[ October, 2004 ]

ANN - Tysons Corner, Virginia

The hangover I woke up with in the morning had a name on it: Dino O'Leary. I cursed his black heart as I wished I had a gallon of icy water to be sucking down just then. Along with about a million aspirin tablets.

By the time I made it downstairs, it was mid morning and I was edgy with the remnants of the headache. I stood in front of the sink and just drank down two glasses of cold water and eyed the dregs of coffee that were sitting there in the coffee maker looking all forlorn like nobody wanted them.

Dino chose that moment to make an appearance. "Fuck. Now you're gonna drink the rest of the coffee?" I grumbled to him.

He chuckled at me and said I was not a pretty sight after tying on a toot the night before. But then relented and said he had a surprise coming for me in a little while.

I wasn't really in the mood for Twenty Questions, I told him. See, this is what I'm talking about, he replied. You really need something to put you in a better mood. Where's Terry this morning, I asked him. He gave me a knowing grin; like he knew talk of something to put me in a better mood just seemed to lead to thoughts of Terry for me. Christ. If he only knew that I had only asked so I could avoid the object of my embarrassing display the night before.

By the time I'd showered and dressed, I felt pretty ... human. So when I tripped down the stairs to find the redhead pacing with barely contained amused excitement, I felt indulgent. What's the surprise, I asked him.

He crooked a finger at me and led me to the garage. I walked in and just ... started crying. God, I'm such a sap for a nice guy's sweet gesture.

"Figure it's cheaper than therapy bills," he said.

I wiped my tears away. "I cannot believe you did this for me."

"The smile you're sporting is good to see," he said. "You'll have to thank Heather. She told me what you'd need and she sent me to the art supply warehouse where I found all this."

"What the fuck?" 

We both turned at the growling Aussie voice behind us. Terry was just standing there looking at this garage that had magically been turned into a pottery workshop courtesy of his partner. An electric wheel, workbench, clay, small kiln, assorted gear and tools, glazes ... it was sweet. My enthusiasm and excitement even got to Terry, who rolled his eyes but never missed that this was just the kind of thing someone like me needed to keep from going stark raving stir crazy cooped up in this house while some dangerous killer was stalking him.

For some reason ... maybe it was just having something new to do ... it seemed that this one thing broke any nerves we felt with each other that morning.

I was busy unboxing supplies and setting up the workbench as I wished while they chatted behind me. But I was paying attention. And I suppose they knew it. Guess they wanted me to know.

The day before, we'd received word during the morning briefing that Raul had been spotted at Dulles airport in DC. However, by the time the ID was made courtesy of the new software that scans arriving passengers' images against all the law enforcement databases, Raul was gone.

And this day, I'd missed the morning briefing because I was sleeping off a hangover. But apparently what I missed was the discussion that maybe instead of waiting on him to make a move, that maybe they should coax him into a trap.

"Why not just arrest his ass?" I asked. They were both behind me; I didn't bother to turn around. I didn't want to see their hard faces.

"Not that simple, Ann. We have to find him first."

"No." I turned and gave them both a level look. "It's not you that has to find him. Let the cops do it. That's their job."

They looked at each other. Terry walked over to the other end of the workbench. Pulled out a cigarette and lit up.

"Unlike what your Terry and Dino went through, thanks to you, we know what we're up against. Trust us, Annie. We're not going to do anything stupid with this guy," Dino said.

"Let the cops handle this." I gave Dino my hardest look.

He looked at Terry and that one glance, it told me everything.

"God. Terry. Tell me you're not gonna get involved," I said.

He looked at the floor before giving me his professional face. "Already am involved, love. Now it's time to put a stop to the threat. If we don't, we'll never be safe."

This was how I found out that they were going to use Terry as bait. They'd been planning this for a while, I supposed. I hated this. I hated seeing all the bad things that were going to happen. I hated that he was playing with his life this way and I told him that.

