Realizing how much she'd come to like Jon and Blackie, she'd invited them to dinner. They'd agreed with the speed of a king cobra striking. Rod had come home less than fifteen minutes after the three of them arrived in her car. He'd grabbed her right in front of his friends and kissed her until she warred with herself to stay embarra.s.sed instead of aroused. He'd told her Jon was kidding about the rock hunting; the flowers he had in hand were what he'd left to get.

The next day, Sat.u.r.day, he took her to Milwaukee, surprising her with the expensive hotel they checked into and the posh suite. As luxurious as the place was, she couldn't help suspecting it was all part of Rod's preparations to give her the boot. In style.

Would her clothes and toiletry be left in a room in Rod's house when it was over, the way Nicole Martini's things had been? she wondered. Her mind kept focusing on that closet. That open closet filled with clothes had somehow become a testimony to abruptness. To a messy break Bethany didn't think she could face.

This was it, she concluded that evening in the bathroom as she dressed in the exquisite gown Rod had just given her. The send-off he'd given his old girlfriends. Romantic dinner and romantic gifts would be followed by romantic lovemaking. And then it would be over. Her clothes would remain in his closet since the pain wouldn't allow her to return to a place that felt like home because he was there.

That middle ground between night and day couldn't last, and she couldn't fight the dawn. The only thing she could do was try to burn herself into his memory. No one else would ever love him better than she did.

Rod crossed the room to her, dressed in a full tuxedo. Thinking he'd worn a shirt just for her made her want to laugh. Or cry.

His gaze swept over her as if he couldn't get enough--something she hoped he never would. "You're exquisite."

He kissed her, and she put every part of herself into returning his ardor.

It might be the last time she was with him. She wanted it to begin without delay in that case.

"I promised I'd do this right. And that means sticking to the plan," he said, abruptly letting her go.

The plan? He admitted he'd planned their breakup? Bethany didn't know if she should be grateful for his honesty, or if she should burst into tears the way she wanted to.

They sat down to eat the romantic dinner that had looked too beautiful to eat before. Every mouthful almost choked her. She had no appet.i.te, no ability to enjoy, and listening to Rod talk was more painful than a knife through the heart. For the rest of her life, she wanted to listen to that voice, and she didn't think she could face the emptiness if it wasn't there.

Suppressing the riot of emotions in her heart, head and body was almost impossible. She realized that, even if she wasn't what he wanted or needed in every way imaginable, he was the man of her dreams. At the same time he broke her heart, he would fulfill all of her fantasies--the way borrowed dreams always did.

When they made love, she had no inhibitions, no shyness. In the moments that followed, both of them acknowledged, with a wordless glance, their negligence with birth control. Bethany had no regrets. She even smiled impudently at him. This had been for her, her plan, and he couldn't change it even if he wanted to.

That control made her feel so good, she wanted more of it. If it was over, then she wanted some say in it. She didn't want to be the shy little kitten who nodded complacently at what was fated to her.

Whatever Rod's intentions, when he shifted as if to move or look away from her, she locked her arms around his neck. He stared down at her as if he couldn't believe her boldness.

"I know it's over for you, Rod, but I want you to remember until the day you die who loved you this good and this much."

When he continued to stare at her in confusion, she added, "I'll leave whenever you want me to. Now or never."

Those words were the last of her strength. When Rod pulled back out of her arms, she couldn't hold him. He sat there at the end of the bed on his knees, looking as if she'd slapped him or told him she was a Martian.

Without warning, he turned and picked up the tuxedo jacket. He rooted through the pockets until he came out with a ring box. Then he reached over the bed and took her hand to press the box into it. "This is how soon I want you to leave me. Never."

Bethany lifted her gaze to see him get up and yank on the tuxedo trousers.

He was furious, that much was obvious.

With a lump in her throat, she opened the box to find two rings. And then nothing made sense.

He was across the room, as if he needed the distance, staring at her wildly.

"What is this?" she asked in a voice she didn't trust to remain steady.

"It's what I thought you wanted. What I wanted. I thought that was why you were acting like you were waiting for a bomb to explode." He threw his hands up, as though another thought occurred to him. "I can't believe you let me do that. . ." He gestured toward the bed. ". . .if you thought I was gonna walk away when you could get pregnant."

He'd planned this entire evening around asking her to marry him, and her shame only got worse when he said in a small voice, "You don't think very much of me, do you, Bethany Briggs?"

She couldn't get herself out of this with tears, no matter how tempting.

"What made you think I'd go to such elaborate lengths to tell you to go to h.e.l.l? I don't know anybody who stages a kiss-off on this scale."

He moved across the room again, but she couldn't face him when she repeated all she'd heard from his old girlfriends.

"OK, you know it, I know it, everybody knows it," he shouted as if he was on a rooftop. "I'm a b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Always have been, always will be." He came over to her, his face only inches from hers. "I'm not the difference here, sweetness.

You are. You never needed to prove yourself to me, the way I tried to prove myself to you. I knew you were gonna be the difference in my life the second I laid eyes on you. I love you. You love me like no one else ever has. I wanna be with you for the rest of my life."

He kneeled in front of her again, and her tears came. She knew now that his frequent past relationships were about love--love he was looking for and had never found, until now.

Setting the open box on the bed, she slid off the edge to kneel with him on the carpet. "I'm sorry. You're everything to me. . . When everybody kept telling me how different we were I knew we didn't belong together, no matter how much I don't want it to be true. But I love you so much, I don't care as long as you don't."

For a minute, he just looked at her, and then he smiled a little.

"Everybody keeps telling me we're leather and lace too. But every time I'm next to you. . .I'm thinking the world could use a little more fashion like us."

When she smiled too, she laughed and cried. He loved her, and he wanted to marry her.

He pulled her into his arms and hugged her tightly. "Oh, Bethany, don't ever leave me. Let the whole world say what they will, but stay with me forever.

Marry me, and let's have babies together. At least one boy and one girl."

He was that sweet and s.e.xy man-child that she'd always been afraid to believe was real, had always been afraid wasn't real. Because it would mean either she was the same as all the other women he'd called "baby" or she was so different he couldn't love her.

Taking the box from the bed, he pulled out the smaller ring and slid it onto her finger. "Say yes, Bethany."

With tears in her eyes, she saw that she had truly tamed the wild man. He was all hers, and that was all she'd ever need to know.

Taking the other ring from the box, she put it on his finger. "Yes. My answer to you will always be yes."

end.