People think he's fearless because he has training and native intelligence. And because there's a part of him that will always be capable of being coldly calculating. Open spaces make him feel like falling off, as if he could disappear without anyone trying to stop him. He looks at his reflection, shifting his gaze from the wide open expanse out the window of his hotel room. He is thinking of Alice. She would not be afraid of wide open spaces, he thinks with an effortless tenderness.

His hands are on his hips. His lips purse suddenly with the willful decision to refuse to turn his head and look down at the desktop as he thinks of Alice. He knows these particular thoughts of her do not mix with his professional interest here in Tecala. Next to where he stands at the window, atop the desk his laptop screen shows the results of many weeks of being with Alice.

He has to stop thinking that way, he says to his inner demons. He is not with Alice ... he is there helping Alice get Peter back. That is all.

Sometimes, though, he lets himself imagine what it would be like to have Alice in his life rather than have Alice be his current mission. 

His eyes flicker. A brief smile flits across his haggard face. He can still feel the pressure of her fingers as he captured them within the palm of his hand earlier that day, helping her out of the car. His palm straightens; he makes an unconscious gesture ... the same one he made later, when he escorted her home after the last explosion. He'd reached out to guide her inside even as he was turning to look around them with practiced eyes for hidden risks. He'd looked back toward her as they reached the steps leading to her door; she'd been looking over her shoulder, her eyes cast down toward the hand he had placed protectively on her back.

Then she'd looked up and their eyes had met. 

And held.

They didn't usually hold.

Usually they looked away at that moment of connection on a level they knew and somehow didn't know.

He was the one to finally break it. Break the hold they held each other in with just a look. And why had he done that, he asks himself now. He looks at the name on the file atop the desk: Peter Bowman. That's why he'd done it, he says to himself, because he couldn't fucking ever stop forgetting he was a professional.

Always the pro, he thinks with not a minor jolt of revulsion. Always the fucking knight who comes in, puts lives back in proper order, then moves on so quick as if he's afraid, literally afraid, that the 'hero' label might actually stick to him ... not a hero. Never a hero. Just a man doing a fucking job, mate, that's all.

He shoves his laptop lid down to close it; slams the Bowman file in his briefcase. Pours himself a slug of scotch, neat. Enough work, he says to himself. Enough shit for one day ... for one life.

When this is over, I'm never doing it again, he thinks as he runs a hand over his face. He pours another scotch and heads to the bathroom, intending to sink into the whirlpool tub with his drink and his uneasy feelings. He peels away the layers of his clothes but stops before he takes off the layer next to his skin. It's black. It's silk. Boxers and a singlet. In the mirror, he looks at himself, coldly appraising the man before him as if he were a target and not a liability. What does he make of this man's silk boxers and singlet? In black? Well, of course, it's obvious. It's one of his indulgences ... and he wears these items hidden beneath the layers of clothing the world sees because ... well ... because he's so good at hiding the little things that make him feel like he's human with frailties to be indulged.

He frowns at this self-assessment. Get a fucking grip, mate, he says to himself. You wear them because women like them. Male vanity, nothing more and nothing less.

For not the first time, he considers why he came back to Tecala, to help Alice, to negotiate for Peter's freedom. He had this fuzzy idea that he was doing it to break free, to show he could do something totally outrageous, totally spontaneous, totally good.

Hell, he'd even thought it might have been the answer he sought to his utter disenchantment with the profession he did so well, so nobly, so robotically in the end. When had he lost that ability he had to care, really care about why he did this? When had he lost the talent to connect with the people he met when he came in to rescue someone they loved? It actually pained him to picture himself, the way he was with those people ... so distant and technical, like some insurance agent come to show them the fine writing on their policies and get them to trust him only because they were desperate and he was good at what he did. They thought he cared about them ... it had been so long since he'd actually cared in a personal way ... now he only cared in the aspect of getting the cargo back because it was a matter of pride, maybe.

But he'd connected with Alice, he thinks ... his voice inside is insistent ... 'yes, you connected with her. The only one in so long ... why is that?' But he knows the answer. King of unrequited love and all ... even he recognizes the symptoms.

Why had he been so foolish as to think he'd find the answer here, doing a humanitarian mission for one Peter Bowman? It's never that easy to correct where you went wrong in your life. It takes more than one big score but at least he's found his heart again.

If he could bring that man back, restore his life? I'm doing it for her now, he says to himself. He both hates and admires that he can make this acknowledgment. You are so fucked up, Thorne.

