ONE

Roman Gold.  Dry museums and Roman antiquities were hardly his thing... but she liked surprises and he liked surprising her.  He found the look of wonder on her face especially satisfying as she peered into the sleek cases, admiring the ancient gold and gems as they lay protected on their beds of pristine velvet.  She'd never shown much interest in acquiring jewelry but she sure did love to pour over incomparable treasures of the ancient world.  He had to give it to her.  She had impeccable taste.  Her favorites were among some of the most exquisite jewelry in the world.

Her infectious enthusiasm made him smile inwardly.  He was an old hand at admiring jewelry with a beautiful woman on his arm.  What set her apart was that she was less interested in possessing it and more interested in the craftsmanship that went into it and in the stories behind the pieces in question.  More than once she'd whispered into his ear, wondering.  Supposing.

"Do you think her lover gave her that?  Who was she, I wonder?  His fiancée?  Wife?  Mistress?"  His money was on the mistress.  "Do you think she ever wore it for him?  His gift around her throat and nothing else?"  She touched the glass and smiled to herself.  "I think she did...."

She damn well better have, he thought given the extravagance of the item she was admiring.  It could have probably bought a small kingdom.  "Would you have...?  Worn it, I mean."  She might have been imagining the lives of women who wore jewels like that; he'd been picturing her naked in his bed, dripping in those same jewels. 

"Me?  You nuts?  I wouldn't have wanted to be the woman receiving a gift like that."

"No?"  She shook her head.  A woman who didn't want bauble of that sort?  He had a hard time believing that one.  "So who would you want to be then, if not her?"

She bit her lip and smiled up at him, laughter in her eyes.  "The goldsmith's woman.  Bet you she wore his every creation for him at least once.... I'd rather have had a fleeting night with every treasure than a lifetime with only one."

He leaned in, eyes glowing despite the ripple of uneasiness her words stirred in him.  "Dirty girl."  

"Well.... yeah."      

Although he laughed, something in her answer bothered him.  Fanned the flames of something that had been eating away at him ever since that week she had spent in Taos with the other girls.  Ever since that fuck Palmer and his pathetic wind-up had struck an unexpectedly sensitive nerve.  One that had him feeling every minute of his age.  One that had him feeling vulnerable.  One that had been quietly festering since then.  And every time she said something like that he could hear Palmer's words rattling around in his head. 

Chili:	Thought that's how you got women ... by getting 'em so young they don't mind being shaped into what you want. Being their very own sugar daddy.
Dino:	Palmer, cut your crap with me, man. That may work with others, but there's nothing you can say to me that would ever make me think Heather's started confiding in you on anything that's between us.
Chili:	Somehow I thought a sugar daddy was sweeter than you are. But then ... I'm not a virgin, am I? But that's okay ... Heather's a big girl. Now.
Dino:	What are you trying to say? Just say it, man. So I can laugh. I need a laugh.
Chili:	I'm not trying to say anything. But ... it really never occurred to you that Heather might be more than just some sweet young thing to take care of you? Maybe she enjoys the sugar daddy aspect ... for now. She's not looking for marriage yet, is she? I mean, you're not fooling yourself in that respect, are you?

Jesus.  It had been months since that water had flowed under the bridge and he still hadn't even begun to broach the subject of his doubts.  Some negotiator he was.  But then where he excelled at solving other people's problems at work, he played his cards even closer to his chest at home and was curiously, and perhaps unwisely, guarded about a number of things. 

In that respect, he was even worse than Terry, who was rather emotionally open in comparison; a source of amusement to Dino.  It was ironic that the redheaded man with the silver tongue who was known for his gift of gab was the one who wasn't so good at talking about his feelings.  Terry could tell a client about his failure as a father while he couldn't even tell his own woman about the doubts that has been resting heavy on his heart since his conversation with Palmer.          

And unfortunately those lingering feelings of discomfort seemed to taint everything as the weeks went on.  Worse yet, it seemed the tighter he held on, the more slipped through his fingers.  The change was gradual enough that she didn't really notice at first.  Nor did he really, in the beginning.  Not much changed in the banalities of their everyday life.  They still spoke about the same things they always had, teased each other the same way, even fought over the usual things.  What changed was the sex.  Festering feelings always find some avenue to the surface.

