He always approaches me as if I am a known quantity. I like to watch him move. I always have. He has a grace that is not total; yet it is an aware grace because he moves not with abandon but with consciousness.

Invariably, he smiles at me. It is always an easy smile. It is a smile that's so inviting to return only I never really do return it. I rather enjoy the way he tries, though, each and every single time he's approaching me. He knows I won't smile, but he still gives me a smile that nearly orders me to slowly, wickedly slide my lips into a crooked half-grin that is just for him.

He knows all about women, I think. He knows the exact smile that will get a woman going.

But in this night, I watch him approach and that smile of his is a bit on the tawdry side. Like he's not putting in much of an effort. I cannot believe he's changed his routine. But he doesn't give me more than a cursory glance. And so, this is how I know, I've become a fixture to him. He's been coming in here so long now that I'm part of the place and no longer someone he has to put up a front with because he knows I'm a woman who's not going to smile back at that particular smile of his.

He holds up a finger; he dodges it up and then takes it back down. He lets it lay there on the glass-like surface of the bar. When I set his draft before him, he doesn't even look at me.

And for the first time since he's been coming in here, I see him. I see him. And he's not even looking at me when I do. Maybe that's why I see him; because he's not hiding behind that smile. Maybe.

He's been coming in this bar for weeks now. Not every night; no real pattern. Sometimes, he's with others. When he's with others, he's a lad, you know? Pats on the back, silly pranks, rude jokes, loud one-upmanship bragging, shop talk.

When he's alone, he's on the prowl. He might not always take every catch he could bag, but that doesn't mean he doesn't at least play a bit. And it doesn't mean he's ever not cool about it. Because he is ... he is cool. But you can also tell, he's an ember burning so hard that if the right wind ever came along, he'd flare up and Lord help you if you were close enough for him to touch because you'd maybe not survive the heat of him.

He has a 'type' he targets. I can pick out the kind of woman he will walk out with; I can clock 'em from the moment they come in the door. I'm always disappointed for any of these women he'd go for if they come in on a night he's not there or a night he's with others.

I stand back here behind the bar and just watch to see how he'll do it when he's in there and one of those women walk in. He clocks them about the same time I do. I've learned that look of his. It's covert initially. His first look is from beneath his lashes. His second look is open appraisal. The moment she notices him, he's got a specific look for her. And he's got that smile.

If she's there before he gets in, I figure he trades that first look with her because if she's his kind of woman, she's clocked him the instant he makes the door. He's got like a radar for these women so he's drawn to them right away.

Once they get the obvious out of the way, the invitation is given. He's the one who gives it. I don't know how else to describe it. It's up to her to accept it. But once she does, and I've not known one who hasn't, then he moves in. He has a bit of a patter he uses. I find it amusing to watch the woman. In truth, I've watched him so often that I know those moves.

And then there are her moves ... she always figures she's novel in how she responds to him. She's not. Not really. She doesn't play hard-to-get; she plays pleased as punch. He likes women who know the score. He likes a target who will not roll over and play dead, but he does like them to want him enough to make it obvious. And then he'll just do it. That thing he does. He leans in, talks low in their ear. Right at the end, he always moves his mouth against her ear when he's talking to her like that. And his hand is always open-palmed on some part of her body, whether it's her thigh, back or nape. It's never still, his hand.

The woman always shivers when he leans away.

The first few times I saw him do that, I shivered after I saw the woman's face when he stood up and put his hand out to help her up from her seat. Now I shiver when I first see he's talking in her ear. I don't know what it is he says to her but it works.

My favorite view of him is when he's escorting her out of there. He's such a gentleman. His big hand's always flat on her lower back and yet you can tell, it's just a reassuring pressure, not a shove. It's just that from that moment that he puts his hand on her back like that, well, you know she belongs to him until he decides to let her go.

She belongs to him.

For a little while, at least. I never see her in here again after that. Not that he's ever picked up any of the regulars in here, mind you. Somehow, he seems to have a radar for that, too.

On those rare nights when there's no woman I'd think is his type and when he's not with his buddies, he sits at the bar with me. It's like he's keeping me company. I think it's because I don't have to talk to him that he keeps coming in there. But I will also listen to him if he wants to talk about things.

I like that he smiles at me when he approaches. I expect it. I want it.

