It's late evening. He calls me. My heart races. Just to hear his voice. I can't explain it. I just feel it.

Is this joy?

Oh, it must be. It seems so simple. It's so massive.

It fills me up, this way hearing his voice makes me feel. 

I'm on my way, he says. I'm waiting, I reply. When he finally comes to my door, Buck barks but it's his greeting bark, not his guardian bark. Max doesn't even have time to knock before I've opened the door to seek his arms. He wraps them sweetly around me; he lifts me slowly off my feet, kissing me as he does even as I'm asking him what took him so long.

God. He's bundled up in a wool overcoat. He feels cold but somehow it's even more masculine to feel that chilled, rough fabric against me and his lips warming against mine ... and his tongue ... gosh, what can I say about how his tongue makes me feel?

Buck whimpers for attention. He is sick to death of being confined in the kitchen because the vet says she doesn't want him getting too rambunctious yet and climbing on furniture and jumping around.

From the doorway as he is moving me inside so he can shut the outside door to my apartment, Max tells Buck to quiet. He says it in this terse, deep voice of authority. Buck obeys instantly. This amazes me. The pecking order has changed in my household and it's taken about a week. No, actually, I think it took maybe a few hours.

Somehow, though, I'm still at the bottom of the pecking order. I'm not sure that's really what I wanted but you know, I can't find the will to complain. Not when that voice of his has an impact on me that is so basic, so instinctive that I feel utterly helpless and adoring of his total mastery.

Max looks in my eyes as he sets me down. Pats a finger at the tip of my nose. "You must be more careful. I could have been anyone walking past. At least wait until the doorbell rings then check your spy hole before opening the door."

"Max, I knew it was you. Buck has a different bark for you now."

"No more. You must be more careful. And I don't wish to constantly worry about your safety."

I frown but I don't say anything. But I'm not a child. I mean, I've made it this far in my life on my own; I think I can be trusted to exercise the appropriate personal safety precautions by now. I should probably say that to him ... but I'm too busy dragging his overcoat off him, while he's dropping his satchel and now he's got me in a hug that's anything but sweet.

Everything else is forgotten in the moment after the first groan of need that one of us makes.

We let go of each other so we can fumble and claw some clothing off ourselves. Damn. I guess it's just more efficient that way. By the time he's got his shirt and tie off and his pants down, he's pulling me to the couch and he's dragging me down atop him. I've had time to get out of my pants and undies and to unbutton my shirt. I haven't even had a chance to touch my bra.

He pulls my shirt partway down my arms like he is going to finish undressing me but then gets distracted by his hands wanting to be pressing my body in over him. He's got one of my breasts in his mouth, his tongue making the fabric of my bra wet; his suckling maddeningly gentle for the contrast to the way my nipple peaks against the constraint of the lace of my bra.

He arches under me as I'm shoving his underwear down; my nails scratching him in my eagerness to squeeze his ass because I can't resist grabbing him there. The moment I've worked his underpants down enough that his package emerges up front, and I can feel the unfettered length of him hot against my belly as I'm wiggling in his hold ... God. Oh God.

With a growl, he tries to climb on top of me, only we're on a couch, not a bed, so there's not a lot of maneuvering room ... and we're in too much of a frenzy because we've been unable to touch for a whole nine hours while we were at work. So we don't even try to pretend we care about anything but not losing contact. We end up rolling off the couch. It doesn't even slow us down. We just get down and dirty on the floor.

God, we're mad for each other. It's insane how we are.

He sits up suddenly and looks at me. His hands go slowly down my body. I wiggle under his touch; smile up at him. It's my best 'come hither' look. I suddenly chuckle at the absurd thought that Chili would give me an A+ for this look. It rather ruins the effect.

When his hands reach my thighs, they keep going. To my knees. Lifting them up. Pulling one of them up until he just has to turn his head and his mouth is opening wide, sucking in gently, giving wide-mouthed kisses, wet and wild, from the crook of my knee, down my calf. When he reaches my ankle, he lifts my leg straight up until he can get my heel in his mouth. I giggle madly at the insane sight. He never looks at me. Just my leg. It's all he cares about. He lightly bites in on my heel just before he releases it. His big hand is wrapped around my ankle. He lifts my leg up again; looks down into my eyes. He's got that hard, no-prisoners look on him. I shiver and my back arches. I think I'm coming. He begins sucking my big toe. I gasp at the feeling of his wet mouth, warm tongue. And then his other hand strokes over my clit. He must know how close I am. He must want me to come like this ... unprepared for how he's done it, unsure if this should be turning me on like it is, unfamiliar with this particular approach.

I've got both hands down there, trying to both drag him off my clit and also to press him in harder. But in the end, I'm rolling with the coming and want it to never stop. Never stop.

When he stops sucking on my toe, I don't even notice it. But he's between my thighs, putting himself inside me, his body pressing down on me, his arms bracing at my sides to bear the brunt of his weight. He's draped my legs over his shoulders and I'm trying to tell him it's too much, too deep, too good ... Oh God. Oh God. Oh. God.

Shouldn't I be doing something besides just laying there coming in his arms? 

My hands shake as I reach up to pull his face down to mine. Until I can devour his tongue. But he can't stay that way for long because I'm not a pretzel and it's a pretty ungainly position for me to even try to breathe with my body bent in on itself.

Rising up on his forearms, he starts to thrust harder, with longer strokes, hitching at the end, grunting with the effort. And then he's coming into me. He just lets himself go. It's the most glorious thing to watch him come. I would watch him come into me forever because it makes me feel so one with him, so united to him. But it always ends eventually. And that's okay, too.

He pulls my legs from his shoulders, plops down over me, exhausted, satiated. I hold him; I would hold him forever like this. I would.

I get this fleeting, insane image of me holding him like this, his cock inside me, as he's sitting in his next meeting. "This is my living jock strap," he tells his boss and colleagues gathered around the big board table with him. They all nod like it's nothing and go on with their meeting.

Yes, my life would be complete, I think, if only I could be Max's living jock strap.

