For a while when I was a kid, I wanted to have an imaginary friend really badly. And when I say really badly, I mean so really badly you couldn't even believe it. My mother worried about me. My father rolled his eyes. It all started because I got insanely jealous of my cousin from the moment he told me he had one and that this was the best-kept secret you could ever have.

Of course, my cousin telling me about his imaginary friend rather meant it wasn't a secret anymore. I wish it had dawned on me when I was a kid because then maybe I would have been one up on him. I mean, he may have had an imaginary friend but I was a whole hell of a lot better at keeping secrets than he was.

I still am really good at keeping secrets.

Sure, I keep some from myself. Yeah. Well? But more importantly, I have a pretty well respected ability to keep secrets for other people, too.

Maybe that's why I never had an imaginary friend, no matter how I tried.

Maximus says I am the only woman he knows who entertains such odd thoughts. But I only admit them in moments of great vulnerability and, then, only to him, so I suppose that is something, isn't it?

I told him the other night that he was never allowed to break up with me now, ring or no ring, because I'd be way too exposed since he'd know all these most embarrassing secrets. He shook his head, closed his eyes and said something in Latin under his breath that I figured was probably pretty rude. I have threatened to take a night course in Latin because I am amused by the way he rolls his eyes at me when I say that. I think it would kill him to not have a secret language to speak around me.

Okay, so about secrets ... I have one I keep for Max. It concerns his job. It's rather important that I keep this secret because of the danger it could bring to us if it was known among those he helps hunt down. That he told me, in any fashion, is not the miracle it might seem. It was more practical than that; it was because he knows now that if I am forewarned, I will be compliant with his security measures he wants followed.

Of course, there is also a secret I keep from Max. I don't suppose, in the grand scheme of things that it is a big deal, as far as secrets go.

This secret is that I worry about him. 

No. That's not really it, I guess. 

What it really is ... is that when he's gone now, gone away on those occasions when he must go to one of the ports over which he manages certain security investigations that he will never tell me details about, I worry about his safety. I worry that someday he may not come back to me.

He said, when he first told me about his new position, that it would be safer than his last position because he would be in management now, overseeing those who did the really dangerous aspects of the investigations. But even then I think I knew that this "managing from a safe distance" bit was perhaps not going to last. I remember thinking, when he told me this, that I didn't want him to sacrifice who he was just to be who he thought I needed him to be for me.

So the first time he had to leave and told me he would not be taking the safer way he'd told me he would, and telling me quite brutally in his own blunt way, I appreciated that he had. He said he had to be there to help because if something happened to one of his people, he would feel he'd not been a true leader if he'd not been there, right there, to help shoulder the danger.

There were only two things I told him in response. I told him I was always going to respect his allegiance to duty and honor. And I reminded him that he had once promised me that he would do all he could to come home to me.

See, I won't make him promise more than he can have control over. So I won't ever make him just give me a blanket promise that he'll come home no matter what. Because life has a way of fucking you over when you think you're in control.

It's pretty important to me that he not know that I spend the majority of the time he's gone worrying over him. I think that would be way too big of a burden for him. Of course he knows I pray for his safety ... but he has no idea that I don't really sleep while he's gone. That I jump every time the phone rings at the condo where we're staying. That I dog the wire service flashes when I'm at work to see if there're any nasty incidents at ports along the Gulf that could be his team in trouble. That I sit and hold the phone to my breasts after he calls me because I'm so relieved to know that at least just then, he's alive and well. That his secretary calling me can make my heart stop even though my logical mind knows I'd never hear really bad news that way.

I have yet to meet his secretary. Her name is Rebecca. All that Max has told me is that she is efficient and intelligent. When I ask for personal details, he frowns and says the only thing he could tell me is that she has red hair.

Even though I have not met her, I have talked to her often enough on the phone to have a pretty good impression of her. Of course, I'm inclined to because I think Max respects her.

She called the other day and left me a message on the machine to say that Max had asked her to arrange for a realtor to find us a house and that she has emailed the realtor Max's list of requirements for the house. And that I should be expecting her phone call in the next day or so after she's run up a list of prospects and then Max wants me to go check the places out, narrow them down and then make appointments for him to go see them when he returns. I played the message over three times trying to work up the snit that should have caused me.

I mean, first of all, like I couldn't be trusted to go out and find a realtor on my own? He has to have his secretary do it like I'm a total bimbo? And second of all, he's deciding on the kind of house we'll look for? On his own? What about what I want? Am I just supposed to have no say in this? And third of all, he's giving me instructions via his secretary?

So I told my mother about it that night when I dropped over before heading to work. I thought she'd roll her eyes and say, "Men! How dare they think they can boss us around!" She used to say things like that when I was in high school. I used to love it when she'd get all huffy over the male race.

But she just went, "Um humm, isn't that nice of him" when I told her. When I expressed mild surprise at her attitude ("Mom, I cannot believe you! Don't you see how presumptuous this is of Max?"), she said, well, maybe this is just more efficient. I said it's not efficient, it's domineering. She smiled up at me and said, "I do like Max an awful lot. Don't screw it up with him."

What I should have done is told some of the women at work about these instructions from Max. They would have had a field day. They would have told me to tell him where to stick his deciding that he was in charge just by virtue of having a control stick called the penis. And I would have laughed and probably joined right in with something equally crude and pithy.

Maybe that's why I never said anything to them.

Or maybe it's because I'm quite a lot more inclined to focus on what seems more important to me: that nothing really matters quite so much as that Max comes home so I can pick a fight with him over it. If you know what I mean. And I suspect you do.