So I do note it on this night when he doesn't smile at me in more than a glib, perfunctory manner. Like his heart's not in it; like he is smiling at the bar stool just as easily as he's smiling at me. Like I no longer exist to him.

And he doesn't stay at the bar and keep me company on this night, either. Instead, he asks for a few dollars worth of quarters and he goes to the pool table. I can hear him when he breaks. It's a distinctive, deep ping. I don't watch him break because he doesn't want me to. Somehow I know that.

I wonder what he's looking for tonight.

It's a slow night.

I clock her the moment she comes in and I know he does, too. But he doesn't give her that second look, the one she'd return. She's with two friends; they all notice him playing pool. But what woman wouldn't? He's dressed in jeans that are relaxed but they show his body's promise. He's also wearing a dark polo shirt. I've seen him wear this before. His arms look really nice in it; it shows off his chest, too. But the thing about that shirt is that up close, it sets off the unexpected beauty of his eyes. You just can't help noticing his eyes when he wears that shirt.

Nothing surprises me more than when he lets her leave. When she goes, I can't help but feel curious about this. I am watching him now in a way that I haven't since the first few times he came in. I had him pegged then; I have to say that based on what I know of him, he's acting squirrelly.

He looks up at me from the pool table. He's leaning in on a cue stick and considering his options for how he'll play the game he's only just started over there. And then he looks up at me. He doesn't smile at me. He's appraising me, I realize, and he's pretty aggressive in his body language. I can't help but be intrigued by this. It's another change in pattern for him and it is bound to intrigue me. He holds up one finger; raises an eyebrow.

It's a slow night.

There's really only me, him and two regulars at the end of the bar. They're down there arguing over the latest news from Iraq.

So he's into breaking patterns tonight. Well, okay, then, I guess I can break one of mine; I usually stick behind the bar but the cocktail waitress has already gone home because it's a slow night. So I leave the bar and bring him a new draft. I set it on the small table near where he's standing. He's already got his money on the table so now I have to bring him back his change. "Keep it," he says to me when I'm maybe two feet from the table and heading back to the bar.

Meaning, keep the change as a tip. He's paid for his beer with a $20 bill. The beer costs $2.75. He always tips good; but this is a bit much even for him.

I look at him over my shoulder. He's looking at me. He's not smiling, either. In fact, he's frowning. There's trouble in those eyes tonight. I've studied them often enough to know that.

"Fancy a game, love?" he asks me.

We've already talked about the fact that he's Australian and that that's why he talks as divinely as he does. Not that I ever put it that way ... the part about his voice being divine. Or his accent. No. I think I'd just asked him where his accent was from and when he said, I'd gone, "Mmm. I see."

I look back at my regulars; their beers are in the comfortable zone. They'll sit pat for a while. I tilt my head when I look back at him. I know I've got a hip cocked; it's kind of one of those unconscious things I do. It's like how I never smile at men like this. It's not a defense mechanism; it's because I'm as aware of myself as he is. You do the kind of work I do as long as I have, you become aware of your affect on people, especially certain men. Like this man, for instance.

He'd clocked me the moment he walked in this joint. And I'd clocked him just as fast.

One thing we both knew right from that first moment: we'd not make any moves on the other. We just kind of both knew that; I think we just accepted something about the other and knew.

And here we were ...

It was a slow night.

I recognized something else about him long about the third time he'd come in the bar. He only had the sheen of civility.

Not that he wasn't a true gentleman. He was.

But for all his sophistication and awareness, there was still the hard scrub of working class Joe about him that he'd not only never be able to erase, but he'd never want to. Why would he? There wasn't a thing wrong with people knowing you'd come up from that. And I think a whole hell of a lot of his magnetism evolved from that roughness that lurked just a fraction of a centimeter beneath his smooth surface.

He runs the rest of his active table off. The balls flit into the pockets after he strokes through with his cue stick, chasing the white ball after each colored one. When they're all gone, he racks; I break. I can't help this grin down at my fingers as I check my bridge before I break. I like that he realizes I can do this or that I'd tell him I couldn't.

I will never be one of those cutie-pie, diffident women. If I play a game, it's for a reason. In my real life, I'm usually pretty up front with people. I just don't let myself get engaged like this when I'm working, see. Plus, I never have once felt like playing a game with a man like this.