I wonder if he'd be willing to be my living bra and come hold my breasts during my next business meeting? I can picture myself sitting in his lap at that big brown fake wood table in our board room, his hands cupping my breasts from behind, supporting them better than any lingerie ever could.

I must ask him that some day.

"How was your day?" I whisper against him, tasting the sweat on his neck. Loving that taste on my lips.

He gives me this grunt. It's not a very happy grunt. It's a frustrated grunt.

"That bad?" I ask him, stroking my hands down his skin. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No." 

I should have known. He's never once talked about his office to me. I don't even know where he works. 

He groans softly and rolls off me. I feel the warm gush of his fluids running out of me as his still partially-erect penis is pulled from its very warm, very needy, very happy refuge. I make this little whining noise at the loss of him between my legs. He just pulls me along with him as he rolls and before I know it, I'm making contented sighs to be held next to him, my head on his shoulder. I don't even care about the carpet burns on my backside. Truthfully, I can't even feel them but I do know they're there. He strokes over my breasts and makes his own sigh; it's deep and masculine.

We snuggle into each other. "I made dinner."

"I had planned to take you out tonight to dinner," he sighs into my ear.

"What? Take me out?" I smile against his neck. "But if you want a date with me, you have to ask me in advance, Max. You can't just assume I'll be free, you know."

He doesn't say a word. I raise myself up on his chest and look into his eyes. His face is a blank. His eyes narrow at me. "You have plans for this evening, Ann?"

"Well ... but that's not the point. If you want a date, you have to ask in advance. Otherwise, it's not a real date."

"What difference could that possibly make?"

I'm not smiling anymore. Things like this make me awkward with men. In this case, I start wondering if I'm odd in this issue of dating. Well, I know I'm odd but I mean in this case ... I just have to know: are we dating? Or is he already just assuming things about me that I don't assume about him?

There isn't a thing about the way we've gone about this that is the way I always thought it should go. Isn't it supposed to be that you meet a guy, he asks you out, you date a while, you're intimate, you date some more until you figure out if it's love, then by the time you declare love, you're a couple and everyone simply accepts that about you ... and from there ... oh, yeah, there is a world beyond that but I've never been there before. It's a foreign concept to me, that part of it.

But then there's Max and me. Here's how we went about it: we met, we had some kind of instant attraction, we ticked each other off, we baited each other, we became intimate in this rather shocking escapade, we became fuck mates for a very short time, then in a snap we didn't have anything to do with each other for a while, except that I fell in love with him, he eventually fell in love with me ... and here we are now, unable to even get out of bed except to go to work.

We've never really dated.

Rather important part to skip, I suppose, if we're to become companions.

And suddenly it's kind of sitting out there in the open and I could address that with him except it makes me shy. Like I think he should just realize that I'd like to establish some more normal parameters around what we have. Maybe. I don't know though. I hate the idea of rocking the boat at this point. It's all so new. It makes me nervous to think how easily I could say the wrong thing and blow this with him. I'm making too much of this. I have to stop that.

"What is it?" he says softly.

I almost say, 'nothing,' except I hate my own nature in that regard. So I take a deep breath and then say, "I'd like to get to know you, all of you. I'd like to date."

He purses his lips. "Yet when I invited you to dinner just now ..."

"Yeah, I should have said 'yes,' but I suppose it struck me odd and you weren't really asking me out on a date."

"I don't understand."

"Yeah, I don't either. I confuse the hell out of myself, Max. So, just ignore me because I'm not even sure what I am trying to say. Please?"

He cups my cheek in his hand. Smiles at me. "May I take you out tonight on a date? Dinner, a movie if you like, then stop in at the Pub so we may visit our friends there. Would you enjoy that?"

"I made dinner." It's not an answer to his question, but in my own way, it is. We trade looks. We both know I'm far from the domestic type. He teased me just the night before that he wondered if I was still Ann. "It's just spaghetti. Nothing fancy."

He says that if I prefer eating in, that's what we'll do. And that after dinner, we can drop in at the Pub. I don't say what I really feel; I am not sure I want to do that. But I can't explain why the idea of our first visit to the Pub as a couple makes me feel queasy inside.

My God. That's absurd, isn't it?

Maybe it's just that I don't know how to define this relationship. If someone there were to ask me, I don't think I'd be able to say what we are to each other. We're in love ... yeah, good answer, right? I can just imagine what a few of the men there, men I have known intimately, what they'd think about that ... if they'd smile knowingly and just assume this is me going overboard much too quickly with some man I have the hots for. How would I prove it's more than that?

I don't want to say the sappy old improvable-as-permanent 'we're in love' because it's just going to be interpreted as 'we're lovers for right now.' I'd rather be able to say 'we're dating.' That would be provable except ... we're not, not really. Or maybe we are even though we've not been on a date.

Truthfully, though, that's not even the issue.  Not really. Nope. The real issue is that right now, it's just Max and me who know what's happening between us. And it's fragile because it's so new. And it's precious. And I'm jealous of it and want to protect it, horde it, not share it with anyone but him. Only him.

So we took a shower because he wanted to go to the Pub after dinner and obviously, we'd need to wash the remnants of sex off our bodies. He ate dinner wearing nothing but his towel wrapped around his waist. Okay, well, I was only wearing a towel, too. But I rather think I had the better view.

I wonder ... if we'd gotten dressed before we sat down to eat dinner ... would we have engaged in that bit of food sex with dessert?

Would we maybe have even found the will to leave my apartment that night?

Chili called me at work the next morning. Asked me how life was treating me. Asked me how long I was going to hibernate. I've just been busy, I told him. What's his name, he asked me. Meet me for lunch, Chili, I asked him.

So Chili ended up being the first person I told. I blushed my way through it. He couldn't have been nicer about it. He reminded me that he'd told me early on that some day I was going to want to buy him that nice bottle of scotch when I realized he'd been doing something nice for me. I reached in my satchel and pulled out a bottle. His eyes got misty. It's true then, he said softly, my little girl's all grown up.

That Chili Palmer. He can be the biggest goof in the world. He can really make me smile.

He spent the whole rest of the lunch telling me all the signs he'd noticed in Maximus. Just before I got out of his car after lunch, he leaned over and gave me this slow, soft kiss on the cheek. I'm always here if you need me, he said.

