Chapter 6 - Afterglow

"I'm sorry." I was barely awake when I felt him moving behind me, his body cradling mine. Harm's arm wrapped around my waist, drawing me impossibly closer and for the first time in my life, I felt less broken. "I'm so sorry."

I know what's on his mind, our erratic union that was not what either of us wanted. I can't blame him for what happened two nights ago but I can forgive him. Maybe one day I can forgive myself?

I turn to face him and see his eyes have taken a stormy hue. My hand presses against his cheek and slowly caresses the contours of his face. He's so handsome and I ache when I realize we could have had this long ago. "No apologies."

"That wasn't exactly how I thought our first time would be." Harm admits. His tone is soft and a little sad but all I fixate on is the dream of him fantasizing about us as lovers. It gives me a little thrill to know I wasn't the only one.

"You've thought about us in bed?"

"Oh yeah: My bed, your bed, hotel bed, couch, kitchen table…Any sturdy surface, really." He pauses and sighs almost dramatically. "Just not like that…Well, like that too but never the first time." Harm kisses the tip of my nose and then kisses me fully on the lips. "You deserved flowers, dinner, dancing, romance and seduction."

All of those things were indeed what every girl wanted from a man. I've always longed to be swept off my feet, to be loved and cherished but, every significant other in my life had eventually done just the opposite once they had me. Maybe starting with chaos could lead to the peace I needed?

I'm also at a point in my life where I realize that a relationship isn't just about my wants and desires. I don't want a slave or a puppet. I don't want a man who'll eventually resent me for following my whims. "That's all lovely but, what do you want?"

Harm's pensive for a moment, his mind likely fluttering with a response that won't break this tender moment we're sharing. "You asked me that once before and the answer is still the same: what I want most is to never lose you."

God, I'd pushed aside that conversation, buried every last word deep into the vault of my subconscious. I didn't want to think about how he grabbed me or how his hands felt when they slipped beneath his sports jacket and moved across my bare back.

I guess that night on the Admiral's porch wasn't much different from our first union. I'd seen what pain and anger could do to him but the guests inside, the chance of getting caught kept Harm's full desires muted. "No, Harm. When it comes to first dates, first times what do you want? What do you expect for yourself?"

He grins like a cat that ate the canary and I imagine he's conjuring up images of me in skimpy lingerie with his length in my mouth. He blushes a little and gently pushes me onto my back. The sheets that cover us are pulled away as Harm leads a trail of kisses from my lips, down my neck, over my abdomen and pauses at my navel.

"I don't know how to be romantic. I have ideas, things that girls like. But, if you want me to be honest, what I want…what I've always wanted was to make you come over and over and over again and not stop until you tell me to."

"Oh." I stare at him quizzically and wonder if he's trying to prove something that isn't necessary. "You don't have to please me because you think you have to."

"I know but I want to please you because I love you and the thought of getting you off as much as I can is an ego boost. It makes me feel good and it gets me so damned hard." He kisses down one of my legs and stops on the outside of my ankle where a heart shaped tattoo split with the word 'Love' had been inked some twenty years ago.

"Who were you thinking of when you got this?" Harm asks as one finger traces each letter delicately. His feathery touch makes me shiver and I'm embarrassed that such a soft caress lights my whole body on fire. I want this man. I'll always want this man even if there are no dates or dinners or romance. I love him so damned much it hurts.

I look down at him and smile sadly. "No one in particular." I don't want to tell him the truth, that the tattoo wasn't for or about a lover but the one thing that was absent from my life since my mother left.

The ink is a brand of my biggest insecurity and the one fear I've held onto from my childhood: I just want to know love. Real love, not the thing in fairy tales with princesses that fall for men then just met. I want to be half of a whole, a partner who is loved and loves back. I don't want to be abandoned ever again.

He notices my tone and immediately his playful seduction ceases. Harm covers both of us with a sheet as he lays on his side next to me and studies my expression. "I said something wrong."

"No."

"Mac, let's be honest to one another. There's nothing left to hide."

He's right. We've laid bare both physically and emotionally, lies of omission no longer had a place between us. I sigh in frustration and pull the bedsheet a little higher so that it covers my naked breasts and offers a little modesty. "The ink wasn't for a lover, if that's what you think. It's about me, for me… I chose love because it's always been missing from my life."

Everyone I've loved, romantically or not has left my life in one form or another starting with my mother and I'd been broken ever since. "I want to be loved completely."

Harm stared at me with an expression that was hard to read. His eyes had clouded over again and no doubt he was searching for the right words to say. "I'm not sure I know how to do that."

"I don't either." I've always had this idea in my mind of how my love life should be, like boxes with check marks to tick. Those were all adolescent fantasies that none of my ex-lovers could attain and now I realize that none of them ever had a chance.

You can't love someone completely if they don't love themselves. If I'm honest, I hate everything about me and I don't know how to change that. I also don't know when that started, only that it's plagued me for longer than I imagined.

There is a shift in the air between us. Our moment of peace and levity lays on shaky ground. It makes Harm slip under the covers and reach across to shut the light off. "Let's get some sleep."

"Are you mad at me?"

"No." He says quietly but a crack in his voice tells me he's unsure. "We just can't figure us out in one day and I don't want to try to."

"Okay."

"I meant what I said, Mac. I do love you."

But his voice is so forlorn, I'm not sure that I believe him. "I love you too."