Bud's Chapter

"Tired?"

Grunt.

That's the only sound I heard in response. I hid a smile. I'd heard this routine played out between these two men for almost a week now. It had gotten to the point that my night would never have been complete if I hadn't been sitting in this coffee shop and heard this interchange between two men who were obviously cops on a stake out; partners, I was sure, although I suspected they were new partners. I mouthed along with the talker, knowing exactly what he would say next because it was such a routine.

"Think he'll show tonight?"

Two grunts.

I had become so familiar with this interchange that I could even interpret the grunts. One grunt meant 'yes.' Two grunts meant 'no.' No grunt meant 'leave me the fuck alone, you idiot.'

Damn, it made me want to laugh. Laughter would probably have been the one thing the grunting cop was totally unfamiliar with.  He struck me as a real joyless hard ass. They always sat in the same booth; when they came in, I tried not to look at them. Men in these kinds of public places so often took even a casual glance as an invitation from an unaccompanied female. I never, ever extended invitations to men I didn't know.

I glanced up across the table and took in the front door. Waiting. As always. He was always late. And tonight, he was later than usual.

Anyway, back to the cops in the booth behind me. My mind sometimes made up stories about them while I waited for Robert, my ever-tardy kid brother. The grunter was clean cut, broad chested in a bruiser sort of way, quite the square and I bet anything those white shirts he always wore were short sleeved. I could never tell since they were invariably covered by some shapeless jacket, usually an unappealing shade of darkish brown. And his ties? Damn. They were hideous in their plainness. I wondered who dressed him.

No one, was my guess. 

One of my on-going stories about the grunter was that he was a workaholic, demented avenging angel who came home to a non-descript, airless apartment with no warm touches and the barest of furnishings. Another story featured him as a relentlessly drunk wife-beating thug. The one I liked best, though, starred him as a misunderstood, under-appreciated, hardnosed super cop. In that one, he was solving the Black Dahlia case, single-handedly driving Mickey Cohen's mob out of business, and getting the girl in the end.

The other cop? A bit too eager to inflame my imagination. All I had to do was listen to his Boy Scout voice every night to know him. Dudley Do-Right with an LAPD badge. Little wifey at home with a crying, diaper-clad junior version of daddy. He was no fun to make up stories about.

Besides, the other one, the grunter? Lord, say what you would about his wardrobe... the man had the most captivating eyes I'd seen in a long time. He'd looked hard at me the second night he and his partner had come in to the coffee shop. Like he'd noticed me the night before sitting in that same booth and wanted to be sure I wasn't a threat.

Me? Yeah, some threat. Being a woman and a bit on the small side, he'd dismissed me almost as soon as his intense examination of me had ended. Although, he had fixed me with this tiny smile when he was finished looking me over. Almost like I made him nervous.

One more look up at the door, quick glance at my watch, deep sigh. Where the Hell was Robert? This was late, even for him.

Tuned in to the next question and answer interchange between the cops.

"What's our next move, Bud?"

No grunt.

This time, my shoulders shook from a silent laugh. I couldn't help it. I wondered if they knew they had this exact same conversation every single night. Okay, so, my night would never have been complete without the next thing. Grunting cop, or Bud as his partner called him, was due to lumber up out of his seat and go around to the pay phone in the back to make a call.

Sure enough. There he went. I laughed, this time out loud, but only once or twice. Still, Bud caught it and he examined my face as he went past me. I looked at my watch and timed him. Three minutes. Never more, never less, and he was striding back to his booth. I watched him move because I liked his way of walking. Like he fucking owned the place. Glancing around at the other people inside, taking them in, like all it took was one momentary look and he had them all figured out. Now, this was the first time I'd openly studied this part of the routine because normally, by then, my brother was there and I was mostly paying attention to him. But without Robert to distract me, I just watched Bud move.

And, then it happened. When he drew even with my booth, he broke the routine. He looked right in my eyes and stopped near me, peering down into my face.

"Your brother's late." Not a question. A statement.

It startled me. Three things: first, he somehow knew Robert was my brother; two, he was as familiar with our routine as I was with theirs; and, three, I think it was the first time I ever heard him speak. His voice was low but it seemed to vibrate a rough chord in the air.

"Yes, officer, it certainly looks that way." I raised my chin and met his steady gaze. "How observant of you."

This tiny blush crossed his cheeks and his jaw tightened. He shifted his stance. Nerves, embarrassment or annoyance? Take your pick. Could have been any of them.

"Thought you might have been concerned, Miss. My mistake." Nasty, put down voice. Designed to make me feel like the snot I'd been to him.

He moved to head back to his booth and I put a hand out, touching him on his sleeve; he stopped instantly. "I'm sorry. That was rude of me. Will you accept my apology, officer?"

Tight nod. Blue-green eyes seemed to have some light in them for the first time. "If he doesn't show soon, I'd be glad to help you make sure he's okay."

That... that was unexpected. All these nights of grunts and apparent rude indifference to what was happening around him? It had led me to believe he was a chump. "Thanks. I'm sure that won't be necessary. But it's kind of you to offer."

When Robert hadn't shown up twenty minutes later, I began to get genuinely worried. We were meeting at this coffee shop because it was across the street from the club where I had just started working last week and it was around the corner from his apartment. So it was really convenient to hook up there and he'd walk me home to be sure nothing happened. He was the one who insisted; it was the Black Dahlia murder - it had everyone spooked. Even kid brothers like Robert.