Leaving the mirror, he returns to the window as if the answer is out there ... or maybe because what he sees out there takes him out of himself and he needs that in this day. So he watches as the night's lights sparkle on below him. It has been a bad day all round for this city. The rebels had set off several bombs. He'd told Alice to stay in her home until the police and the army get a handle on this new, brazen terrorism by the rebels that hold her husband. He'd told her not to be scared but he knows she had been frightened ... more frightened than since those first few weeks after Peter's kidnapping.

Her home. He pictures her there, camped amidst the scorpions and her resolute determination to "keep house" as in "keeping vigil" for her husband, gone all these months ... and she still keeps vigil. He admires that about her.

In all his life, had he ever met a woman who'd love him in that way? Was he never deserving of that? Or did he shut himself down with any woman who might have ... the way he'd shut himself down a few hours ago with Alice when their eyes had held each other?

What did she see when she looked at him? What would a woman like that do in his life?

She would hold him. She would keep vigil. She would bring him home. She would save him from those wild open spaces where he kept getting lost. She would give him a place to call home.

He looks into his own eyes ... reflecting back at him in the darkened window. Mate, women like Alice don't love easy, he thinks. When they do, it's for the right reasons. It's to give a man a place where he is safe, always safe ... where no matter what else happens, he knows one person in the world will always be there for him.

Swallowing the remains of his scotch, he welcomes the slight burn it makes down his throat. 

"What the fuck," he mutters aloud with a start ... that flash over by the bridge ... is that another bomb? He leans in toward the window, scanning the city ... and sees a blinding red flash-bang up on the next hill ...

The lights of the city cascade off, grid by grid. He watches it happen ... the rebels have hit the power station ... the power grids go off ... bam bam bam ... it's like a wave of black blocks coming at him and the next moment there's a brief flicker and then everything is dead calm. The power is off in the hotel.

He looks up into the western hill ... power is on there, at least for now. Alice is safe then, he thinks, safe in her scorpion home.

Small dark places terrify her now because they make her think of what Peter is going through.

She wanders the house, jittery, alone. Tired of pretending to be strong. Worn out from tears she's shed, alone there to face her demons. All she needs is one man in this night ... the one man who'd keep her safe. The one man capable of keeping her safe.

Instead, she's up here on this hill while he's on another hill. This is so wrong, she thinks, I totally cannot do this.

She strips and pulls on a little tank top before she crawls into bed and tries to nestle into sheets of orange and mauve.

If he saw her now ... he'd see the real her, the one who is scared. The one who needs help. The one who will not make it without him by her side. She stares up at the ceiling. She wishes it were dark, then maybe she would sleep.

Her ceiling is pale lemon. She wonders about the woman who decided to paint the ceiling that color. She used to think it was softly gay. It began to annoy her about two months after they moved in. But she's done nothing about the mellow yellow ceiling that has stopped making her feel gay. Why is that? Why is it that she has been simply mired in this miasma of her own unwillingness to move on and find the path into her future?

She hates that about herself. How she can be so take charge in so many ways but how she cannot even do something like change the color of her bedroom ceiling when it bugs her ... except maybe it's because she mentioned it once to Peter when they were musing about stuff after sex once. They never talked about important things after sex anymore ... she could remember when they solved world problems and put right the injustices and decided to make a baby ... but anymore, for far too long, the deepest their post-coital conversations ran was to the color of their ceiling.

He liked it. She had grown to hate it.

Maybe she had even grown to hate him.

Just a little.

God, she whispers against her hand, how can she think such thoughts right now? She has to keep the faith ... she has to believe this has all been worth it ... that it will happen ... that Terry will bring him home ... that she will be glad when he does ... that she and her husband will be happy again somehow.

It's just that she's begun to wonder if she really does want a return to the marriage she had before this all happened. Maybe her expectations have changed. Maybe she's a bitch to even think that, she says to herself. Why couldn't Peter have been more like Terry, she thinks suddenly, angrily. Goddammit. Terry Thorne would never have let himself be kidnapped like Peter did. Damn Peter! Damn him. Damn it all.

She rises and begins to wander the house ... something trying to coalesce on the edges of her willingness to think about something other than lemon ceilings she hates and kidnapped husbands she fears for and strong men who make her husband look so weak to her.

In the kitchen, she pours a glass of cool water. She drinks it in the library, as she stands before the big window that overlooks the sheer drop of the cliff upon which the house is perched. This is the room where Terry comes to work. Where she comes more and more lately to be surrounded by her confusion about him.

He's down there, in his hotel, she thinks. It envelops her ... that she's thinking of Terry. That she's picturing him. That she can feel the weight of the dark blue polo shirt he was wearing when he brought her home from the market. He wears that shirt a lot. She knows it well after all this time together. Once or twice, she's stroked his arm while he's worn that shirt so she knows what the fabric feels like. She even remembers once straightening the collar of that shirt when he'd taken off his jacket and she'd reached out with no thought just to straighten the collar down.

