"And you had no sister to loan you a wedding gown anyway."

I hesitated. Was I an only child? Then what or who was Lilith? I hadn't told Ric about that part of my mission and now seemed a little late.

She who hesitates is lost.

Ric's fingers moved adroitly between the cheeks of my butt. "I'm going to take you apart from the bottom up, and then from the top down. Any objections?"

"Only if they turn you on."

"We don't need that, do we?"

I shook my head, leaning against him as his ringers began the long, delicious, interminable climb up my spine. His hands slipped inside of the satin gown as he opened it inch by inch, and my hips soon were pressed to the hard vertical divining rod of his erection.

An almost full moon was rising over his shoulder, showering us with warm white light.

"This satin matches the color of your skin," he said into my ear, my neck. "It's a real rush." He kissed me for the first time, and jerked back.

"Wow, that stuff is still like an electric shock."

"Lip Venom is guaranteed to please."

"Painted hussy. Then bite me again, baby."

We kissed while Ric wrangled slippery satin buttons through loops of twined thread. It would be tricky work even for a lady's maid.

The cool desert air ran up my spine along with the motions of his fingers and knuckles. I got really hot goose bumps. Ric finally undid the top button at my nape and pulled down the open gown in one sudden sweep, satin spiraling away into sand. I had what I had wanted, my naked body encompassed by his clothed one. It was the ultimate form of trust and a lot of other, less abstract needs and wants and emotions.

"You are so bold and beautiful," he said, his hands soft as silk against my bare skin. He pushed me away, looked at me. I'd seen lust a few times, but never such shattering love.

From far away I heard the music of an iPod in the car playing dance music, slow dance music. He pressed me to him, started those liquid Latin motions that were all hip and heart, his hands moving over my bare torso, molding me to his soft, expensive clothes.

They were his shelter, those clothes, their softness. I knew now that he'd felt a lot that had been hot, harsh, cold, and brutal. My body tried to soothe all that away. I was living satin in his arms, and the roughness I felt-of buttons, a cold gold belt, zipper, trouser welt-it roused and hardened me to meet him as an equal.

We stopped moving, stopped dancing. In the hills and mountains I heard wolves howling for home. We both wanted that.

I stepped away from him and felt the desert wind chill every inch of my naked skin. He stopped moving. Bereft. Out of control. Feeling the cold night wind, not for the first time.

I put a finger to his throat. "You. Señor. I want you up against the car. I'm going to open you up from here…" I pressed my nail against his throat and ran my finger down the buttons of his shirt, past his guardian gold belt and down the swollen welt of his zipper to where it ended between his legs. "To there. Any objections?"

"God, no."

I started at the bottom, as he had, caressing the weight, the length, pushing aside the soft expensive clothes, baring a few vertical inches of his torso, running my hands and mouth over what I exposed

He shivered. I shivered. Alone in the night. Outside ourselves. Beside ourselves. Inside ourselves.

We clung together. Slow dancing. Nothing to say. A bond forged stronger than stainless steel. Secret.

THE Car's long low hood vibrated as the engine idled in the night. Ric had turned it on, turned on the car stereo to some music that pumped iron. When he began to lower me to the car's warm hard steel hood, I clutched at his upper arms, his clenched muscles suspending me above the abyss in my own mind.

All motion stopped. "Can you lie back for me, my Delilah?"

Never could. Never had. Helpless. Pinned on a slab of something hard and inanimate, my feet barely touching the ground, my torso a target for a vicious game of darts. Having to submit. To lose. To lose everything. Everyone. Even Ric, maybe? Even now. The living nightmares crowded at the edges of the star-spangled night sky. Never! Never again!

"Maybe," I said, because it was Ric asking.

Like the road not taken, asking made all the difference.

I felt the strong arm and shoulder muscles that had wrestled the mysterious forces of the underground since boyhood holding me suspended over the car, over the edge as if I could hang like that forever in his arms, on my particular edge. It was my decision. My call.

This evening had touched so many sore spots on my soul. I never remembered anyone dressing or undressing me or even doing my hair. I'd always done it all myself, somehow, from the earliest age, at least in memory. That memory held no shred of someone giving a final pat to my coat buttons or my braids. No one crooning a lullaby, no one calling me a pet name, except when I was almost adult and cheerfully blue-collar waitresses or salesclerks would call me "hon" or "dearie." I was supposed to find this condescending, but I didn't. I enjoyed it. Pathetic, right?

So Ric's playing undo-the-buttons with me and his verbal, murmuring ways during lovemaking undid me. I would do almost anything for him. Maybe even this.

Is that what love was, pushing yourself beyond your most ingrained outer limits? I'd got what I had wanted. A narrow door of flesh to his innermost dark continent. Now he wanted, needed, my complicity. Small price to pay for a possible paradise.

I nodded and was lowered slowly onto the warm hood. It was like lying on the back of a purring hot steel tiger. Rick pressed down on top of me, the narrow warm slit of skin I'd unveiled feeling firm and smooth against my naked body. My hands could still cling to the strong, soft fabric of his jacket sleeves, cling and clench and hold on.

Meanwhile, he was murmuring his pleasure, solely in Spanish now. Every word was preceded by the possessive "my."

Mi belleza…

And I knew that the center of him was reaching for the center of me, dowsing, stiffening, plunging…I braced myself for this truly terrifying act, this terrible centerpiece of my nightmares.

Mi tigre hembra…

And I felt, beyond my fear, a stirring of excitement, a wanting to be found, discovered, to have that divine divining rod taking my measure, the measure of his tigress.

Mi oasis

And his shelter.

Mi agua

And I was his water.

Mi sangre

And his blood.

Mi virgen

And he was the first man to breach me, outside of my nightmares, before, and now in the very imitation of my worst nightmare.

And it was done.

My fists caught his arms and pulled him closer, farther in, nearer. I was so relieved I had to bite my lip. I almost laughed out loud with relief. He was so much smaller than my nightmare metal rapist, but of course you couldn't laugh. You couldn't tell a man that. He was still plenty large enough that I could tell I'd be muy delicado later.

But now I let the surge of pleasure take me and wrapped my legs around his hips and rocked in the thrilling lullaby of his hot Spanish blood and sweet Spanish words.

Mi desposada! he cried as my insides started quaking with satisfaction and we shuddered together, and I could scream this time, long and hard, as the killing pleasure took me.

Mi desposada. I'd have to look that one up…

"Are you all right?" he asked finally in English.

Given that I was laughing and crying and almost swooning, I could understand the question.

But I could only nod.

He was still holding me and still talking softly, more to himself them me, but the words were music to my soul, even in English.