And he knows it.

This last time he had to up and leave, right in the middle of dinner with my mom, and no warning at all. I didn't even bat an eyelash. I walked to the door, stood on my mom's porch, watched him drive away and blew him a kiss. When he called me the next day, I didn't even ask him when he'd be home. I just listened to his voice and missed him. I promised him that, yes, I had security walk me to my car every morning when I left work. And I felt that being strong enough to not let him see how weak I am was the best thing I could do.

Is this what love is doing to me? Is it making me weak even when it makes me strong?

Ever since Rebecca has called about the realtor, I have begun to think about how much it must have meant to him back in his day to always know that no matter how far he roamed nor how long he was gone and no matter the risks he faced, that in all the world, there was one place he called home and it stood there waiting for him and would have waited forever for him.

This isn't such a bad dream, I think. In fact, it awes me to imagine that he hopes for that kind of permanent haven with me. A home to come to where the rest of the world doesn't matter. Coming home to me. Home. Where my heart is. Where he lives best.

This morning, driving from work at the newspaper to the condo we're using, I had this impression that was really affecting ... of someday soon driving down some street, house after house that belonged to people we knew, the world baying at my heels and then I turn into a driveway and know that Max is inside that house ... and that when I get there, nothing can ever harm us. And it's us facing the world together. That's what home should be, to me. I haven't ever had that kind of home but I always wanted it. I just always thought it wasn't really possible.

This house could be anywhere in the city as far as I'm concerned. I have driven him around a few neighborhoods, ones I know are relatively safe but still have character and charm. He wants to 'feel' a certain something about the neighborhood. I am not sure I know what he's looking for in terms of a place but he wants to buy, not rent. I fear that anything we can afford will be substantially less than what he might have in mind. I'm making pretty good money now but I'm still paying off some heavy bills. Frankly? I am not real excited about living some place where I can afford to pay half the mortgage because I can't really afford that much when you look at the prices of houses.

My mom has offered to help with the down payment. I haven't told Max about this because I will not hear of it and I'm sure he won't either. It's sweet, really sweet, but it's ridiculous. We'll get what we can afford and we'll be fine. I know that.

I just hope Max isn't in for sticker shock when he gets a load of what it costs to buy a house in a decent area. I mean, when you think about the tiny, utilitarian apartment of his he was renting when we met, then I just cannot imagine that he really has any idea how expensive a nice house or condo can be.

Still ... all of those are mundane details to me in this phase of being in love. I am enjoying this phase. Like all such dreamy phases, it will come crashing to earth at some point. So I might as well enjoy the ride while I can.

Maybe this is why I fixate on worrying about Max's safety. He seems invincible to me. But with what I do for a living, I have seen far too many people killed for nothing more than upholding the law.

Someday, I imagine that I may become blasé and never really worry so actively when Max is gone. Somehow, though, I wonder if that wouldn't be sad?

He calls me from the road. It's been two days since I've heard from him. He wakes me from sleep but it's the only time he can call me. While I try to wake up, he talks in my ear, low and dark, seducing me ... and so I know that wherever he is, he is alone and he is on edge. I picture him, in a hotel room somewhere, pumped up a bit with some success in an investigation but not totally able to say it will all work out as it should. I try not to think that maybe he's calling because he's about to embark on something dangerous enough to want to leave me with a last memory just in case.

When he asks, I tell him I have nothing on my skin but the necklace. The maze necklace, he asks me. I smile and stretch out in a bed that's far too big for me alone. Yes, I say, the one you gave me for Valentine's. Nothing else, he asks me. Only moisture, I reply. When I ask him what he's wearing, he grunts into the phone. I picture him, stretched out on the bed, fully clothed, slowly touching himself. Talking to me while I am nude. I don't know why that image does it for me. Maybe it's that I like how I always feel totally naked before him when I know he wants me.

I long to undress you, I whisper to him. I like the way you make me work for it sometimes, I say. I would feel your hands upon me and know I am home, he says and I know he's missing me.

When we hang up, I get dressed for the day. This is the day I am to meet with the realtor to review her suggestions, go see them and then start narrowing them down for Max's examination.

Oh, I can see a train wreck in this arrangement.

First of all, I can imagine the list of specifications he gave her. And I can picture her smile when she thinks she's about to sell us a great big house with a big yard for Max and modern conveniences because Max knows how much I need them ... And I can picture Max's face when he sees just how much those homes are gonna cost us.

We have talked and talked and talked about this issue of me paying my fair share of the cost of the house. I thought he was going to choke. He says things like he can afford a house for me. And I say things like I'm earning a salary too and I have to pay my own way. He says things like this is what he needs to do ... that I am to be his wife. It is an interesting argument to have. We might both be willing to see the other's point, and we don't either want to upset the other, but we both feel strongly about this.

I have this feeling that all of this is such a bad idea.

And yet ... I want him to have a home to come home to. And I want it for him because it's important to him. So I'm going to be a good girl as far as I can ... I will meet with the realtor, I will go see the houses she's picked out that meet his requirements, I will see if we can swing them financially ... and whether it's these houses or others, I will find a group that Max can then view to make a decision. I'm pretty sure this accomplishes just about all that he wants ... or at least the spirit of it. But I am paying half the mortgage. Whether he likes it or not.

Train wreck?

Or maybe it's how we start to blend ourselves into a oneness that serves all our needs. 