It was the last thing I said to him before he left. He was going to his home and he was going to the office. He was going to be way out in public and let Raul come to him. He said he knew what he was doing and I believed him. I did. It scared me how much I believed in him.

And me ... all I could do that day was play in wet clay. I found the thing to absorb my mind was working with my hands. I guess I had thought I could forget the bad parts of my past, as if fate would join me in the memory lapse.

My hands were deep within wet clay spinning upon the wheel the afternoon they got back. It had been three days. I didn't even look up at them when they came, one by one ... Terry first, then Dino, into the garage. Trying to let me know they were back without making a big deal out of the fact that they'd survived.

And I knew something had happened. I'd heard the men they left behind chattering low and serious in their radios and I'd seen them getting all antsy because they were stuck there with me. Left behind, like I was. They wanted in on the action. And all I honestly thought about when one of them told me it was all over was ... I wanted to go home. I wanted as far away from Terry as I could get. I had booked a flight already. I would have been gone from there, but he and Dino's men at the gate had turned away the taxi when it came to get me a few hours ago.

So here Terry and Dino show up and I wondered if either of them really thought I was going to throw a parade in their honor? Actually, I knew Terry knew exactly what I was thinking and feeling. I imagine that's why he hadn't bothered to call me the entire time he was gone.

Terry said: "Whatcha working on? We're back then. Everything went as planned."

"Great," I said as he clapped his hands together in that brusque way he has of trying to appear nonchalant and 'what's next' like what just happened was a piece of cake.

Water on my sponge. Filtering it over the lip of the piece as it spun on the wheel. Fingers ready, elbows braced inside knees.

"Went like a charm," Dino breezed in.

"So I hear."

"Something on your mind, Annie?" the redhead asked me and I gave him the briefest edge of a glare.

"Can't imagine what you could mean."

Fingers pulling clay up, out, ready to slope back in.

"Brr. Chilly in here, amiga," he said.

"Then get the fuck out and go someplace warm."

"Hey, Annie," Terry said it soft but there was something in his voice. "Lighten up, love."

"You get the fuck out, too And by the way, I got a flight booked for tonight to go home now that all this shit's over but your bozos won't let me out of this cage without your permission. The Feds cleared out of here hours ago so I know it's your guys who are keeping me here and I don't appreciate it."

After that, the only sound was the whump of the wheel turning and the slight shush of water-heavy clay being formed into some object that the person shaping it was not concentrating on.

Finally ... Dino said, "Tomorrow, man. I'm heading home for some quality time with my family."

"Give Heather and Andy my best ... too bad they're getting you," Terry replied with this false brightness. "Ann and I will stay here one more night. Let's keep some security here ... don't you think? Have Myers and Higgins recheck the perimeter and then get Sanderson ..."

"I said I'm going home tonight," I said and looked up at them. Neither one of them bothered looking my way. They just kept on talking like I wasn't there. Like they'd rehearsed this.

"I'll set it up on the way out," Dino said in this overly bright voice. "You got everything you need then? Fine. See ya in the a.m. then. Vacation's over, old man. Time to make money again. We got real clients who might expect us to be working for them, y'know?"

I glared at him as he walked out the door. Didn't turn back in time and Terry caught me looking. I turned away before I had to watch him walk out on me.

But then I heard the door close and I breathed a sigh of relief until I heard the scuff of his shoes on the cement floor ... and realized he was still in there.

He didn't say a word. I heard him light a cigarette. Smelled the pungent odor of the smoke. Waited on him. He just didn't say a thing.

And all I could do was sit there and realize I was so damned relieved he was okay but I was also scared because of how I'd felt when he'd been in danger ... if anything had happened to him ... I would have had to live with the memory of my last words to him.

So hot in there. Closed in that garage. I tried to blow the tendrils of hair that kept hanging in the worst places ... tickling my nose, irritating my eyes, getting attached in the beads of sweat above my mouth.

"Fuck. I hate when my hair does this! Can't we just open the garage part way now? Get some air in here?" I spat out.