Sex with her had always been complicated.  Right from the beginning.  Their first beginning.  He supposed that was probably because he still saw her the same way he had then.  Even now when he looked at her, he still saw that wide-eyed young college student and he wondered if she still saw him a bit that way; not so much the older man... but someone perhaps a bit forbidden.  He also wondered if it still excited her as much as it did him.

It was probably wrong to feel that way but he made no apologies for it.  He had deliberately chosen that kind of relationship.  Not one where he had all the power and his partner had none- that held no interest for him, but one in which not only was he the dominant partner, but one where she was submissive to him on a number of levels.  Perhaps even one with shades of paternalistic overtones.  He had no desire to subjugate her or humiliate her.  She didn't call him 'Daddy' or 'Master' and he certainly never used degrading names with her, not even during their raunchiest most animalistic sexual encounters.  What they had wasn't that sort of relationship.  But she did submit to him.  And he needed that.

Losing Gen had broken something in him.  She had been wild and headstrong and so damned independent.  Being with her - possessing her - was a thrill and an even bigger challenge.  And a young man's folly.  He'd played with fire and had been burned, only he hadn't realized how badly until she was gone.  He had adored her willfulness and the confidence she had to take on even the most dangerous assignments.  That was how he'd lived his life too.... danger made them feel alive, made their blood run hotter and their hearts beat faster.  They liked the challenge.  And they were both young enough and foolish enough to never even imagine there would ever be a mission that one of them wouldn't come back from.

Until it had happened.

It was a long time before he was ready to try again, and when he was ready to give his heart once more... he made a point to choose someone he could control.  Someone a bit more naïve.  Someone who wasn't so damned eager to embrace danger.  Someone who actually wanted less independence.  And yet strangely enough, he hadn't chosen a woman who was the antithesis of Gen.  Heather was like her in many ways.  The same things still attracted him.  Sensuality.  Irreverence.  Passion.  Grace.  Loyalty. 

Maybe his experience losing Gen had changed him.  Or maybe he'd just grown up.  Maybe both.  He no longer wanted a woman to live on the edge with him.  What he wanted was a soft place to fall.  A safe place to fall.  And for the first time in his life, he acknowledged his need for security.  He needed to know that wherever his job took him, that she would be there waiting for him on his return. 

Chauvinistic?  Definitely.  But he didn't much care.  If he needed that and she needed a bit of a father figure and it worked for them, it might be a bit unconventional but that didn't make it wrong.  And it wasn't as if it was without challenges; different ones, perhaps, than Gen had presented, but challenging nonetheless. 

For a moment, the thought made him smile.  And then those niggling little doubts he wasn't yet ready to talk about began to creep back in.  His fingers tightened briefly on hers as he fought the doubts back.  Was it any wonder the sex had been.... edgier recently? 

His uncertainty only seemed to drive him to possess her in the one arena in which he'd always had a distinct advantage.  It was a dangerous path to take considering they flirted with the edge of acceptability as it was.  Even in the beginning his vast experience had made it easy to take advantage of her.  He liked it that way, but then again, so did she.  She liked experimenting with him because her trust in him made her feel safe.  And that was where the real danger in all this lay.  With the demons of doubt driving him, he may very well sail straight over the edge... and he knew she'd follow without a moment's hesitation.

Wandering between the glass cases, she was unaware of the direction his thoughts had taken.  At times since her return from Taos she'd sensed a sort of distance in him, but nothing she could really put her finger on.  It was hard to be sure of anything with him.  Aside from sexplay, he was direct about very little.  He still used words like 'Home' and 'Family' and 'Forever' but they'd never specifically spoken about marriage or children.  She used to think it was because he took those things as a given, but as more and more time passed without those topics ever coming up, she'd begun to wonder if maybe he just wasn't simply happy with their current arrangement.  She thought about it a lot when he was away, but then he'd come back from some job on the other side of the world, needy and passionate and prone to grand romantic gestures, and she'd forget about it... for a little while.