He takes over from me after I've laid in three stripes and scratch on the fourth. He starts running the table. I go and give the regulars some refills. I watch him stalk the table while I pull their drafts. He knew I would. He couldn't care less. He isn't putting on a show; he is just being himself.

It has taken him all this time to make a move on me. I am glad he's chosen a night when he is raw. I am glad he's waited until he is raw because, like I said, he knows women. He knew I'd know he was raw this night. He knew I'd be good for him on a night when he is raw. I like a man selfish in that way. It lets me feel just fine to be selfish right back. One of these days, I might have a raw night of my own.

I'm not at all surprised when he kicks my ass in the pool game. I'd have been real disappointed if he hadn't given it his all. I like that he knows it won't mean anything to me to win if my opponent isn't trying his best. I don't want points just because I'm a girl.

Not that I don't know my being a girl gives me an edge of my own with a man like this.

"Winner buys dinner?" he says to me, real low and deep ... and real close, right over my shoulder as I'm bending down to rack the balls on the green felt for the second game.

"Shouldn't that be 'loser buys dinner'?" I say back. I say it just as I straighten up and, in so doing, graze my rear against his groin.

He touches me. His open palm touches at the side of my hip. His eyes are on mine when I glance back at him. "I got it right the first time. But then ..." He glances over at the regulars who are now watching us more than the TV. Then his eyes are back on me. "But then, I figure I'll be the one taking you out that way."

"You do, eh? Maybe I'll surprise you."

He puts a single finger on my chin. "That's the first time you've smiled at me."

"That's the first time you earned it."

And now smiling at me; but it's still tawdry. "You realize you conceded on the larger question, don't you now?"

"You mean about dinner? No, I wasn't conceding; I was saying yes."

When I lock up, it's maybe half past 2 in the morning.

He's leaning against my car's hood; just his hip is cocked there. He's smoking a cigarette. He's standing in a pool of light from the streetlamp. His head's down, so he's impossible to read. All I can see, really, is the red glow of the cigarette's end and from there I work out where his mouth is.

Just before I get to him, he straightens up; tosses the cigarette away with a flick of two fingers. He motions toward the only other car still left in the lot. I knew he'd insist on driving.

I feel the press of his open palm on the small of my back as he escorts me over there. I think about how it would look to anyone observing this. I think about how all those other women felt to know he owned some part of them from then on. It may not be what a woman should admit, but it's what it is about with a man like this. He does end up owning a part of you from the moment he puts that hand in the small of your back and guides you to where he wants you to go with him.

"Tell me about yourself," he says to me after he's given our orders to the hovering waiter.

I stroke over the white linen covering the table. I look off into the night's charms. I wonder how he got this nice place to stay open this late. We aren't the only ones in here at this hour, but they obviously stopped serving a while ago. I can't help but think about how he never seemed in a rush at the bar. I can't help but wonder if he's planned everything about this night's encounter with me or if he was just hoping I'd cooperate with his need for me to be there with him.

He intrigues me.

"Well, let's see. What can I tell you that won't be boring?" I say as I stroke my wine glass. I take a sip and peer at him as I swallow. "I have a doctorate in biological engineering that I figure I'll use someday but not just now. I have a fixation on guns and when I'm not working, you can often find me either out at a target range or at an NRA rally. Well, that is when I'm not training my favorite Arabian, who is named Fabio, for the winter race circuit up east. I'm also a licensed helicopter pilot, which comes in handy in so many ways. Including rescuing whales off of Baja, which is what I spend my spare time volunteering for."

For the first time all night, he chuckles. It is such a rich, deep, virile sound.

"And how about you?" I ask him.

He narrows his eyes, sets his shoulders, laces his fingers before him upon the linen. "By comparison, I am inane, love. After astronaut training, I decided to waste away my years waiting for my first space flight by getting my Ph.D. in astrophysics because only having the doctorate in electrical engineering seemed a pity to my father, who invented marmalade. I had to turn down the spot on the Australian national water polo team when it conflicted with one too many of my SAS operations, you see. Damned unfortunate, but there was no way round it. And I, too, volunteer. My chosen avocation is also helping animals. I give all my extra time to saving the endangered walrus rat of New Guinea."

"But I had understood the walrus rat of New Guinea was extinct."

"No, only endangered. I personally have witnessed the mating ritual."

