"It's all right. Please, Zack."

"Why in the world didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't know how." She felt out of breath and vaguely testy. "It's not the kind of thing you can go around announcing."

"I should have known… should have guessed. Maddy. how-"

"Zack." She laughed shakily and felt her stomach bump against his. "Do you want to lie here and discuss my sexual track record now?"

He touched his forehead to hers, and she felt him begin to shake with silent laughter. "Ah, Maddy…" he said brokenly. "Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure. Unless you-?"

He silenced her with his mouth, with a deep and tender kiss. "That answer your question?" he asked thickly when he finally lifted his head. "It's just that this is a new experience for me."

"Well, me too," she said. He began to laugh again.

When their laughter had expired into soft, fitful gusts, Zack cleared his throat and said, "Let's see… Where were we?"

"Here." Maddy tipped her chin up and caught his lower lip between her teeth. Her fingers feathered through his hair as she teased his mouth with her tongue.

"Oh, yeah…" Once again his hand stroked downward along the side of her body, then slipped under her thigh and drew it gently outward. She stirred, and moved against him.

"Maddy…" He looked down at her in the darkness. "Maddy… sweetheart, please let me go slowly. Now that I know, there's no reason I should have to hurt you."

She nodded, sighed, and let her hands glide over the smooth skin of his back. "Yes," he murmured approvingly. "Relax. Trust me."

She did trust him. Tension melted. Her body became liquid, molten, pliable. This time he entered her slowly, tenderly, letting her body adjust itself around him. When he began to move, it seemed to her as natural as breathing to move too. The rhythms felt like part of her-like her own heartbeat. He was a part of her.

The rhythms didn't change, but somehow that melted-honey warmth inside her became the aching pressure she'd felt before. And again it seemed intolerable. Things were beyond her control. She thought, in one moment of pure panic, that she really would explode. But Zack-Zack was in control, and she trusted him! She surrendered, then, to the fire and strength in his body, and when she did, something inside her gave way, releasing a whole series of sweet explosions…

Zack's hand was stroking her forehead. His lips roved, touching wherever they could-her eyelids, nose, mouth, ears, throat, chin. He held most of his weight away from her, but she could feel his heart knocking crazily against her chest, and the heat of him deep inside her.

She sighed and muttered, "Amazing."

He seemed to understand what she meant. He kissed the tip of her nose and whispered, "I know."

When he left her she made a small noise of protest. He placed his hand on the moist hollow of her stomach, a caress of reassuring intimacy, and whispered, "Just for a second, sweetheart."

She drifted, then, in a state of sensual lethargy that was reminiscent of another kind of floating… in warm, churning bubbles. She heard Zack return, and the bed sank beneath his weight. She reached for him, but instead he caught her hand and carried it to his mouth. She felt something warm and soft-a washcloth-gently bathe her body.

This will make you feel more comfortable," he said softly.

Comfortable? "I am comfortable," she mumbled, finding it a tremendous effort just to move her lips. "I feel… wonderful."

His chuckle held both pleasure and relief. His weight shifted; then light altered the texture and density of her eyelids. She gave a sharp cry of protest and covered her eyes with her hand. The light dimmed, but did not go out.

Zack touched her face, then covered her throat with his hand and lightly stroked up and down. "Hey, what's the matter? I just want to look at you." He lifted her hand away from her face and said firmly, "Maddy, open your eyes."

The bedside lamp gave the room a gentle illumination, leaving Zack's eyes in shadow and softening some of the rugged lines of his face. In that twilight his smile was a glow that warmed her like spring sunshine.

"You're not still ashamed of your body, are you?" His hand slid down her throat and chest, rounded delicately over her breasts, and stroked across the relaxed concavity of her stomach to rest on the moist and downy mound below. Where his hand touched her, her skin turned a warm, rosy pink, matching the color in her cheeks. Ashamed? she mused. Well, no… probably not. But then, what was this feeling that was turning her, under the heat lamp of his gaze, into one huge all-over blush?

"Do you have any idea," he asked with wonder in his voice, "how beautiful you are?"

"I didn't think you'd noticed," she mumbled, then laughed at herself for sounding like a petulant debutante.

Zack looked tenderly amused. "What do you mean, you didn't think I'd noticed!"

"Well, if you must know, I bought a new dress especially to impress you tonight-although I didn't know at the time it was you I was supposed to impress- and you didn't notice a thing."

He gazed at her for a moment in exasperation, then leaned over to kiss her. "Oh, I noticed," he said, a new huskiness in his voice. "But Maddy, don't you know that what's beautiful about you doesn't have anything at all to do with the way you're dressed? Or," he added thoughtfully, "undressed…" He ducked his head to touch his lips to one pink nipple, drew back to look at it, then lowered his head once more, this time to lave the sensitive aureole with his tongue. He drew back once more to examine the results of his ministrations, leaving her glistening with the moisture from his mouth.

The alternating warmth and chill made her shiver and drew both nipples into aching erection. Zack smiled and chuckled with satisfaction as he slowly let his gaze trail upward to meet her eyes.

Something strange was happening to Maddy; she was discovering that she liked having him look at her. She loved the way his eyes seemed to touch her like caressing fingers, the way they kindled, like coals coming to life when someone blows softly on them. She moved languidly, sinuously, like a cat stretching, and saw the glow in his eyes become flame.