"Chili, nothing's going to change between me and you," I said. I don't know why it felt sad just then, hearing his voice saying what he'd said.

"I'm not exactly Max's flavor of the month, Ann. If it's a choice between us ..."

"It isn't. I don't do things like that anyway. And I don't think Max does."

He shrugged his shoulders and leaned back away from me. "Maybe things won't be so bad. He's been thinking of me as a rival. That's bound to color a man's take on another man."

"Well, I didn't say he was going to be your buddy," I said. We looked at each other. "But I don't care about that, Chili. You're my friend. That's what matters to me."

"You look happy. That's what matters to me."

"If it hadn't been for you ..."

"You just needed someone in your corner this time. Maybe your luck's changing. Maybe I should let you start laying my bets for me."

Luck.

I'd had a run of bad luck. Maybe I deserved my good fortune.

That afternoon, Max called me at work. He'd never done that before. I didn't even remember giving him my work number. I wasn't even sure he knew where I worked. I didn't really know anything about his work. Only that it was something in the security field but he never talked about it. See? If we'd only been more normal and had dated, surely that would have come up and I'd have known all about his everyday life.

"Do you have plans for Friday evening?" he asked me. His voice on the phone sounded so proper and formal.

"Why?"

"I wish to ask you out on a date."

I grinned into the phone. I wondered if there was anyone within a mile circumference of my cubicle who didn't hear my heart go 'kaboom!' at this. "A date? Really?"

"Yes. I am committed to attend a reception to honor a visiting official. I was wondering if you would accompany me as my date. I would like to take you out to dinner afterwards."

"Really?"

He gave me an irritated 'tsk.' In this brusque, yet somehow shy voice, he said, "Would you stop saying 'really' as if I am in the habit of misleading you? Could you not simply say 'yes' or 'no' to my invitation?"

"Yes."

There was a pause. "I shall pick you up at 6 p.m."

I could tell he was figuring that was all there was to it and now he could get off the phone. But I made him tell me the details ... what the function was, where, how I was supposed to dress ... that sort of thing. Only then did I give in and let him say goodbye.

"What time will I see you tonight?" I asked him softly before he could hang up.

"I won't be able to see you until I pick you up on Friday," he said. "Work. A trip I have to make. I leave in an hour."

"Oh." I looked down at my feet. No answers down there for why I felt like someone had just punched me hard in the gut.

His voice dropped into a whisper as he said my name. I felt weak at the sound of its intimacy, as if he was there with me, whispering my name as his hands touched me. I closed my eyes and listened to the silence over the line. And then, still whispering to me, his strength and formidable command of me coming across all those miles that separated us, to say, "I shall miss sleeping with you, Ann. The feel of your skin, your breath upon me, your wetness upon my fingers as I explore your secret place. Remember that. And remember that I shall be intent on making up for not having you for the next two nights."

I whispered into the phone, all this want of him making my voice husky. "Maybe you should come by earlier on Friday. I can take the afternoon off work."

"No. After. But I promise you this ... that night ... as we are surrounded by others ... you may be assured of exactly what I am thinking each time our eyes meet."

"What will you be thinking?"

"Of how I shall make you dance beneath me later ... after we are alone ... after we break the fast. Imagine that? Do you believe you are woman enough to satisfy me when I am that hungry for you?"

I swallowed hard and felt a flash of heat sear through me at his voice, at the way it felt like mental sex.

"I'm going to miss you, Max," I said when I recovered, my voice now cracking on the sudden depth of realization that I really felt bereft to not be with him for two days and two nights. My God, could I be more of a goof? "Be safe. Know that I'm thinking of you while we're separated."

"Do not open your door to anyone you do not know. Always be careful. Promise me that, Ann."

My eyes opened; I looked at the gray wall of the cubicle. "I promise."

I only said it because I figured it was one of those things about him, about his nature. That I was now under his protection and so he worried over these little things like me not being sage enough to be cautious. I wondered if he'd forgotten that I had extra security on my apartment courtesy of Dino. But instead of being irritated, it made me feel under his umbrella of masculinity. And I rather liked it.

That night, I took Buck back to training class just to make a little visit so that all my dog friends could see he was okay. On the way home, I got this sudden whim to drop in at the garage. Buck's cast made tapping noises upon the concrete floor that echoes in the cavernous garage. I found Johnny and Colin wrestling with an engine that simply refused to cooperate.

Buck and I paced the cement floor of the garage and watched them work, listened to them curse, fetched them tools. But after a while, it was obvious that what had so recently been my hang out seemed shabby when I wasn't part of the goings on. And with a grumpy Colin in charge of the job at hand, there was no way Johnny was going to let me come in and help. So I left and returned home to an apartment that longed for Max's spirit to fill it.

Friday liked to never come.

Work sucked; not that it doesn't normally but somehow it seemed worse. I watched the clock the entire day. And then maybe fifteen minutes before I was able to finally see it come straight up on 5 p.m. so I could rush home, shower, get dressed ... and be ready when Max came to get me for our first official date ... well, my boss from hell decided he just had to meet with me to discuss some stupid crap policy manual that I'd been doing the technical editing on.

And I stood there in front of his desk and watched everyone else filing out to their cars in the parking lot while he droned on about how great it would be to totally redo the format of the piece ... into a format, I might note, that I had suggested at the beginning of the project but which he rejected out of hand only now it turned out someone at a level higher than him had thought made sense so ... I just stood there, holding on to my fixed smile, remembering that I needed this job bad enough to act fine with being kept late on a Friday for something that could so easily have waited until Monday except then the boss couldn't have done this power trip to remind me of how unimportant I was.

And I really didn't think that if I killed him right then and there that the company would keep me on in their employ. So I would have been out of a paycheck that was the only thing between me and outright bankruptcy. I guess that's why he survived.

