She led him through the door and he strode into the room, looking around, taking in the unfamiliar details, half-cop, half-lover, trying to figure her out. She stood transfixed by the open door.

He was conscious of the difference between this room and the rest of the house. Despite its expensive décor, this was more like a teenager's bedroom, a regular room, light and airy, virginal white, not the kind of love nest to entertain men and play sex games for a living. His large hands gripped the white iron frame of the bed before he slowly turned, that haunted look back on his face. He wondered if he was the first in here. Somehow he instinctively knew that he was.

"Why me?"

She stared at him blankly, her eyes suddenly wide, like a little girl startled by a scary movie and shook her head, mouthing: "I don't know..."

Since entering this sanctuary, Lynn herself seemed to have shed her air of confident sexuality. She was passive, watching him, nervous even, as if not quite sure how to proceed. She brushed past him, almost stumbling to the bed. Bud felt mildly anxious, aware of his inelegant clothes, the worn white shirt, short-sleeved and blue-collar image. This woman knew moviemakers and politicians. He was just a dumb cop. He wished he'd showered. Shaved. How was he to have imagined in his wildest dreams that he would end up tonight in Lynn Bracken's arms?

Crossing the space between them with a swagger, the walk he had devised over the years to help him deal with all situations where he felt uneasy, she watched him quietly. His approach spoke of virile masculinity, confident predatory male, but Lynn was astute enough with men to read the person beneath. She saw his desire, his need, his simple confusion - even adoration - in the expression in his large green eyes, the anguished look of hope tinged with expected disappointment, the flicker of a nervous tic in his cheek and the soft register of his voice, so different from the profane staccato bursts of his former interrogations.  He was not like other men. Lynn Bracken knew that in her heart even if she did not yet know the answer to his question. Why me?

Standing above her, he set down his gun on the nightstand before turning back to her and stepping up close. She ran her arms round his waist and rested her cheek against his solid chest; he took her head in his hands and caressed back the locks of her hair. Then he looked down at her as she looked up. He saw a beautiful girl, face devoid of makeup, hair no longer primped and curled to appear like some star in a moving picture, but tussled and messy, the aftermath of sex with another man. Her eyes was large and impossibly blue, her skin flawless without a line or mark, her lips full and swollen as if he had already kissed them. Next to her sleek perfect beauty he felt ugly and rough, like a crude lump of rock beside a marble statue. For a moment he hesitated, a belt of anxiety kicking him in the gut at the thought that he would do something wrong, let her down, not be man enough for her...But one look in her eyes and he suddenly stopped thinking about anything but how much he wanted her. He let nature take its course.

Lynn felt his presence as he loomed over her, the heat emanating from him, the sexual hunger almost tangible. Her eyes were level with his waist; she could see the obscene bulge of his erection already visible even before they had really touched, just that soft kiss of invitation in the lounge downstairs after he had removed his jacket and had a drink. Lynn had known he was a big man. You can always tell the way a man walks and meets your gaze whether he is confident in his manhood. Bud White had plenty of hang-ups, she'd guessed that already, but none of them were in the conventional male areas. He knew he could take care of himself. He knew he could satisfy a woman. She suspected that was in more ways than the obvious.

Her eyes panned up to take in the broad muscular chest, the bulbous arms, the wide shoulders and the strong thick neck. And then she stopped and looked at his face and saw another man. Someone quiet and vulnerable and unbearably sad and lonely, someone who had been hurt and was so afraid of being hurt again - but still had the courage to reach out and try. There was an intensity about him, a brooding stillness that seemed to speak of latent power held back and a dark side restrained but also something oddly innocent and fragile. There was a dreamy look on his eyes as though she was something so fine and pure and he had never been so close to such perfection. It was a long time since a man had made her feel like that.

For mere moments that had the illusion of minutes he hung suspended above her, leaning down but not moving; she felt equally rooted to the spot. It was as if they both knew that from this moment on their lives would be inexorably entwined, that they were on the brink of a future - good or bad- and that neither would ever be quite the same again. It was a moment to savour; the moment when they stepped into the sea and took that chance. Whatever was ahead, storms or smooth sailing, once they made that move then it would be impossible to turn back the tide. They both knew that.

