It was a Tuesday evening and I was just finishing up the day's dishes. I don't know what it was about being elbow deep in dishwater that seemed to be some sort of mating call for him, although it wasn't Tom that I was expecting. It was Luke who had called about a half hour ago, saying that he might drop by, so I'd left the door unlocked in anticipation of his visit.

Oblivious me didn't have the slightest clue that I was being set up, of course.

Typical.

So when I heard the door open I didn't even bother to turn around, but said, cheerfully as I ran the sudsy sponge over my cereal bowl from this morning, "Hi, Lucas, my love!"

But when I turned to smile at him, it was Tom - looking truly devastating in yet another beautiful blue suit while I stood at the kitchen counter in a pair of baggy, raggedy pull on shorts that I bought at Goodwill for a dollar about fifteen years ago and an equally fetching "Night in the Ruts" t-shirt that had been my sister's and was so worn it was threadbare all over and at least a size too small now- who was leaning against my door, arms folded across his chest - and he wasn't smiling in greeting, either.

Not that I could blame him in the least. I'd been avoiding him since that aberration of an incident happened in Luke's pantry, for Chrissakes. What the fuck had I been thinking to whip out Tom Hiddleston's cock and have my way with it when we could have been discovered at any time by large, ravening herds of thoroughly soused people who - even when they were sober - ate gossip and shat snarky comments, both about their supposed friends?

It was a miscalculation on my part of truly epic proportions because although I certainly had no ideas above my station, Tom apparently had enough of them for me - the tenacious cuss - and because of that I began to do something I would have sworn I would never have done in my life - out and out dodging him and his persistent invites that always referenced something about the fact that he "owed me one", which was truly the last thing I ever wanted him to feel about me, on several levels.

I have always been ruthlessly honest with myself about who and what I am. I'm the one who has to look at myself in the mirror every morning. And the stark truth was that - although I wasn't quite Quasimodo - close but no cookie - I'd have to try hard to become barely passable looks-wise, and I'm almost never motivated enough to do that. Plus I've always been so far from the current "turn sideways and you disappear" requirements of attractiveness as to be ridiculous. My boobs and my butt are entirely too large, to say nothing about the rest of me being too curvaceous on the whole, also.

So, as far as I'm concerned, I'm an untouchable and he's . . . well, the epitome of a physically perfect angel - inside and out - and I'd never be hubristic enough to think that the twains would ever meet in real life. Masturbatory fantasies aside - and he'd been the star of mine for quite some time - we could never be together in the biblical sense - well, no more than we already had in that weird, incident out of time and space that was my impulsive, completely stoopid decision to orally gratify him - because there was no way that I would ever become comfortable enough with him to be naked in front of him so that he could pay his entirely imaginary debt to me.

That just was never, ever going to happen.

Never.

Ever.

In part because, not only was I embarrassed about my body, but I was truly horrified by the prospect that I might have to actually explain that fact to him - the person I knew who was so supremely confident in his own physicality that he had admitted that, given the chance, he would decline to switch bodies with anyone.

Who the hell is that confident enough about themselves - their looks, their physical capabilities - that they wouldn't trade bodies with Angelina Joli or Brad Pitt or Jason Momoa or Emilia Clarke?!

Why, Tom Hiddleston, of course.

The asshole.

The very idea of having to actually bare my soul to him - to confess my inadequacies and insecurities - practically made me dissolve into nauseous tears every time I so much as thought about it.

I really just wished the entire incident had never happened, and that we could go back to just being the good friends that we'd been anteblowjob.

Hence the avoidance behaviors, at which I was pretty much an expert already.

Or rather, had been, since it seemed that I had been quite neatly and entirely unsuspectingly played by the two men in the world that I was supposedly closest to.

"So him you'll talk to and see, apparently. Me, the man you brought off with your mouth so deliciously, so wonderfully, so lovingly, you avoid like the plague." His deeply scolding tone got to me right from the start, of course, as he knew it would from some loose-lipped talking about what I liked in bed that I'd done one evening while we were drinking- to my complete and total horror the next day - about which I had incredible regret, too, of course.

Yeah, so I'm a cowardly little shit, I'll freely admit that fact - just not to him.

I couldn't stand to hold his gaze any longer, not when he looked hurt and angry and I knew it was entirely my fault. His expression made my own eyes water at how my own inadequacies were effecting him. So I turned resolutely back to my dishes, which I now could barely see through my own tears. This was becoming entirely too familiar a position for me around him.