"No, love, we can't. What's the problem then?" Saying it too soft ... like he was toying with me. It annoyed me even more.

"I'm sweating is the problem, Terry. And I can't keep my hair out of my face. It's irritating."

"Oh." Saying it flat. "So that's what's up your arse? Your hair's bugging ya? Well, why didn't you bloody say so, love?"

"Shut up." I said it soft but I cut narrowed eyes at him as I rose to get more clay from its resting spot on the workbench. The mound on the wheel was going to be reduced to the slip jar and recycled into something some day that might actually be nice.

He sauntered over into my path, cutting me off, backing me up. "C'mere. I can get your hair out of your face and then maybe we could have a bit of a smile? Like maybe you're glad I'm back in one piece. Pretend a bit, hey?"

But he said it like he was trying hard to find a way inside me. Like maybe he knew that I'd been scared that I'd lose him, not so much angry that he'd be the man I always knew would do what he'd done. Like maybe he knew that I was fully aware he'd never hesitate to put his life on the line if he thought he needed to do that to keep someone he loved safe from harm. Oh, God. I felt my heart slow and I paused, not at all wanting what was going on. Taking a moment to think how he was making this effort to cajole me ... and not for the first time, I wondered if he still expected me to react like her.

His fingers were cool on my forehead as he moved hair from my damp skin and tucked it behind one ear. He swept more hair from the other side; placed it carefully, slowly, deliberately behind the other ear. And then just standing there, waiting on me to acknowledge his tender mercies. Letting his body remind me that it was him, after all, whom I had shown my desire for the last time we were alone together.

There I stood. My hands out to the side, keeping the damp clay slip that coated them away from damaging his clothes or my own. My heart barely seemed able to chime in much of a rhythm. He was so close. I looked up into twinkling eyes that never fooled me in that moment.

"There now. Little smile in return is all I need, love. Won't even need to give us another kiss. No sense being greedy, is there?"

"And why ... exactly ... should I be smiling? Should I be amused that you put your life in danger today? You think that makes me happy?"

Big sigh from him but he never backed away. "Annie ... c'mon, love. Give me a break here. What's really upsetting you?"

His fingers reached for another thin lock of hair along my face that was bugging the shit out of me just then. "Bet that drives you crazy ... that it won't cooperate," he whispered to me, his voice husky and deep. "Did y'know it's always this one bit of hair that will not stay in place when you put your hair up? Maybe that's why I like it so much. It makes you wild, doesn't it, because it refuses to do as you want it to?"

"Knock it off," I said and tried to edge around  him. When he wouldn't move, I took those messy, clay-covered hands of mine, grabbed into the lapels of his jacket and then shoved him as hard as I could. I knew I didn't have the strength to make him budge ... I really just wanted to grind the murky gray-brown clay into his nice clean blue sports coat. I just wanted to be mean and to prove that I wasn't messing around with him anymore. That I was no longer going to be clean and neat with him. That if he persisted, I would not be nice. I looked hard into his eyes and attacked. "You drawing an analogy to you? Like maybe I like the fact you refuse to be anything but you?"

"You tell me." He moved in closer but I wouldn't back up this time. This time, I stood my ground. So did he. "And then you tell me what the fuck you thought I'd do. You tell me how the fuck you'd ever think I'd not do everything I could to keep you safe."

The look on his face as he regarded me. The instant flash of memory of spending those three days worrying about him ... the total awareness that loving him was not allowed. But knowing I was doing it anyway.

Yanking my eyes from him ... knowing what he'd do next with the invitation I knew my eyes and body language had given him ... my God, but he reads people so well ... worried for him that this was the last thing he needed ... hearing Dino's concern that I was just going to cause him more pain ...

"Annie ... I feel it, too, baby. Don't deny this," he whispered it to me, his mouth at my neck, his groin edging in against mine. I was still hanging on to his lapels. I was pulling him in toward me.

