that curious mist you get in times like this. I was all skin wanting the hands. Whispering into me what he wanted to do to me first. Then second. Then later.

Inside the cabana, he held me and loved me and made me feel like nothing bad would ever happen when he was with me. Then once he had me nude and sated ... he pressed on with his goal.

His true goal.

I lay there watching a white fan whir above us and my eyes slid down white stucco walls and looked sleepily at black, calm night outside our window ... and around my body was curled the body of a man from my dreams. And working on my mind was a man who seemed able to talk me into anything.

"Let's just do it." He said the words while his hand rested on my belly and his chin was tucked into my neck.

"Again? Right now?"

Chuckling at me. "Not that. When did you get so greedy?"

"Um. The moment after the first time you made love with me?"

"Let's get married tomorrow."

"What?" Rising up from the bed in shock and turning to look at him. For all the playfulness of his voice, there was a steel in his body language that told me he'd planned this all out ... and in his mind, he expected a certain ... shall we say ... resistance? But I also read this hope in his eyes that maybe I'd take it easy on him. "We've only been engaged a few weeks, Terry. Don't you want to get to know me better? Isn't that what the engagement's for?"

"I know you already. Don't need to wait. Why do you need more time to decide on me?"

"That's not the point."

"Then what is?" Taking my hand and weaving his fingers with mine. "Why should we wait? I want to start our life now."

"Is this just about your close call? Maybe this is just about that and not about ..."

"This is about you. And me. And our life." And then switching on a dime to seduce me. Pulling me down atop him, mouth at my ear and whispering to me of neediness. "I want you to be my wife. I love you, my sweet baby. Say yes. Nothing I want more than to wake up with you and know you're mine. Really mine. Someone in the world who loves me like that. That I matter that much to you."

I put up a bit of a struggle. Don't know why ... actually, I do. I just needed at least a few minutes to get this idea clear in my mind that I was really going to do this. That my life had taken such a radical change in its path that one minute I've given up and am hoping no one notices that I'm taking the easy way out ... to the minute he steps in my life, shakes it completely from its foundations and now he's got me about to embark on a future with a man I could never have seen coming in a million years. And God but I loved him. Like I've never loved anyone.

So I said, we can't get married this soon ... paperwork. To which he said, never fear. He'd checked it out already ... the resort's concierge could set up a simple ceremony the next day in Tortola with a judge, paperwork in hand, all legal ... he'd even thought ahead to having a wedding night together at the resort with private dinner there in the cabana, dancing under the stars ... all that and more, he assured me. Well, we don't have anything really nice to wear for the ceremony, do we, I'd said. To which he said, so what? Well, we don't have rings to exchange and I refuse to get married without rings. To which he said, they have jewelry stores on Tortola ... we'll go pick out matching rings. Well, but I have things I'd want to have for the wedding night, ideas I always had of what ... To which he said, if you want this to happen between us, you'll find a way to get it done.

I shivered at that ... his mouth along my neck, his hands not even really touching me sexually ... but I still felt in his total thrall. I didn't sleep the whole night. I even spent part of the short hours til dusk sitting on the beach and wondering what I was doing with my life. But somehow when I walked back in that cabana and watched him sleeping there ... nothing ever mattered to me so much as him. I loved him with a totality that swept away the reservations over the changes this would bring to my once-solitary life goals. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that I wasn't trading up in the bargain ... there was not even a scrap of concern that this wasn't the man I would love forever ... even if there was this overriding sense of the seriousness of this decision.

We never seemed to speak about what we were up to that morning. We ate fruit and drank juice and just stared at each other. I wondered if he was nervous but I knew he wasn't ... but I also knew he was. He held my hand on the boat trip to Tortola and played with the engagement ring like he was trying to conjure up the life he wanted from thin air and a prayer said over the ring. When we came ashore, he ushered me into the jewelry store that the concierge had advised him about. I felt like I was in this haze ... couldn't even really give a coherent opinion and he ended up just picking the rings ... seemingly simple bands with hidden intricacies for an intricate couple.