I leaned toward the window and tried to peer down the street. No dice. Drummed my fingers on the table. Wondered what I should do.

"Why don't you tell me what route he normally takes. I'll backtrack and see what I can find out," Officer Bud was saying, sliding into the booth opposite me.

I swallowed on the dark thoughts I'd been worrying over and smiled at him. "His apartment's around the corner. If you'd escort me, maybe we can just go there. He probably fell asleep but he'd hate if I was out walking alone this time of night."

"Sure. Let's go."

He offered me a hand up out of the booth. It was the first time I noticed his hands. Big, meaty. Neat, solid. Could have been a description of his entire body.

"It's really nice of you to do this for me," I told him as we rounded the corner. Glanced sideways and caught him examining me. When he saw me catch him, he blushed and turned away. God, that was cute. I would never have guessed he was shy with women.

When we reached my brother's apartment building stoop, I laid on his buzzer. No answer. I looked inside the glass door, then turned back and looked up and down the street. Finally, I looked at Bud.

"Let me try," he said. His hand touched my arm and moved me back. Something about that gesture was so gentle yet so masculine. He didn't let go of that touch for a while. All the time he was leaning into the buzzer and then talking with the building manager when he answered, Bud kept a hand on my arm.

When the manager finally made it to the outer door, we went with him to my brother's second floor apartment. Bud pounded on the door a few times and then the manager used his passkey to let us in. Nothing looked out of place. But there was no Robert, either. It was like he'd simply vanished.

Hours later, Bud was still with me. We'd filed a missing persons report, he'd had the desk call all the area hospitals for a John Doe, a few patrol cars had traced the route between the apartment and Robert's job, and I'd called every friend of his I could think of. He was nowhere to be found.

Bud wanted me to go home. I didn't want to leave Robert's apartment in case he came back.

"You've been so nice to me, Bud," I said, using his first name because we were on that basis by then. "But, really, I'll be fine now. I'll just wait here and if... I mean, when he comes home, I'll let your station know. I feel badly that I've kept you this long."

"Not a problem, Helen. I'll just stick around a little longer."

"Are you sure?" Smiling at him. "It is nice to have you here. At this point, I think I'd be a lot more scared if you weren't here."

The smile he gave me in return was filled with understanding. He was turning out to be so unlike any story I ever made up about him. I loved his voice and I adored the way he talked in these almost choppy sentences. For the longest time, I kept him talking. Asked him about being a cop, about his opinions, about politics, about anything - just to hear his deep voice. Didn't even know I'd fallen asleep until I felt him swing my legs up onto the couch and place a blanket over me.

When I woke, morning had still not brought Robert home. Bud was making coffee in the kitchen and I sat at the counter to watch him. "What will we do now?"

"I'll go down and read through the reports from last night. See if there's anything that will give us a clue. I'll also stop by his job site to see what I can dig up. You start calling his friends again; ask them to call any friends you might not know about."

Six hours later, I still didn't know where my brother was. When I heard knocking at the door, I hoped it was him and that he'd forgotten his keys. But it was Bud. He didn't need to tell me; it was written on his face. Those blue-green eyes that had been so still and reserved the night before, were filled with dread. I knew it was bad news. I just hadn't expected it to be as bad as it was.

On the way to the morgue, he held my hand across the distance between where he sat behind the wheel and where I existed in the passenger seat. When we stepped into the viewing room, he put an arm around my waist and guided me to the curtained window. He nodded at a white-coated man standing near us and the man pulled the curtains open.

Bud's arm around my waist helped me keep my feet. I shut my eyes. "It's him," I said, the words coming out of me in a disbelieving whisper.

The white-coated man handed me some paperwork to sign and then he left. He'd closed the curtain as soon as I identified my brother's body but I was still standing there at the window. Then the room seemed to spin and I turned to Bud's arms, burying my face in his shoulder and holding on to his solid body. His mouth was at my ear, and he said softly, "Are you ready to hear how he died?"

Shook my head against him but still said, "Tell me."

"Drug overdose." He waited on me. When I didn't react, he asked, "Did you know he was using heroin?"

"No. I didn't. But it doesn't really surprise me."

I was so grateful to Bud. He drove me home and came with me up to my apartment. At my door, he turned to leave; I asked him to stay, just for a few minutes. But once he was inside, I made him dinner because I wanted him to stay longer. I just didn't know when I'd feel safe again without Robert around.

So Bud was still there when I finally cried. It slammed into me, the reality, the finality. He held me and let me sob against his shoulder. He kept holding me when the crying jag left me so exhausted that I couldn't move. He carried me into my bedroom and was going to leave me there tucked into my bed, but I begged him to stay with me just until I fell asleep. He climbed in next to me and let me settle in to him, with my head on his chest, as I chased sleep. His arms around me made me feel safe. He was still holding me when I fell asleep.

When I woke, we were lying together on the bed. He slept with an arm around my waist and an arm tucked up under his head, facing me. My lips were pressed in against his throat when I woke. It was an instinctive reaction; I kissed him there, liking the taste of him.

When he didn't wake, I slowly shifted up onto an elbow and looked at him. He looked so much softer in the peace of slumber. For some reason, he had been there for me during such a bad time and, in such a brief few days, I felt like we'd been close for years.  But there was something more to it. There was something about the solid way he knew just what to do to help me, the way he treated me with such devotion. That endeared him to me. But, feeling his body next to mine, seeing the way he looked that morning... it stirred a deep want in me for a physical closeness to match the emotional ties we already had.