In my mind flashed a comment the first Terry I ever met said to me ... he'd made this point when we were engaged in the argument that took us down in the end ... that there was a difference between friends and lovers when they fight ... that only lovers react irrationally and over the top.

Was it only me behaving irrationally here?

How could I be so furious with him and still want nothing so much as to be buried deep inside him? How could he so obviously be pushing this into an overtly sexual encounter and still trying to pretend that this was only about his need to protect me from harm?

It's about the last rational thought I had for a while, to be honest, Diary. My hands twisted within the fabric of his lapels and pulled down as hard as I could. I went on my toes to meet his lips. I kissed him like I needed the kiss to survive. He took off the moment my mouth opened. He shoved me the remaining steps toward the wall and simply controlled me ... his hands gripped my face and then his body enveloped mine ... his arms at odds ...  one of infinite power and one hampered by an injured shoulder that restricted his movements.

We kissed. We could barely keep it to a kiss. I was wet. He was hard. I was panting. He just kissed me and refused to let me go. I wanted to rip his clothes off, throw him on the cement floor and fuck him until I died.

And then the moment of real truth. We were struggling for air just as hard as his body felt as it ground its pelvic area against me. I shoved my fingers up between our lips and pulled his mouth from mine. I was just hanging there, mouth open, not believing what was happening ... and not believing my resolve could be broken like this.

"Are we crazy?" I whispered to him and I wondered if I looked as shook up as he did. "What are we thinking doing this? This isn't right. Is it?"

"It's okay to be scared of this step, Annie. But I won't let us ignore it anymore.

You know that fear of commitment of yours? Let me help you with it."

Was that it? I didn't think so. "I'm going to mess up, Terry. I have the tendency to do that, y'know? Don't invite me into your life in this way. Let's stop it now before it goes too far."

He gave me this tilt to his head and took in a long breath. In his eyes, I read it ... this was it. Boil it down to its barest elements ... we were either going to both make this leap or we were both going to walk away from the other. He eased up in his hold of me and our bodies separated slightly. My eyes dropped to his neck and I watched him swallow and I watched him start to say something then stop.

His fingers stroked down my jaw and then across my lips. "Just want you to answer one thing. You're acting like you're not sure. I think you are. So tell me this, Annie. When you got that phone call from hospital, what was your first thought?"

I dropped my arms from where they'd been draped around his neck and I heard him sigh. "I don't know, Terry. I guess I was ... worried about you."

"Jesus."

I looked up at him and he was giving me that sour lemon look he gets when he's heard something that irritates him. He pursed his lips, fixed me with a tough look, grabbed my chin in one of his big hands ... daring me to turn away from the truth of this moment's importance. "Let me tell you the first thing I thought about when I realized someone was trying to kill me. You know what I thought? It was ... I can't die because I refuse to leave Annie all alone in this world."

My chest felt so heavy and I swallowed down a ball of instant, choking tears and tried to not let him see me react.

"And when they told me they were there courtesy of Rawlins? Next thought was, 'I will never let that bastard hurt her here like he hurt her there.' I killed the first son of a bitch with my bare hands. I couldn't get the second one down fast enough. Didn't even feel the bullet he put in me. I was too busy trying to kill him to keep you alive for me. Tell me what that says about me and how I feel about you? I don't have a doubt that you're not the most important person to me. Not when my first thought's about you, Annie. No way."

"You don't owe me anything. I'm not her."

He pushed away from me and put his hands on his head. Frustration leaked from every pore. "Fuck, Annie! Listen to yourself, will ya? This isn't about bloody owing you. This isn't about her or him. This is about you and me. Only us."

I put my hand up to him and saw it was shaking. I just left it there. I didn't care anymore. He could think what he wanted about me. "I know that, Terry. I do. I just ..."

"What if you let this chance go? What do you gain? Someday, you'll be an old lady looking back on your life and you'll be regretting this. You know you will. You will wonder why you let me walk out of your life. You will wonder what you gained by letting fear stop you from taking a chance on finding this love."