Terry had smiled at her. That shy smile of his. The way it looks when he lets out a glimmer of the softer him before something happens and he pulls it back inside.

Why does he do that, she wonders to herself as she stretches and tries to force a yawn out that will maybe convince her she's not as wired as she is.

She often thinks on Terry Thorne, musing about what makes him tick. About why he really came back to help her. She thinks it's not just about Peter. Maybe he saw something in her that mattered to him.

Sometimes it seems to her that Terry has always been in her life. That it's been forever and then some that he's been coming by, twice each week to man the radio and negotiate. That he's come over for dinner first ... the least she can do for him is fix him meals. He looks at her sometimes while she's cooking in a way that makes her like to imagine that they are just ordinary people. Just two people having dinner. Chatting over wine or beer.

His ability to be caring and considerate are things she likes in him. So often, he is too stiff by half, she thinks with a grin, but he has loosened up just a bit around her in the last few weeks. She pictures his face, so handsome and rugged. She can hear his voice; it calms her. It also makes her feel certain unnamed things she knows are wrong to feel around him. He is funny, when he lets that show. But too often his humor is directed inward, as if he deflects the world's criticism by making fun of his own foibles in life.

Most of the time, though, he backs away from her if she gets too close. Like when she fixed his collar. He'd looked almost as if he was going to touch her ... but then he blinked, looked away, stood there awkwardly.

But there are those moments. When they are huddled together, him talking on the radio, negotiating with dogged determination. She admires him. She admires how cool he is. How he never gets nervous. How brave, smart and heroic he is. If it were her, she could not do what he does so it makes her feel like a real adult to sit at the table with him, taking notes, watching his eyes for reaction to Marco's rants of the evening. She loves that he lets her sit by his side in this room.

He makes her feel safe. As if this is doable. As if he will do anything and everything for her. To help her.

A car horn blares on a nearby street. She jumps. More car horns ... she jumps again ... even knowing it's simply traffic and people's nerves on edge from the bombings that day ... Her own nerves are frayed, raw.

How she wishes he'd stayed there ... with her.

There was a moment there when she thought he would. When she thought he'd read her thoughts. That moment when their eyes captured each other. When he forced her to keep looking. When she felt like if she could only fall into his eyes, it would all be better.

She sighs; it's shaky and bitter. 

Her phone rings. It's Ivy, Jerry's wife. The bombings, Ivy says into the phone, her fluttering voice more pronounced. The bombings, Alice says back. I'm so scared, Ivy says. Terry says they are just making a point, Alice says. They are doing a good job then, Ivy says. Don't be afraid, Alice tells her. But Ivy says, you shouldn't be alone tonight ... you should come here ... at least we would be together.

It's the least you should be doing for me, Alice thinks to herself. You and Jerry and everyone else with that company should be doing so much more for me. Instead, all I have is Terry but he's worth far more than any of you.

But she doesn't say it. Instead, she lets Ivy continue to talk her into coming over there. They are only five minutes away from her. And she wants the comfort of having someone to worry over her. And she is scared. The bombings have so rattled her today ... and also, that undercurrent with Terry ... he seems edgier, like he's holding back. She hates that he does that ... she wishes ... she wishes for more but won't admit what she's doing.

In the end, she tells Ivy that she won't go over there. That she's staying put. That it's the smarter thing to do. But then Norma calls. Norma is worried as well. Norma has heard things ... unsaid things. The phone goes dead in Alice's hand. She shakes it, rattles the receiver ...

She pictures some rag-clad rebel, poncho covering his guns, sweating while his teeth clamp down on a cigar. In her shaken imagination, he cuts the lines to the phone building. Or the lines to her upper-class neighborhood. Or the lines to her house. Maybe that's what's happening. Maybe they've come for her, too. Maybe Peter isn't enough anymore. Maybe they will take her and degrade her and take her into that jungle ... the place where her nightmares would be real.

The only thing she takes with her in her panic is her purse. Her heart pumps into her throat as she sprints from her door to the car. And then she's through her gate, racing through the empty streets of her neighborhood ... the main avenue that runs outside the big gates there is nearly deserted. Everyone must be in hiding. Everyone must realize there is danger.

She starts to turn right, to go to Ivy and Jerry ... but instead, she turns left. She doesn't think about it. She refuses to think about it. She is just going to the one man who will protect her and make her safe. Every corner she passes, she thinks she sees men with ponchos and guns ... maybe she does ... but by the time she is pulling into the hotel's drive in, she is beyond fear. What is beyond fear, she wonders briefly ... and then the first bomb of the night goes off ...

No noise comes from her ... she thrusts the keys at the valet ... the doorman rushes her inside the lobby ... they are locking it down. Inside the lobby, there is bedlam.