So I was twenty minutes late leaving. By the time I got home, I was flying in fifth gear. I ran in the door, grabbed Buck, raced down to where he could do his business out back of the complex. He decided to go on a sniffing safari while I pleaded with him to just whizz already for God's sake. Then when he finally finished claiming the entire city as his property, I grabbed him and raced back upstairs. Depositing him behind the barrier I'd constructed in the kitchen to keep him confined, I was stripping as I was running down the hall and making for the bathroom. Thankfully, I'd at least thought ahead and had laid out my cocktail dress, shoes and delicates.

I took the fastest shower I could; tried not to get my hair wet so I wouldn't have to dry it again. Found out all over again why it's so hard pulling on stockings over damp legs. Finally managed to get them on without a snag or hole, then wiggled into my bra, panties and slip ... then fixed up my makeup, brushed out my hair ... realized I didn't have the pins in the bathroom to put my hair up the way I needed it to look nice for the dress I was wearing ...

Ran out of the bathroom to grab them ...

Grabbed my throat instead and gave this half-scream to see some man in my bedroom.

It took me that fraction of a moment to realize it was Maximus. Sitting on the end of my bed. Watching me. In his dark, heavy overcoat. Looking at me like this big giant thing that I just never expected and it had scared me to death before I realized it was him.

I shrieked at him that he'd about given me a heart attack ... and then took another look at him and nearly wet myself in my joy at seeing him.

There.

With me.

Again.

I just kind of launched myself at him. Very undignified. Very unladylike. Very impulsive.

So not how I'd planned this.

I'd so planned that I'd be dressed, sexy, refined, cool. He'd come to the door, ring the bell. This time, I'd pause at least until the bell stopped echoing before opening the door. And then I'd hold out my hand, draw him inside ... let him kiss me ... let him tell me how great I looked ... let him realize I'd gone to so much trouble to reflect well on him at this company cocktail party.

Instead, I was acting like the biggest goof. I had my arms wrapped around his neck and my lips were kissing all over, eventually finding his mouth ... whimpering most unseemly when his arms gathered me to him as he kissed me back.

He tasted of coffee and him. He smelled of winter, airports and him. 

It took him a while to pry me loose. I whispered to him of how much I'd missed him as he prodded me to stand and told me to hurry and finish dressing or we'd be late. I blinked at him. That's all you're going to say to me, I asked him, feeling hurt that he hadn't at least said he'd missed me, too.

"Don't you wish to know how I got in here without you admitting me?" he asked me. His voice was all stern and gruff. 

I looked behind me, down the hall, toward the front door. I looked back at him and shrugged my shoulders. I had never given him a key, so now that he mentioned it, that was odd.

"What was the one thing I asked of you when I left? The one thing you promised me each time we spoke while I was gone?"

"I dunno. Max? What's wrong? Are you mad at me?"

"Did I not make a point to ask you to be careful? To keep your door locked? To put on the alarm?"

I paused in mid-retort, about to tell him he wasn't my dad and I could take care of my own self, thank you very much. I reminded myself that, yes, each time he'd said this, for all it irritated me, I'd understood this seemed to be a "thing" with him that I was going to have to tolerate.

"I am always careful, Max."

"You are?" He shifted around, narrowed his eyes, studied me like I was some foot soldier who'd just failed inspection. Then he nodded at me. "Yet you leave your door unlocked? Against my express directions?"

His directions? Huh? I stood up straight; my hands went to my hips by instinct. "I did not."

"It was unlocked. In fact, it was more than unlocked. It was open. I simply walked in. I could have been anyone." He tilted his head; his eyes bored into me. "Anyone."

I looked back down the hall toward the door. I felt a heavy blush blooming from my chest up into my cheeks by the time I looked back at him. "I can't believe I did that. I was in such a hurry ... I must have just made a mistake. Those things happen though, Max. Why do you need to make a big deal out of this?"

"You must be more careful. You must promise me to never let your guard down."

"Max! Give me a break."

"Promise me."

My mouth opened to say 'I promise,' but I just froze. Instead, I started crying. I didn't mean to. I'm not even sure why I did. Partly, I was angry. Partly, I was hurt. Partly, I was very confused by how I was feeling at the moment. Mainly, I guess, the truth is that I cry whenever I'm feeling any really strong emotion, from anger to love, that I am unable to express verbally.

There was so much going on inside me that I'd never be able to express and I didn't want to yell at him for being so mean as to come over there and instead of the first thing out of his mouth being something nice he was criticizing me like I'd committed a crime? I turned on my heel, heard him huff in annoyance behind me as I closed the bathroom door for privacy. I stood there looking in the mirror and willed myself to get a grip.

So what if he came back there and couldn't be bothered to say he loved me. So what if instead of ripping off my clothes that he picks a fight with me?So what if he thinks I'm a child and now has proof that I am because somehow this standard he's set of me being safe is like so huge to him and I just do not get that. He's giving me standards to meet and I'm already failing.

I kind of moaned, way down deep, in the pit that knows I was never going to be the right woman for him anyway. And then I looked back in the mirror and realized that I was feeling more angry than anything just then. How dare he treat me that way, as if I had to obey him. As if this was important enough for him to be so mean and heartless to me. And he really thought I was now in the mood to go with him to some office function and stand there smiling and gazing at him with adoration so he'd look good in front of his boss, co-workers and some visiting hoo-haw?

On the other hand ... was this a hill to die on? No. I knew it wasn't. I knew I had to suck it up, take a bullet ... swallow it down the best that I could. I refused to have a fight with him while we were still supposed to be within the glow of this wonderful revelation of love between us. You don't do things like that at times like this. Right?

So I washed my face, squirted some Visine into my reddened eyes, reapplied my makeup, brushed out my hair, went back into the bedroom for my pins, fixed my hair, went back into the bedroom and slipped on my dress. Found my shoes. All the time, I just ignored him but I knew he was watching me intently. If I had said a word to him, I knew I would have raised holy hell. So I kept my mouth shut. When I was dressed, I walked to the door, grabbing my coat and purse on the way. Stood there waiting on him. Heard the creak of the floor, the sound of his shoes on my carpet as he approached me.

Felt his body brush my back. His hand pulled my coat from where I was gripping it. I let him help me put it on.

In this gruff voice, he said, "If you were not the most precious thing in my life, I would not care so deeply about this, Ann. Think on that for a moment before we depart. I love you dearly. If anything happened to you ..."