Tonight was one of those grand romantic gestures.  Flowers.  Fancy dress.  Not nice shoes.  Hired car.  Drinks downtown followed by an exquisite meal.  His gift lay around her neck, an ancient gold coin suspended from a simple delicate chain.  And then the museum tour.  She wondered what he had planned for later, and then as if he'd read her thoughts, the hand he had at the small of her back suddenly went from possessive to suggestive. 

He led her away from the glass cases of gold and gems and toward a less impressive and less watched display of stone sculptures hidden among large exotic plants and deep shadows.  She resisted.  The hot look in his eyes and the hard set of his body said he wanted to steal far more than a few kisses in some secluded corner.

When she balked, he halted their egress before a Grecian statue of a nubile young woman with softly rounded breasts.  She was in the arms of her lover too.  Wrapping his arms around her, he pressed his body to hers from behind, trapping her there, halting her flight.  She could feel the hard bulge of his erection and his breath hot against her neck as he chuckled softly in her ear.  His grip on her tightened purposefully.

"No...."  Her voice was soft and breathy.

"Yes."  His was low and authoritative.

He walked her deeper into the shadows, holding her possessively and pretending to be interested in the supple lines of the sculpture as another couple walked slowly through, aware their presence would keep her from resisting him openly... a situation he was not above using to his advantage.  Satisfaction curled through him as her breathing grew even shallower when she felt his fingers slipping up under the back of her skirt.  More satisfying yet, her slight trembling had stopped and she'd gone as still as the stone he was pretending to admire as his fingers trailed higher to that spot he adored; that sensitive crease where her thigh met the delectable curve of her bottom.

Her knuckles were white where they gripped his arm.  He tightened it around her middle as the couple disappeared through the archway into the next room.  He moved quickly, not even giving her a breath in which to protest before he struck, pushing two fingers roughly inside her sleek, wet passage.  Gritting his teeth at the pressure of her muscles fluttering around him, he spun her to face him and pushed her against the wall in the deepest part of the shadows.

Wide eyes stared back at him as she wet her lips nervously, half afraid of being discovered and half lost to what he knew he could make her feel. 

He pressed his lips to her ear.  "I want to feel you come.  Here.  Now."

She shook her head.

He just smiled.  And then he curled his fingers, rubbing hard on that spot he knew drove her wild.  He wanted what he wanted and he wasn't above using her body against her to get it.  Even he wasn't crazy enough to risk sex here.... but that wasn't what he wanted anyway.  It was her surrender.  Here.  Like this.  Breathless and shaky, clenching his fingers tightly with her strong muscles while she whimpered his name.  And he knew just how to make it happen.

"Dean!"  It was a warning not a whimper.  

His eyes glowed with the challenge.

"Don't tell me you don't like it... I can feel the proof right here..."  He shoved his fingers deeper, grinding the heel of his hand into her crotch as she rode his fingers.  He curled his fingers harder and rubbed, determined to have his way.  Her breath caught, fingers tightening on his shoulders as he did it again.  She melted into him as he burned away the last of her reluctance and she gave him what he wanted.  Surrender.

"Dean....."

This time it was a whimper and he smiled with satisfaction, aware from the trembling in her body that she was only moments away from an intense climax.  Moving quickly, he covered her mouth with his and swallowed her soft whimper of pleasure as she shuddered violently, squeezing his wrist between her legs as she came.

It was over in moments.  He smiled into the shadows, feeling a rush of power he knew wasn't entirely right, but he was too high on it to care.  They kissed tenderly as he used the soft skin of her thigh to wipe away the slippery proof of their transgressions.

She clung to him in post orgasm bliss, nestled securely into his side the way she always did when he made her come like that.  She was quieter now, softer.... maybe even a bit dazed by it all.  Certainly somewhere floating in the aether.  The skin of her cheek was warm and flushed under his lips as he kissed it.  God, he loved to see her looking like that, soft and loved and his.  He doubted she even remembered the walk to the car.  He did.  And he was glad the cut of his long coat hid the unmistakable tent in the front of his slacks.  He was just getting started. 