She races for the elevators. She punches and punches the button ... five times before the doors open. She nearly runs over the couple coming off. They ask her something ... they want to know what's happened ... she doesn't have time for their question ... she ignores them and stabs frantically at the button for Terry's floor.

As the car rushes up, she sinks back against the back wall and only now she realizes ... she's at his hotel ... she shouldn't be here ... she shouldn't have done this. She moves back to the control panel and presses the button for the lobby. The car continues up ... it will stop at his floor before returning to the lobby.

What an idiot I am, Alice thinks and catches sight of herself in the polished surface of the doors. She's standing there, nervously fingering her hair and studying herself in the metal surface when something causes the elevator to falter.

A surprised "oh!" escapes her. She reaches instinctively for the handrail. The car jerks upward again ... the next floor is Terry's ... almost there ... the light for his floor flickers but then ... the car shudders to a stop and the lights go out ...

And she'd say there is dead silence except for the fact that the elevator groans and wobbles, metal scraping cement. She clings to the handrail, darkness absolute. Too afraid to move for fear any movement will send the elevator hurtling down.

For long moments, she is frozen in place. Then she slowly creeps forward to the front of the car and madly feels about under the control panel for the phone to call for help at the front desk. She grips onto the phone when she finds it ... but there is nothing on the other end ... no static, no voices.

The elevator is no longer moving. At all. This should make her feel better ... at least she isn't hurtling to her death ... but this terror on top of other terrors is far too much. She opens her mouth to scream for help ...

"Terry! Help! Terry!" she screams at the seam of the door. "Help me!"

She screams and screams as she feels that new fear of enclosed, small, dark spaces overwhelm her.

He has done nothing more than move easily across the darkened room to take hold of his flashlight. It is on the bureau near the door. Later, he thinks about how this is the reason he heard her screams so quickly.

Not that he knows it's her right away. Instead, he just knows someone inside the hotel is screaming. He opens his door, scans the hall as he listens to fix where the scream is coming from. This is when he realizes it's Alice.

He is racing down the hall ... unsure what has happened to Alice but knowing she needs him. Quickly, he realizes she's in the elevator and it is now stuck between floors because of the power outage. In his calmest voice, he calls to her to let her know he's there ... that he will get her out.

His reward is her frantic pleas for him to hurry. Hurry, Terry, oh please hurry!

He uses his handgun ... the one he grabbed so instinctively he's not even noted it to himself until that moment ... but he uses its barrel to help him pry open the outer doors to the elevator shaft.

When he gets the inner doors open, he sees that the elevator is lodged about halfway between floors. He kneels down, shining his flashlight into the cavern that is the elevator in the pitch black. She is huddled in the far corner; her hands are over her mouth and her eyes are so wide.

"Alice," he says and she sobs his name out as she reaches her hands out to him. "It's okay ... c'mon ... come to me, I'll help you out."

"I can't!" she wails at him. "I can't move, Terry! Help me ..."

He takes in her tear stained face, the wild look in her eyes. He also takes in the situation ... lines up the rescue. He can get her out but she must come to him, grab his arm, let him lift her out. He tells her that ... he says it in his very calm, very sure voice. She is too frightened, she tells him.

"No, you're not. Alice! Alice, listen to me ... you are not too scared. You can do this. You can do anything. You just got frightened in the dark ... anyone would. But you are stronger than about anyone I know."

"No, I'm not. Oh, Terry, I'm not."

"Alice ... you trust me, don't you? I've never bullshit you, have I?"

"No," she says, her voice shaky but she is not longer crying. "I trust you. I do. I always have."

"Good girl," he says, smiling even though she cannot see it. "Time to show me how much you trust me, love. Get up and walk over here ... you can do it, Alice. I believe in you."

She opens her mouth but then she doesn't say whatever she was going to. Instead, she gets to her feet and even though her gait is unsteady, she follows the trail his flashlight makes for her. And then she's right below him, staring up, trusting him. His heart seems to beat harder. He would shake his head to will this feeling away from inside himself but he doesn't want to shake the feeling of her trusting him like this. He lays on his stomach and inches his body forward until his chest is hanging over the space between the elevator's top and the surface of the floor he's prone upon. He reaches both arms down to her.

"C'mere, love. Come to me, Alice ..." he says. His voice is soft and yet impossibly deep.

Without thought, she reaches her arms up and grabs his wrists. Slowly he pulls her up. Her toes dangle only long enough for her to note how very much in his utter control and protection she is. In that moment, fear is irrelevant.