We just looked at each other. For a long time. He was waiting on me to say something and then he gave up and backed away from me. So much disappointment there in his eyes and all I could think of in that moment was how I'd felt when that phone call came in.

"I thought, 'I wish I had told him I loved him,'" I whispered. He stopped in his tracks and swallowed hard. I started crying, big tears that came slowly down both cheeks but I still held his eyes. "That's what I thought when that doctor said where he was calling from. I just had this gut reaction and I thought you might have been dead or close to it ... and all I honestly felt in that first second was the pain of realizing you might have died without ever realizing how much you were loved."

"Then I don't understand why ..."

"I would drive you crazy. I would. Don't smile at me like that. It's the truth. I can't do that to you."

He reached me in maybe two big steps and his hands were gentle on shoulders. "In case you missed it, I'm a big boy, Annie. Think I'm quite capable of knowing what I want and knowing what I'm willing to do to get it. You really think I'm not willing to have you drive me crazy if that's what it takes to have you in my life as my lover? As my woman?"

Nerves slammed through me and I think they got to him, too. We both giggled at this idea.

But the next moment, everything changed. 

"Terry," I whispered as he leaned in, that full-body lean that felt like everything I'd ever wanted in life. "What about her? Won't you always love her?"

"Oh, Annie. I don't have all the answers, love." I felt tears on his cheek as he rubbed it against my temple. "But I have moved on without her and I have made my peace with that. She is my past. I suppose that love doesn't so much die as it takes its place in what's made me who I am."

My hands tightened their grip along the fabric at the back of his jacket and I felt this little sob that trembled deep in my chest. "I have never once been confused about who you are. But Terry and I ... we never had what you and I have. It's not the same for me. I just..."

"Have I ever lied to you?" His lips caressed along my jaw. His thumbs rubbed softly along the underside of my breasts as he held me gently around my waist and drew me closer to his body. I shook my head 'no.' And he said, "I love you. You. The unique you standing here. I even love your insecurities. I love your goofy take on life."

I sniffled into a grin. "Those are things you should hate. They'll drive you crazy."

"Absolutely. But I still love them. They're you. Just as much as the part of you that has made me want to live again. You are beautiful, funny, smart ... sensual and loving. You are ... Fuck. I was never good at this." Giving me a soft kiss, letting his tongue graze gently between my lips before retreating. "I love everything that makes you you."

"Everything," I echoed him. "I know what you mean. The good and the bad. That's how I feel about you."

Born negotiator; a natural at knowing how to strike fast to close the deal in the heat of the moment. "Yeah? Show me."

No more wild, frenetic, fearsome passion. Instead, we were left with knowing, deep, caring passion that drew us right up tight to each other ... him leaning into me and me snuggling into his hold ...

Sure hands. Possessive mouth. Masterful tongue. Responsive body. Sweet soul.

"Ah, geez, babes. That hurts," he groaned into my ear even as I held his hardness in my hands. His hands yanked mine away from him when I didn't move quick enough.

"What?"

He lifted my hands up before my face as he stepped back. I looked at them and then at him. We both started laughing.

"Fuck! I cannot believe this. Been fantasizing about touching you, get the chance and what happens? I got drying, gritty clay all over my hands. So not smooth," I said and felt my face flame.

"So not smooth," he laughed as he backed up. He made this big show of brushing off the grit from his hard cock and then grimacing lewdly as he forced it inside his pants and zipped back up.

"Ouch! That's gotta be painful."

"Yeah. That means you got a lot of TLC to give before I'll even think about entrusting you with him again," he snapped back at me, his eyes shining with a new light.

"Guess I should ... um ... wash my hands?"

"At least."

I licked my lips and looked toward the door to the house. Then back at him. His eyes watching me to see what I'd do next. "So I guess this means you'll give me a rain check? Some other time, eh?"