My mother, of course, continues to take Max's side in this. I should be amused, I suppose, but I honestly think all he'd ever have to do is smile at her and she'd agree with anything he said. When I confided in her my fear that Max's ideas for a house were too grandiose for our pocketbooks and that this worried me, she said, well, how much does he make?  Geez. I've never asked him, I thought to myself, because that just seems so ... rude or something.

Not that I'd tell my mom that. So I said to her, none of your business and what difference does that make? And she said, well, it makes all the difference in the world. Don't you respect him? And I sat back on my heels and watched her for a moment as she pruned into the center of the banana plant to get more air circulating for this summer's growing season.

Of course I respect him, I said to her. Well, then, respect his judgment, she said with this superior smile. Admit it, she said, narrowing her eyes at me. You don't respect his judgment or you'd know he'd be picking houses he can afford, that he would have thought of that.

But how to say to her that he's from so long ago that he'd have no clue about housing costs in this day and age ... and all these other practical things. And that, besides, this wasn't about what he could afford, this should have been a joint venture for us.

Let him be the man, she said to me, pointing the little snippers at me. When do I get to be me anymore, I said back. When he lets you, she said, and she laughed at my face and told me she was kidding.

But I don't think she was, if you want to know the honest truth. I think Max has worked some magic spell on her and she's forgotten that it is not 1905 but is 2005.

You want another truth? I do respect him. My God, how I respect him. Are you absolutely kidding me? But I am also looking out for him. Is that so wrong?

He called me and said he was on his way home as I was halfway out the door heading to work. And I called in sick because he wanted me to be there when he arrived. It might not have been the home of which he dreamed, but it was where I was waiting for him.

Yes. This is me. A giddy child at the prospect of seeing him again. I wonder when it stops? When it wears off ... when I hear his voice and it no longer makes me bite my lip when he says my name in that way he has.

I figured I had maybe a half hour for him to get there from the airport. I looked in the mirror at myself, all dressed for work and then I stripped so that I could chase into the shower because ... well, you know, because. A woman likes to be ... well ... extra fresh for a man like Max.

Max has had a thing for lingerie since I've known him but lately he has become more knowledgeable about what he likes. And I, as ever, have been quite willing to indulge him. He has exquisite tastes; he has never really gone in for vulgar pieces that look like an ad in Hustler or something. He prefers fine material and illusion and enticement. Erotic, not cheap. Sensual, not crude.

I've taken to hiding special pieces and then pulling them out when it just seems like he might enjoy the extra effort. Before I took my shower, I searched all through my lingerie drawer before pulling out this raw silk chemise of pale moss. I pictured how his hands would look on it. I pictured how it would show off the paleness of my skin.

And then I was in the shower, washing off all the evidence that I'd been going in to work.  After, I opened the drawer of my bedside table and tried to decide which of ten perfume samples in there that Clarity had sent me that I might wear that night. I had mentioned to her that I was going to try to find a new scent because it seemed like it was time, what with the move to a different clime. She had boxed up samples of popular French perfumes for me to try out. I wanted something light yet sensual for Max to smell on me.

Before I had the chance to pick out what perfume I'd try out that night, I heard this noise and Buck made his little woof of greeting and ... Max was home!

I was on him in maybe two seconds, racing in toward the front door, tossing my towels off both my body and my hair as I ran just because I suddenly wanted him to find me wearing nothing more than the necklace.

He hadn't even had time to much more than shut the door. I love the way it feels when he holds me like he is holding back. I like that almost as much as I like it when he holds me like he will never hold back again.

I like the ease of his strength, the way he simply holds me up like it makes him feel good to be strong and masculine. I like that almost as much as I like watching his muscles move when he is nude and doing something as simple as turning off the bedside lamp.

"You're just in time to help me pick out the right perfume to wear for my man," I whispered against his lips after a while. After I had looked into his eyes and seen the need there that the world outside be locked out away from him for at least a little while.

"Perhaps your man enjoys your natural fragrance," he said, tickling me.

"No doubt, no doubt. But then my man is learning about the finer things in life, I think. And this is one. French perfume."

"I would doubt any perfume, French or not, would attract your man more than the scent he dreams of when he is away from you."

The thing about it was that there was so much going on in this small circus of his arms ... he was walking with me, I was wrapped all around his body, he was walking toward the bedroom, he was trying to get out his clothes, I was making that difficult on him. Making him work for it ... and just as he reached the bed and was kissing me at the same time he was trying to pry me loose so he could drop me down on the mattress ... he suddenly stopped and I found myself looking again into his troubled eyes.

"What is it?" I asked him softly.

He shook his head. "Not now," he said, so low it could have been nothing more than a memory only it was real.

And I thought I knew what he meant ... that he'd tell me, in his own way, in his own time. He would probably never tell me details about his job or whatever he'd been involved in ...

What's interesting is that even if he wouldn't really talk about what had just happened on whatever task he'd been up to in his job, when he returned there were parts of him he shared with me that might never have been shared if not for his growing dependence on me. It was as if, after a chance to really feel he was again in that shelter of being somewhere he was loved, he let himself be reflective and contemplative ...  I treasured those moments with him, even if I had to wait sometimes until the next day, until after his body had relaxed and his mind was again at ease. I loved the experience of listening to him in those moments, curled around his body while he held me and he talked of whatever passed before his field of interest.

So while I knew in that first moment of him arriving back with me that he wasn't ready for that yet, I did feel there was something he wanted to tell me. Something that would no doubt show me that he was troubled or on edge.

I just held him as he lowered us both to the bed. And I closed my eyes when it seemed that all he wanted to do was be held. But then he shifted against me; his mouth sought my shoulder; his hand smoothed down my spine.