I needed him. He was a reminder to me that life went on even in the darkest of times. It was that simple, that basic. I moved my lips up to kiss his mouth. Soft, gentle; not wanting to wake him while I stole this kiss. But his eyes slid open. They had the power to make my heart beat so fast. He studied me; so serious, so resolute.

Then, his arm around my waist tightened its grip. Without a word, without even a hesitation, we kissed, at first tentatively, as if afraid we'd break the spell we were both under. But nothing broke except our reserve, and then the kiss became open mouthed and hungry. We sped along the road to consummation without even a glance at an exit sign.

His big hands swept over my skin once he'd help me rid my body of my dress and lingerie. I had to concentrate hard in the face of his single-minded mission to get me nude. He kept stopping my hands as I reached for his clothes, murmuring in my ear, telling me how beautiful I was to him. In frustration, I caressed his hardness through his pants. He moaned into my ear, this sincere sound of abject desire. Only then did he help me shed him of the material covering his skin. Only then could my mouth and tongue explore his body.

My abiding memory of this time with him was the way he treated each step as special. He was gentle and yet his restrained power came unleashed bit by bit.

In close to him, my hands loved the feel of hard muscles under smooth skin. My arms had trouble circling his chest to bring him in closer still. My own skin felt alive, and this was because his mouth and hands were exploring me in a way that lit up the nerve endings there.

We whispered to each other; sometimes, the words were small and meaningless but other times, the words were benediction for this act we were engaged in. It shouldn't have been happening between us. Lost in a city of longing strangers, we were two lonely people who had somehow found each other inside a tragedy. And were we destined to be better defined by that tragedy's boundaries or by our escape from it?

Finally, I urged him to complete this act with me, to help me discover an answer I was beginning to believe I could never find on my own. His knees pressed mine further apart as he settled over me, taking time to kiss me from my breasts to my throat and finally trailing up to my lips. As he entered me, his eyes were watching me, gauging his movements by my reactions to them. Those solemn, caring eyes gazed at me for so long that I felt time shift. But when he entered me more fully, filling me up, my eyes half closed and my head arched backwards into the pillow.

Moaning to him, words no longer applicable. Then feeling those soft lips on my neck as he began to move inside me. His hands gripped the skin along my hips and I felt my entire body begin to move in response to what he was making me feel. His thrusts became more forceful as my sounds became louder, almost vulgar in their reflection of the release I sought.

It began low; it built with tension that snapped my mind open and vibrated through my body. When I came in full, my mouth opened in gasping breaths and my hips stopped to capture the rolling waves that smashed outward from my very core. My eyes closed even as he whispered to me that he had me, allowing me to just accept this gift from him.

It left me with a body that was rejoicing. It left me smiling at him as my eyes opened to watch his face as he pumped hard into me, ratcheting his own being up to its own coming. His hands were suddenly unsure where to grasp me; eventually, he settled for gripping his big arms around my waist as he thrust almost viciously in the end. He fairly grunted into that coming, his breath coming in spurts. I could feel his cock deep inside me, his hot fluids leaking from me as he slowed. When he stopped moving, he dropped his head down to my shoulder, his strong arms circling behind my back as he turned us together so he was now beneath me. He cradled my body even as one arm left me to gather the blanket back around us.

When I woke from this post-coital nap, he was watching me still. We exchanged soft smiles and even softer kisses. It was a symbol of how we would move on from here.

We would always be soft with each other. Even if this turned out to be nothing but a moment of light inside darkened lives, we would carry soft memories of each other.

Hando's Chapter

"Tired?"

It revved him up a whole bunch of notches. Never, ever suggest this man is anything less than totally powerful in the act of having sex with a woman. I did it just to feel him take this to another level.

"Cunt." It was more than a word; it spoke a litany of the reasons he fucked like he did. So much about the way he said things like that to me carried so many hidden, haunted memories for him.

I had both hands flat on the wall and I was shoving back for dear life; otherwise, his pounding body might just have slammed my head into the unforgiving surface. In the wildness of my imagination, I saw it happen. My head, ramming into the wall each time his cock rammed into me below. Losing consciousness just as I came wallowing into an orgasm. I tried to adjust my knees, spread them a little more, get a little more purchase, some physical advantage, a bit more stability.

Stability? Did I just use that word?

He wouldn't have cared at that point if he had knocked me out. He probably would have preferred it. He hated it that I could push his buttons. He also loved it, somewhere inside that tortured angst of his. He lived to rail against others and their perceived slights on him.

So what did that make me? Let's not go there. Not just now anyway.

Instead, let's enjoy the fact that this ability to push Hando's buttons was the primary reason he was fucking me. And let's enjoy even more that as he fucked me, I felt alive. That was another thing he was loving; I was making him work hard to make me come - fighting it until there was just nothing else my body could do but come.

Maybe he was born knowing, but I wondered about that peculiar radar of his that had seen the kind of woman I was from across a lecture room.

It had been the strangest thing. He knew me; he came searching for me. There had been a story in the newspaper that I was coming to his city - his domain - to lecture on a book I'd written about Neo-Nazi's as the outdated conservatives. It was written about Neo-Nazi's in the U.S., but some professor of sociology in Australia invited me to teach a grad level course and when I e-mailed back that this was an awful long way to travel for a seminar, he'd responded a month later with an itinerary that would keep me traveling amongst universities in major cities in that country for three months. Too long, I told him, and we got it down to five weeks. Three weeks in Sydney, one week each in Melbourne and Brisbane.