He grunts softly as he yanks her up through the opening and then rolls with her out of the elevator shaft. She is wrapped around him, trembling, holding on for dear life. Quickly, he is on his knees, afraid his bulk will crush her. She won't release the death grip she has on him. He leans back on his haunches; he's cradling her in his lap, one big arm around her waist; his other hand cupping the back of her head to hold her face against his neck. He leans his cheek in against hers.

Her legs are around his waist; her tiny ankles locked behind the small of his back. Her arms cling around his neck ... her face buried there. She realizes he is rocking her, gently. He is murmuring in her ear ...

"I've got you now ... you're safe, Alice. Safe."

"Don't let me go, Terry," she pants near his ear. She feels his arm tighten around her. "Please just hold me. Please. I need you so much. I need to be with you ..."

He doesn't speak. Not with words. He picks up his gun, leaves the flashlight. He rises, lifting her with him.

She thrills at his strength. She wants nothing so much as to get lost and find herself waking up next to someone who will make everything right for her again.

He carries her down the hall. His gun is gripped in his hand now, the one under her ass ... the one he uses to open his door. He kicks the door shut behind him. Walks, her still in his arms, still wrapped around him ... he walks the few steps to the bureau at the end of the short entryway and puts his gun down there.

Looking down into her face, her eyes on his ... expectant ... hopeful ... wanting him.

"Why are you here? I told you to stay home," he says, awkward now that he's faced with what he's wanted without allowing himself to act on it.

"I don't know ... I don't know why I came ... Maybe ..." She closes her eyes and wishes this question away. She wishes for him to make a move.

"Did you come for me, Alice?" he prompts her. "Tell me ..."

She opens her eyes, sees complications. She shakes her head, puts her fingers, three of them, over his lips to stop his words.

"I need you," she whispers. "Don't let me go."

It's been maybe three seconds since they entered the room and he kicked the door shut. He reacts to her invitation. She needs him ... as a woman needs a man ... this is something he has let himself think about and here it is. It jolts him and he reacts. He doesn't really mean to but he slams her into the wall at the same exact moment he is forcing her face to his so he can kiss her. He means to kiss her slow, thorough. Instead, he takes her mouth by force.

She responds to this ... This is passion, it flashes through her mind, has she ever in her life felt such passion from any man? Has any man ever felt like this to her? His body presses her into the wall ... she can feel he's hard already ... and he's rubbing himself right over her crotch. She lewdly wiggles there.

He feels her wetness through the silk of his boxers. It excites him more. Evidence of what she feels ... of what he makes her feel. She is small, fragile ... the difference between their bodies is something he will exploit.

Reaching between them, keeping her body pressed to the wall, he slides his hand along her thigh, under her hitched up skirt. That free spirited way she dresses ... unafraid of convention. His thumb glides along the wetness of her crotch and he presses in more firmly over her mouth, his tongue driving hers to his will.

She moans and trembles. When his mouth leaves hers, she gasps for breath ... she closes her eyes tightly when he sucks in on her neck ... kissing, licking, nipping ... all the while his thumb is rubbing through her panties, over her nub, in all the wetness there. Yes, yes, she thinks ... and then she pants it aloud and shivers in anticipation when his fingers begin working their way under the crotch of her panties ...

And then ... and then his finger is up her. Up. Inside.

"Oh God!" she moans.

He grunts. Nothing else. He wants to be lost inside the experience with her. And for now, he seeks nothing more than her loosening. It doesn't even have to be big ... he just wants her to understand what he can do ... the kind of lover he can be for her. He is rhythmic now ... he tongues her ear ... bites in on her neck ever so slightly, so intending for her to understand he is in charge but he will make this good.

His finger inside her is stroking ... insistent, mesmerizing ... she is reaching for his mouth ... her hands on his face now ... intent on kissing him even as he is making her feel like singing from the rafters ... and then ... and then she is sucking on his tongue and she is coming ... fluttering around his finger ... her kissing falters as she grows almost languid there on the other side of coming.

He will not give her a moment to really recover. He wants her like this ... loosened by the coming ... ready for him. He starts pawing at her top ... dragging it over her head. His nimble fingers, some damp with her, go behind her back and unzip her skirt. He sets her down, still trapping her against the wall ... and he shoves her skirt off and then makes quick work of her bra and panties. And she's nude now ... He hikes her back up, against the wall, against his body.

"You feel so good," she says, her voice lightening quick. Her fingers stroke the silk he wears. Her ankles rub over the silk boxers. Her hands grip into the silk singlet. Her body moves to feel the silk against her breasts. "I've never felt a man who feels as good as you."

"You just wait," he says, his voice suddenly gruff.

He's all over her body ... touching her, rubbing on her, kissing her.