"Yeah. I see that happening. Come with me, woman." He held out his good arm and I grabbed his hand tight. He was leading me down the hall and then up the stairs to the bedrooms. He passed mine with a firm backwards glance at me.

Inside his bathroom, he made me sit on the side of the bathtub while he ran water and added bath oils and other potions to the water, letting me smell each one before adding a dollop to the mixture. While the water rose, he stole kisses from me. Each kiss was hotter, deeper and more devastating to my equilibrium.

He turned off the taps and turned to me. My eyes dropped to the tile floor and I breathed in deeply. We were going to do this. To take an irrevocable step. Was I ready?

But one thing about Terry that I was to come to understand more fully than just reading in her journals about him as a man. When words couldn't match the force of his emotions, he spoke physically instead of orally. He sunk before me, kneeling up on the tile and methodically began to undress us both. First my t-shirt, pausing after tossing it behind him to whisper in my ear about how much he liked me braless in that shirt but that, from then on, he preferred the sight be for him alone. I was looking down at where his fingers were stroking and watched my nipples peak at his unabashed masculine approach to me. I did not demur; not with how it made me feel to find him possessive of me. Not considering how I had already recognized my own feelings of possessiveness for him.

He stripped his jacket, shirt and singlet off in one fell swoop and I giggled nervously. Told him he was such a slob sometimes. But when he nestled his bare chest to mine, I don't think either one of us said a word for a long time. Just the feel of him like that. Our hearts beating against each other. Feeling the affect we had on the other. My lips on his neck. His hands slow and strong on my spine.

And what I felt most just then was how much this meant to both of us. It was as if each breath we were taking was more important than any other time in our lives in which we'd performed the act of breathing.

I rose to stand before him when he told me to. My hands stroked his hair as he bent to watch himself lower my shorts and panties. So gentle. Taking his time. Caressing down my thighs and stroking behind my knees until I nearly moaned in nervous anticipation.

And then he showed me his aggressiveness. His dominance. He just leaned in toward the juncture of my thighs and kissed me full on those lips he found there. I knew they were moist. His hands on my hips pulled me to him and I felt my hands tighten in his hair as he held himself in place for just a moment after the kiss ended.

"Mine," he whispered to me as I shook in his hold and all he'd done was kiss me there. He hadn't sucked or anything else.

"Yours," I whimpered and he grunted his approval as he rose to stand before me. He stripped his jeans off on the way. When I reached for him, he shook his head. Pointed to the tub and I stepped into the warm, slick water.

Buried deep in the water, facing each other as remnants of steam rose and played upon the surface, we moved carefully together. He washed me, beginning with my hands and a hint of a smile found its way on his serious face. I washed him, removing the bandage that covered his healing wound before I bent to kiss it. Told him I'd been longing to do that to help it heal faster. His fingers played in my pubic hair as I tried to remain true to my task of rubbing his chest with the washcloth.

"Tell me what happened with Raul," I asked him after he had turned from me so I could wash his back.

"Later," he said.

And I understood. He didn't want anything but us in this tub. No memories, no threats, no worries, no history. Just us ... nude and open but only that way for each other. The rest of the world might never have understood that we could have found this, but I tend to think of it this way: at our core, there was an attraction. That attraction had proven itself now in three worlds. Here, though, was where we had come through the fire to be together in the one place neither of us had started out but the one place we now were staking our own claims. We were adrift from our pasts and their hold on us was not a death-grip. We were older and wiser for the traumas of our lives. Maybe it's the reason I felt like we would try harder this time. Our future was up to us. We wanted to get this right. We thought we were capable of that.

The oil in the bathwater made for a gliding sensation when it was skin on skin. He nudged me into his lap and I straddled him ... wanted to make some comment of gratitude for the tub's generous size but his eyes drove all real thought from my mind.

At first, we just held each other and rubbed our bodies together slowly, not yet ramping it up. Getting to know each other's reactions and willing to show what felt good. And then he hefted my breasts in his hands before dipping down to kiss each nipple then suck my soft flesh into his mouth. I felt his cock as it jumped between us. It was tantalizing to be so close to it ... to have no barriers to it except his will to not come into me yet.