I did my best to rapidly blink them back, though, not wanting him to see them.

The door rattled as he forcefully levered himself away from it. "Nothing to say?" he asked, and I could hear how much closer he was to me already. My heart began to slam against my sternum, and my stomach began to churn.

But at the same time, I could feel my body's inevitable tribute to him - to the mere idea that he was talking to me, and that he was voluntarily going to make himself physically close to me, no matter how much my mind made me truly dread the idea - dampening my panties.

I sighed, tired of avoiding a man I missed desperately, tired of struggling to come to grips with the fact that I had probably made a fatal blunder that was going to cost me one of the few things in my world I would have killed to have kept - my relationship - such as it was - with him.

What could I say? He was dead right.

My words were barely above a whisper, as if I couldn't bear for him to actually hear them. "I don't know what to say."

His own sigh was part resignation, part exasperation but that didn't stop him from advancing towards me in the least, and I couldn't stop myself from stiffening when his arms wrapped around me from behind, echoing the way they had that night.

Besides his talent for catching me elbow deep in dishwater, he also seemed to have developed a knack for hugging me when I was braless. Despite the fact that he was batting a thousand these past two times, I was almost never not wearing one. The girls were big enough that they needed the support, and I was finding that I desperately needed a layer of defense between us that was now glaringly absent.

There was no way he could have missed the fact that they were resting on his muscular forearms as he seemed to settle in behind me as if for a siege. Those long, powerful legs parted and I could feel them surrounding me as surely as his arms did, his bearded cheek coming to rest next to mine.

"Tom, don't . . . " I whispered weakly and completely devoid of conviction, obviously saying what I thought I should say rather than what I wanted to. I tried to cringe away from him because I knew I ought to, but quickly discovered that I was very effectively trapped by his intoxicatingly close presence.

"What is it that you don't want me to do, baby?" His soft, regretful words disturbed the fine curls around my ear, tickling me and sending chills rippling through my body. "Am I not allowed to hug you any more, either?" He sounded truly unhappy at that prospect.

That would truly be petty of me, and he knew I wouldn't tell him he couldn't.

"Of course you can hug me . . . "

His arms immediately drew even tighter around me, and my flimsy cotton shirt, which was barely able to contain my boobs, revealed in great detail how my embarrassingly hardened nipples practically poked through the thin, worn fabric. There was no way that I couldn't have noticed that he was staring down at them, which only caused them to peak painfully further.

"I'm very glad to hear you say that." His words blazed their way throughout my vulnerable body, setting new fires here and there and adding to the raging bonfires that had been burning within me since the day I met him. There was a small silence, during which I should have been washing dishes, but my hands lay limp in the water, the way I wanted my body to go limp against his but I wouldn't let it. "Did I do or say something wrong that night, doll? Something you didn't like? Something that would cause you to feel you needed to avoid me?" He swallowed hard, making it that much worse for me. "I've gone over and over it in my head and I must just be a complete idiot because I can't for the life of me -"

"No. No. Stop." I couldn't stand to hear him sound so unsure of himself, and the idea that he might blame himself for my faults was appalling. I was stuck again and couldn't do what I might have - patted his arm - because I didn't want to get his suit wet. So instead I leaned my cheek against his - realizing with an alarming melting inside me that his beard was as wonderfully soft against my skin as I had always imagined it would be, not prickly or rough at all. "Please - please don't think anything of the sort. Really. You were perfect that night."

I could hear his teeth click together and see him grimace out of the corner of my eye. "But I was selfish! I don't think I've ever done that to a woman - at least not since I was a very young man. I should have found a way to see to you, too."

I tried to shake my head, but his was in the way, so instead I made the sign of the cross over the sink, sprinkling very not holy dishwater around at the same time. "I think things happened exactly the way they were supposed to, and I hereby absolve you of any guilt you've been carrying around because you didn't . . . see to me."

At least that got a smile out of him.

"Thank you, but I'm here now and I'd be very happy to adjourn to your room to even the score - "

Oh dear God.

Please.

God.

. . . Yessssssssssssssss . . . my body hissed violently, contracting strongly at the thought.