Safe and warm in the back of the car, she nestled into him once again, too boneless and spent to even be annoyed with his highhandedness.

"Mmmmm......"  There was too much satiation in her voice for it to even sound like a chastisement.  "I can't believe I let you do that."  

He smiled back at her.  "You didn't.  I just did it."  He probably shouldn't have... but he did.  And before the night was over, he was going to do it again.

TWO

"Feel like getting up?"

"Nope."

"You?"

"Nope."

"C'mere..."

"Mmmm...."

THREE

He'd only been home a few days.  His last assignment has taken a lot out of him.  Of course, he never told her the details, but she was familiar with his 'tells'.  And usually, the worse the assignment was, the grander the romantic gestures he made upon his return.  For as much as she loved them, she sometimes thought he used them as a way of filling up their time so he wouldn't have to talk about what had happened.  She thought this time it might have been something else too.  He was.... distant.  Even a bit melancholy.  Oh, they still had as much sex as ever - more than usual, to be honest - but she'd noticed little things were different this time.  Or maybe they'd been different for a while now and she was only just noticing?

She tried to tell herself she was just being overly sensitive, dwelling too much on her own insecurities and making too much of the little differences in his behavior.  It wasn't as if they were drifting apart.  The sex, and there had been a lot, had been... more intense than it had ever been, quite frankly.  It was just other little niggling things, minute differences in other kinds of intimacy.

For example, he'd insisted on digging out his own toothbrush from his luggage instead of using hers like he always did, even though he was so jetlagged he could hardly stand straight.  The next night he'd closed the door when he went to the bathroom, something neither of them had ever done before.  Not even in the beginning.  They'd had fantastic, scrape-themselves-from the-walls sex afterwards... but it still bothered her.  In the aftermath of that wild session they'd gone to sleep, but for the first time, he hadn't slept like the dead until morning.  Instead, she'd woken in the night to the sound of his restless footsteps in the study.  She'd pretended to be asleep when he'd crawled back into bed in the wee hours of the morning.  And twice since he'd been home he'd woken sleepy and confused, thinking he was in a hotel, still back on assignment in Yugoslavia.   

It wasn't like him to sleep in either and it was already late enough for her to have been up long enough to have made espresso and sipped enough of it to feel not just awake but jittery.  Into the long quiet silence the soft creak of their bed told her he was stirring.  She waited a few moments before padding back to their bedroom, unsure in his current mood if he wanted more privacy or more sex. 

The sight that met her eyes stopped her in the doorway.  He'd kicked down the covers sometime earlier and was sprawled on his back, calves buried under the thick duvet and head turned away from her.  A thick erection rose from the warm nest of red-gold curls at his groin.  His hand was wrapped around it and he was pumping it slowly, disjointedly, as if he was still half asleep.  She wondered if he was even awake enough to be aware of where he was.  Did he still think he was alone in some hotel room on the far side of the world?  Was he thinking of her?  Was he even really conscious? 

It wasn't the act that gave her pause.  She knew he masturbated both at home and away.  Sometimes they did it together.  Sometimes apart.  Sometimes on the phone, giggling and grunting and talking dirty while they panted in each others ears.  Still, she wasn't sure with as mercurial as his moods had been lately (or maybe it was her own insecurities) if he'd welcome her intrusion into this most private of moments.

She couldn't help but watch unobserved from the doorway, however.  He'd been away a long time and drinking in the sight of him filled her somehow, like great gulps of air when you've been underwater too long.  There was a hint of defiance in her too... or maybe it was desperation.  She missed the intimacy they had that wasn't just about sex, and while what she was watching now was certainly both graphic and erotic, it was somehow more intimate a moment than either of them had given the other during sex.  At least recently. 

His movements were rough and without his usual finesse, though she wasn't sure whether that was due to his recent melancholy or if it was because he was still mostly asleep.  A few times he stopped, dropping his hand and his penis to his belly with a sleepy sigh.  But then a few deep even breaths would pass and suddenly he'd twitch and his hand would tighten and his hips would rock and he'd resume his rough jerking with a grunt. 