"I won't be staying long this time," he said softly. "I will need to leave when the call comes."

My fingers played in his hair. I measured my breathing. I didn't want him to see me just then. "But not yet, Maximus."

He nuzzled in, murmuring, "Not yet."

"For now, you're just mine," I said. I felt him smile against my neck. "And I have something very important I need you to do for me."

"How may I be of service, my lady?"

"It's about those perfumes," I said, searching for something to lighten the mood, something to give him whatever small space he might have needed just then. "I want to put a few on my pulse points. Let you choose which one you like the best. How's that sound?"

"I would be of little help. There is only one scent other than your own that I am ever going to really like smelling on you."

"Oh? And that is ...?"

"Me."

"Oh." I gently pushed him away and we looked at each other. There was an unexplored hunger there within him. "Well, with such a discriminating nose, Max, I think you could be a big help to me in my search for my new perfume. And I rather think you might enjoy the process of exploring my pulse points."

I took his hand in mine and slowly moved it from the nape of my neck, behind my ears, my wrists, behind my knees. All where you'll need to sample, I told him.

"How shall we proceed? I await your command." As if it made it so simple for him ... to give over the weight of his duties in favor of the feel of his allegiance to me. "I think we need to take this logically...and either start at the top....or perhaps at the bottom..."

"Where to start? Mmmm. Let's start at the bottom and work our way up," I mused, smiling at him. And then I undressed him. When I slid his shirt off, I saw a new mark on him. On his shoulder. A deep reddish welt that maybe hadn't had time yet to deepen into a bruise. I laid him back on the pillows and bent over him to kiss softly at the damage there. For a moment, I held my breath and he held his, his fingers on my scalp. "You know what? I think I'd prefer to explore your pulse points ..."

"You spoke of starting at the bottom, I believe," he said as he tossed me over and proceeded to kiss loudly at my bottom cheeks, tickling me, playing with me, making me squeal even as I relished the way it felt to be putty in his hands.

I swatted at him until the exact moment when his kissing slowed and his hands held me down except I couldn't help wiggling in the heat that erupted between us. As I stilled, both softened and quickened, he stopped. We lay there, breathing together. I loved moments like that with him. When there was a pause or hesitation that made me simply notice that I was with him ... and that he loved me and this is one way he showed it to me.

Turning around to look down at him, I sassed, "I like your style, Max ... Oh ... but my ankle ... was the bottom at which I proposed you start."

Leaning across his chest, I reached in the open bedside table drawer, captured a sample bottle and applied a few drops of the perfume to the inside of my ankle. I looked in Max's eyes, then down at the ankle in question; raised my eyebrows.

He slowly wrapped his fingers around my ankle and raised it before his face. He studied it for a moment. And then put his cheek against it only to roll his face around until his nose was against the skin. His other hand stroked over my calf ... lightly. I felt my breathing shudder at the delicacy of his touch. He sucked in the fragrance with a deep draught of air through his nostrils, closed his eyes, sighed ... before getting this soft smile.

"There's only one way up from there, Anna.... How much temptation can even a Stoic like me take?"

"You hold on to that Stoicism, Max ... And I'll hold on to you, how's that sound?"

His eyes opened. They are the most startling eyes when they greet me in such a moment. Light from the open drapes caught on the crystal that I had hanging there. It fractured and played across his face. Where it caught the moisture of his eyes, it seemed to dance. When he looks at me, in a moment like that, I am laid open to him in all my want.

The next pulse point, he prompted me. I gathered my wits and the next vial ... two drops behind my knee. He turned me face down on the mattress. I closed my eyes, ran my hands over sheets that had needed his body heat for too many days. Meanwhile, he swept gentle fingertips up the back of my calf while his other hand raised my leg until I could feel his breath against the two damp spots of perfumed skin ... and still, only his fingertips touched me there. I shivered when he finally breathed in hard of the scent and finished with the lightest possible kiss as he barely held my leg in his grip. Fingertips of his other hand skimmed along my inner thigh and then back to behind my knee. I gripped into sheet beneath me and tried to control the way that made me quiver.

"I'm so sensitive there, Max ... wonder why? Oh ... my ... God. The way you touch me ..."

"Sometimes the lightest touch can have the greatest effect...like the stringing of a fine bow...brute force has its place but there is nothing so effective as the delicate stroking of a highly strung weapon," he murmured.

"Would you care to show me that delicate stroking touch a bit further up?" I teased him.

He carefully placed my knee atop the mattress. He said nothing. I opened my eyes but didn't turn to see what he was doing. I didn't need to. He traced the palms of his big hands up the back of my thighs, the swell of my buttocks, the small of my back. I curled my legs back until I felt the pad of my feet touch against one of his arms; it was simply a reaction to the enjoyment of his touch of my body.

"I don't know if I can make it further without crumbling ... but I am willing to try," I said to him as I moved under his hands and felt them respond.

"Let's see who weakens first, shall we?" he replied, his voice dropping to that pure wolf that lingers inside him, waiting only to be bidden before seeking its release. "To the victor the spoils..."

"Roma Victa? Is that how you said it?" I said, biting my tongue to keep from turning in his hold and attacking him.

I felt him reach beyond me to pull out another perfume vial. I sighed and stretched even as he placed the drop at the base of my spine. His mouth moved all around where he'd placed the scent. And all the time he did, he told me it smelled like jasmine and hyacinth that he remembered from a long ago memory he'd not accessed in so long.