She doesn't remember sex being like this ... but it's been so long ... and even before that, was it this kind of total abandoned great? But his body ... Terry's body ... is incredible and he just knows what to do for a woman. He takes his time but he makes her feel like time is flowing so fast she can't catch her breath. He shifts under her ... trying to palm one of her breasts ... she feels herself slipping, falling ... she reaches out for equilibrium ... knocks down a picture ... it crashes down ... startling her ... she gives a tiny leap in his arms.

He stops ... looks at her ... eyes meet ... he remembers giving up that day, breaking the hold their eyes had ... he won't do that now ... no stopping now. Now she belongs to him. She needs him.

Whirling around, he carries her to the bed ... they crash down ... rolling over ... her legs coming from around him ... he's shoving them up ... up over his shoulders ... she goes stiff ... but he spreads her legs wide before him and he kisses her there ... on her other lips ... a long, soft, unexpected kiss.

They are both holding their breaths.

She shudders.

He presses himself in against the bed, wiggling out of his boxers and not wanting to use his hands.

"Please ..." she whispers.

"Please what?"

"Just please ..."

"Tell me. Tell me what you want."

He looks up at her ... she sees his lips are wet ... his shadowed chin is wet ... She doesn't want to say ... she just wants him to know ... to know what she wants ... but he won't do anything until she tells him. His eyes are hard, ravenous.

"Eat me," she mutters. He frowns. "Eat. Me." 

And so he does ... she lets go of the momentary flicker of annoyance to have been goaded into such a request in such unsanitized words. And then she doesn't think anymore because he is just ... Oh my God ... he is just ... she cannot think ... she calls his name out ... and again ... and her hands are twisting the sheets and her hips are swaying side to side ... and his hands are under her ... and his tongue ...

She comes with a squeak. It embarrasses her that she sounds like that ... he doesn't seem to notice. He is climbing over her. She spreads her legs. He puts one atop his shoulder and gets so close. He rubs the head of his penis through her wetness. She feels it as a soft bluntness. Has she ever craved the intrusion of a man before with the fervor she feels in this exact moment? Surely she must have ... when she was in love ... didn't she?

He nudges himself in. It takes all his willpower to not simply ram inside her. But she's so tiny ... he has to be careful. She gasps as he gets inside maybe an inch ... he lets her adjust. She moans. He goes in further. You're so big, she sighs, almost a complaint but he thinks it's not. She wants him too much. Her little hand slides down to the small of his back and she prods him to push in deeper. Deeper. And ... then he can feel he is in all the way.

"Oooh God," she says, her voice trembling. "So big."

"So good," he says back, relishing the way that makes him feel. And the way his cock feels, surrounded by her. "All for you, Alice ... feels good?"

"Oooh yes," she half sobs as he begins to thrust. "So good."

He fills her all the way. Every part of her. He's so far in her, so wide, so deep ... and it's not just his penis ... it's his voice ... his hands ... his lips ... his skin ...

His skin ... her eyes flash open ... she fingers his silk singlet ... he's still wearing it ... it must come off ... it must come off ... she shoves and pulls and twists ... until he's disturbed enough to help and soon it's gone ... and now it's skin to total skin.

Sweaty skin to sweaty skin.

He's got his mouth against the roundness of her shoulder. He is concentrating. He wants nothing more than to see this night make a difference for her. He doesn't want to get too lost in it ... he wants to keep his head ... not lose his way ... He slows down ... deliberately.

She groans. It is a long, low groan of frustration. It makes him smile. He runs his hand down her thigh. He feels it move under his hand as she angles it against his ribs. He kneads her skin along the path he takes to her breasts. She says something about how tiny they are.

"More than a mouthful ..."

"... is a waste," she finishes for him.

"Christ, you taste good," he mutters. "Even your sweat tastes good."

She says nothing. Just watches him explore her, with his cock tucked inside her and he's taking the time to touch and feel and taste ... It blows her mind.

But it doesn't take long and she's wanting more ... more ... oh please give me more! That's what I should say, she thinks. I should scream it ... bet he'd like that ... Oh God he feels so good ... nothing ever felt this good, did it? Did it? Or have I forgotten? No ... don't think ... just feel ... just take ... take what he can give you.

He is whispering in her ear ... it is disjointed and she is only half listening because she's concentrating so hard on what she's feeling down below and how it seems she will come soon because he is so good ... so good. Never one better.

When he pulls out, she is caught by surprise. She trembles at the loss and her hand on his shoulder spasms, grips, tries to pull him back. But he takes that hand of hers in his ... kisses it ... sucks on her middle finger ... she smiles nervously because this seems rather obscene but he seems to like it ...

"Touch me," he says softly, now taking her hand down to his crotch.