And, I wondered, would I include this up-close-and-personal research into Neo-Nazi personality profiles in my follow-up report to the Dean when I returned from the visiting professor gig?

When I came into the lecture room, he and his 'mates' were already there. I saw this six-member gang of skinhead thugs from my podium and started laughing. Settle in, boys, I had told them, you might be in for a bumpy ride into just how pathetic your politics are.

I'd watched his eyes. In fact, there was a whole portion of the lecture in which he was my only pupil. I wasn't trying to convince him I was right; I was trying to challenge the mind that sparked angrily out of those cold eyes.

After it was over, he came to the front to talk to me. Lots of people do that after seminars. But his presence at the lecture table chased everyone else away. I glanced at him as I was packing my papers.

"Was there something in particular you wanted to know?" I asked him, barely able to contain a grin at the thought of just how much he must have not appreciated my message.

He willed me to look at him, to focus only on him. I did. He measured out his words carefully, filling them with determination. "What, exactly, is wrong with wanting to protect our homeland, our race, our way of life?"

"Which race we talking about? The 'white' race? The one that's been co-mingled blood for so long it's led people like you to assume you know where your ancestors came from?" I watched his mouth get ready to argue. Instead, he clamped it shut and shot venom from captivating eyes. "And which way of life is it that you're so bound to protect? The one that's got you and your gang sleeping in some hovel? The one where you fight against every other aspect of the society in which you exist? The one you'll never feel at home in? Why is that worth fighting for?"

It went downhill from there. Before I knew it, I had been dared to come spend time seeing what had been taken from them, what they were seeking to re-claim. Told him where I was staying and that I'd meet him there the next afternoon after that morning's lecture was over. But just before he walked out, he had stood before me, those eyes of his examining me in a new way.

"By nightfall, I'll have you singing a new tune," he rasped out.

I chuckled. And I did it on purpose because I knew it would piss the fuck out of him. It had.

Late that night, I rolled back in to the hotel where the local sponsors were housing me. I was tired, I felt wrung out and I thought if I ever had to pretend another dean's insipid attempts at intellectual humor were worth a laugh, I just might shrivel up and die. Ah, sweetie, I chided myself, getting a little tired of academia, eh? When was the last time I'd felt like I fit in with any gathering of university people, I wondered. Maybe I never had. I know that from the moment I did my thesis, I'd picked up the 'rebel with a mind' tag.

Problem was, my politics were much too eclectic for the liberal faculty at the first university I taught at; I'd transferred to the one I had been at ever since because they honestly recruited me as a maverick. Breath of fresh air, they'd said. And then insisted that the things I published needed to keep pushing the envelope. That can take it out of you, let me tell you, having to invite controversy at every step.

No one ever seemed to question why my mind sought these strange routes. Sometimes, I wanted to get caught. I wanted someone to guess, just once, what was underlying most of the topics I'd gotten involved in over the past five years.

Inside the elevator, I turned to punch my floor number but his eyes stopped me in mid motion. Blinked twice and then I smiled at him. Oh, but of course.

"Floor?" he asked me, in the same almost hushed voice he'd first used on me after the lecture. When I told him, he pushed the button and then moved closer in to me. I refused to back up. Wouldn't give him the pleasure.

But, nonetheless, watching him carefully. My voice was neutral, purposely low key until I could figure out what he wanted. "I thought we were meeting tomorrow. Change in plans?"

"Not in mine." Head tilt, angelic smile. His fingers smoothed down my arm and my eyes followed their trail. When they reached my hand, his hand gripped mine gently. Elevator doors opened and he almost dragged me into the hallway. "Which way?"

I had maybe a heartbeat to figure this out. I knew exactly what he wanted and I didn't think it had that much to do with arguing with me about the subject that bound us. Yet, at the same time, he was seeking me out in large measure because he hadn't won the battle of words earlier in the day. This was a forbidding forecast for what his emotions would be like when we progressed to sex.

When. Yeah, you read me right. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that he wasn't there for sex and that I wouldn't be wanting to have it with him. All you had to do was take him in to want it with him. He had a body built to be bad with. He had a mind that knew, to the finest detail, the impact that body had on women; but it was more than the body, believe me. It was the almost mythic way he overtook your senses and forced you to not know what you should fear more - resisting him because it was the sane thing to do or giving in to him because it would be everything dark you'd ever wondered about deep in your night-time fantasies. The way I reacted to him was a perfect melding between rational and irrational. There was just something about the force of his personality, that Alpha-fucking-dominant maleness that made me pay attention.

Inside the hotel room, he prowled around. I thought he looked like a wolf invading a new territory and he wasn't so much looking for threats as he was making sure he scented the entire room and claimed it as his domain. Finally satisfied he'd marked it off, he looked at me from about six feet away.

"Something to drink first?" I asked him, feeling a flutter of panic somewhere inside that maybe I shouldn't be inviting this.

He just shook his head in this tight movement, devoid of any unnecessary action. "I can smell you from over here. You know that? In fact..." he neared me as he spoke, finally reaching me in two short, deliberately slow strides, his hand snaking out and catching me behind my neck. "... I smelled how much you wanted me when we talked after the lecture. Decided I didn't want to wait till tomorrow to have you."