I let him hold me tight to his chest and my mouth nipped and bit and sucked along his shoulder to his neck. I tried to remember his wound and to avoid jostling it but he just refused to be put off.

For all the slowness of the pace, there was still a frenetic quality to my heart's beating each time he touched me in someplace new. When I felt one of his hands smooth down my back and run under to cup my ass ... I trembled at the feel of his fingers walking the remaining inches to my sex. He whispered to me of how he'd longed for this one moment. How he wanted to be kissing me hard when he slid inside me. How he wanted it to mean so much to us both. My mouth covered his and I drew his tongue into me and the kiss got wild and very physical when he yanked me in roughly to him. My hands went down to take him gently by the root. Hard and bold. Eager. I placed him at the entrance and then shifted my hands to grasp his hips and slowly pulled him inside as I lowered myself on him.

He groaned inside the kiss and it was almost a whimper. Neither of us could move when he was in all the way. Even the kiss stilled to nothing more than open mouths against each other. He was the one who started moving. Pulling me up slightly and then thrusting up hard. Breaking the kiss cleanly as he hit his mark to mutter darkly, "Yours."

Waiting on me as I gasped and shook hard. Our eyes locked, mine pleading for mercy and his giving me none. Finally understanding. Whispering to him: "Mine."

It was in that one moment that the sense of belonging with him flooded over me. I told him that. In a voice stained with tears and hope.

"You have no idea how much I love you. You just can't. It's too immense already," I croaked out to him in this half-whisper.

"All I have, Annie, is me. But it's all yours. It's safe with you. That's how I love you."

"We know, don't we? This is forever."

Nodding slowly to me and then beginning a slow rhythm. Hands on my waist to help me raise up and then to pull me smoothly but firmly down. Grinding against me as I ground against him. It didn't last long. Because I suddenly felt entirely greedy and wanted it all. I wanted him coming hard and me coming with him. I wanted to crash and burn. I wanted to fly. I wanted ... everything. Every part of him.

He refused to let it happen that easy. He still wanted this to have its own purpose. I whined when he lifted me off him until I saw him grimace in pain and knew his shoulder was not strong enough yet. He said, turn around. I slid off his lap and turned. He said, I want to be able to touch you. I felt him come behind me and we knelt there with his hands running down my body, my skin and his hands slick in the bath oil that coated us. He nestled his hardness into me from behind. Put me inside, he whispered ... so husky. He slipped back within the core of what made me a woman. I arched my back and let him fly into what he wanted. His hands on my breasts and my head turning to find his mouth at my ear ... just breathing hard and letting me hear what he was feeling. A man who possessed me.

This time, I refused to not embrace the rising urge to come. I cried out to him and he gently rubbed my clit until the coming was so hard and complete that I was rigid with it. And as I was coming down and mumbling to him, he said he'd never felt anything better than that. He was pumping into me and some instinct drove me to grip the side of the tub and grind back against him. I talked him into his coming. I told him how he felt inside. How I'd lived my whole life just to make love with him. How I'd never regret one single bad thing that had ever happened to me if I got to stay with him. How he was the one man I could ever want like this.

And for a moment, I just forgot the fear that was like this dark pebble in a sea of white boulders ... the fear that I wouldn't be allowed to stay. The fear that this happiness was going to be taken from me. The fear that I hadn't earned this.

In its place ... a fierce pledge I made myself to deserve this fate.

We slept in the same bed that night. Not that it was a conscious decision. It was also not a matter I think either of us considered as anything but what would be.

I woke in the morning to the feel of him holding me. I laid with my cheek against his chest. My ear pressed his heart and my soul memorized his heartbeat. My eyes watched his skin as his chest rose and fell with his breathing.