She feels him ... he is hard and wet ... she feels this unbidden desire to not be having to jerk him off when he's coated with her ... it just seems ... Well, she isn't sure why that makes her feel squeamish.

Except he likes it ... very much. She can tell by the way his eyes go sort of soft and then he rocks in her hand, his still holding her wrist but now softly. He nuzzles in at her neck as she pumps him.

"Would you like to taste me?" he asks her, whisky voiced and not to be denied anything.

"Taste you?" she asks.

"Want me to tell you what I want?" She doesn't say anything, just grips him in a bit tighter. He puts his mouth over her ear and darts inside with his tongue. And then, he says into that ear, "Blow me."

Her grip falters ... she releases him ... her breathing slows ... He can't see her frown, her confusion because he's still buried in her neck.

"If ... if that's what you want," she says, but she sounds unsure. "But I'm not very good at that."

It's what he needs, to be loved in a way that nothing is off limits if you want to please your lover ... he's momentarily annoyed at her reaction but he can see he's made her uncomfortable. There will be other times for this, he thinks instantly, when she will feel more free with him. He doesn't want her to withdraw from him. He rubs his thumb along her bottom lip and then leans in to suck it between his lips. He kisses her, his hand back between her thighs, intent on restoring the rhythm he'd been building for her.

"Let me back in," he says, teasing her back to where they were. "I need to be inside you, Alice baby ..."

She smiles up at him and feels the welcome return of his body above hers. When he is inside, she nips in at his neck and whispers against his ear as he begins to pump into her, "So good ... oh, Terry, feels so good."

He turns them both until he is beneath her. They are still joined, him inside her. He thrusts up, rocking up into her ... She puts her hands on his shoulders and lets her head lean down, closes her eyes and simply rocks back and forth ... She concentrates on that wonderful sensation of the way it feels as her sensitized, so alert clit rubs over the coarseness of his hair all the while his big cock slides in and out on a cushion of moisture that is nothing so much as desire anticipating culmination of this act.

Her fingers grip in when he shoves up and grabs her hips in his hands. He moves her to a faster rhythm ... his rhythm.

"Look at me," he tells her, his voice harsh in its want.

It takes everything out of her just to raise her head. Just to look down at him. He is so handsome ... so virile ... such a man ... almost foreign to her in how little she expected him to want her like he does.

He wants her. Oh. Oh, the thought of that!

"I want to watch your eyes when I make you come this time ..." he says. It's the start of this mantra, like he's mesmerizing her with his voice even while his body hypnotizes her, excites her, relishes her ... all at the same time.

And then she's coming, cursing, grasping him, falling down atop his chest ... sobbing with the release.

He turns them again until she is now under him ... and now he won't be held back even by himself. Now he wants it too much ... the ending ... the culmination ... the total knowledge of her that only comes when he comes inside her after making love to her like this.

It's intimacy he wants this night.

He even thinks he gets it when she falls asleep, curled up at his side, tucked under his arm, her cheek and hand on his chest. Her hair is damp with perspiration that he caused. Her thighs are smeared with his semen. She has bruises he's put on her when he gripped too tightly ... unfamiliar with her body and a bit too eager with his own.

As she slumbers against him, he keeps a hand on her back, reassuring pressure. He goes over and over their words ... the ones they said moments before he came. She said she would never regret this, that she needed him so much. He said, "I will always be here for you. Whatever you need."

He knows it then ... that he's fallen in love with this brave woman. And it will be so complicated. But he trusts them both ... they will figure it out ... they will do the honorable things ... it is serious, what they feel for each other, but it has consequences they will face because it's worth it to end up fighting for what they feel for each other. He will help her through what comes ... the bad times, the ugly times, the times when they both feel guilty, the time when they face Peter's coming home. It will be worth it. She is worth it. She is brave and he is realistic. He can count on her. She can count on him.

This is what he believes and it's what he's thinking when he falls asleep.

In the morning, he wakes alone in the bed. Groggy, he turns over to get his bearings. He can see a light under the closed bathroom door. He hears water running. A sense of relief rushes over him. She's just in there washing up. He smiles at the notion of her sneaking out of bed to go wash away the evidence of their joining. It strikes him as somehow sweet and so Alice that she would do that ... she can be prissy about things like a tidy house.

He struggles to sit up against the pillows and scratches at his groin as he yawns himself awake. She's taking longer than he thought. He's halfway out of his bed, intending to go pound on the door and drag her out ... drag her to the floor and have her again ...

Except his eyes notice something is amiss and then his brain registers what it is.

Her cloths are no longer strewn in the entryway floor where they'd been the night before ... when he'd stripped her there against the wall.