His fingers moved up either side of my spine. His mouth followed in their wake. I writhed, slowly, beneath the feel of him re-discovering my back. I felt the soft humps he made against my thigh; his hardness exciting me for its proximity to where I longed to feel him as if my hunger for him would devour us both.

I said his name in one long drawn-out moan. "You are torturing me ... I'll never be able to take this ... my shoulder blades ..."

He rewarded me with a sinister chuckle as he shifted higher up my body with both his hands on my shoulders and his groin against my rear. He punctuated the movement with a slightly forceful encounter between his hardness and my crevice. I moved against him in response and invitation; he hissed, low and deep. I wondered if his eyes were shut. He moved rhythmically behind me, and I imagined the look on his face when he begins to really indulge what he is wanting to do with me.

I turned my head ever so slightly. I could see his hand, bracing his body on the mattress now, his fingers flexed out upon the sheet right before me.

"Max? If I turn ... ever so slightly ... are you up to that challenge?" I whispered and his mouth suckled at my nape and I thought I might melt. I forced myself to be strong and I turned in his hold ... I was edging over slowly so his lips could follow along with my movement. But then ... we were in a precarious place with each other as his mouth stopped just as his eyes opened and he regarded the rise of my breast. "Oh, Max ... you should see yourself ... you're sweating ... do you need a break?"

He rose slightly from me, on all fours, panting heavily as I moved under him. His eyes seemed darkened. "I am just warming up...carry on...let me just rest myself... here and lay my hand...there...."

My eyes closed as the heel of his palm rested like a feather at the juncture of my thighs and his forehead buried itself between my breasts as he let his tongue do nothing more than lick drops of sweat from beneath the swell of my breast.

Oh.

Swallowing deeply, gathering my reserves and refusing to give in too easily when I needed to see how far we'd be capable of going, I stretched and grabbed for any vial that I could. Languidly now, I settled back under him and rubbed my knee against his groin so tenderly that he shuddered slightly ...

"Here ... no rest for you in your task, my love ... let me just put a bit more perfume at another pulse point ... the one just here ... at the base of my throat ...," I said, as I arched my neck, pulling my hair back to expose it fully to his mouth as he watched me through hooded eyes.

His hand circled what it could of my throat. I watched him intently. He didn't return my gaze. He moved his hand as he bent to bury his nose in my neck. I felt his thumb find the pulse point there. He pressed in, as if in time with my own body's beat. But then his mouth was where his thumb had been, his teeth gripping in, his tongue licking ... suckling when I least expected it and my entire body arched under him as he bent low over me. I could feel the heavy sway of his genitals. I reached to stroke him but he moved my hand away, even as he rubbed his length through my slickness.

"Max ... Have mercy on me ...," I panted and suddenly writhed when he showed that mercy was the last thing on his mind.

He groaned; grabbed me; sat back on his haunches and pulled me to him roughly. Face to face, my softness pressed against his hardness again. His rough voice matched the intensity in his eyes as he said, "I concede...do to me what you will....the mortal blow...make it slow...I want to feel every inch of it..."

"Yes ... oh yes ...," I sighed, letting his hands lift me even as I gained my own balance upon my knees and hovered above him. My hands held his face. My eyes held his; I wondered if he read the same unyielding passion in mine that I read in his. "Come to me ... This is how we start ... We both want it ... We can't hold back ..."

His arms tightened around me. Our lips hovered over their mate. He whispered about longing to put his scent within the core of me and I trembled.

I groaned as I let myself sink down just a bit and felt the tip of him nudge impatiently at my opening. With a smile, I teased him just a bit ... staying just a bit out of the range of his ability to penetrate me.

He frowned; muttered something darkly in Latin and then murmured that he would have thought I knew better than to test him in such a manner.

"It's you that drives me to this ..." I said. "Only you."

He was maybe a breath from entering me; I was sinking down, he was rising up ... when his phone rang. The shrillness of the sound ... so unexpected, so unwelcome ... it cleaved across the room as if it was a sword. I jumped; he caught me around my waist. He wouldn't look at me; he only looked for where I'd slung his jeans because that's where the damned phone was.

With a grimace, he swore under his breath and broke away from me. I was poised there, on my knees, over the spot he'd just been, watching him rise from the bed and grab at his pants.

"Anna....I have to go..." he said, as he opened his phone to talk ... knowing that he was leaving me even before a voice in his ear gave him whatever news was coming to him.

I honest to God thought he was kidding. I mean, he said he was going to have to leave again but surely he meant the next day ... right? If not, why even bother to come home at all? And if he was going to come home to me and know he'd be leaving within an hour, why not just fuck me against the wall and take off? So I thought he was kidding and so I stayed where I was, keeping our place, waiting for him to get off the call and come back to the bed...

Except ... except he got off the phone, snapped it shut and began pulling on his jeans, stuffing his hard-on inside, shoving it over away from the zipper and he grimaced as he zipped up.

When I saw he was serious, I felt panic. It was not just physical, but ... well, my Lord, a woman is only a woman, she has her needs after all ... you don't get her all ready and then ... Oh God.

"Max ... please ... please ... five minutes ... I'm begging you ... God, don't leave me like this ..."

I stretched a hand out to him but he turned from me. I flopped on my back and let out this long, loud moan. I thought he'd relent when he witnessed the depths of my need but then I heard the closet open and I looked to see him reaching inside for the bag that holds the items he was wearing when he first came over to this world ... that did not register with me because I was too frustrated; what registered was the look on his face when he turned back ... and I knew that he was leaving ... again ... right in the middle of something that mattered to me.