Lynn did not make any attempt to make it easier for him. Mostly because she suddenly realized she didn't know how. She might know every trick in the book for arousing and pleasing a man but she was a complete beginner when it came to showing a man that she wanted him for himself. Everything she might have done would have seemed to her to professional, too knowing, too business-like.  He needed to be in control of this and to feel that he had won her because he was a man worth winning  himself - not just because he had enough bills in his pocket to settle the deal.

He leaned down to kiss her forehead tenderly, almost paternal in its sweetness before he nestled down, pushed her back to lie on the bed and his lips dove back for a taste of hers. He covered her. He knelt on the bed, legs on either side of her body, supported himself on his arms, touching but not resting on her, measuring his bulk and length against her slender softness. His eyes lowered, long lashes sweeping down; he let out an almost silent sigh and then his lips dipped to kiss her and the world seemed to fall away.

Lynn mentally steeled herself for the kiss as she always did when a man brought his lips to her. It was always the way for women in her business, either they didn't kiss or - if they were paid as much as she was for her services- then kisses were part of the illusion, but a girl had to steady herself for it. You can fake most things easily enough but a kiss was somehow the ultimate intimacy, not because of it sexual connotations but more for the other symbols it still retained - love, family, friendship the innocence of childhood. So Lynn had automatically prepared herself for the intrusion.

Only to find that it was no such unwelcome thing. The instant she felt his lips hover near hers, his breath distantly whisky-tinged, warm and urgent as his breathing surreptitiously quickened, then the soft brush as he caressed her mouth with his, all the restrained tension in her body evaporated. He did not do what the others did. He did not force his tongue lewdly against her and push too fast or treat her like she was his to toy with and use. Bud simply kissed her, open mouthed and tenderly, teased at her lips as if she was a shy girl and he were taking his time out of respect for her. She wondered if he always treated women like this or if this was because he felt something deeper than just lust this time. Whichever it was, it gave her a thrill of unexpected joy and increased her growing sensation that what was happening to her was something unique that she had never really known before.

As she responded, when the time was right, when her body gave him the signals that she was ready, he deepened the kiss, ran his tongue along the crease of her lips, waited for her to give him permission and then, when she took him in, it felt so good. This was a sexual kiss is, she thought. A pleasure, not an onerous part of a sex act.

All the while he had kissed her, his hand had cupped her face or stroked down her cheek. He stopped, pulled back, looked at her and smiled, bashful even now emotionally. Lynn smiled back and they reached for each other again. A wilder and more abandoned kiss, accompanied by the urgent writhing of their limbs, his leg parting hers, a hand now running down her thigh to raise her skirt and touch flesh, her hand around his neck and massaging the short hairs at the back of his neck.

Again he pulled away, glanced at their clothes already disarrayed. "Wait....I gotta use something...you got some...?" His words trailed off, acknowledging that she was bound to have a supply, a woman in her game.

"It's okay. You don't have to...." She murmured, pulling him back to her.

"Whaddya mean? Don't you...? With them...?" He gasped.

"I said you...not them..."

"But..." he swallowed hard. "...If I ever father a child, I want it to be wanted. Not just a mistake..."

Lynn looked at him, surprised by what he said. He wasn't thinking about catching anything. He wasn't thinking of being saddled with a paternity case. He was thinking of a child being loved - that this was not an act to do lightly. She had never known anyone think about knocking a woman up from that point of view. Not a man anyway.

"I didn't mean I wasn't taking precautions. I used a cap. It's already there. I mean you don't have to wear a rubber...but we're safe...I want to feel you. I want you to feel me..."

She saw the way his eyes responded as it dawned on him what she was saying. He knew this was a gift she didn't give other men.

This time he didn't hesitate. 