He let that hang in the air between us. The air felt thick. It was hard to breathe. His hand stroked down my coat sleeve until it reached my hand. He pulled it up slowly. I didn't resist. He kissed in at the knuckles.

In one swift move, I turned and found my way into his hold. We stood there, breathing together. "I promise," I finally whispered into his overcoat's lapel.

Deep down inside me what I yearned for was some time to just be wrapped up inside him again. But I could almost sense his unease with the delay. I was betting that in his entire life, Maximus had never kept a boss waiting only because of the triviality of his personal life. So I responded obediently to his statement that we needed to go before we'd be too late.

It occurred to me on the ride over that I was going to have to think about the fact that I was becoming one of those women I hated ... the kind who, once in a relationship, lost their own identity and lost their own will. I suppose that's okay if that's the kind of woman you are, the kind who doesn't mind chucking her own self worth and her own life goals out the window when she loves a man, but the truth is, I'm not.

If I didn't do something before it was too late, I thought as I looked over at him driving and he smiled shyly back at me, then I was going to rebel. And it wasn't going to be nice. And it wasn't going to be fair to him. He was only pushing me as far as I'd let him. Why wouldn't he? He'd probably been that way his whole life.

But for that night, I wasn't in a rebellious mood. Honestly? I felt shell-shocked. Confused. Hopelessly gauche. Totally unsure that I even knew what was going on. Holding my breath until this cocktail party was over. Determined that, no matter what, I would not embarrass him or myself when with him at this function that mattered to him. I'd cry later when I let myself feel how awful it felt to not have seen him for two days only to have nothing about our reunion go the way it should have.

When he pulled up, a valet opened my door and I stepped out under the overhang of the hotel where this event was being held. I watched Max deal with the valet and then turn to find my eyes. He could overwhelm me and it was all because I kind of wanted him to.

Everything was so odd, the last few days. I'd been dying without him. He comes back into town and it's like we're suddenly no longer hot for each other. One argument, however abbreviated so that we could both put on happy faces for his career, and all that giddy, new love, gotta-have-it-all-the-time-new-sex stuff, can't keep our hands off each other ... it's gone. Like it was never there. It's not fair. I only had it a few days.

And all because I didn't lock my door. All because he's got some fetish about me locking my door. All because he's  ... and just as he reaches me, I see something so deep, so pure, so complicated in his eyes.

He loves me.

The problem is, he doesn't know for sure what to do with how he feels about me any more than I know what to do with the love I feel for him.

My knees go weak at what it feels like to just know that. To know it somewhere so sure. He's the first man in my life I've felt this sure of. He puts an arm around me, whispers in my ear, asks me if I'm well. I nod against his chest. "I'm so glad you're here," I whisper back. "I felt so alone without you."

I hear someone say his name; it's a rather brusque, male, American voice. Max stiffens instantly and forces me to stand on my own. It's the first of so many introductions he makes of me that night.

He introduces me as his "companion, Ann." Every time he introduces me that way, I wonder ... what else could he have called me? I guess I'm lucky he considers me important enough to categorize in some way. Did I expect him to call me his girlfriend? 'Girlfriend/boyfriend' are a bit childish for us, I suppose. What else could he have said? At least he didn't call me his date, as if I was his arm candy for the night and only for that night. At least companion sounds a bit more substantial.

This man and his wife that we meet in the lobby, they are with us as we go up in the elevator. I notice they are holding hands. Max is a step away from me. I step closer to him, seeking some connection. He looks down at me, gives me a little smile, shifts a bit. Like I'm making him nervous to be so close. When we leave the elevator, I reach out instinctively to take his hand, but he puts it on my elbow and guides me out.

The whole rest of the two hours we're in that reception, he really doesn't touch me. Other men, in these settings, they would put a hand on the small of your back or lean in to whisper in your ear every so often, or they'd let you put your arm in theirs. Not that I expected him to paw me in a business setting, but at least show that we're something to each other. Show some kind of overt connection. I can't tell ... is this just how he is in a business setting or is he angry with me?

I'm in the restroom later when two young women come in. They take one look at me, standing in front of the mirror reapplying lipstick, and they look at each other, both smiling. I swear, when they go in their stalls, I think they giggle. From inside the stall, I hear a voice saying, "So you're with Max?"

My head shoots up; I narrow my eyes at my reflection and straighten my shoulders as I say, "Yes."

"He intimidates the hell out of me," comes the voice from the other stall. "Always wondered what he'd be like, though. He's such a man."

"Such a man," agrees the first voice.

"More man than you could handle," I mutter under my breath.

A toilet flushes. The first stall door opens. She comes out, looking around for her companion, but then smiling at me as she comes to the sink area. "How long you two been dating?"

"A while," I say, lying with a flourish and no regret.

The other toilet flushes. "First time he's brought anyone to one of these," the second woman says as she comes out of her stall.

"So is it serious?" the first one asks me. "You and Max?" she prods when I just look at her.

Is it serious? I ask myself this. Is it? Absolutely. "Yes, it is," I say.

"Ah. That's it then," the second one says, smiling at her friend. "He's in love."

"What's it?" I ask.

They grin at each other; I'm not in on the joke. Finally, the first one says, "It's just that he's been so ... well, for weeks, he was just a real bear to deal with. And then, just with no warning, this week he was ..."

"Chirpier," says the second one. "Last few days before his trip this week. I caught him humming. Several times."

I stand there looking between them, my mouth open. "Max? Humming? No way."

"Way," they both say and then chuckle at me. The second one says, "Max is the best but he's got the tendency toward being a hardass. Course, that's one of the things I like about him. He never compromises."

Never, I think.

By the time I make it back out there, I'm thinking about Max humming and it's got me smiling in a way that makes me not care so much about how he confused me that evening with his attitude. Okay, so he could be tough on me. But he also was brave enough to be himself. Or was it bravery? I don't know. What do I know about men and women things?