For some reason the audacity of what he said, the very sureness he had that what he said was true, the way he apparently wasn't bragging - it made me laugh. It was an instinct, that laugh. If I'd been thinking, even I would have known better than to push one of his buttons at that particular moment. But I learned a lesson in his reaction - that I'd better never be caught not thinking again with him. That if I was to provoke him again, it better be calculated and I'd better want to pay the price.

His hand grabbed at the hair at my nape and he gave my head a vicious yank backwards. I let out a startled yelp and my hands were up on his chest instantly trying to back him away from me. That, I did on purpose. If I'd just given in to him easily, let him manhandle me without any protest, it would have marked me as weak.

I felt his mouth grip in over my neck, his tongue making the kiss feel vulgar on the skin there. But, for some reason, I groaned in pleasure when his teeth sunk into my neck and, if I hadn't been wet before, it would have happened then. I was becoming a mystery to myself; this woman who became so excited by this bit of rough, juvenile play and show of mastery by this man years my junior.

He pushed me down on the couch behind me. His knelt over me, his face now just over mine. His eyes studying my reaction while his lips curled into a predatory grin. "You like it rough, eh? I can give it to ya rough," he growled out, his voice sending its own dominating message to me.

My hands came back alive, defensive and trying to ward him off, as I struggled to regain my feet and my equilibrium. It might have taken him by surprise that I would fight back in the beginning, but by that point, I think he would never have liked it as much if I hadn't done it. He grabbed my wrists and held them over my head with one hand. The fingers of his other hand traced down the side of my face, along my jaw, down my throat and down to my chest. He gripped my breast through the shirt I wore, smiling at me as my nipple hardened. Then that hand tugged hard on my shirtfront and pulled the two halves apart, buttons slipping from their holes or sent skittering across the floor. Not bothering to undo my bra, he simply shoved it up over my breasts and then clamped onto each in turn with his mouth.

I moaned and my hips wriggled under him. He reacted like he was being reminded there were other parts of me besides my breasts. His tongue stabbed into my open mouth and I sucked on it, finding a place inside me that wasn't afraid of the darkness he was bringing to this act.

His hand left my breast and began yanking viciously to rid me of my slacks and panties. Somewhere inside my brain, I wanted to ask myself what the fuck I was doing. Because this taking of me was turning savage too quickly. But when he released my wrists and I found both his hands were now working hard at getting my cunt open to his invasion, it shocked me that all I did was grasp my arms around his shoulders and hang on.

His hands left me only for the briefest time and I heard his zipper go down then felt him move my hips into position. He raised his face from mine, licked his lips just as the light in his eyes shifted and his jaw went almost rigid. Almost tentatively, his rock solid cock's head edged into me. A fleeting moment wondering if he'd take me as hard as I wanted; then he rammed into me, never stopping until he was totally buried in me.

"That's right, scream. You'll be screaming my name before long," he grunted out to me, pumping deliberately; each time, taking his cock out almost slow and then thrusting in with controlled but mighty force.

I felt... God, it's impossible, isn't it, to describe when someone makes you feel things you've feared but wanted? He was so big inside me; he was working hard to show me just how powerfully he could use that cock on me.

"Is that all you've got?" I grated out to him, lowering my chin and resolutely refusing to be exactly what he expected.

At first, he was startled. Then, he got this smile on his face that told me he knew the game. He withdrew from me, rose up and shoved me off the couch. I rolled onto the carpet and before I could even do much more than try to rise, he was on top of me. "On your knees," he ordered.

Instantly, I was on my hands and knees, knowing what would be next and wanting it. I felt him kneeling behind me and his hands grasped hard around my waist, dragging me back, impaling me on his cock. My knees nearly buckled from the sensation.

Every time he bucked into me, the force of his thrust shoved me forward. It was like this vicious forced march and it didn't end until my palms were braced against the wall and I was using all the strength I had not to be shoved head first through the wallboard.

Wild, abandoned, animalistic. Sex like I'd never had it but drinking it up like it was my calling. Finding new ways to force him to his own limits. Not satisfied with coming until it was a coming that would shock the hell out of me for its baseness.

Taunting him with the suggestion he was slowing down, that he was fatiguing before he could make me scream his name in my final release. Feeling him thrust faster, his thumb seeking my clit and grinding on it without regard to its sensitized state.

When I came, I absolutely screamed his name. It was the least I could do for him. Using him up just to exploit him. In the end, feeling a victory over myself and knowing I could finally rest.

Russell's Chapter

"Tired?"

He looked up and tried to avoid my eyes.

"Don't start sugar-coating now, sweetheart. It's a little late for that."

"Are you trying to tell me I look like shit?" It wasn't just his face anymore; his voice sounded fatigued as well.

Making me feel even sorrier for him. An emotion he surely hates, I thought. It wasn't the sort of thing he would ever have wanted me to show, in any event. He always wanted to be the one worrying and taking care of everyone else. On the other hand, what man alive didn't want a woman to care about him? Okay, he didn't.

He was instantly suspicious anytime a woman cared too quickly. I think that's one of the reasons he visited with me. He knew I wasn't going to mother him and he knew I cared about him, but it wasn't in the way that set him on guard.

So, since I felt like mothering him at that particular moment, you can imagine just how down he looked. Not sick or angry. Just... tired. In the year or so since I'd first met him, I'd seen the way the speed of his world was dragging on him. Success alone was no longer good enough. Had to be 'mega' success or it was a failure.