Lynn knew the score from now on. A man would want her naked pretty soon and to make free with her body in any way that turned him on. Touch. Be touched. Fingers, mouth, then cock. The usual. Her hands reached for his shirt but he shied away and instead leaned on his side. His hands palmed softly down the creamy white satin of her gown and then he nudged her to turn to her right; he eased down the zip. She rolled back to him and his hands slipped the dress from her shoulders and worked it from her slowly. Below she wore a corset, cut for titillation not for support - pushing up her breasts almost to bare them and the bottom edge framing her naked sex.

Bud took a breath looked at her solemnly. "Take it off!" He didn't say it like he wanted her to tease him. It sounded like he didn't like to look at it. That's what she wore for her clients.

Lynn sat up and eased out of the garment, tossing it away to sit there naked before him. "Lie down..." he murmured his voice so low and soft that she felt it rather than heard it. Complying, she stretched out on the bed wondering what he had in mind.

His next move took her by surprise; he slipped off the bed to kneel before her. Stretching forward again he bent to kiss her lips, then her throat, then the hollow between her breasts. He moved to each nipple, kissing, tasting then licking in whorls before drawing the erect peak into his mouth and sucking gently. Then his head moved further down leaving a trail of moist kisses down her slender body to lave at her navel and then down to bury his face into the soft downy light brown hair between her legs. She heard him mumble something.

"What did you say?"

He raised his head. "I dreamed of this. I never dreamed it would ever happen." She could be any man's if the price was right. But Bud White would never have paid for this. So he thought never to have it. How close they had both come to missing this precious moment.

But he had moved back to her body and, as if in prayer, on his knees before her shrine, he tended to her needs, oblivious of his own. No, thought Lynn. These are his needs, too. This is his desire. This is his pleasure. To love me. The notion startled her in its stark simple truth. This was love. Not sex. The opposite of what she did for a living. A flutter of happiness seized her and a deep gratitude to this man stole over her. He had given her back something that she had thought she'd lost long ago: her purity, her virginity. No man had ever taken this part of her before - even the first one. For perhaps the only time in her life, she was giving of her body freely. And a man was not taking from her but using his body as a gift to please her.

Lynn Bracken liked sex. Most of the men she went with were decent and treated her right. She took some physical pleasure in her work; there were times when she experienced real orgasms and did not have to fake. But nothing had prepared her for the sensation of coming on his tongue as he kissed and licked and suckled, moaning softly as he burrowed deep within her. She lost all sense of where and what she was and simply became the girl in his arms as he spun her to some place of his own fantasy and she came strongly in a white hot charge of pleasure.

Her next awareness was Bud holding her, just holding, stroking her, kissing her head and whispering. She rolled into his body and wrapped herself around him. She cried softly, pressed against the cheap cotton of his shirt, feeling the press of a pen stuck workman-fashion in the pocket above his left breast.

"What did I do?" he muttered, mentally berating himself for upsetting her.

She shook her head. "You loved me. They never love me."

"You're not a whore to me..." he answered gruffly, tilting her face to him.

"You're not a John to me..." she replied, sniffing back the tears and reaching to kiss him. "I want to see you, Bud. I want to feel you...inside me...I need you to be a man for me..."

She never voiced her own desires. Oh, she often made dirty talk to turn them on, but this was different. She wouldn't even use a crude word to describe what she wanted with Bud. Because she wanted so much more than any body part of his or any empty thrill.

He stood up and undressed slowly, a little embarrassed, she could see that. She doubted whether he was shy of his body or unused to being naked before a woman. But she guessed he was nervous about pleasing her. Would she like what she saw or find him rough and crudely wrought, not like the rich men with their golf tans? She watched as he dragged off the cheap red tie and ripped at his shirt buttons. He was wearing a white tank; she thought all men should look like this in one. His body was solid and muscular, bulky but defined, large pectorals swelling from a broad chest, arms thick with sinew. He was lightly haired, not bearish. Bud unzipped his pants and dropped them, his shorts standing at an awkward angle, a damp spot spreading from the tip of his penis. She wondered if he was in discomfort to have waited so long with no satisfaction while he merely saw to her needs.