"And so, I imagine you can explain all about why they're endangered, right?"

"Oh, absolutely, my dear, absolutely. If the little buggers would just figure out which end is which, it'd all be solved, I reckon." He's putting on this funny accent that's almost British matron but very fey, whatever it was supposed to be.

"You reckon that, do you?"

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"For making me work for the smile. Makes it mean more."

He does intrigue me.

After dessert, we find a coffee shop. It is very Bohemian. We sit next to each other on a loveseat and listen to really bad poetry being read by authors who seem to know it's all a joke. Each poet takes his or her turn upon this wooden stool set up on a small stage wedged into a corner with a lamp next to the stool so the poet can read the words they've written.

We sip our coffee and refrain from commenting but somehow I think we share an opinion of the absurdity of us ending up at a poetry reading at this time of night when we were just looking for a neutral place where he could talk and I could listen to him while he did.

He puts his hand on my thigh, casually, possessively. In the closeness of this crowded, heavily scented place, we come closer.

After not too long, I feel him sink into the couch's cushions and in doing this, he leans his body against mine. At one point, he whispers in my ear, a few lewd stanzas he makes up as a take-off on the tortured rhyme of the current poet up on the small raised stage. I dare him to get up when the mike's free and give his off-the-cuff verse to the audience. He grins down into his coffee mug.

It's that grin. My God. How can you decide to trust someone in the span of a grin no matter how honest it is?

"Would you care for a nightcap?" I ask him.

He cuts his eyes at me. He's not smiling anymore.

I lean right into him; put my mouth right up on his ear. I whisper, low and husky, "You came to me for a reason tonight. I can, you know. Make it better. Wouldn't you like me to do that?"

At the very end, I move my mouth against his ear and then lean away. I have my hand on his wrist; my fingers play with his hair there. He shivers next to me.

He takes my hand a moment later and helps me from the loveseat.

I like the feel of his open palm on my lower back.

"How about something unexpected?" he asks me. He's standing on the other side of the bar. He's not looking at me; I'm studying him. He's slowly and precisely removing his jacket, the sports coat he's been wearing over this polo shirt since he put it on outside the restaurant. Again, I'm struck by how he thought ahead to have that jacket with him for that toney restaurant. Although, there's a part of me that would have maybe found it rather intriguing if he'd not dressed perfectly for the dining portion of the night.

On the other hand, he'd kept it on, wearing it into that artsy coffee shop where he'd sat there on a small couch with me looking like some preppy smoothie amidst all those hippie dippie poets at an hour of the day most people would consider insane. So, in his own way, he's managed to surprise me again.

"Like what?" I ask him finally, when he continues to ignore me as he lays his jacket neatly upon the clean top of the bar. He walks off, looks closely at a poster on the wall.

"If I told you, I'd know what to expect, wouldn't I then?"

I turn and consider all the options before me. There are so many bottles in here. They are massed like soldiers before the huge mural that has been a part of this bar so long that no one even sees it anymore. They are arranged in neat, precise rows. We keep every single bottle in a specific place to make it easy when the night gets rushed and someone orders something unexpected. That way, we don't get knocked off our stride as we're rushing around filling the more ordinary drink orders.

What would knock me off my stride to have him order, I muse, as I walk before the bottles. At the very end of the row, way up near the cash register, at the closed in area of the bar are the bottles we use least often. They are out of the way, but not forgotten. I find myself taking my 'considering' stance ... one arm around my middle, index finger of the other hand tapping my teeth. And just as I reach for the bottle of our finest crème de cassis, I hear the clack of quarters going in the jukebox. I wonder what he'll select for me?

"A kir," I tell him when he wanders back to the bar and seems me pouring the blackcurrant liqueur in a wine glass. I'm adding the dry white wine when I hear Ray Orbison's voice in the air between us. I can't help this girly smile at him. "Now that's something. I never pictured you for a Roy fan."

"Bet you can't wait to dance to this with me." He sips his kir and waits for my answer.

"You could be right about that."

He tells me ... only after we've danced long enough that we're barely hearing Roy but yet we're also letting Roy lend this heavy feel to the air ... he tells me the kir was an unexpected touch.

"Sophisticated. Packs a wallop. You have to search for the sweet amidst the dry. And you might be the only customer I've had who'd recognize it."