"I have no choice, Anna. Do you think I would ever leave you if not for a call that beckons me?"

My eyes narrowed as I sat up to look at him. "Just do NOT say DUTY TO ROME! Or I will SCREAM!"

"I think you already are screaming....Anna...this is not my choice...you have no idea how uncomfortable I feel right now...literally...I will be back as soon as I can," he said, coming swiftly to where I was, bending down, reaching for a soft kiss from me while I just regarded him stonily. "Don't pull that face...it is not a good look on you..."

He grinned as he rose away from me and turned to go, pleased with himself for using a modern term, but I was far from entertained so I lobbed a pillow at him, catching him as he strode through the bedroom door but he didn't so much as hesitate.

I screamed out this long languished 'arghhh' at his retreating back and beat in frustration on the mattress. It took a moment in the resulting quiet ... I could hear his footsteps ... I heard Buck trotting along beside him ... I heard him tell Buck to watch over me ... and then I went running in to grab him just before he walked out of the door ... no words between us ... just a kiss that took maybe a few seconds and then he was gone ... but it was one of those kisses that I could live on until he's back home ...

It's left to me and Buck to mount the grand house hunting adventure. I go meet with the realtor the next morning after work. When I get back, I explain to Buck about how she's gone way outside our price range. He commiserates with me on this and helps me see that what I need to do is take real control of the situation. So I call her up and tell her the new price range to look, the neighborhoods that interest me, and that we must have some kind of yard or courtyard for Max to do his little gardening schtick he has decided he wants to do, according to my mom.

The realtor tells me that this is not what Max really wants. I say, well, it's what we can afford and it's the best for us. She says again this is not what he said he wanted. I narrow my eyes and figure she should be lucky she's not here in the room with me or I'd flip her the bird. So I flip it to her long distance but I say very sweetly, well, let's just see what's available that meets these new requirements and you let me deal with Max.

She calls me at work that night. Emails me the listings she's found. I am not real impressed but she assures me, these are actually pretty okay considering the price range. I wonder if she's just pouting because her commission will be less now that I've drastically lowered the price range we'll search in. I tell her that I'll meet her at 10 a.m. the next day and we'll go look at them.

Only ... only the next day, I get home from work, eat something, take a shower so I won't stink around her, put on my jeans and I'm heading out the door to meet her ... only ...

Only ...

Only the door opens as I touch the doorknob ... and it's Max ... and he's home again.

We just stand there ... I'm staring at him ... at first, I don't even register that it's him ... he's just a man ... a man who's looking rather rough, as if he's been on the road for too long or as if he's been doing something that's taxed his body and his spirit ...

My heart does its usual flip-flopping lurch when I realize it's Max ... and he's only been gone two days this time but I still feel like flinging my arms around him and never letting him get away from me again ...

And so I do ... I do ... I give into the impulse ... I've got my arms around his neck and my face buried in his throat and I can feel him swallow ... and he drops his bags and then we are in each other's clenches ...

We can't let go ... or maybe it's that I'm holding him so tightly he can't move. Every thought in the world chases through my brain ... I do not want to think the bad ones ... I don't want to think about the way he looked when he walked in ... I don't want to think about how stupidly my instant impulse was to get wet over that rough appearance on him ... And I'm trying to chase out the worry that always seems to hit me full in the face at the most inopportune times ... and then I think about the fact that I am going to find us a home ...

"Oh, Max ... it really is you ... I've missed you so," I whisper against his skin and feel his grip on me tighten as he takes a step forward, into the condo.

He doesn't say a word but he does turn and press me against the wall and I hear the heaviness of his breathing but all he's doing is resting against me ... and I think of how weary he looked ... and that I should be adult ... and I should let him catch up on sleep because even a glimpse of him and I know he is exhausted.

Gathering my resolve, I say, "Why don't you go get some rest? I was just on my way out to meet the realtor your secretary set up for us ..."

His hands slide around my body and knead my rear. I gulp and try to maintain my concentration, "But ... but, Max ... she's got all these places to show me ... she said you'd sent along a 'wish list' of what you were hoping to find but I quickly determined that ... um ... that she was going about it wrong and ... um ... so I've narrowed her focus and now ... well, I was going out to meet her and start deciding which ones would make our short list so you could come see them and ..."

He still isn't talking but his body is communicating to me ... only as I talk, I am realizing that there is no real way I can not go on this appointment after all the additional work this realtor had had to go through and ... oh ... Max is making a different kind of sense but it is only lust, right? "But ... Max ... Maximus ... I've missed you so. Have a care because if you don't let me go right this instant, then I'll be forced to stay here with you instead of meeting the realtor ... and then what will she think of us if I'm that rude?"

Except he doesn't stop. It is like he just is so willful ... and I am so weak ... but then I get this brilliant idea even as he moves his groin in that certain way and I can feel ...

"Why don't you just come with me? Or are you too tired? I would really love to have you along," I chirp. 

"Look at houses now?" he says ... rising away from me to give me an astonished look. He shakes his head, as if my suggestion was an aberration in the normal, accepted course of his life. "I need a bath...some food...and then... to continue where we were so rudely interrupted......and then sleep...a great deal of it...."

And when I open my mouth to protest, he gives me a "tsk" and then just stoops down, picks me up, slings me over his shoulder and walks to the bedroom.

"Max! Put me down!" I cry out to no avail. And then I feel where I am. Really feel it. More than that ... I feel him with me. It makes me chuckle in delight. "Okay but I get to scrub your back ... and your front."