Lynn sat up and helped to remove his shorts; he pulled her head against his belly, the hard rod of his erect penis pressed against her throat. She freed herself from his embrace and kissed the tip, grasped the huge cock in her hands and caressed it gently but firmly. He hissed at that; his hips thrusting forward almost as if he was unable to stop himself; the male instinct to rut so strong as to have possessed him completely. She took him into her mouth, lips stretched over his girth, one hand taking up what her mouth could not swallow, the other cupping the heavy balls beneath and rolling them gently.

He watched her as she loved him, pulled back her golden locks to enable his vision and to anchor him to her. His head was spinning with her, the taste of her body, pungent spice, a trigger to every male sense in his formidable arsenal. His skin tingled from her touch, her cool soft hands, the satin of her skin, the thick tumble of her hair, the soft down between her legs. There was an expensive perfume surrounding her like a cloud; he knew he would never forget the fragrance or smell it again without recalling this moment.

Just then she looked up at him and there was something so heartbreakingly sad about her eyes. He thought of all the men she had done this for. He didn't want to be reminded of that; he didn't want her to think of him as the others. Gently touching her mouth, he eased himself from her, grimacing at the self-control it took to deny him this sensation.

Holding himself in hand, gripping tight, he lay beside Lynn. She moved further up the bed to lie upon the pillows. He followed her. Lynn opened her arms to him and he came to her, nestled in the space between her legs and rocked as he kissed her wildly now. Her hands moved down his broad back, cupped the swell of his shapely buttocks, ran a finger down the cleft. He stiffened and almost sobbed with want. She took her hand and slipped between their bodies, found the shaft of his burning cock, a hot pulse beating in her cool fingers. Slicking the tip through the wet evidence of her desire, she gripped him tight.

"Good?" she whispered.

"Too good,' he mumbled back, grinding against her, his hands grasping her buttocks to knead, his full weight on her.

"Not good enough..." she teased and then slipped the head inside. He pushed downwards and stifled his cry of satisfaction with kisses rained down on her face, her neck, her throat and then her lips.

His strong, steady movement, deep thrusts and slow withdrawals, struck up a pace she could cope with. He was very big and even she was stretched to accommodate him, but he knew how to ease into a woman and, even in his passion, he seemed incapable of losing himself entirely. Lynn sensed even here, in the heart of the sex act, with a woman who clearly moved him, he was holding part of himself in check. She sensed his formidable strength of purpose and wondered what would happen if he let that latent anger and bitterness out. Or perhaps it exhibited itself in other ways? There had been blood on his collar that other time; his manner had been aggressive then. She suspected he was capable of violence.

But not to her. She couldn't imagine him hurt a woman, or a child or anyone he felt was in need of protection. She noted again that curious purity that seemed to radiate from him, an innocence, untainted despite the jaded and profane exterior. Bud White was a good man. Of that she had no doubt.

Bud rolled onto his back and they tumbled together. She rose on him this time, mimicked his deep fucking, saw his head fall back and his eyes close, his lips part in helpless sighs. No crude sex talk. No talk at all. Just the murmurs they uttered as they came together, his hands now rough on her buttocks, squeezing and pressing down, grabbing lumps of her flesh and working them as if he wanted to get inside her from every angle; she pushed down on him to bring him deeper and ground herself until neither could stand the pleasure, the flutter of orgasm on the cusp.

She could taste him, salt sweat, scent of a woman, trace of soap, whisky and that indefinable man aroma that seemed to ooze from his pores as his sexual heat built. Her hair fell about his face as he plundered her mouth and then threw her back to rise above her once more, his pace quickening. "I can't...I can't..." he gasped.

"I got you, baby...don't hold back..." she cried out as his cock battered that place inside and she crested. The tight spasm of her walls as she came finished him; he came with her in a blinding rush. Bud seemed to pour his entire self into her, all he was, every thwarted desire, each lonely night and bitter memory he had ever had. And she just held him. He was somewhere else for moments, slumped on her, sweat slicked body heavy and hot, heart pounding, moaning softly. A sweet warm glow of love for this man flooded through her that was as strong as the electric pulse of her own orgasm.