His body is good to dance with. His mind is even better. He whispers things to me with his mouth light against the shell of my ear. He's not vulgar ... he's more aware than that. He tells me things like how he always likes the way I wear these sheer black stockings and a short skirt. Then he twirls me away from him and lets his eyes travel right down to my legs before he twirls me back. And then he says, low and assertive, how he's always wondered at what point he'd get the nerve up to find out what my legs will look like with no stockings on.

When the song's over, he's maneuvered me over to the pool table and he doesn't even hesitate to push me up against it and then move against me when the next song comes on. I feel claustrophobic; he's a big man; his body heat is almost too much in that close space. I push him away but he responds must unrepentantly: he picks me up and seats me on the green pad of the pool table. He's done with anything but getting to the point. I wonder how long it's been that I've been wondering what it would be like to be in this position with him.

"I bet you're so damned good, aren't you?" I say as I draw him in against me, which I know he needs me to do.

"Yeah. I am."

"So am I."

He kisses me at this. It's rough, aggressive ... and then it's soft, probing. He is so damned good. I can't help but react. I know he really just needs to have me follow his lead. He has recognized me. God. He's good.

"I'm not going further until you tell me one thing."

"What?" I pant out. I'm feeling like I'm hanging from his body as I struggle with what he's showing me. It's not really what I expected ... or maybe the thing really is that I was not at all aware he'd impact me this way. Just that one kiss makes me realize that what I'd thought and what it will feel like to be with him may be tough to reconcile. He doesn't say a word until I blink and look into his eyes.

"Tell me you're not wearing a wire."

We're inches from each other. I can feel his breath going in and out of my mouth, that's how close we are. I could see him if he was lying, see it in his eyes when they flinch. He could see the same thing in mine if I lied. Not that I was going to lie. But there's a look that passes between us and it happens just because we are so close. It's ... confirmation ... as if we needed it, though.

"No wire. Not tonight."

"Do you know what I am?"

"You and your buddies talked shop whenever you were in here as a group. So ... yeah."

"Do you know who I am?"

"Yes." I smooth a hand over his hair. It's been a long time since I've seen a man who has such depth of emotion showing in his eyes, in his body language. "It's been a long case for you. Frustrating. I know it hasn't gone like you expected."

He just stands there, looking over my head. Listening to the song. It's Fats singing 'Blueberry Hill.'

"I met my thrill ..." he says softly, in time to Fats' voice.

"This night can stand still for you. It's what you want, isn't it?"

"You never carry a gun?" he asks me suddenly.

"I have one I can get to if I need to."

"I don't feel one on you."

"I didn't say it was on me," I say with a grin. I can't help how funny it seems to me to be having this disjointed conversation with him. He's trying to figure out my boundaries, I think.

"Then I could do anything I wanted right now," he says. 

In the moment he says that, I know he's putting me on. But his entire demeanor changes; his eyes flinch into a darkness that shows me the places this man has to go sometimes. I recognize that look. I've seen it often enough in the people I work with.

"You could at least try. But I might be harder to take down than other women."

At that, this crooked smile starts so slowly before it spreads to upturn one side of his mouth. "Some day, trying with you may be fun."

My hand drifts down his chest. I look down at my fingers. "But not tonight."

"No. Not tonight."

"What happens tonight?"

"My place or yours?"

I never hesitate. I knew he'd ask this. And I know there's really only one thing he needs to hear from me. "Yours."

"Why do you do it?" he asks me on the ride over. I don't answer him until he takes his eyes off the road and glances my way.

"Somebody has to."

"Yeah." He doesn't say anything for a while. I like that. I like him. God. He's in pain tonight. I wish he wasn't; there's not too damned much I can do about it, either. Sometimes, you're just in pain and no one can really make it better. Sometimes the best another person can do for you is treat you like it's actually a good thing you can still feel that kind of pain on behalf of someone else that you don't know but you're still trying to help. "And because you can. Right?"

We glance nervously at each other as he's parking.

"Right."

He's almost out of his door but then he slides back in the seat. I can't tell what's up. And from the next words out of his mouth, the night stands still.

"I knew you were a cop the second time I went in there," he tells me.

"Shut up."

"I'm serious."

"Look, don't ... You can't come around there anymore after tonight."

"You knew I knew. Don't act like you didn't."