"How are you this morning?" he whispered after I felt him shift to wakefulness and pull me in tighter. Like an involuntary response. The physical need to have me close as possible. The emotional need to protect me. Telling me with this one question that he was feeling like I was.

"It's hard, isn't it?" I asked him and his fingers touched along my cheek.

"What are you feeling?"

"The weight of it all," I said and I felt him nod against the top of my head. "I thought I'd finished grieving for the losses."

"It's the reminders that we have to face," he said softly, his arms hugging me in and his lips planting this light kiss in my hair.

"Why is it that this is like when I really admit these are essentially deaths I am mourning? And why is it that I cannot help this guilt I feel ... like it's a sacrilege to their memory that I am happy right now? Do I offend the memory of who they were to me ... am I dismissing their importance when I feel like this was where I was supposed to be all along?"

He stroked my back and I knew without looking at him that he wasn't totally sure what was right. I rose up next to him and leaned my head on my elbow so I could just watch him. My hand played over the bits of hair along his chest, imagining that beneath them the strength of his heart was able to impact me.

"Every step of my life seems clear to me now," he said. "Getting here ... this was what it took to reach you at last."

Giving him a soft smile. "If I hadn't been through the losses and the mistakes, I'd not appreciate what I have with you. I know we are only at the beginning, Terry, but I feel like this was what it was all about. All along, I wondered why my life took the turn it did to go into Perve World. This was why. My time there prepared me for this. If I'd met you too soon, I might not have understood what I was willing to do for love that was right just for me."

His fingers playing with that recalcitrant tress of soft blond hair that he loved so much. "This is our second chance, Annie. Isn't it? We owe it to them to always make it count."

I thought of the words I'd written to the other Ann months ago and I had this surreal moment of realizing I'd been writing them to myself.

"It won't be easy. There are so many issues we have to resolve between us. And other things ... Your family will not approve ..." I said softly.

"Do you give a shit what other people think?"

Even as he rose from his gentle repose to turn me abruptly on my back ... growling low in his throat with this challenge to me to take him on with my eyes wide open ... I knew already that I'd face the world we were in with the knowledge we might challenge each other but nothing would ever stand a chance when we faced it together.

My best friend. My soul's savior. My heart's protector.

Making my stomach flip over just to see the light in his eyes and to see him concentrating with intensity on me. The focus of all he was. The only chance I ever needed if I took it.

And for all the open questions and issues needed settling, this was a time of knowing.

He came inside my body with a soft touch of a hard man. An unrushed love. A specific coming. Tears that spilled onto heated skin. Words that were whispered into a fevered brain.

The promise fulfilled.

My second chance. It had come at last.

After all this time ... all the stops and starts ... all the frustrations and uncertainty ... after it all ... coming through and coming face-to-face with this starkest of realities: we create our own futures. No one does it for us. If we aren't willing to take the initiative to grab for the love we want, then we're left with the one regret of our lives ... that we chose the wrong path.

He's right. I'd hate to be an old lady looking back on my life and seeing from the grace of years that I missed this chance on having this man to share love with. And I don't want to start now with regrets. Remember, Diary? I don't believe in having regrets.

So this is my life, isn't it? A path that began when someone believed I was owed a better future but knew I needed to learn a few lessons first. Sent into a world that challenged my every prior lesson about men. A place where men helped me heal a shattered heart even as I struggled and fought to find my own way. Men who helped me learn what it was I really wanted out of life and out of love. If not for the way I'd struggled there, I'd never have left and I'd never have been in position to take the serendipitous route here for a new life. I'd never have had a new life that included the opportunity for the love I would never have appreciated if I hadn't had all those other lessons along the way.

I have come to believe this one thing ... there was a reason after all.

And the reason was this unique man. If I'd met him too soon, I would have fucked it up for  sure. If he'd met me too soon, we'd have not been ready for each other. It sure mattered who'd come before us ... each of those people had shaped our ability to love in this way. If not for whom we'd loved before, we'd not have built this new love on the firmest foundation of all: friendship.