In the three months since I'd last seen him, he'd been on another publicity junket. The brutal pace was worse than his earlier days in the business, he told me. This trip was capped by his constant, and unfortunately now-public, battles with the studio to lessen the demands on him.

He looked like shit. "Sweetheart, you look, as always like such a man. And, although I think you asked me that just so I would massage that ego of yours, you do look marvelous." I smiled down at him, handing him a beer. "I'm so happy you're here."

His hand caressed mine over the bottle for just the tiniest moment before he took the beer from me. A small gesture, and yet... the touch was unexpectantly sexual. My eyes flicked up to his, but he was looking off. Gazing outside the big windows into the coolness of the courtyard. Something about the faraway expression in his face got to me. I ruffled his hair, bent down and kissed his forehead. Watched him close his eyes and when he opened them again, he cut piercing eyes to mine, giving me a look I wasn't familiar with.

I sunk down to my knees in front of the big, old, and very over-stuffed chair he had plopped into almost the moment he'd walked in. It was good that he was relaxed enough with me that he could crash like this. We were friends, more like siblings. Neither of us wanted it to be anything but that. We'd met at a time when neither of us trusted the opposite sex.

Coming off the divorce from Hell, I was merciless with men in those days. Hated them. If you had a penis and you hadn't been a friend of mine before my marriage crumbled, then stay the fuck away from me. Approach me and die - that's what I used to feel like saying to all those randy men who crawled out of the woodwork, thinking they were smelling hard-up, middle-aged, fresh meat. Like I really needed another rotten, cheating, lying jerk in my life? No thanks.

He had been coming off his third very highly-publicized love match and had sworn off women. The night we met, at the home of a friend of a friend, he had been the main draw and I went primarily to say I'd met him. I could picture how he'd looked that night so well; brash and swaggering. Most of the evening, he'd spent conversing with the host, a local musician he'd known for a while. But, at dinner, that voice of his caught everyone's attention and there were times when we all just seemed to listen to him make inflammatory remarks just to hear his voice. One remark he made was the beginning of our friendship.

Smoke curling loosely from his lips, he puffed on a cigar as dessert was being served. He had looked hard at the cigar and said something like, "I prefer cigars to women. They last longer, don't talk back and when you're done with 'em, they're a pleasant memory."

When he said it, I had laughed. I was the only person at the table to really laugh; other people chuckled to be polite to the movie star. But, it had struck me as hilarious. And very revealing of a deep hurt he was still wallowing in. "I might need to take up cigars. Same could be said about them in comparison to men. Especially the lasting longer part," I'd replied into a sudden quiet that invaded the room after his nasty remark. He was the only one who'd laughed at my reply.

We decided we were kindred spirits. And a purely platonic relationship blossomed. He didn't want anything more from me than for me to be in his corner and to remind him every time he got horny that women, except me and a select few other women, were she-devils. I didn't want anything from him than for him to listen to my rantings and to agree with me that, except for him and a select few other men, all men were rats.

Whenever he could swing by the city I lived in, he'd stay with me. We'd go out bar hopping, take in a movie, have dinner, and talk all night. All the things I did with girlfriends but no longer did with men because all my other male friends were married and I hated going with them as part of a threesome since I always insisted we bring the wife. One, the wives were also my friends, and two, this is a small enough town that we didn't need to get tongues wagging. But those kinds of threesomes are too pathetic for single women to do too often. It's like a mercy date.

And, sometimes, dammit all, I just wanted to hang out with someone who was big, burly and manly. He fit the bill perfectly and the bonus was that I never had to worry about him being anything but a buddy. I think he knew my every secret; he told me I knew all of his, but I always knew better. There was just this reserve he had, even with me.

I looked into his tired eyes and wondered if he minded if I simply cared enough about him to want to make it all better. "Talk to me, big guy," I whispered to him. "You look like you've reached your limit."

"Don't," he almost groaned. "I'm too tired to resist you tonight."

Blink. I turned around and leaned my back in against his knees. It was a gesture I'd done maybe a million times since I'd known him. But this time, he reacted differently. Where he would have normally patted my head or massaged my shoulders to show affection for his buddy, this time he stiffened and tried to get up. But before he actually stood, I felt his body settle back into place.

Turned my head over my shoulder and glanced at him. He was definitely focusing on me. "What is it you have to resist tonight? You really don't want to talk to me, Russ? I don't want to push, but it just seems like you need... I don't know... something."

He didn't say anything at first, but I slowly felt the tension leave his legs. Then he started playing with my hair. He was, frankly, one of the main reasons I still wore it so long. He had told me once that all men like long hair on women.

"You never told me how the date went. Must have been better than you expected," he said.

I had e-mailed him two weeks before to get his advice about whether I should accept this date with a man I'd gotten to know through work. It was the first time since the divorce that I had wanted to go out with someone, but it just had been so long that I was really nervous. It was like I needed my buddy to tell me I had permission to be getting over the pain. Russell had called me when he got the message and acted just like one of my brothers. The whole routine - who is he? what does he do? how does he talk to you? do you know his friends? - it had tickled me that Russell had been that concerned.

"It was... um... I don't know, Russ. Maybe I'm just ready to put myself out there again. I actually found myself having a good time with him," I told him. "In fact, we're going out again this weekend."

"Well. That's a... surprise. Guess that's why you're being so quiet about it," he said. "What makes this guy so special?"