Stepping further back into the hall so he wouldn't see her if he woke fully, she watched him stop and start a few times before reaching the point where she knew he'd finish.  His body was now flushed pink and the hair at his temple was curling and slightly damp with his efforts.  The flared tip of his erection was engorged and a deep rose color, twitching in his tight grasp.  It looked painful.  His thumb rubbed and he shuddered and then grunted softly as ribbons of thick white ejaculate sprayed his chest and belly in pearly streams that waned in intensity until they dribbled out over his fist and dripped into the thick wispy hair between his legs.

She was torn.  Part of her wanted to go to him, to hold him, clean him up and soothe him, cover him over and rock him as he recovered.  Another part of her thought it was better not to disturb this deeply private scene.  His hand had fallen back to the bed and he'd sighed heavily before his breathing had fallen back into a deep, even rhythm.  He was asleep.  Drenched in semen, but asleep all the same.

A smile played on her lips as she observed him.  He'd always come like that, in truly copious amounts.  It embarrassed him a bit when he wasn't in that mental space where he wanted to use it to mark her as his.  It was as if he felt spraying like a teenager was something he should have grown out of... but he never really had.  How like a man to be both proud and ashamed of something he couldn't even control.  While it was certainly erotic and visually stimulating to the both of them, it was his bashfulness about it that she found truly endearing.  And somehow, she felt guilty for stealing this moment from him when he was vulnerable, even though sharing that intimacy made her feel closer to him.

It seems women are just as pathetic as men when it comes to confusing feelings.  No, it was better not to chance waking him even now.  A soft snore reached her ears as her hand reached for the knob.  Funny isn't it?  The other night she was annoyed that he'd closed a door on her.  Now she was closing one herself. 

FOUR

"Harder!"  Steam surrounded them and hot water from the shower sprayed down over them both.

"Christ Jesus!  I'll kill you.... Unnngh... or you'll kill me!"

"Harder.  Go harder!"

"Unnngh...."

"Yes!  More!"

"This what you want?"  He pounded harder and slipped his hands from her waist to her throat.

"Yes....... Oh, God!"  He squeezed harder.  "Yes.... Dean....."

"Come on...."  He hitched and slid on the marble in the shower, nearly bringing them both crashing down but he was too inflamed to care.  "Fuck!  Do it... Come on!"

Her whimper fired his blood hotter than any scream could have as her creamy walls contracted on him, making the rushing under his skin unbearable.  He pulled away at the last moment and came hard, deliberately spraying her back and buttocks with thick streams of ejaculate as he held her slender neck in his strong hands. 

They both fell back with a sigh; he cradled her on his lap, taking a selfish moment to enjoy the way she looked splashed with his semen before he tenderly rinsed it from her flushed skin.

"Mmm.... that was...."

"Yeah, it was, wasn't it?"

FIVE

It was the incessant ringing of the phone that woke her.  The clock by the bed was bright enough to blind her.  6:03 A.M.  Who the hell calls that early?  And why hadn't the Redheaded Devil in her bed gotten his ass up and answered it?  He always answered it.... and then she remembered the excessive quantity of alcohol they'd consumed last night.  Well, last night and this morning.  Ugh, they hadn't even been asleep for two hours yet.  No wonder her head felt like it was going to explode.  And the ringing wasn't helping.  It didn't sound right either.  It took her a few moments to realize why.  It was his cell not their landline.  Grabbing it with a grunt, she stabbed at the buttons until the ringing stopped.   

"Urrgh..... Hello?"  She croaked out the greeting, wincing at the sound.

The voice paused for a moment.  "Who's this?"  She thought she heard a bit of lilt in the low sexy voice, but that might just have been the cobwebs that hadn't quite cleared from her brain.  

"Who's this?"  If this was just some crank call, she was going to kill someone.

"I'm looking for a man called Dino."  He paused and she could tell he was smirking.  "In case you two didn't get that far last night, sweetheart, he's the one with red hair.  Why don't you see if you can wake him up for me?"