He pulled out and lay back on the pillow, his hand shielding his face, staring at the ceiling. She scooted up to lie close, curled her legs around him. "I'm sorry..." he muttered.

"Sorry?" she asked credulous.

"I hurt you...it was too much...I couldn't help myself...I wanted you so much. I'm no better that they are, huh?"

Lynn smiled and sat up, moving his hand away, making him look at her. "Let me be the judge of that, Bud. You won't see me complain. That was what I wanted. What you wanted too. That's the difference. We didn't just do some business. Not sure what we did. Felt like a bit of heaven to me..."

She saw his face relax, relief wash over him. He sat up, held her face a moment caressed her gently with his thumbs and then kissed her softly. Then he swung his legs off the bed and grabbed at his pants.

"Maybe I could see you sometime?" again his voice was low and husky; he was avoiding her gaze again.

Lynn ran her hand down his powerful naked back. "How about tomorrow morning? Stay for breakfast? Where you going, Bud?"

He half turned. "I thought...it's early. You probably got clients..."

She blushed. "I could just not answer the door..."

He shook his head. "No....I shouldn't be here...I'm on duty..."

"You always do your duty, Officer White?" her words were mocking but her tone was tender. He hung his head, grinned.

"You always do yours?"

They laughed.

"Tomorrow night? Take me to the movies? Like a regular date?"

Bud swallowed. "You bet..."He sat back down on the bed and took her in his arms. "Tonight...was the best thing that ever happened to me. Just once would have been more than I ever had before..." he smoothed back her hair, looked straight into her eyes.

"Well, that makes two of us, Bud White..."

He leaned in and kissed her soft and long,  and then stood to finished dressing. 

"Pick you up at seven?" She rose from the bed, like a naked Venus, wrapped herself in a robe and slipped her arms round his neck. "I'll be ready...but I want a hot dog as well..."

Bud laughed and took her hand, cupping his genitals through the rough cloth of his trousers. "Well then, Miss Bracken, looks like you'll be having two..."

She swatted his arm away coyly and rolled her eyes. "You just get on with yourself and don't be so forward, Bud White..."

At the main door, they kissed - and reluctantly parted. Bud made it to the path, turned back, smiled. She blew him a kiss. His grin widened. He ran over to his car and slumped inside, feeling tired but elated, sexually charged. A car parked ahead of him on the street; a man eased out, straightened his tie and adjusted the jaunty angle of his hat. The guy sauntered up the steps of Lynn's house. For a second, blind rage gripped Bud, his knuckles white on the wheel - but the rush of blood subsided. It was what she did. Like he beat guys up for Dudley.

It wasn't what either of them were.

"Where d'you get to, White?" Det. Michael Breuning grinned malevolently as Bud strode into the precinct. It was late. Hours since the Victory Motel when he'd walked out.

"I had something I had to do..." Bud helped himself to cup a coffee and carried it through to an office. Breuning could go fuck himself. He had enough on his mind trying to stop thinking about Lynn giving it up to some prick. He still had a couple of hours. Might as well catch up on paperwork. He slammed the door hard behind him.

Breuning shrugged and laughed to himself. What was biting White's ass?

"...Breuning, lad? I'd like a word with you..." he heard the captain's voice low in his ear and spun round. Smith drew him aside.

"I think White's behaviour needs a little watching. His extra- curricular activities need some clarification. Follow him next time he goes off duty. Keep me informed...."

Lynn closed the door on the client and let the false smile die from her face. She straightened out the bed and walked through to shower away the scent of this man to whom she had given more intimacy than Bud White. She shuddered at the memory of how hard it had been to slip back into the game. As the warm water cascading down her and she smoothed soap on her body, she let her mind soak up the thought of Bud, to drive the bad shit away.

Why me? She knew the answer now and it was simple. Because you asked that question, Bud. Even before you said it.