"No!" I said with a bit too much enthusiasm, I think. He looked quite startled at my vehemence. "I - I uh, don't mean to be a fussbudget, but I don't much like the idea of scorekeeping. This isn't a football match."

He frowned. "Yes, you're absolutely right," Tom agreed, almost too readily.

And that was when I felt him withdraw his arms from around me and for a long moment he didn't make any other move. He was still holding me firmly in place just by being there, the counter pressing into my belly in the front and his cock making its large, demanding presence known at the small of my back.

But then those two big hands of his snuck under the hem of my t-shirt and I renewed my attempts to move out from under his touch - not that he seemed to notice in the least. As alarmed as I was, I couldn't seem to find my voice. The moment his hands connected with my skin - the skin of my tummy, which was much less firm than I would ideally like it to be, not that he was there long because almost before I knew it - almost - those knowing palms were cupping my breasts; his hands so big that he could cover them completely.

Tom Hiddleston was holding my bare breasts in his hands. The thought had me lightheaded and I let out a belatedly startled yelp, to which Tom whispered a quiet "shhh" into my ear before kissing it, then breathed reverently, "Dear God, your breasts are magnificent."

And he hadn't even seen them yet - nor would he - ever - if I had anything to say about it.

I opened my mouth to protest again, still trying to move out from under his sure touch but unable to wiggle even the slightest bit as delicate fingers converged on peaks that were literally straining towards them, aching, swelling . . . dying to be touched by him.

All I could do was stutter incoherently, "T - T - Tah - Tommmmm . . . "

I could feel his smile against my cheek as he moved to nuzzled my jaw with his nose, tongue flicking out to lick the tender skin he found there. "I love the way you say my name any time at all, but now . . . " he confessed huskily, his hips flexed pointedly forward, pressing himself against me.

Those insistent fingers plucked at my nipples teasingly at first, coning themselves around the rigid pebbles, surrounding them and pinching just slightly, making me arch dramatically as I helplessly offered myself up to him, my head falling back onto his shoulder as I groaned in what I was sure was a manner he'd find appallingly loud and desperate but I couldn't have stopped the toes-deep utterance if my life had depended on it.

"Mmmmmmm. I like that, too - almost as much as I like the way my name sounds when you groan it. I need to hear you do both of those things more often - much more often."

With his hands holding me like this, he was definitely going to get his wish - massaging, squeezing, rolling my nipples much less tentatively as I voiced my pleasure to him in no uncertain - highly embarrassing - terms, whimpering, moaning, my head thrashing back and forth where it was trapped against him as I panted, unable to catch a full breath.

"T - T - ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmm . . . " I always meant to moan - or, when I could marshal my defenses enough to speak, which wasn't often - "nooo!" but I could never quite get to it, somehow. He was destroying my carefully erected defenses, unleashing then using my own body's innate, unstoppable responses against me, and I doubt he knew quite what that was doing to me.

To my deep shame, I cried out when his hands left me all of a sudden, but it was just to turn me around to face him, quickly divesting me of my familiar yellow gloves. Our eyes collided unintentionally - if I had been in my right mind I would have been staring diligently at the carpet - and I saw his slightly indulgent, understanding smile, as if he not only comprehended but empathized with exactly what I was going through.

Although I knew, in the back of my mind, that there was absolutely no way he could, I still found myself reassured somehow, even when he bent his head to claim my mouth - and that was the perfect description of it, too. He wasn't asking permission. He was taking what he wanted, and I was - God help me - letting him.

We had kissed passionately in the pantry - kisses I'd greedily lived off the memories of since then - but this was different. He was more in control this time - something I desperately desired from him but was absolutely terrified of at the same time - his hand buried in my loosely schrunchied curls, controlling my head as he took the kiss from me, not asking but demanding to deepen it, firm tongue stealing past my barely open lips to plunder and explore, tease and torment, and all I could do was to follow his lead, to kiss him back, my mouth blossoming beneath his.

When he ended the kiss, I wasn't the only one who was panting. I could feel his chest rising and falling rapidly as his breath - somehow always sweet - blew warmly over me.

The pause gave me a chance to gather my scattered wits about me and I realized that I had to try to regain some kind of control over the situation, however tenuous. And what I decided impulsively to do was to return to type.

His hold on me was much looser than it had been and I easily dropped to my knees before him. But as I reached up for the button at the waistband of his trousers, he reached down, barely bending at all, hands easily finding my elbows and guiding me back up to stand against him, held there by the steel band of an arm around my waist.