She rolled over and met Dino's eyes.  He was awake now and from the look on his face, it was clear he'd heard every assuming word the man had uttered.  It would almost be funny if her head didn't hurt so damned much.

"I'll try," she sassed tartly, giving the tiny phone over to the waiting, outstretched hand.

A rapid conversation in Italian followed and then to her surprise, he handed back the phone with a grin and mouthed 'new recruit'.  This time, the smoky male voice at the other end of the line was polite and contrite as he apologized.  It made her smile.  Even his apology was cheeky. 

Dino was all smiles as she handed the phone back.  

"Alright, sunshine... now that we've straightened that out...."  He paused to kiss her and rolled away, scratching himself crudely before padding naked out of their bedroom with the phone pressed to his ear and a grin on his face.  He had a meeting to plan and hungover or not, he'd always loved this part of the job....

SIX

"What are you doing?"

He spun around at her words, looking a bit embarrassed.  And a bit guilty.  A touch of color rose in his cheeks.  

"Nothing."  He said 'nothing' like an eight year old boy caught flushing cherry bombs down the school toilet.

She tried to peer around him.  "Don't tell me 'nothing', Burrito.  You're up to something.  I can always tell...."

He snorted and continued to punch holes in the top of an old cottage cheese container.  His blush deepened.  "Making air holes," he finally said with a resigned huff.

"Air holes?"  She drew back, glancing around as if some horrible crawly thing was about to run over her bare feet.  "For what?"  

He mumbled something she couldn't quite catch.  

"What was that?"  She moved in closer, leaning against his warm solid back.

"A lizard." He repeated, shrugging.  "I found it outside.  They're spraying for insects this afternoon... I didn't want it to get nuked okay?"  He was really blushing now.

"Aww...."  

And then of course he ruined it.

"I'm going to take it to work and put it in Terry's desk...  He might actually get up off his fat ass and do something.... Too bad it's not a snake..."  His eyes twinkled.

She swatted him as he grabbed up his briefcase and the plastic tub.  "You big liar... I bet you're going to put it in the atrium."

"Busted... but if you tell anyone, I'll spank your fanny...." the heat in his eyes flared and he kissed her hard and deep before he disappeared out the door.

Moving to the window, she waited for him to appear on the street below and smiled when he did.  He was so dear to her, her man of so many faces.  He could be so tender and so passionate.  He could be so damned frustrating when he clammed up.  He could keep his cool under pressure, negotiating for human life.  He could kill without remorse.  And yet he blushed when he got caught saving a tiny green lizard from certain death.

It felt like she'd known him forever.

And he was still a mystery.   

SEVEN

"Does it scare you, honey?"

"The blindfold?"

"Or the leather.... either one."

"Should they?"

"I don't know... should they?"

"Do you want them to, Dean?"

"Do you?"

"Would it scare you?"

"Maybe.  You can't see anything.... We might not be alone in here... you ever consider that?"

"Did you think I'd play this game with you without considering that?"

"You're getting wetter... what am I supposed to take from that, hmmm....?"

"I don't know...."

"Not so brave now, are you, honey?"

"Brave enough."

"Someone could be watching.... what would you do then?"

"Does it excite you?"

"Maybe.  What if they did more than watch?"

"Then I'd be deprived.  I'd want to see that too...."

"What?"

"You think you're the only one with that sort of fantasy?  Maybe I want to watch you with someone..."

"Watch me what?  You're blushing again.  Come on... answer the question.  Watch me what?  Fuck?  Go down on someone?  Get blown? .....Dirty girl... that's the one, isn't it?  Don't bother answering... that sexy blush you're wearing says it all."

"Don't be so smug."

"I'm not smug... I'm surprised."

"Are you....?  Really....?"

"No, not really.  No......  So, you want to watch a woman blow me, huh?"

"Who says I was talking about a woman, sunshine?"

"Jesus!  I should have opted for the gag not the blindfold!"

"The night is young...."

EIGHT

"You got any money?"

"What?"

"Money, Burrito.  Dinero.  Scratch.  I'm dying for a frappuccino and I spent my last twenty picking up your dry cleaning yesterday.... Oh, and they didn't get the chocolate out of your tie either."

