Just One Night

All men are rabbits,” she retorts, her eyes flying open. “They sniff around, fuck whatever’s available, and then they run off. Fucking rabbits. And we’re Elmer Fudd, inadvertently blowing up our own lives while obsessively trying to hunt one down.

You want me to touch you right here, in full daylight

I need you,” he says, his voice so quiet I have to lean forward to hear. “That’s my secret. I need you more than you have ever needed me.

No, I’m telling you that you’re the only thing on this earth that has made me feel connected to what’s here. When I’m with you, I know what’s real. I can feel it, touch it. When I’m with you, I’m something more than . . . other. When I’m not with you, my head’s in the stars.

Nothing will happen that you don’t want to happen. Remember, all you have to do is say no.

We broke up because I was afraid.

I had no desire to say no.

You would never come here just because you want me to touch you again, although you do. You wouldn’t come just because you feel alive when you’re with me. You wouldn’t come because I’m the only one you can be your true self with. But for work? Yes, for work you’ll always come.

But the thing is,” and with this it’s he who takes a step forward, “the woman who you really are . . . the one who you keep so tightly under wraps, the woman who is only allowed out when she is touched a certain way, made to feel certain things . . . that woman is so damn compelling . . . I can’t seem to turn away.

I want to know what she’s like over a candlelight dinner. I want to see her on the beach. I want to know what it would feel like to walk beside her talking about the thoughts you never let her share.

I don’t want to confine you, I don’t want to control you. I want to set you free.

As I was saying before,” he says, his eyes glued to me as I begin to writhe on the sheets beneath me, “I will allow it.

You’re still my ocean,” he whispers.

I understand—” I gasp. “. . . and you will not stand in my way.” “I will not stand in your way,” I parrot. It’s all I can manage.

and I remember . . . the kisses, the taste of him, the feeling of him inside me.

I feel the weight of his chest on top of me as he finally collapses; I close my eyes and try to bring myself back to earth. I might have been safer at Dave

I don’t want to respond to him but my body won’t cooperate.

If we’re starting over,” he says, quietly, “is it too early to say I love you?

He’s no longer a stranger. He’s my moon.

But when Robert touches me in just the right way, I forget. I forget what it is I want, or rather I forget that I want anything other than him.

Your problem is that you have never fully understood the power of being a desired woman.

As we stay there, pressed against each other, the room smelling of coffee and sex, I hear him mutter . . . perhaps to himself, perhaps to me, “Last time, my ass.

Two weeks ago I didn’t know what it felt like . . . to be pressed against a wall, to be propped up on a desk, to be made love to on the floor of the Venetian.

What’s a woman supposed to do when her angel starts using her devil’s tools?

Even with him in me I ache for him, and it’s that aching that brings me rapidly to the brink.

The rules are mine to set. What I don’t believe in is playing by other people’s rules.

How can I fight so hard for freedom only to be enticed by captivity?

You were made for me,” he breathes.