I do manage a frantic, five-second phone call to the realtor to tell her something dreadfully important has arisen ... Max smirks ... and I will have to reschedule our appointment ... Max takes the receiver from my hand, turns it off, flips it across the room and drags me into the bath with him.

Three days later, I had narrowed the selection of houses down to three in my favorite neighborhood, Fauberg Marigny. I had always envisioned someday living in this bohemian oasis just across Elysian Fields from the Quarter. Marigny had been the city's first planned neighborhood. Over the years, it had fallen on hard times but about ten years ago, a gentrification effort took root. And now, it is filled with houses that had been rehabbed. Some were so extensively worked on that they were virtually new construction. While there are some grand, incredible places, there are also many more that are much more modest but still charming.

And it was three such modest homes that were on my short list.

Max had taken the afternoon off work so we could meet the agent to tour the three places. I was anxious for Max to choose which one interested him the most so we could get on with the business of lining up the mortgage and all the other un-fun aspects of buying a house.

Considering our budget, I was actually pretty pleased with myself for having found these places. They were not perfect, but they each seemed to have quite a lot of the things on Max's wish list.

As we drove through the neighborhood to meet the realtor, Max kept glancing around and pursing his lips. Every so often, his face would relax when we'd pass one of the really cool places. I was beginning to be a bit nervous.

It got worse. At the first place, I pointed out the cute yellow bungalow, so typically New Orleans. Max asked if it had a yard, when, of course, he could see that it had no front yard as the house began at the sidewalk like most of these do. I murmured a negative to his question. He looked over at me as if he'd suddenly realized I was certifiable. I hopped out and went to where the realtor was standing by her car, waiting on us. I told her that Max had decided he didn't want to even get out to look at the place when I told him it had no real yard, just a bricked in rear area.

She looked beyond me and gazed at Max, sitting behind the wheel. I remembered that they had not met in person yet. We'll follow you to the next place, I said, not missing the way her eyebrows went up as she considered him.

At the next place, I warbled out to Max all about the back yard as we got out of the car. We walked through the house behind the agent as I dragged on Max's arm and told him to ignore the plumbing  and admitted that yes, I did know the house would need some work before we could move in.

Oh, but I had an ace up my sleeve ... the back yard. "Come outside, come outside," I told him, getting all ready for him to say something about how maybe this would work out after all.

It's funny because in my memory, it had been a pretty nice yard. But standing there with Max, I had to admit it was really not much more than a postage stamp where Buck could do his business.

Max frowned. His mouth did that tightening it does when he's trying not to say something ugly to me. He was decidedly unimpressed.

"Let's ... uh ... let's go see the third one, Max," I said, trying to sound cheerful. The realtor and Max exchanged glances. I felt like a total ignoramus.

With dread in my heart, I sat in the passenger seat as Max drove, following the realtor the three blocks to the final house. I couldn't even look at him as we pulled up. I actually didn't really look at him as we strode through the house, the realtor pointing out whatever nice things she could find to say about the place as Max silently preceded me. Well, it has a nice courtyard, I said and finally looked at Max. He was frowning as he looked around the courtyard. But he didn't seem upset, it was more like a frown of concentration. And I realized that we'd gone ten minutes with no objections from Max about this place.

Aha, I thought with a little leap in my heart, he likes this place! 

When we left the house, we stood on the sidewalk, the three of us, just looking at it and appraising it. Max softly asked the realtor her assessment of the soundness of the foundation. I said, what's wrong with the foundation. He glanced at me and then started pointing out evidence of structural problems. It was like I was looking at the house and had never seen it before. I had so wanted these places to work ... but I suddenly saw them for what they were.

They were far from great. In fact, I think most charitably I could call them shabby chic. And that's really being generous. But I could see possibilities because I wanted to live in this neighborhood. And they were affordable.

I drew him down the street away from the realtor who I figured was probably really enjoying the fact that she'd been right about him not liking these places.

"Max, just for a second, just imagine us here. This is a great neighborhood. It's not a great house, I grant you that, but I've really tried so hard to find something reasonable," I said softly. "It's just that to get what you want is so much more. And I don't think you realize that. So I kept us in a price range that's affordable. If we pool our resources, it's a stretch, but we can afford this."

He looked back at the house and then at me. Price range, he asked. I launched into this quick explanation of how I'd arrived at our price range ... figuring out what mortgage we could meet based on the assumption that our salaries were relatively the same, with his maybe a bit more ... and that I had thought the most we'd scrape together for a down payment was the minimum. He folded his arms over his chest and really fixed me with a look. I scratched my elbow and smiled at him, hoping that maybe I was actually impressing him beyond his wildest expectation, for having been so practical and so reasonable in this whole thing. Not that I really thought this was in any way possibly what he was thinking, but I could hope. Right?

"I think perhaps I ought to visit the real estate agent to review other homes for sale...I am not sure we are quite on the same wavelength," he said. When I opened my mouth to protest, he cut me off by saying, "As desirable as these residences are....I was thinking more of a property with some land."

"You have to be realistic, Max. We can't afford..."

"Anna, money is not the problem. We can 'scrape together,' as you say, more than enough for a decent property. And what good is money if not to acquire land? What else use is it? I think you need a look at our bank accounts..."

"I have looked at my bank balance," I told him as I felt my temper flare, "and I can afford half the mortgage for these but more than that is beyond me."

"I am not about to go round and round in circles again about you and your notions of paying your own way. You are going to be my wife. We need a home. I can afford one. That is all the discussion needed..."