And then he abandoned me to my own devices ... handed me over to the resort's driver and gave him the address of where I was to meet him for the wedding in two hours. At this ritzy woman's shop the driver knew of, I looked around in a mini-panic for a while with some saleswoman who looked like she'd just stepped out of the latest Robert Palmer video following me around and making me feel gauche and naïve. After I'd flitted around the store and my eyes refused to focus, I abandoned all intent of finding something old, new, borrowed, blue ... threw out the traipsing of conventionality. Too much in this mood of 'how can this possibly be happening to little old me?' to do much more than pick out something I could wear on our wedding night. An hour later ... a scant hour later ... we were heading for the rendezvous with the rest of my life and I thought this insane, hilarious thought ... that in the end, the only thing I was unwilling to give up in the rush to the altar was the chance for some feminine illusion about the wedding night.

One negligee. Off white raw silk that fit my body like it was an illusion of innocence and never pretending to hide my vulnerability nor highlight my sexuality. I bought it because ... who knows why it seemed important to me at the time? It wasn't exactly like I was the blushing bride.

But that night, as I stood in the bathroom after asking him to just let me have a few minutes to get ready for this night ... I stood there looking in the mirror and all I could see were my own guileless wishes for the life I'd lead with him.

And I haven't a clue why everything seemed totally different ... why it seemed so new and unexplored to just be alone with him. But I opened the bathroom door, took a deep breath and walked out into the bedroom ... the lights were low; only the bedside lamps lit. He was standing at the open French doors that looked out onto a dark beach. Wearing jeans and a simple linen shirt that was open and blowing back in the ocean breeze. He looked more like a man in the long moment when he turned to look at me than I'd ever seen before in my life. And he was mine. This was when I realized that. He was mine forever.

He told me later that when he first looked at me, I'd visibly shook. It's when he knew, he whispered to me later, that this meant as much to me as it did to him.

He held out a hand and I went to join him. Accepted the flute of champagne and the soft kiss along my shoulder. Smiled at his whispered endearment and then took his hand and let him lead me to the beach.

Out on the sand, he danced with me to some unheard melody in his head and he asked me if I was happy. I got out a shaky yes and squeezed in hard around his neck. I was so grateful that he was a man who'd take control in this situation. That he'd show me, by being careful with me that night, that he would always watch out for me.

Dancing me round and round while he hummed against my neck. When I was soft and returning his searching kisses, he walked me back up toward the cabana but then surprised me by leading me toward a palm tree at the outer edge of the beach. Giving me this little smile as he sunk down into the sand, and gently pulling me down to cradle me on his lap. We just watched the night together. I asked him if he remembered the last time we'd been on a beach together at night and he whispered yes in this way that sent his answer whisking warm invitations over my skin where his breath touched me.

"That was the first time you kissed me," I told him and leaned away to look at his face. "It was also the night I first realized I was tired of playing it safe."

"If you knew how hard it was for me to not seduce you that night. I knew you'd have made love with me."

"It would have been wrong though."

"But you would have done it."

"Maybe so. I'm grateful you never made me make the choice. There was just something about you from the very beginning, Terry. I always felt like there was this ... I don't know ... just this part of you that was pulling me in."

"Know the feeling," he said and I trembled at the combination of his sex voice and his fingers trailing down my spine. "Think I knew I'd found the woman meant for me from the moment we met. Do you have any idea how happy I am right now? How much I want you?"

This tremble inside me ... like my heart fluttered at his sincerity and with the feeling of just being in love with a man who did seem made for me. The way he looked at me in nature's night light ... the way his lips touched mine in that powerful moment of seeing inside each other's vision of the future.

When he rose and pulled me behind him, I knew it was about to happen ... the consummation of our wedding. Just outside the cabana, I hung back but he backed in and pulled me with him. This light in his eyes ...

"Oh God." My voice and my body trembled even while I grinned at him. Disbelief cloaked me.

"Shh. S'okay, baby."

"We're married."

"That's right. Come to me."

"Why does this all feel so different? I mean, I feel like ... like we've never even had sex. I'm scared and I can't figure out why."

"Because we're married. Because that matters to us." Now stepping into me and holding my face. "I'll take care of you, Annie, I promise. Always. Trust me?"

"Always."

Light classical music lit the background for us. We moved together and my hands slid along his bare chest, just wanting the feel of him. His warm hands sent chills down my body as they moved up my arms and to my back.