He frowns and studies the closed bathroom door as if it will reveal another answer than the one he already knows is the reason that her clothes are not on the floor this morning. He sighs and it's a hard thing to feel, that sigh. He is feeling the weight of all his years, all his mistakes, all his misgivings, all his promises to himself.

Rising from the bed, he gathers his silk boxers and steps into them. He locates his silk singlet and slips it over his head just as the bathroom door opens. He looks steadily at her as she comes out.

"Stay," he says to her. "Stay with me, Alice."

"You know I can't."

"I know you can."

"We were wrong, Terry. So wrong."

"We needed each other. It wasn't wrong. If we fell in love ..."

"No!" she cries out, putting her arm out and turning from him. "No, don't say that."

"I won't deny what I feel for you."

"My husband is up on a mountain. My husband may not survive. Do you think he wanted that?"

"What kind of question is that?"

"We should never have done this. It's the worst thing I've ever done in my life, Terry. We so totally should not have done this."

"'We'? We should not have done what, Alice?"

"I should not have cheated on my husband. You should not have taken advantage of me."

He just stares at her, his hands on his hips. She closes her eyes, turns all the way from him, puts out a hand and stumbles to the wall where she stands, as if she needs to hold herself upright.

What he should ask her is this: why did you come to me last night? Why, Alice? Was I never more to you than the image you have of me? Did you never once look into my eyes and see who I am? That's what he should ask her. But Terry Thorne would never ask a woman that, not when he comes to realize asking her these things will never make a difference. Not when he doesn't want to know the answers ... not really.

Instead, his voice is hard, low ... and, instead, he asks this: "I took advantage of you? That how you see it?"

"I was emotional ... frightened ... You could see that, of course you could. I bear some of the blame but you took advantage of me for your own reasons."

He winces. But his voice is biting and all-male when he retorts, "I made you drive across town in a security alert? I been giving you fantasies of dirty sex? That what you are saying?"

She jumps as if he's struck her ... she turns to look at him over her shoulder. Her mouth is open with shock at his words and his tone. She puts a hand over it and turns from him, a well of disbelief at the hard look on his face. "I have to go, Terry. I just have to get out of here ... I shouldn't have done this to Peter."

Her back is to him; she puts an arm out again, as if warding him off. But he's not approaching her. He leans against the wall that separates the bed area from the work space. His hands are down, at his side, as if resigned to defeat.

His face is now impassive. If she turned to look at him this moment, she would think he was sad. She would be right. But she would not see the nuances of his sadness. She would not see that he is sad more for her than for himself. And he is sad because she has disappointed him in a way he never thought possible.

He never expected regret. It wounds him, what she has said, that's for sure. But it's more than that ... he expects more of her. It's as if her only regret is that she has scratched an itch only to find it wasn't worth it. And then she blames him for being the itch.

So he never stops her when she goes a moment later. He just stands there, watching, studying her as she goes.

For a long time, he doesn't move. On the inside, he wants to shut down but he can't stop feeling what he feels. Finally, he stirs. In the bathroom, he showers quickly, brusquely. He feels the need to expend this welling yawn of disappointment. He wants to burn off the way his heart hurts just to keep beating. He wants to work out the way even then, even after what she's done in this morning, that even after this, he'd still do anything for her ... to bring her what she wants in life.

Minutes later, he is padding out to the pool in the hotel's back courtyard. He drops his towel on a lounge chair, stretches his arms and back, limbering up ... and then strides to the pool and dives in. He starts slow but then by the time he's onto his fifth lap, he's pouring it on. He strokes and strokes ... he hears nothing outside the water ... so many laps to go and maybe he'll never stop. Each time he thinks on her and feels as if he's screwed up her life, he dives deep into the water and strokes there until his lungs would burst before he rises to the surface.

If it hurts, he tells himself, if it does hurt then it did mean something. She meant something ... no, she means something and that's why he can't shut himself down like he was doing before he met her. He doesn't want to go back to that ... to the robot man ... he wants something even if he doesn't know what to do about that. The irony is that he would still do anything for her ... he's no hero, he never was, but maybe he's found his reason for why he should be doing what he does for a living ... it's about that one person he can help get back the one person who means enough to fight to get back.

Who even knows anymore, he thinks with disgust at himself for making up all these high and mighty reasons as if he's ever going to resolve this.

He's rising up after one of those dives to find a dark form standing at the end of his lane. He recognizes the legs and then the redhead scrunches down to his haunches, waiting for him to come to the edge of the pool. He stops, wipes his eyes.

Dino's face is hard. He has news. Terry listens, impassive, assessing instantly and professionally what the news he's hearing from Dino means for his cargo and his client.

But somewhere inside, in the part of him that was awakened the night before, he knows this only too well: only heroes get happy endings. And he is no hero, he thinks soberly, but he is still a professional.