We don't either of us seem to be breathing. I don't quite get it. This isn't supposed to be like this. This is supposed to be about him taking what he needs from me. This is supposed to be about me being with a man who can make love to me in a way I'll always remember when I'm an old lady. This is a man who doesn't come along a second time in a woman's life. This is a chance to make a man like that remember you forever.

"Convince me to stay with you tonight."

"I need to hold you tonight."

He says that only after his hand cups my cheek. He says that only after he's looking deep in the shadows in the direction of my eyes, as if he can see in there. As if he has needs only I can fill.

"I need to hold you, too. I need to make it better for you."

He won't kiss me, though. I figure he wants to make me want the kiss so bad. But that he won't give it to me until I'm in his room. Not until he's able to show me what he's going to demand from me. And what he'll give me in return. Because he needs that, I think. He needs to be almost totally in charge, calling the shots, leading me where he wants. But he also wants to feel like he's man enough to nurture a woman that night.

Nothing else is in his control anymore. His case is totally fucked up just then; I know because I've been there before. He just needs help getting through this night.

He's raw.

I know what that feels like.

He needs a slow night. So slow it stills everything around him. Slow enough he feels he controls the pace of everything by controlling the pace between us.

Inside his hotel room, I let myself admire him very openly. He needs that; but that's not why I do it. I do it because it's simply an honest reaction to being in this place with sex hanging in the air all around me, arousing me. He is so beautiful. More than I imagined. And I had imagined him a lot.

I used to lay in my bed and edge into sleep by imagining him and how he'd be with a woman. I used to watch how he'd touch a woman in that moment just as he leaned in to whisper in her ear. The way his body simply moved toward her like he was taking over and giving her no real choice in the matter of whether or not she'd respond. That's really all I'd ever had to go on.

But without clothes on, there are parts of his body that are simply unexpected for their finesse. He's not sculpted like he works out in a gym. He's built like he means business and he probably runs a lot but I just don't really see him in some gym pumping iron. Sit ups at home, yes. Sweaty reps with a spotter, no. Shadow boxing, yes. Organized aerobics, no.

It's probably in his genes. His body is honest man.

He raises his arms to take his shirt off as I'm sitting facing him on the bed, my legs splayed around his hips; my heels tucked behind his ass. I've been dying for the first real peek at his chest. But it's not really his chest I first touch with reverence. It's where his shoulders flex as he's pulling the shirt off; the movement makes me touch him there. The muscles and tendons are rounded, bulging, powerful. His skin there is one uninterrupted soft satin mound. I stroke one then the other. And when he's got the shirt off and tosses it away, he just sits there enjoying me enjoying him. I'm stroking and kneading, probably making little noises deep in my throat ... I don't know ... he just looks so good to me.

I lick my lips when he asks me if he can see me. He's already pushed my short denim skirt up to bring me in over his lap. But what he wants to see is all of me. I let him draw my shirt over my head. I shiver hard when he strokes just his right thumb pad over the rise of my breasts while with his other hand, he flicks the back of my bra open and brings it down my arms and off.

Oh, man, that was good.

I lean in. We're chest to chest. Nipple to nipple, so to speak. I arch back when he kisses down my neck and then begins to suckle and caress my breasts.

He's hard. So hard. He's unzipped already because I unzipped him before he told me to slow down. I liked it when he told me that. I liked the way he did it. Like he was setting limits. I wanted him in charge.

He's in charge.

Absolutely.

He needs to be.

And so he is.

He makes this deft move, holding me tightly to him as he turns and the next thing I know is that I am on my back on the bed. I tell him how good he is. He just looks at me, like he figures I ain't seen nothing yet.

When he's unzipping my skirt, he's doing it blind but he does it with minimum fumbling. I like that he fumbles at least a little bit. It'd be intimidating if he didn't.

And he's rough with me in getting my hose off. They frustrate him by the time he gets to them. He is out of patience. I say something to him about how rough he's being and he just rips them at the crotch and then drags them off me. He palms my leg on the way back up; from the calf over the knee inside my thighs right up to my juncture. He tells me to open. He looks his fill.

God. He makes me moan and all he's doing is looking except for the fact that he's also stroking lightly there.

Oh, Jesus.