I watch him from across the room for a few minutes. I watch how he holds himself. I can tell, just by his body language, who he feels is a comrade in arms, who he reports to with respect, who he doesn't trust. I think about that moment in his film when he walks into the tent after the big battle. He sees his top aides and there is a camaraderie there, an ease even if he's at the top of the pecking order. He's at ease in this room with only two men.

He seems to respect his boss. Now that I've seen these people, I am suddenly even more curious about this aspect of Max. I had never thought much about his work, what he did to earn his living. I have been far too wrapped up in just earning my own keep.

I don't even know the name of his company. It's odd, I realize. No nametags ... but then they all know each other. No placards, posters, logos, company insignia, either inside the room or outside to greet arriving guests.

Just then, I notice Max looking around, searching for me. His smile is so small, so quick. I'd miss it if I hadn't been really looking for it. I wish everyone in this room would instantly disappear so I can jump his bones, I think. I smile back at him. My God. He can turn me on and it takes him nothing.

Dinner's a blur. After that moment in the cocktail party, I'm feeling rather warm and fuzzy with him. I wish to have him alone. I wish to start this evening over. I am determined that when we finally leave here, we're both going to be in a great mood to enjoy each other ... all night, hopefully. There's always time later for figuring out the unimportant things. Right now, the only thing that's really important is him. Us. Being together. Learning about each other.

He tries to act aloof. I keep baiting him, like I used to do back before we were ever intimate and when it always made him react to me. He plays at being obtuse. But then he's helping me on with my coat and he puts his mouth near my ear to whisper in that deep, velvet voice of my wettest dreams, "Have you really forgotten what I am like when my blood is stoked by my want of you? Do not push me too far tonight, Ann. You may find me only too willing to take what I want from you without regard to what is right ... or wrong."

He doesn't take me to my place that night. He takes me to his. This will be a first for me. For us.

I've been there before ... spent a few nights during Buck's emergency. But we slept apart; there was nothing sexual about those visits. That was only nurturing, protection. Tonight isn't really about that.

It's a little intimidating to go to his place. It's because I know he's taking me there on purpose but I'm not sure why. Not until we're there and he pulls me up against him as he's inserting his key into the lock. He just looks at me; and then he slowly kisses me. Whispers against my mouth that he's imagined this moment the whole time he was gone ... of having me there, of sharing his bed with me, of waking in the morning to see how my body looks nestled in his sheets.

I get this instant appreciation for that ... I feel that way, too, really. Him in my bed is a vision I cherish and call up to relive often when I'm doing some boring task at work. Him sitting at my table, holding a fork I've washed a thousand times before; him seeing my little keepsakes in their special places and asking me questions about them. There's just something about these little mundane things that seem so intimate because they mean he's part of my everyday life.

That's what I want. I want to be part of every day with each other. But I also am aware that I can't rush that. It will happen in its own time. Its own way. But maybe this is how that begins to happen. That one of us pulls the other inside our space so that we have to make room for each other in our everyday lives.

Once inside there with him, I am shy. I am curious as to what he wants of me this night. I hope I can be whatever it is. I hope I don't disappoint him again. I think about how his first thoughts of me that night were negative ... the disappointment he felt upon finding my door open. Some day, I have to ask him why that matters so much to him, on such a personal level. Is this one of those little things that's going to bug me about him?

He helps me off with my coat and I stand there, unsure what to do next, as he hangs it in his hall closet then hangs his own coat next to it. He takes my hand and leads me into the living room. It's been rare that night that he's really touched my skin. He really didn't at all when we were in public. I think of how it seems more normal to me that a man I've started dating wants to hold my hand, how big a deal it is to him to do that when others are around, as if it's just this accepted way of showing that we are together now. But Max doesn't do that in public. I wish that he would, honestly.

But he does here and I suppose that's where it counts. The way he is with me in private is really the thing that should matter, I guess.

"I was very proud to have you with me tonight," he says as he points me toward his couch and says he's going to get us each a brandy.

You know, I'm feeling even more unsure now. Why isn't he ripping my clothes off? Why am I not ripping his off? We've been apart for days; you'd think, based on how we were when he left, that we'd be at each other already. I'm waiting on him to make the first move. Why don't I do it instead? I hate when I'm like this.

"You never talk about your work," I say when he joins me on the couch. "And no one there tonight really talked about your company. There was discussion on some legal issues to do with port security but ... I don't know, it just struck me that there wasn't a lot of office gossip or job talk."

He frowns into his snifter. "You wouldn't want to hear about my job."

"Is it boring?"

"No."

"Then I'd want to hear. Well, actually, even if it was boring, I'd want to hear. I want to know. It's a part of you. Why wouldn't I want to know?"

"Are your feet hurting you?" he asks me, putting down his snifter and reaching to stroke along my ankle.

I've been rubbing at my calves and now am absentmindedly massaging where my shoes meet my flesh. "I'm not used to standing on heels for hours anymore. Do you mind if I take them off?"

"Let me," he says, settling closer to me on the couch, drawing my feet into his lap. His warm hands stroke down my calves and then slip the heels off. I moan in deep appreciation as his hands begin to knead the first foot.

"It feels like I've died and gone to heaven, Max ... Oh yes ... that feels so good," I whimper out as the massage goes on.

"You must let me see to your pleasure in this night," he says, his voice husky and all man. I'm looking in his eyes when he says this. I feel like he's just yanked me down against him and is about to take me. It's the force of what he says, how he looks, his voice ... his command of me. And yet all he's doing is slowly massaging my foot. When he touches my ankle, as if he's now going to move the massage up my body, I tremble.

He shifts his position on the couch, comes closer to me, widens my legs so he can slip his body between them until he's between my knees. His hands are on my thighs now, inching up my skirt as he moves up.

"What is your deepest pleasure tonight, Ann? Tell me ... I will make it come true," he says as he reaches to slip my snifter from where it's about to drop from my hand. "Let me show you how I feel to have you here with me."

My deepest pleasure. I close my eyes. I see him. I see the confusing swirl of days before this. I see my emotions. I see his. We are both adults; we're battle scarred in the field of love. We're hopeful; we're convinced we've found something so true in the other. We trust in that.

That's my deepest pleasure. That I've found him. That no matter how confusing, how scary, how demanding this may be, that this man is along for the ride with me and I know we may screw up along the way, but I also know we'll not do it intentionally.