"Dunno. I just... Russ, he listens when I talk. Like you do. He notices things about me and, right now? You're the only other man in my life who does. It feels good to have a man make that effort."

He leaned toward me and put his mouth near my ear. In this voice I knew was him teasing me, he asked, "So did he cop a feel? Did he give you any tongue action when he kissed you goodnight?"

"Hey!" I smacked him on the shin and scrambled to my feet. "I was sharing some sweet feelings with you and there you go, getting all 'you' again. Brat."

It made me grin to see him smiling and to hear him being funny again. But I could still see that the smile didn't quite reach his eyes and the laughter sounded just the teensiest bit forced. The moment the grin left my face, he must have caught that I was worried about him.

"I'm just worn out from the schedule. Needed some R&R time with you, that's all. You're the only person I know who doesn't force me to pretend to be okay when I'm not," he said quietly. Tilted his head and gave me a little pout. "I need a hug. You up for giving me one?"

He held out his hand to me and I grasped it, letting him pull me down into his lap. His arms enfolded me and my arms returned the favor. He had been there with hugs for me more times than I care to admit in the time I'd known him. The last time he'd needed me to be the one doing the hugging was in the wake of his last break-up.

"Is it a woman, Russ?" I asked softly, knowing already that it had to be a woman to get him this way, and surprised that some woman could sneak into his presence and break his heart without him even telling me about her before she got the chance to do him harm. "Who is she? I'll snap her neck for being mean to you."

"Mmmph," he mumbled, his face buried in my chest. I suddenly realized exactly where his mouth was. It was nestled right in the valley between my breasts. And the only reason I noticed was that he was kissing me there. Long and slow. I felt the heat, pressure and moisture through the thin rayon shirt I was wearing.

"Russell?" I asked, my voice shaky and uncertain.

"It's a woman," he said as he stopped, his eyes meeting mine for a tic before dropping away from me. "You know her already."

"You didn't." I gave his head a shake of reproach. "You went back with her? Oh, Russell."

His eyes came up to mine again. This time, they held me in check for a breath. He shook his head slowly, before leaning into my chest and kissing me there again. Then, he turned his head sideways and settled his cheek against the rise of one of my breasts. His arms hugged me in tighter to him.

"No. Not her. Not anyone I've had before. Someone I've known for a while but we've never... she's never... I've had a crush on her forever, it seems, but she's never been ready before."

My hands stopped rubbing his back and I tensed in his arms as his words moved into me. He started rocking me, ever so gently, side to side and I felt him cuddle in even harder, like he couldn't get close enough to me all of a sudden.

"Your heart's beating awful fast, love," he whispered. "Something you need to tell me?"

"Don't do this, Russ. Don't start playing games with me. Not you. You were the last man I could believe in," I mumbled.

He started humming. I had always loved his voice; it made me feel better, somehow, whenever I heard it over the phone. In that moment, it relaxed me and I felt myself sink into his hold on my body.

"I always thought I'd be the one," he said.

"The one for what?"

"The one who'd make you take a chance again. The one man you'd turn to when you were ready." He stopped and looked up at me. This warm smile on his face. His eyes looking for something in me. "Did you really never know that?"

I swallowed hard. Thought about this. Had I missed some signals? Or had I just so completely shut down that part of myself that would have been receptive to signals that none had a chance? "You're my friend. Maybe my best friend, Russ."

"Isn't that a great foundation for love? Wouldn't it be great to be in love with a friend? And to be a friend with someone you love? It would be for me."

"I don't know what to say. You've never hit on me. I mean, you've never tried anything and..."

"How could I make a pass at you when you were still at that point where you didn't want men to look at you that way? Love, I think we both were in the same place when we met; you've just taken longer to come away from there." He leaned back against the chair, pulling me with him and laying my head on his shoulder. "It wasn't until you told me about the guy asking you out, that I heard it in your voice that you were ready to try with men again. You like him, I can tell. But, he hasn't been waiting for you nearly as long as I have. You asked me if I was tired? The answer's yes. I'm tired of being a gentleman around you all the time."

The funny thing was, once he said it, it seemed almost natural to think of him that way. To remember the nights he'd spent in my place and how I would feel so warm all over when he'd prance out of the bathroom with nothing over that wonderful body but a towel. The way we'd tease each other about being so horny that we just might have to attack the other for some relief. How it had never failed to give me a rush to see him when he'd show up at my door and the way I loved feeling safe inside his arms. How there were so many times I'd picture his face and miss him in a physical way. The way things always seemed easy with him and, yet, the way there were those times I'd look at him and wonder why I couldn't find a man I liked like I liked him.

Had it really been that long since I'd paid attention?

I sat up away from him and studied his face. In his eyes, I saw desire for me that I'd not only never noticed before, but found more welcome than I could have ever guessed. Maybe there'd been some longing on my part as well. Maybe it wasn't that I hadn't paid attention to his signals; maybe I'd been ignoring my own. Otherwise, how could this feel so natural?

My fingers traced his lips. All the while, his eyes never left mine. Now or never, I thought. I bent toward his mouth slowly, feeling a case of nerves attacking me that nearly made my heart desert me. When I was so close that it would have been nothing to meet his lips, I hesitated. What if this changed everything between us?

But he put a hand gently on the back of my neck and drew me the rest of the way to him. It was a feather of a kiss. It had a massive impact on me. Then I leaned in harder, opening my mouth and feeling his response. His hand pressed me in more, and he used his tongue to explore me; never in a rush, so languid and so possessive.