"Damn it... I liked that tie."

"Heh.  Me too.... And don't you dare blame me!  I wasn't the one who wanted to play that dirty little game..."

"Didn't stop you from enjoying it though, now did it?"

"I plead the fifth.... now come on.... money?  Yes or no.... I'm dying for a coffee... you want one too?"

"Something wrong with your ATM?"

"Come on, you know I hate using the machine... I always feel like I'm going to be mugged while I'm standing there..."

"Wuss."

"Dean!"

"Oh all right, you big weenie... here... and I want a macchiato... none of that sicky sweet crap you drink... oh, and some biscotti too......"

NINE

"You given any more thought to New York, honey?"

"Not this again...."  

She hated this conversation.  He'd been pressuring her to move to New York with him for months and she just wasn't ready to go.  Well, she was... kind of.  She wanted to, even though she wasn't a 'city girl' and the idea of living there terrified her.  She couldn't just abandon Uma and take off though... especially when she was so unsure of what he was asking.  He'd talked about them finding an apartment together there near Thorne and O'Leary's New York office, but he hadn't mentioned anything more permanent than that... nothing about marriage or children or the future.  It made her feel.... unsettled.  She wasn't looking to get hitched anytime soon... and she certainly had more experimenting she wanted to do with him before babies entered the equation, but before she gave up her friends and her livelihood and the life she'd made for herself here, she wanted to know that in the long run he was at least thinking of something more permanent than a live-in lover.   

"You think it's just going to go away because you don't want to talk about it?"

"You think if you ask me a hundred more times I'll get tired of it and finally give you the answer you want?  I can't just dump Uma, Dean.  You know how I feel about that!"

Yeah, he knew all to well how she felt about that.  And her divided loyalties made him feel like shit.  Especially with all the doubts swirling around inside him since his little discussion with Palmer.  Only he couldn't quite ignore that little voice inside his head.  There was a kernel of truth in there somewhere.  He had taken advantage of her.  Sometimes he still did.  He liked their history and her age... or at least the fact it made her more inclined to lean on him probably more than she should.  And he was the one who was usually footing the bill for things.  That didn't make him her sugar daddy though....

It did, however, make him mad.  He was so tired of always coming in second with her.  Second to her responsibilities at work.  Second to her friendship with Uma.  Second to her fears about living in the heart of a big city.  Was all she wanted some older guy she felt safe with to help guide her exploration into the wilder side of sex?

"Uma would dump you flat if the right offer came along."  It was a brutal statement, but it was also the truth.  And it made her bridle.

"So now you're comparing us?"  

Her eyes flashed dangerously.  She hated when he did that; made it impossible to argue back.  What could she say to that?  Either way she lost... either Uma was doing the right thing by following her heart... (which is what he really wanted her to do for him, thus she suffered in comparison) or he was attacking her friend by making a not so nice judgment about Uma's propensity to do what she wanted regardless of how it might affect those around her. 

Or both.    

And the thing that made her more frustrated than anything was that she wanted to be with him.  If he'd just let her know what was in his mind.... and if there was a way to pick up and move without leaving Uma in the lurch.  Sometimes responsibility could be such a bitch.  Still, it was a good crutch to grab a hold of... especially when she had so many doubts.  Maybe all he wanted was the thrill of leading someone naïve through the nebulous world of kinky sex.  What would happen to her when that wasn't exciting for him anymore?

"Fine.  You stay with your little girlfriend.  Maybe you should sleep with her.  She might be the answer to your dreams."

"Unbelievable!  You think everything is about sex!"

"That's because with you, it is!"  He knew that wasn't entirely right, but this conversation was getting too close to those things he'd kept locked inside for too long.  Any more of this and he was going to blow.  And it wouldn't be pretty.  He stormed out, slamming the door hard behind him. 

And once again, that old tired conversation ended the way it usually did.  They both felt bad and they both were too blind to realize they were so entrenched in their narrow view of each other that they'd completely missed the truth.

This wasn't about sex at all.