He gave me a look ... the one that usually either shut me up or started me arguing with him. This time, it shut me up. He turned and walked back to the realtor. I stood and looked at my feet, feeling angry and foolish and hating that we'd ever embarked on this odyssey to buy a house. I wasn't even sure exactly what I'd just done that was so wrong. Whatever it was, I also knew he was wrong to browbeat me when it was so obvious that I was being the practical one here.

Eventually, I took a deep breath and went back to the car. He pulled away from the curb. He drove about a block and then pulled over near a park. We sat in the car, silently watching people walking in the park, dogs running along side them, children on swings and slides with parents in clusters talking while they kept vigil.

I felt his hand take mine and his thumb stroked over my palm. I turned to find him smiling at me. I'm sorry for whatever you think I've done wrong, I told him, but I did my best.

And just like that, he told me how much money he made. My eyes opened wide and I just looked at him, not quite getting that he made like four times what I did. And then he said he had salted away all but what he'd needed to live frugally all this time and so he had a rather large amount of money invested and put aside, waiting for when he would want to spend it on something like a home. How much, I asked him, almost afraid to find out.

It was a substantial amount. I closed my eyes. He touched my face. "You're wealthy," I finally said, and even to me it sounded almost as if I was disappointed.

"Land, Anna, is what a family needs to plant its roots...I want to feel my own soil between my fingers and know that we can have our own retreat from the world...a little piece of this earth that is just ours," he said.

Wasn't this so much like I wanted, too? A safe haven where it was just us and the world could not intrude. I looked in his eyes and felt him reaching out to me to understand him.

"You can take the Roman out of the empire...but you can't take the empire out of the Roman...I have a deep seated need to conquer...even if it be only half an acre," he said, breaking the tension between us with soft words and a sweet smile just for me.

I don't know why this prospect made me awkward that he could afford to pay so much more alone for a house and that my contribution would not be much. Maybe because I am not in the right mindset of "what's mine is yours" unless it's mine I'm sharing with him. I reached for him; we came together soft in each other's embrace. He whispered to me that he would always take care of me; I finally felt like I maybe had some concept of what he meant.

And so I said, "Okay then. You take the lead on the house."

I wonder if he had any way of knowing just then how this made me feel? I'm not sure why ... but I didn't feel grateful that I was engaged to marry a man who really was going to give me a better life in every way you could measure both emotionally and financially. Why did it feel as if I was going to be using him to make life too easy for me? And, really, I no longer felt like I had the right to have a vote on a house if he was the one who'd really be paying for it.

I know. I know that's odd. But that was my gut reaction.

I looked in his eyes and smiled at the softness there. Max. Oh, Max. Able to be patient with me when it matters most. "I don't know why, Max, but from the moment I came here looking with the realtor, I was just convinced we'd find our home here. Like something was waiting just around the corner or down the block. It just felt ... right ... right for us. I have to admit that I am disappointed."

"There are nice homes here although they are so close together and not really what I'd hoped we'd find ... but, Anna ..." He paused, pursed his lips as he regarded me. "Perhaps we should look together this time? It's still daylight. Would you like to drive around, see if there is a place for us that has been overlooked?"

I knew he was indulging me and my childish notions that flew in the face of the adult reality of the fact that one of us had to compromise when we were this far apart in our expectations. I leaned over and kissed his cheek. "It's okay, it really is. We're not gonna find what you want here, Max. I realize that now."

"We will never know unless we try, Anna."

So he started the car again and we started driving. Just meandering down streets. And then he turned a corner. And we went down the block.

He stopped the car in the middle of the street. We looked at each other.

There was a space at the curb that seemed to be waiting for us to park in. So we did. He got out of the car and started walking, like he was stunned ... I stood at the car for a moment, watching him as he stared at the building that had made us both gasp to see. I didn't have a clue as to why I'd never noticed it in all the times I'd been haunting the Marigny with the realtor. His eyes traveled up and up ... his mouth was open ever so slightly. And then he slowly lowered his head and turned to look at me as I walked up to him.

"Have you ever seen anything like it?" I asked him softly.

Shaking his head, he glanced back up as a pigeon flitted across between overhanging branches. Without another word, he walked to the door, held his hand out to me.

He went in ahead of me. He dropped my hand when we were inside. He pointed ahead of him but then he slowly circled in the middle of the room, just looking, absorbing the wonder of what he was seeing before eyes that weren't sure they could believe.

Circling.

Furrows in his forehead as he looked and tried to make sense of this place.

And all I could do was watch Max, enthralled by the emotions I saw in him. When he finally stopped circling, I started laughing as he grinned and reached his hands out to me. "I didn't know women could build anything so big, eh, Max?" I said.

"Apart from my mother, you mean?" he snapped back, chuckling as he pulled me over to the bar where we could see people we'd been missing for all these weeks since we'd moved away.

"I think you've won the crowd," I whispered to him a few minutes later, because there wasn't a person in there not thrilled to see him again.

We had always said, those of us who'd found the Come On Inn, that it existed in space out of location. I guess I'd thought of it as that it was wherever it was meant to be to receive those who found their way inside.

But never had I imagined that the pub would be here, too. I thought we'd left it behind in the city from where we'd moved to come here.

Yet, here it was.

In New Orleans. just like it'd been in the city where Max and I had first met and first found the pub. And so it was really true, wasn't it? Whatever its mysteries, the door opened to it and we were back among friends ... we'd found the pub there in the Marigny, a secret life waiting for us to discover it.

And maybe this was really what had drawn me to this neighborhood ... were we always meant to find our way back even as we found our way forward?