"Once more, sweetheart. "Once more."

"No, I-"

"Yes!" He drove again, deep and sure.

Outside, the thunder rolled, and inside she did as she had been bid. This time, however, he went along.

Time trickled over them as they lay motionless, their bodies entwined, his remaining inside her own.

She would never forget this. Despite the horrible things that had led to this moment, she could not have had a more wonderful introduction to lovemaking, and she would always be grateful to him for this.

She pressed her lips to his chest and stroked him with her palms. After all this time, it had finally happened. "I'm not a virgin any longer."

She felt his body go rigid beneath her hands. Only then did she realize she had spoken her secret out loud.

11.

"What did you say?" Alex reared up over her. Alex reared up over her.

She wanted to bite her tongue. How could she have spoken the words out loud? She had been so drowsy and content that she'd been lulled into stupidity. "N-nothing," she stammered. "I didn't say anything."

"I heard you."

"Then why are you asking?"

"You said you weren't a virgin anymore."

"Did I?"

"Daisy..." His voice held an ominous note of warning. "Am I supposed to take that literally?"

She attempted to adopt a tone of moral superiority. "It's really none of your business."

"Bullshit." He vaulted from the bed, grabbed his jeans, and pulled them on as if it were imperative for him to put some kind of barrier between them. He spun back to confront her. "Just what kind of game are you playing?"

She couldn't help but notice that he hadn't fastened the zipper, and she had to tear her eyes away from that enticing V that revealed his hard, flat belly. "I don't want to discuss it."

"Do you seriously expect me to believe you were a virgin?"

"Of course, I don't. I'm twenty-six years old."

He shoved one hand through his hair and began pacing in the small space at the foot of the bed, speaking as if he hadn't heard her. "You were so tight. I thought maybe it had been a while, but I never figured-how could you have been around all these years and never fucked?"

She shot up high into the pillows. "There isn't any need for you to use that kind of language, and I want you to apologize to me right now!"

He stared down at her as if she'd lost her mind. She stared right back. If he thought she was going to back down about this, he could think again. She'd heard enough foul language during her twenty-six years with Lani to last a lifetime, and she wasn't going to subject herself to any more. "I'm waiting."

"Answer my question."

"After you apologize."

"I'm sorry!" he shouted, losing his famous self-control. "Now you tell me the truth right this minute or I'm going to strangle you to death with those tights, throw your body in a roadside ditch, and dance on top of it!"

As an apology, it didn't count for much, but she decided it was the best he was going to do. "I'm not a virgin," she said carefully.

For a moment he looked relieved, and then he regarded her with suspicion. "You're not a virgin right now, but what about when you walked into this trailer?"

"I might have been then," she muttered.

"Might have been?"

"All right. Was."

"I don't believe it! Nobody who looks like you gets to be twenty-six without ever-"

She shot him a warning glare.

"-without doing it doing it, for god's sake! Why?"

She toyed with the edge of the sheet "All my life, my mother had a revolving door on her bedroom."

"What did that have to do with you?"

"Blatant promiscuity isn't a nice thing to grow up with, and I rebelled."

"Rebelled?"

"I decided to be the opposite of my mother."

He sat down at the foot of the bed. "Daisy, taking a lover here and there wouldn't have made you promiscuous. You're a passionate woman. You deserved to have a sex life."

"I wasn't married."

"So what?"

"Alex, I don't believe in sex outside of marriage."

He regarded her blankly.

"I don't believe in sex outside of marriage," she repeated. "Not for women. And not for men either."

"You're kidding."

"I'm not judgmental about it, but that's the way I feel. If you want to laugh, go ahead."

"How could anyone in this day and age think that way?"

"I'm illegitimate, Alex, and that sort of thing tends to change your perspective. You probably think I'm a prude, but I can't help it."

"After what happened between us tonight, I would hardly call you a prude." For the first time he smiled. "Where did you learn all those tricks?"

"Tricks?"

"Like that 'hands against the wall' stuff, for starters."

"Oh, that." She realized she was blushing. "I've read a few dirty books."

"Good for you."

She frowned, suddenly unsure. "Didn't you like it? I can take constructive criticism. I want to learn, and you can tell me the truth."

"I liked it a lot."