One eyebrow was raised as he looked down at me and chided softly, "No, my sweet. As much as I love your mouth on me - and God knows I'm dying to feel that again - I'm not going to let you distract me this time."

Dammit. That was my ace in the hole, so to speak. After all, what kind of guy turned down a blow job?

The answer, of course, was a very determined, single-minded Tom Hiddleston.

To my abject horror, he caught my eyes and sank to his own knees in front of me, whispering, "I rather think the entire thing should be reversed, don't you? I know I've spent these past ten days fantasizing about what you'll taste like - "

But when he reached up to hook his fingers into the elastic of my shorts, my hands practically slapped down on top of his, grabbing them in a death grip as best I could, considering they were twice the size of my own, panting heavily more from stark terror now than desire, "No, please. I couldn't - I couldn't take it," and knowing - knowing - exactly how he would misinterpret the meaning of my words.

I would have given anything in my life to have put the huge, satisfied grin on his face in any other manner than the one I'd chosen - deceit - but there was no hope for that. There was really no hope for any kind of true intimacy between us, I knew, deep in my heart, and that thought weighed heavily on my mind as he rose reluctantly, not taking his eyes off of mine for a second.

"I thought it took you a while to . . . get there."

"Not with you." The whispered confession snuck past my lips before I could stop it and it had me turning what I knew was a completely unbecoming shade of red. I actually heard him gasp out loud at my words and I had to look anywhere but at him.

Tom reached out and hauled me against him. "This is what you prefer? It turns you on for us both to be clothed, too?"

My eyes closed on a sigh that was almost more of a sob. I was weak - very, very weak. I should have been pushing him away from me, not leaning into his body as I was, because it felt so damned fabulous - physically and emotionally - to surrender myself to him, even just the slightest bit.

I couldn't even begin to comprehend what I was allowing him to believe about me . . . what I was obviously going to allow him to do to me, I finally admitted to myself, calling myself a cowardly liar at the same time.

But before I came to my senses, before I changed my mind, I nodded slowly, knowing as clearly as I knew my name that I was doing something I shouldn't, on a lot of different levels. I just . . . shouldn't have, and that made me reconsider momentarily, beginning to shake my head and nod at the same time, making him chuckle softly at my indecision as he hugged me tighter, I think trying to diffuse what he perceived as my nervousness.

Then he stilled suddenly, asking seriously, "Are you a virgin?"

Although I understand why my indecision might make him think so, I snorted and shook my head.

I found my face tipped up to his. "You know that I would never hurt you?"

Even more emphatic shaking - of not just my body, but my head, too.

"And you want this?"

More than you will ever, ever understand, I prayed to myself, slipping my eyes away from him so that he wouldn't read the stark truth in them.

Guiding my back against the counter again using his body to keep me there as he stood slightly to one side, he pressed his face to the side of my head, lips directly over my ear, speaking low and slow, and very distinctly, as if he was reciting a treasured poem. "I just want you to know that I amdangerously close to losing the battle with my less than civilized hunger for you that wants me to strip you naked right this second and bury myself inside you, but I will control it. For now." He paused. "But I want to know whether, in just a minute or two, when my hand covers your quim," he said, Lokifying that last word and making me shiver, "and my fingers part your lips - just above where I will take you for my own - are they going to come up drenched in you when I bring them to my mouth to let my tongue - ?"

"Christ, Tom!" I practically sobbed. "Yes!"

He kissed me again, deeply, passionately, one hand in hair that was beginning to spill out of my hasty bun and over his hand, one cupping my cheek, at once as if I was something incredibly precious to him that, at the same time, he wanted to ravish into oblivion.

Pulling back, Tom pressed his forehead to mine. "Don't you worry, love," he whispered, his lips wandering slowly over my face. "I'll take care of you."

I whimpered. That was exactly what I was afraid of.

With those arousing, erotic words, he became much firmer, much more take-charge after them. Keeping his eyes on me, he contracted the fingers that were already buried in the curls at the back of my head, using his hold to slowly, deliberately force it back. Never breaking eye contact as he did so, his other hand - the one that had been cupping my cheek - reverently slid the barest tips of his fingers down the vulnerable, sensitive side of my neck, grazing lightly over my collar bone then squeezing each breast it found, possessively tweaking the hardened crests before leaning in to tease my lips with his as it began its descent again, kissing me deeply as that hand glided surely down over my tummy. Panicked, I tried unsuccessfully to arch away from him as I realized that he was feeling not the six pack he was most definitely used to but instead its rounded softness- but there was nowhere to go to get away from his touch.