"Would you really do that for me, Max? Give me my deepest pleasure tonight?" I ask him. I open my eyes and find him staring at me, this look about him that makes me calm because he wants me in a way I maybe never thought I'd be wanted. When he says 'yes' and begins to shift closer, I put my hand on his chest to stop him. "My greatest pleasure tonight, Max, would be to give you pleasure."

"You will," he says.

"Let me care for you a bit?" I ask softly. "You're home now. Safe inside your place. With me. Let me help you fully enjoy that tonight."

"How?" he asks, this new light in his eyes, expectant, surprised, pleased.

"Let's start by making you more comfortable," I tell him, pushing on his chest, rising to kneel next to him as I slip his suit jacket off and toss it casually over to the nearby armchair. I drag down on the knot of his tie and then pull it over his head. He takes it from me and raises his eyebrows as he drops it over my head and adjusts the knot a bit playfully. So now his tie is around my neck; it drops down over the flesh that pouts out of the "v" neckline that shows the promise of my breasts.

He fingers his tie. He says he likes it on me much better than he will ever like it on him. I tell him that's not saying much as I figure he doesn't much like wearing ties anyway. He grins at me in response.

Slowly, carefully, I unbutton his shirt and then slide that off. I toss it over where his jacket is. His t-shirt is tucked in his belt so it takes a bit of finesse to yank it free before I can smooth it off his body.

"What are you up to?" he says as if he knows this is nothing more than me undressing him to have sex with him.

"Turn around. Let me give you a massage," I say to him as he sits there, allowing me to stroke over his chest as if I'm just reassuring myself that he's him. He's got a bruise below his right collarbone. I kiss it but I don't ask him how he got it. I'll ask him later. My hands move to his shoulders to guide him as he shifts around on the couch so his back is to me.

It takes a long time; it takes a lot of strength ... but eventually, using everything I've ever learned about massaging sore muscles, I feel the tight strum of his shoulders and back begin to really respond to me. His skin feels warm; his shoulder muscles have always fascinated me, the way they move and flow and curve. The stiff hairs, so short, upon his neck feel compliant under my fingers.

I have the best view in the entire world, I think to myself. Here I kneel, behind him, and he trusts me, indulges me, invites me into an intimacy of inducing relaxation between us. He sits before me, surrounded by everything that must be important to him in this world. Even a man with few possessions has the need to have his own domain. A man such as this? I cannot even begin to imagine what this place must mean to him ... his stake in this world, his place to stake his claim, the one place he goes to be alone. And he's let me inside. More than that, he wants me here.

By now, he's got his head hanging down as he's letting himself really enjoy the sense of having me there with him, tending to him. I kiss at his nape and work on his neck a bit more. He gives me this deep, satisfied moan as I find and work at a trigger point there. I kiss his shoulders, one kiss for each one, and then work out a few more trigger points. He's breathing deeply, slowly. I press in along his spine, kissing at the top of it even as I move slowly, surely, using my thumbs to move along and extract tension from where he must hold himself by instinct with never-ending rigid will.

"You needed that," I say softly as I ease off the deepest massage and lighten my touch to keep him relaxed. I reach around to hold him, my hands on his chest, and pull him back into my body where I can support his weight and feel him finish letting go. "It was a rough trip, wasn't it? But now you're here, safe with me."

He reaches slowly for my hand; begins pulling me around his body. I don't resist; it would be futile even if I wanted to. In a way, I want to because I'd like nothing more than to just hold him like this the whole night. I realize something very strongly about myself in that one moment just before he's reached for me ... in the moment where I'm proud to be supporting his weight, to be holding him in my arms as if I'm sheltering him. And what I realize is how much of myself I've lost ever since my life seemed to go downhill after being laid off. In him, in us, I'm getting myself back.

At heart, I think I'm a strong woman ... but I've been down on my luck and it's made me feel powerless. I don't want him to be in love with a wounded me; I want him to be in love with the real me, whoever she is. I have to find her again.

But when he reaches for me, I don't resist because I have never once not liked how he's shared himself with me. And somehow, I want to see what he'll share with me in this night, alone with him, inside his place, here because he wants me here, because it's important to him that I be here sharing his space.

"Yes, I needed that," he whispers as he draws me around him. He shifts as he does this, moving so his back is against the couch's back cushions. His hands guide my body until I'm sitting in his lap, being cradled against his chest. He puts his mouth against my ear; the feel of his lips makes me sigh; the sound of his voice makes me close my eyes. "I needed you here."

"And I'm here now. For you." I let him hold me for a few minutes; he releases me easily, languidly, when I move. I kneel before him, unlace and remove his shoes, socks. My fingers touch at his belt's buckle; I look up into his eyes. Something passes between us. He leans back into the couch, his head lolling, his arms passive at his side.

When I've got the belt open, I reach up to place a soft, long kiss on the middle of his chest. One of his hands gently holds the back of my head, as if he just wants to touch me. I stroke his semi-soft penis with one thumb running over the fabric of his slacks; I'm gentle with the stroke; it's a caress. He doesn't say a thing. When I sit back up, I carefully unzip the fine wool pants. He raises his hips and I slide the slacks down ... down ... down to his ankles. I carefully fold them and place them with his jacket and shirt.

He looks like some majestic god, lazing on the couch, his impressive hardness now a visible, live presence inside his white briefs. I make this mental note to buy him black BVDs because ... well, just because I want to see him in them. I kiss him over his briefs, including in the now-moist area where the cloth absorbs the pre-cum I know he is unashamed to let me see evidence of. And then he lifts his hips so I'll remove the briefs. So I do.

For a while, I sit back on my haunches and just watch him. I want nothing more than for him to be relaxed, to feel that when we're together he can relax.

But then I also know that we both want to join. We want a reunion. We are dying for it, this I know. But he is enjoying this. He is enjoying being indulged because he can tell that I am enjoying this.

When I stand, I lower my panties; hike up my skirt; move to simply sink over his lap, let him enter me, join us.