"But maybe it wasn't inventive enough for you." She thought about the whips. "To be honest, I don't think I can get much kinkier. And you should probably know right now that I'm not interested in physical pain."

For a moment he looked confused, and then he smiled. "You've got a real thing about those whips, don't you?"

"It's a little hard not to think about them when they're lying around all the time."

"I guess I'm having a tough time believing someone who's so interested in kinky lovemaking has such a narrow view of sexual morality."

"I didn't say I was interested; I was just trying to make certain we understand each other. And as to my narrow views-just before Mother died, she had lovers who were younger than me. I really hated that."

He rose from the foot of the bed. "Why didn't you tell me you were a virgin from the beginning?"

"Would it have changed anything?"

"I don't know. Maybe. I sure as hell wouldn't have been so rough."

Her eyes widened. "You were being rough?"

The hard lines around his mouth eased. He sat down next to her and ran his thumb across her lips. "What am I going to do with you?"

"I have an idea, but you might not like it."

"Tell me."

"Could we-I don't know exactly how long it'll take you to recover, but, when you have..."

"Are you trying to tell me you want to do it again?"

"Yes, please."

He smiled down at her, but at the same time, he seemed troubled. "All right, sweetheart, I guess anybody who's waited this long deserves to make up for lost time."

She parted her lips, eager for his kiss, only to have him pull back the sheet and embarrass her by telling her he wouldn't go any further until he'd made sure she was all right. Ignoring her protests, he stripped off what remained of her tights and did just that. When he was finally satisfied that he hadn't harmed her, he began to love her all over again. The rain tap-tap-tapped tap-tap-tapped on the windows, and when they were done, she fell into the first restful sleep she'd known in months. on the windows, and when they were done, she fell into the first restful sleep she'd known in months.

They had barely gotten under way the next morning before he began to cut her into slivers verbally. And all because she'd let him distract her before she'd had time to explain one small detail.

"I assumed. Assumed! Assumed! God, what an ass I am. I God, what an ass I am. I deserve deserve to be married to you. Why should I have assumed you'd get this right when you haven't gotten anything else right?" to be married to you. Why should I have assumed you'd get this right when you haven't gotten anything else right?"

After the tender magic of last night, his attack was doubly hurtful. When they'd first met, his anger had been cold and quiet, but now a pressure valve seemed to have exploded.

"Couldn't you have finished explaining?" he raved. "No, of course not. That would have been too logical."

She blinked her eyes hard and hated herself with all her might for not being the kind of person who could scream right back at him.

"When you said you were taking birth control pills, you needed to finish the story, Daisy. You needed to tell me you'd just started to take them, that you hadn't been on them for a full month yet, that there's still a chance I could get you goddamn pregnant! get you goddamn pregnant! Couldn't you have finished the story, Daisy?" Couldn't you have finished the story, Daisy?"

She dug her fingernails into her palms to keep from crying. At the same time she cursed herself for letting him get to her like this.

"Answer me right now!"

The lump in her throat had grown so large she had to choke the words out "I-I was o-overcome by p-passion."

Some of the tension seemed to leave his body. He eased up on the accelerator, looked over at her, and scowled. "Are you crying?"

She lifted her chin and shook her head, even as a tear skidded down her cheek. She'd couldn't stand the idea of crying in front of him again. She'd always hated her easy tears.

He slowed and his voice gentled. "Daisy, I'm sorry." He glanced into his side mirror and began to pull off the road.

"Don't you dare stop this truck!" she said fiercely.

The tires kicked up gravel as he brought the rig to a stop, ignoring her wishes as usual. He reached out for her, but she drew away.

"I'm not a wimp!" She lashed out at him and angrily dashed away her tears with her fingers.

"I didn't say you were."

"You're thinking it! I just cry easily. But it doesn't mean anything, and I'm not trying to manipulate you with tears. I want you to apologize because you're acting like a jerk, not because I'm crying and it's made you feel guilty."

"I'm definitely acting like a jerk."

"Because I can't help crying. I've always been emotional. Newborn babies, long-distance telephone commercials, a good country-western song. I see something or hear something and the next thing I know-"

"Daisy, I'm trying to apologize. You can go ahead and cry if you want, but just don't talk, okay?"

She sniffed and reached into her purse for a tissue. "Okay."