He must have seen my distress because he stopped - the tips of those long fingers barely dipping below the elastic waistband of my shorts.

"All right?" His eyes searched mine for the truth of an answer I knew I could never share with him.

Somehow as I panted in his arms, gazing helplessly into those hypnotic eyes of his, with his hand mere inches from that part of me that wanted him the most - and the least - at the same time, I must have managed to nod or otherwise reassure him that I was okay, although I have no memory of it whatsoever of doing so.

I was much, much too far gone.

Until he whispered firmly, "Spread your legs for me, my darling. Open yourself to me."

I tried to shake my head but his hold was much too firm, and squirming away from him rather than obeying him didn't work, either, nor did it dislodge his hand one bit away from where it lay just shy of getting to know me biblically.

"Look at me, babygirl."

I pouted and huffed, but did as he asked.

"Do I need to turn you around again, take those shorts and panties down to your knees and spank that beautiful behind of yours? Because I will . . . "

He smiled evilly at my horrified gasp. He was not kidding. Either option was unbearable, but I did not want him to spank me. I think he'd enjoy it entirely too much, so I began to slide my feet - slowly, reluctantly - away from each other, stopping when they were about a foot apart.

He didn't hesitate to capture my nearest slippered foot between his own, his body turned fully towards mine as he inched it away from its twin while I whined and keened and begged him not to. "No, Tom, please - " But his mouth over mine cut off what I had been going to say, easily making me forget it entirely.

Before he stopped, my legs were at least as far apart as his were in a power stance, his hand still hovering just above the top of my shorts as he moved just slightly to the side.

And then he did it, in one bold move, almost as if he worried I'd change my mind, and those classically elegant fingers molded themselves almost chastely over the outside of my most intimate parts, which was bad enough.

Lips nibbled gently at my arched throat. "Breathe."

I had no idea I was holding my breath, but he'd noticed and that said a lot about him. I let out all the air in a loud puff, and as I did so, his index and middle finger delved purposefully between my lips, releasing a steady flood of me that trickled down over his hand and onto panties that were already long since wet.

Since about the day I met him, I'd say.

The look on his face was very close to worth all off this - he looked as if he'd bought swampland and found oil on it. And I was frighteningly comfortable with thinking of myself as swampland, which said a lot about me.

None of it good.

My insecurities - which were never far from the surface - began to rise again, bubbling up and out as my hand glommed onto his wrist and began to pull at just the same moment as he was about to press those inquisitive fingers up inside me. But it was like trying to dislodge a steel girder.

"Please - please, Tom - "

As if my hand wasn't there, as if I wasn't using every ounce of strength I owned to try to stay his advance, those fingers began to penetrate me, and as they did, the mind blowing sensations those fingers created as they found their way inside me made my grip on his wrist loosen to the point that I'm sure it looked as if I was guiding him into me instead. I certainly was more leaning on his arm for dear life than trying to pry it away at that point.

As I was resolutely stretched and filled by him, I couldn't hold back the guttural groans those powerful feelings evoked. "Annnnngggggahhhhhhhh . . . " My eyes rolled back into my head, I swear, and I was worried I was going to begin to drool - he felt so fucking good, burying those digits inside me and watching me avidly as he did so.

"Look at me," came the hoarse rasp.

Eyes that had fluttered closed as his fingers found an extremely snug home within me opened slowly and I could see his own desires reflected starkly in their startlingly blue depths. "You are always so beautiful, but here . . . now . . . like this . . . I'm about to thoroughly unman myself without even having been touched because of just how gorgeous you are, and how hot it is that you respond to me so readily like this - you're so sensitive - so wet for me . . ."

You breathtakingly handsome fucking liar, you.

It's all because it's you, Thomas, I whispered in my mind before the words threatened to come out of my mouth. It only ever has been - only everwill be - for you, and you alone.

And then he began to move them, slowly, surely, their tips deliberately flicking the spot on me that most men had either missed or never bothered to look for at all.