I swallowed hard as his fingers traced a path of fire to the thin straps of my negligee. I felt him place a finger under my chin, guiding me to look up into his eyes. Soft smile on his face and a light ... so light ... kiss across my lips. Even as his fingers slipped the straps off my shoulders and his eyes darted down to watch the silk fall from my body and pool at my feet, he was instantly looking back up into my eyes.

And now his face was set in that serious look and I don't know that I'd ever, in all our time together, been more keenly appreciative of his strength and virility. I felt in his total power ... and I believed he'd never been more aware of how much I needed him.

"I take you, Ann, to be my wife," he said softly as he guided me back to the bed. He held my hands in his for a moment and then put them on the top button of his pants.

I bit my lip. Why did this frighten me so ... this moment that felt like it was the real wedding ... even though the ceremony was hours ago and I'd recited these same vows with him then ... both of us clearly so very serious in our words and intentions as we said these words during the ceremony. And now, he had given them back to me in this special way that was just for us. He just held onto my shoulders as I unzipped him and guided his jeans down over his hips. Then he stepped away and shrugged them off. He pulled his shirt off as he returned to me and then we just stood there together ... open and naked before the other ... as pure in our intentions as possible ... my hands on his waist, his hands on my arms, our eyes on each other.

"From this day forward, I will love you," he said ... I let him lift me onto the bed and we reached for the other. Nothing fancy, nothing rushed, nothing but intensity in each movement against the other. His leg between mine and I know he had to feel the wetness even before his fingers stroked into my folds. He kissed up my neck until his mouth was just over my ear ... I gasped from the combination of his finger slowly entering my wetness and his continuing the repetition of our wedding vows ... finding a way, even on this night, to seduce me: "I will comfort you, I will honor you, I will keep you in sickness and in health."

Kissing me then, deep and sincere. Pulling away to lock eyes with me and to join his hand with mine on his hardness as he shifted over me.

"I love you, Terry. I do." Whispered to him as I felt tears welling and tried hard to just stay with him in this important moment.

"I will forsake all others ..." he said as he entered me, thrusting as deeply as he voiced the end of the vows: " ... and I will be faithful to you as long as we both shall live."

He rocked inside me and we neither of us could move. Just panting out to the night around us and knowing life would never be the same for either of us.

"I will forsake all others ...," I echoed him, "... and I will love you forever."

Details in this night. Of him in a way I would never forget. Of him trusting in what we had to such a depth that I wondered if I'd ever known him before.

Making love all night ... as if he feared he'd never show me how much he loved me otherwise. This was Terry to me ... better able to show me how he felt than tell me ... more comfortable with his physicality than with words.

But by the morning, feeling the immensity of knowing I'd never trusted any man like I trusted him. And that we'd entrusted our joint future to each other.

We made this a honeymoon the way it should have been. The only people we saw the rest of that week were from the resort's staff. Other than leaving the room to frolic in the water and roll around on the beach and screw each other in the surf ... we spent a lot of time finding it impossible to go more than a brief time without some kind of physical contact. Every meal seemed an exercise in erotic food play. Bath time took forever and was never better. Getting dressed was ridiculous ... and he was so comfortable with his own nudity that my more puritan manners were swept overboard by how great it felt to just be as he wanted me ... ready for him. Besides, just looking at him was an aphrodisiac.

When it was time to leave, I didn't want to go. It was the first time in my life that I remember just not caring to ever get back to real life. I stayed all moonie-eyed with him until after we got to the townhouse and he finally decided to check his messages ...

I heard the voice recorder as I was unpacking and heard Dino's voice telling Terry that they had a trip they had to make, to call him when he got in.

It's when DC's winter crashed in on me again. He was going to have to leave in a few days. I kissed at the fresh scar from the last mission and tried to be braver than I felt to be letting him go again.

After he talked with Dino, he gave me the bad news. It could be a month before he returned. He had to join Dino in Houston to hammer out contracts with two oil companies, then he'd be going on to Tokyo to finalize their team for the Asian rim. From there, it seemed wise to them that he'd stop in the Philippines and perhaps Australia before returning.

Too soon. Reality had come crashing in too fast.