It could never have ended with just a kiss. And it definitely changed everything.

Unnerved to be touching him this way. My hands shaking but resolute to explore his bare skin. Fingers edging up under his shirt. When he groaned into my mouth, I shuddered at the way I could feel it vibrate against my clit. I leaned back from him and looked into that face. His eyes studied me for just a second before his mouth moved into this little smile.

"Tell me I won't regret this," I asked him. "Tell me this means something to you, Russ. Don't let me down."

But even as I was uttering those words, my body was already intent on his. My hips shifted so my body could be in better contact with his. My mouth was quickly back to tasting his skin, sweeping down his neck. He had grown hard beneath me and his hands were urgently pressing me down, making sure I could feel. It was both a welcome old-timey feeling - being with a man again - and a brand new experience - being with this particular man.

"I think I've been in love with you for so long, baby. It's been the hardest thing I've done in my life - not just seducing you. But I wanted it to be right when it happened."

I latched onto his lips, kissing with an intent and intensity that I hadn't felt in so long. And I moaned into his mouth to feel his big hands nimbly sliding my buttons away from their restrictive bindings. He moaned back at me, just as he bent me back over the arm of the chair. Now when I watched his eyes, they were concentrating on another part of me. He watched as his fingers undid the front clasp of my bra and then his eyes closed even as his mouth slid softly over a nipple.

"Oh. God." I let my head fall back over the arm of the chair. Was it possible that every single nerve in my body was connected to the breast he was holding in his mouth? And just how many hours passed while he took such a delicate route to exploring both breasts? All I really know is that at some point, he stopped and his hand behind my head forced me back upright in his lap.

"I take it, you liked that?" he asked me, this fun grin lighting up his face. Even his eyes joined in this time. When I nodded, he said, "Wanna go a bit further?"

"I wanna go all the way," I replied, returning that easy grin because I could feel his hand massaging my sex through my clothes. "Wanna take me there?"

"You betcha," he said. This time when he went to rise from the chair, he took me with him and carried me into my bedroom.

We stretched out against each other atop the bed, finding out just how easy it could be to make stripping into an act of pure sensuality. When there was nothing left between us but electrified air, I was holding him. Stroking his cock, feeling its hardness beneath his skin's softness. His fingers slid easily over my slickness, playing with my clit until I was writhing in protest.

"It's been a long time. I... I may be..." My eyes sought his. Needing reassurance.

"Shh. I'll be careful, love. I've waited this long; I think I have some patience left in me."

"OhmyGod, that feels good..." His fingers never stopped in their action. With a startled cry, I came just before his mouth clamped down on mine. Riding it out, almost sucking in his tongue, feeling desire for having him inside me grow so big I didn't think I'd be able to contain it. My body so eager that it almost attacked him, my hand gripping him in harder strokes and pulling him toward me.

"Go easy, baby. We'll get there, I promise you."

But, able to read the need coursing through me, he came over atop me, his legs moving mine further apart, his hand gathering his cock from me and then sliding its head along my slit so it would pick up the moisture gathered there. Waiting for him. I watched him, his face concentrating, the arm he was using to balance his body straining, his other arm busy with its task below, his chest gliding along mine. I felt his lips begin to suck along my neck, and arched back to give him fuller access.

When he began to come into me, it was an experience hard to fathom. Like my body remembered but had forgotten. Like it somehow knew what to expect and yet was pleasantly surprised anyway. "All the way," I groaned out to him, feeling like it was the most exquisite torture that he was going so slowly.

It was all he needed from me. He sucked in a breath; my hands were on his ass and I felt it tense as he shoved hard into me, opening me to his girth, sinking all the way in and then almost grinding into me when he hilted. "Slow," he whispered against my neck as my hips began to buck against him.

"Slow," I whispered back. Our determination to go slow evaporated after the first time he made me come, brief but welcome. Then he rolled onto his back, dragging me with him and I found myself giggling at the sensation of his strength and the sureness of his movements. He helped me ride him, my hips grinding hard, my chest heaving with the exertion of my efforts, but failing to achieve the orgasm I sought. He clutched me down to his chest and simply held me still while he drove up into me until I came, writhing around his cock.

When I sat up away from him, I smiled down at him, crooked a finger and he rose to meet me. Leaning back on his arms and wiggling, teasing me with the way the contact between us created instant tension for my sensitized clit. He must have seen the shift in my eyes, felt the way my body got serious, because he sat almost straight up, gathered me to him and began to work with me.

His arms gripped me around the waist, his chest right up against mine, and he began moving to meet my movements. It overpowered me. This feeling. That big cock inside me. His mouth claiming mine. This big man holding me, giving himself to me. Loving me. Someone I could believe in.

Coming in his arms, around his cock, convulsing so hard I thought I might have forgotten how to breathe. Losing myself in the experience. Knowing that was only possible because I was with someone I trusted.

When he came, it was with a great roar that seemed to come from his very depths. By the time we both stopped moving, we were sweating so much our bodies were slick against each other. We were murmuring in each other's ears, whispered testimony to a new way of feeling about each other.

"God, Russ. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to move again," I moaned to him as we sank down into the bed together.  

"Wore you out, huh?" he teased me, and I could tell from his deep voice that he was pleased with the impact he'd had on me. He leaned away and tilted my chin up until I opened my eyes and focused on him. Gave him this weak grin. He smiled back and asked, "Tired?"