Of course Tom was on it from stroke number one and he never let up, very quickly beginning to fuck me hard as his head bent to capture a bobbing nipple between his teeth - not biting in the least, just holding it in place for his tongue to flick torturously quickly over the very tip of, then doing the same thing to the other, those insistent digits finally slacking off, curling and twisting on their last plunge and retreat, making me whine with the loss as they left me entirely, but then seeing them reappear above us to be pressed eagerly into his mouth, tongue coming out to lap at my essence as if he was cleaning frosting off a beater, after which he kissed me, transferring my own taste to me.

I practically came right then and there.

When he finally leaned back, he murmured low against my lips, "You taste like . . . " he let out a harsh breath, "mine."

Seconds later they were back where they had been, this time not venturing so far into me but rather basting themselves in my moistness to bring it lazily up my slit.

My entire body contracted as soon as the tips of his fingers came in contact with my clit and I grabbed at his wrist again, finally able to get the word out I'd been trying for all night, panting, "No, Tom - Oh. My. God. Please - I - "

As he began to brush excruciatingly slow fingertips over that aching pearl, he ordered softly, "Put your hands on my biceps, little one."

And the bastard had the nerve to simply stop until I obeyed him, placing one hand kind of more hanging off his elbow where it was bent because his hand still held my head back by my hair, the other on responding even more reluctantly, barely dragging itself up from his wrist, over his forearm to the bulging muscle of his bicep on the same arm that curved down to boldly claim the depths of my secrets.

As soon as I complied, the teasing began again, and he adjusted his other hand to cradle my head more, a long thumb lying along the underside of my jaw to still hold my head back, fingers splayed on the other side of my neck, holding me tightly but quite elegantly still for him, our eyes locked together.

And then he said something eerily insightful as those fingertips continued to dance insistently over my swollen bit, again and again. "This is forme." It was not a question . There wasn't the slightest hesitation or inquiry in his voice. He was stating a fact as his fingers flicked back to my entrance and he said the exact same thing before returning them to where they had been torturing my clit. "No other man will ever touch you here again but me. No other man will ever pleasure you as I do now - as I will pleasure - and punish - you in the future."

Dear God, was this man reading my mind? Was he eavesdropping on my every fantasy?

My body started when he said the word "punish" and I saw a broad, satanic grin slash across his usually angelic face, although he didn't elaborate.

Instead, he kissed me, tongue plunging as he thrust his hips against me and redoubled the pace of his fingers, murmuring, "Surrender to me, babygirl. Surrender your mind, your body . . . your pleasure. And I will treasure them as surely as I treasure the rest of you."

As the unmistakable signs of my culmination began to overcome me, body and mind, my hips began to roll, rocking myself against his hand as I stared up into eyes that were giving me a look from him that I had coveted since I'd fallen for him - the one that I'd seen him give to other women that were obviously special to him in some way.

And that - more so than anything else he'd done to me - broke me - and the floodgates of my orgasm - wide open.

I screamed, moving frantically in his arms, flailing against his unyielding hold as towering, almost frighteningly strong waves of ecstasy crashed violently over me and just seemed to keep rolling in, stealing my breath, my control, my sanity, breaking continuously over me, stripping me raw, washing away the comfortable pretext and pretense I'd created in my mind that this would be all right to do this once - to let him do this to me, because I wanted it - wanted him - so much -

So. God. Damned. Much.

- weaving the fairy tale in my mind that I could survive afterwards the way I needed to.

Without him.

Because, even in the middle of such pure, uncontrollable ecstasy, all of the doubts and inadequacies I saw glaringly in myself reared their ugly heads, reminding me that no true progress had been made in allowing this selfish indulgence. That we were still right where we'd begun, only now he was going to think that he was entitled to see me naked, with all the lights on or in broad daylight, in all my chubby-assed glory, with every single one of my innumerable, hideous flaws on display which would certainly send him running screaming away from me.

And that thought was much worse than what I knew I now had to somehow find the strength to do.

The folly of what I'd allowed in succumbing to the weakness that was my attraction to him - in taking the easy way and delaying the inevitable unpleasantness - and the horrifying thought of what I now had to do - weakened my knees as surely as the pleasure he'd brought me had, and I collapsed against him, unable to support myself, my body still helplessly contracting in the aftermath of what he'd brought to me.

As startled as he must have been, Thomas simply sank gracefully to the floor with me, holding me on his lap and rocking me for a good long while, his hand still lying familiarly between my legs, as if it had lain there a million times before.