"All of it. Everything ... except what I've given to you," he says suddenly, his eyes now sharp on me; they are hooded as he regards me from where he's still laying back into the couch.

So I strip. Slowly, purposefully. Dress. Slip. Bra. Thigh high stockings. Earrings. Necklace. Rings. Watch.

He spreads his legs as I remove my watch. The only things I'm still wearing are the bracelet he gave me for Christmas ... and the tie he placed on me in this night. I am pretty sure he only wanted me to keep the bracelet on; but if he wants the tie off, he'll need to say it or take it. It's my little challenge to his orders to me.

Frankly, I'm elated he's noticed I'm wearing the bracelet because I had thought maybe he hadn't. I haven't taken it off even one minute while he was gone. It's been my secret reminder of his presence in my life.

This act of him spreading his legs ... I kneel between them. Kiss deeply up his penis; lick, suckle his scrotum; hear his guttural moan as I take his length in my mouth; my hand caressing the part that cannot fit. I don't look at him while I do this; I am afraid that if I do, he'll decide to be more active. I just want to give him pleasure ... to give him some measure of peace.

Peace. I doubt I'm the woman who can do that for him ... but I wish I was. I know he seeks it. I can perhaps give him moments of it; but can I really be his path to a peaceful life? Is that even what he wants, when push comes to shove? I just don't know him well enough yet. But I want to.

When I release him from my mouth, only then do I look at him.

"Come. Be with me," he says softly, his hand raising up, that universal gesture of invitation.

I take it; let him guide me to him, over his lap. His other hand lazily moves from where it's been resting at his side, upon the soft leather cushion of his couch. I watch it move; it's colors that I see most, that make the impression. The color of his skin gilding the light chocolate brown of the leather.

"If it is your pleasure," I say to him as I hover over him, bending to kiss in at his cheek, feeling that lazy hand stroke over my calf.

"My deepest pleasure," he assures me. "I needed you, my beautiful woman. I need this."

His every movement is so gentle where I might have expected him to be brutal in taking me since we've been apart so long and then had such a confusing evening of trying to get it together.

I think about how even confused and unsure, there has never been a time when I've also been more sure. I think he's the same way. We will both stumble, make missteps, not quite be on the same page from time to time. But the core remains solid and this I know.

It's the knowing that is so different for me. Some day, later, once we are so secure as a couple, I must ask him about this sense of "knowing" and if he feels like I do about it. I think he must; but I also think he has experience feeling that way, where I don't. After all, he's been married; he's felt this way before, I'm sure. Maybe he thought he'd never feel it again where I thought I'd never feel it even once.

I've gone through my life, meeting men, dating them, falling under a spell ... and so often wondering at some point, is this love? I always wondered if I'd ever know it or if maybe I'd not recognized it with some guy way back in my past who had been the love of my life only I'd never known it. Or if maybe I was just never really meant to love, to be faithful, to see in one man the future I wanted to build my life on. I always wondered if there was something wrong with me that I maybe was never going to ever really be in love. I always wondered how other people just knew when they were in love because I never was sure. But I know it now. I know. This is love and I have no doubts about the love; I just still have doubts about me.

"I love you so. I missed you," I whisper to him, my lips pressing in gently over his eyes. "I missed you so much."

"I didn't miss you," he says. I sit up; his eyes open slowly to examine mine. Disappointment must be written on my face. He takes my hand, presses it over his heart. "How could I miss you? I had you with me. In here. Where you're safe."

It makes me shake. My eyes fill with tears. I tell him all over again that I love him. His hand grabs the tie; he uses it to drag me into a kiss that is deep, very physical, searing.

And then he simply takes over. He's no longer passive, no longer needing me to care for him. Now needing to exhibit his natural dominance, his instinctive virility. He moves me over him, watching intently as I begin to breathe in pants and whisper to him of needing him inside me. He fingers me, just a bit; I bite in on his neck after he says to me that knowing that what he's feeling is his alone now makes him feel emotions he thought he never would again.

He rolls me under him on the couch, enters me and begins driving firmly, rhythmically into me while I writhe under him, meeting his thrusts, grunting along with him, my legs and arms wrapped around him. I feel myself being taken into his life.

We never did actually make it into his bed that night. He said I owe him a return visit ... that he still wants the experience of waking with me in his bed.

But for that night, we stayed on the couch, wrapped up in each other. And we talked. All night, really. Even if words weren't always coming out of our mouths, we still communicated.

We talked about ... things. Some were things that are insignificant except for how they can give you something else to cherish as some trivia maybe only you know about him. Like his favorite candy (black licorice) and the side of the bed he prefers (left).

Others gave us things to ponder (like our spiritual beliefs). 

Those things make you brave enough to drop the walls and just talk about more significant things. I told him how I'd felt, with him coming back to town and so excited to see him ... until nothing seemed to go like I would have thought it would between us, as lovers. It was strange; I said it in a way that had no real emotional baggage; maybe I just said it so it was said, so I'd not be holding it in, so he'd know.

We were both quiet a long time, absorbing what it felt like to be able to say that and to hear it said.

And then I said, "Maybe we're trying too hard."

And he said, "I'd rather try too hard than not hard enough."

And we neither of us felt like saying more on that ... instead, we just hugged in hard, my face buried in his neck, his cheek rubbing into the top of my head.

So this must be how it really starts. Commitment within a couple, I mean. By learning about each other, by being willing to teach and learn. By trying hard, even if it's hard in the beginning to figure out what to do. By loving so much and wanting so badly and knowing so surely. Maybe that's how you get past all the stumbles and stutters until you find your real rhythm together.

When I think of him, my heart feels totally full, overflowing. I just never would have thought this was possible.

And someday soon, we really are going to have to make a date to drop in at the pub. Yeah. Because I think it's important to him somehow that we be acknowledged as a couple now. I guess I'm worried that people will take this news with a big grain of salt, figure he's just one more guy I'm going to screw around with until I get to feeling like it's time to move on. But maybe not.

Maybe they'll see that in him, I've found someone to stake a claim with.

And maybe that shouldn't matter to me, what others think of me, how it might reflect badly on him. After all, I had to go through that past to become the person I am with him.