I grab his hand. Pull it up even as I rise to meet it. He knows what I'm up to so he puts his thumb in my mouth; shoves it in, really. He's moving while he's doing it. He's telling me just what he's going to do. I spread my legs and lean back on my elbows. I think I'd shove myself inside his mouth only he quiets me down with his gentle lapping and kissing down there.

It feels so damn good to come like that with him. To slide slowly to my back, absorbed in what he's doing for me. It feels good to hear him react to my coming. He's just damn enjoying it. I watch him through my lashes after; the look in his eyes as he stands up to get his pants off. The way his chin drops down to watch his hands work his black boxers over his erection and down his hips.

I have been alone for so long. I thought this was going to be just a connection in the night. A chance to give a fellow combatant a safe venue in which to expose the need for human comfort. My loneliness though ... I think now that it's what he recognized. That way you have of holding it all inside that only someone else doing the same thing can understand.

So I tell him this one thing that I'd like to hear when I'm down so low and feel so alone as if no one else has ever been here before, facing defeat despite all your talents, skills, resources and heart.

"Come inside. I'll hold you safe tonight," I say, just like that. Like no one's ever said it to me before. I just know he needs me to say something like that; that it will help him when he's so raw right now.

He reacts quickly by slowing down. By touching the details of my body as he approaches me. By breathing hard, sucking in a breath so startled and pure when he swipes the head of his cock through the wet evidence of all he is capable of doing for a woman. By groaning when I moan at the intrusion, at the blunt force that takes me by surprise no matter how I'm expecting it because I'd been holding, stroking him even as he was trying to come into me. By stopping when he's all the way in and I arch under him with this little cry of surrender.

The feel of his skin is simply fulfilling. It's the feel of man. I like it so much. I like the skin on his clean-shaven jaw. I like the skin along his shoulder blades. I like the skin at his waist and the small of his back. I like the skin on his hips and ass. I like the skin on his palms that explores my skin. I like the skin of his teeth when I feel him biting ever so precisely on my breasts.

I like how we come. I come before him. There was never a question I wouldn't. It was only how many times. Enough, is the answer. Enough for him to feel damned sure of the core of his manhood. And then he comes. I try to hold tight to him when he comes but he's holding my hands down in that instant and grunting up into me with those last, dying pumps of a coming man intent on grinding you into another orgasm that will make him feel like you're milking him as he's exploding inside you.

It's not until later, just moments really, when he sinks down, sagging against me, releasing my hands ... only then do I hold him because only then does he want that tenderness and security.

"How much longer?" he asks me.

I'm almost asleep. I don't understand. "You want me to leave?" I mumble, confused ... hurt frankly.

He smoothes the hair from my face, forces my chin around until I'm looking in his eyes. He's got this sweet look on his face. "How much longer will you be on this case?"

"Oh." I give this soundless chuckle. "Um. Dunno. Couple weeks, I would think. How about you?"

"Just between us, right?" I nod at him. "Days. We've got to go in."

I didn't want to know that. Jesus. "Thought you were just a consultant on this. The FBI ..."

"I shouldn't tell you more. Should I?"

"What do you want to unload on me? I'll listen. You know I won't say anything."

So he tells me things. I like listening to his voice but more than that, I like listening to his thought processes. It's riveting being an audience to an operational analysis for something I have absolutely no experience in. It fascinates me. I ask questions. He explains. He talks it through. I hear his strength coming back. It wasn't really gone; he just needed one night to be raw. He needed to catch his second breath.

I break a huge rule when I leave him in the morning. He's dropping me off at my car outside the bar. I tell him my real name and I give him the number to my personal cell phone.

Three weeks later, I'm at home. My real home. I'm dying my hair back to its normal color and calculating how many weeks and how many haircuts I'll go through before I have my real hair back. It's always how I measure these things. Don't ask me why. It's just one of those idiosyncrasies that help me remember what's real about me and what's not.

My cell rings. I've been carrying it around with me for almost 24 hours. I hate to say it, but I'm convinced he'll call just as much as I'm sure he won't.

It's him.

God. He just knows I needed to hear from him.

"How does this work for you now?" he asks me after he verifies I've done the things I have had to do for the case files. Paperwork ... how I fucking hate it. He laughs about that.

"I'll have a slow period. Few weeks to ease back into real life."

"Your place or mine?" he asks me.

"Mine."

Because it's what he needs me to say. Because I'm having a raw night of my own.