When his fingers began to curl against me again, as if to instigate round two, I had recovered enough to find the strength to lift myself off his lap and away from hands that I felt grab at the air behind me.

For a moment I simply stood there, several paces away from him, my face buried in my hands, willing the tears not to come and losing that battle before it had really begun. And when I cried, it was far from a pretty thing, especially when it was about something like this that I cared more deeply about than almost anything in my life.

Tom was beside me immediately, then around me in a second, trying desperately to hold me as I turned inward on myself, wrapping my own arms around my body and doing my best steadfastly avoiding - and ignore - his, until I had forced myself to come to grips with what I knew I had to do, no matter how much it hurt.

In the end, it would hurt less than carrying on this farce.

That's what I kept repeating to myself anyway, as I walked slowly away from him - determinedly removing myself from his arms - which was one of the hardest things I'd ever done in my life, to turn down the warm, caring embrace he offered - to move to my door and, after a choked sob, pulled it open to stand next to it, my eyes glued to the floor, one hand remaining resolutely on the door knob, the other hand held over my mouth as I wept.

His silence was telling, and, out of the corner of my eye, I could see him run his hand through his hair as he looked at me disbelievingly, as if on one hand he wanted to run to me and comfort me because I was crying, but on the other hand he wanted to throttle me for acting so strangely, so coldly.

I could hardly blame him. He had every right to assume that we'd end up in my bed together tonight - not that he'd be silently shown the door moments after he'd skillfully - dare I say lovingly - brought me to a screaming, writhing orgasm.

He sighed angrily, storming up to stand pressed indecently close to me, capturing my chin in his fingers - the ones that were still damp and heavily scented with my arousal - to jerk my head back anything but gently. "Look at me, God damn it."

I'd never heard him talk to anyone like that, but my tear filled eyes slid reluctantly to his, nevertheless.

His jaw clenched, the muscle within it ticcing madly, and I knew the battle was still raging within him, since his first impulse was always to soothe and comfort. But his angry side won out as he hissed, "I don't know what's going on in that tortured little mind of yours, and I bet you think that this is going to make me walk away from you. But you're wrong, little girl." With that his lips descended on mine, kissing me hard, grinding his mouth on mine, his other hand running possessively over my body, groping me obscenely, embarrassing me but I refused to complain although I automatically cringed away from him.

It was the least I deserved for treating him so badly, and I knew it.

My eyes had wandered back to a spot on the floor.

"Look. At. Me." he growled, shaking me once, hard enough to rattle my teeth.

It took me a longer while, but they finally met his.

"This is far from over, my lovely. I'll give you tonight, but I'm going to be on your doorstep tomorrow morning, and you're going to let me in because you're going to feel mighty guilty about having thrown me out. And when you do, I'm going to strip you naked and spank your ass till sitting down is just a distant dream, then I'm going to fuck you until you can't think about anything else but having me inside you."

With one last angry, almost punishing kiss, he backed out the door, keeping eye contact with me until I closed it resolvedly, immediately leaning heavily against it and sinking to the floor with a bone-jarring thud that didn't even make a dent in my weeping.

I hadn't noticed that he hadn't walked away. I didn't know he was still standing there in the hallway, forcing himself to listen to my soul-rending sobs until I heard him, speaking to me through the door at the same level as my head - seeing him in my minds eye crouching down and pressing his fingertips against the door where he thought I might be on the other side, his head bowed as he said those soft, but nonetheless strong, powerful words I least expected to hear from him - ever, ever in my life.

"I was saving this to say to you the first time we made love, but I want you to hear it - to know it - now." There was a pause, and when he spoke, his voice was choked with tears, "I love you."

I curled in on myself, my sobs growing exponentially in volume at what he'd revealed to me, entirely unable to act on the impulse that nearly overtook me to shoot up from the floor, open the door and throw myself into his arms. Instead I simply sat there for long, interminable beats, drowning in my own misery.

There was a soft thud that might have been his forehead - or his fist - against the door behind me.

"I . . . I love you," he repeated hesitantly, obviously surprised and saddened by my lack of response to his heartfelt declaration.

And then there was the excruciating sound of him rising and, after a long second's hesitation, walking away as I felt parts of my heart beginning to die off with every step he took that carried him away from me.