"Well," she murmured demurely, "I don't know what to say…"

His hand slowly began to draw circles on her belly. "Just say, 'Thank you, Zachary.' "

"Thank you, Zachary. Oh!" She caught her breath as his fingers dipped between her thighs. "By the way, I think…"

"Yes?"

"I think… you're beautiful too! Zack-"

"Well," he said, laughing softly, "now I guess I don't know what to say."

"Don't say anything. Just…" His hands were tormenting her with feather strokes, making it hard to talk. She caught his hand and held it against her. "Just… 'Thank you, Maddy.' "

He captured her other hand and carried it to his body. "Thank you, Maddy."

Her eyes flew open in momentary shock, then drifted down on a smile. "Hello again, Zachary," she murmured.

He made love to her slowly this time, showing her with great tenderness and sensitivity all the ways her body could give and receive joy. He left the lights on, so she could see the pleasure she brought to him, and her own, mirrored in his eyes.

When she was limp and somnolent again, and about to drift off to sleep cuddled close in Zack's arms, Maddy realized that she not only knew she was beautiful. For the first time in her life she felt beautiful. Never again, with Zack, at least, would she ever feel shy and dismayed by her own body.

She moved her head and touched her lips to his shoulder. "Thank you, Zachary…" she murmured, even though she knew he was already asleep.

Maddy woke before Zack did and lay for a while examining the newness of waking up in the morning with a man beside her. Well, not any man, of course, but Zack. She decided that was a very important distinction.

The next thing she decided, with some surprise, was that she felt absolutely no guilt. How could something be wrong that gave her such a profound sense of rightness and well-being?

The third thing she decided was more in the form of a confirmation: She loved the man beside her, deeply and without reservation.

Though he certainly wasn't a neat person, she conceded, gazing at his tousled head with tender amusement. The bed, unmade to begin with, was a twisted tangle of bedclothes, half of which had fallen onto the floor, where they mingled with various discarded items of Zack's wardrobe to form an amorphous pile. Memories of what had caused the bed to be in such a state assailed her, making her feel remarkably smug, like an indolent cat.

It became impossible to lie in bed. She was hungry, and she needed a bathroom. And she'd love a shower, too, but wasn't sure just how "at home" she should make herself in Zack's bathroom. She didn't want to wake him, but at least she could brush her teeth. That brand-new toothbrush she'd found last night after her losing battle with the champagne was down the hall, in the other bathroom.

Easing herself carefully away from Zack's inert form, Maddy crept out of bed and stood up. After a moment's indecision, she bent and sorted through the twisted bedclothes until she had untangled a sheet, which she wrapped around herself like a toga.

Not neat, she thought, but clean. The sheet smelled of fabric softener, and very subtly and evocatively of Zack and of her and the night just past.

Something warm and incandescent spread through her. She looked back once more at the long, tanned body sprawled across the bed, took a deep, tremulous breath, and went out, leaving him in blissful oblivion.

A stop in the bathroom took care of her most pressing needs, but now the clamor in her stomach became impossible to ignore. Hitching her sheet around her, Maddy padded out to the kitchen. As she passed the front entry she saw her shoes, dress, and Zack's towel still lying where they had fallen. Graphically detailed memories made a star-burst inside her as she bent to pick them up and drop them, somewhat pointlessly, into a chair.

Amazing, she thought for the hundredth time. She hadn't known about any of this.

She hadn't known her body could feel like this, tender in places, but awake and tingling in every nerve and cell and pore. She hadn't known before what it meant to say, "My heart is full." She hadn't dreamed it could be so wonderful to love, and be loved-

But wait. Zack hadn't said anything at all about love.

Maddy found herself in the kitchen, staring down at the clutter Zack had left on the counter last night. Her spirits suddenly felt as cold and limp as the stack of untouched toast. Zack had mentioned need and friendship and mutual comfort-even, in a less direct way, desire-but had never, in any way, direct or otherwise, talked about love.

Her stomach growled. She picked up a piece of leathery toast and bit into it, chewing thoughtfully as she examined her feelings. Presently she swallowed and took a deep breath.

Well, okay. She'd faced that reality and decided that she didn't care. She'd concluded long ago that Zack was probably still carrying too much pain around with him to be capable of love anyway. For now, it was enough that he needed her.

Never a very discriminating eater, Maddy polished off that piece of toast and one more, and, in the absence of anything that looked like a coffeepot, a glass of milk. She drank it slowly, sitting at the kitchen table, gazing out at the pool. This, she realized, must have been where Theresa had been sitting when she'd caught Zack kissing her…

It was a beautiful June morning, with the fog already burning away. Beyond the pool deck and the emerald dichondra, flowering shrubs were rampant. Hummingbirds darted about, elusive but captivating flashes of iridescence. The air was a golden shimmer, alive with birdsong.

Sunshine had turned the turquoise rectangle of the pool into a jewel set in terra cotta and jade. Maddy sat staring at that sparkling water for a long time. Then she got up, rinsed her milk glass and set it carefully in the sink, secured her toga, and walked down the stairs to the basement. There she paused to take a deep breath, then pulled open the glass door and stepped with determination into the morning.

Zack went looking for Maddy and found her on the deck. He paused inside the glass door to stare at her as she stood with her back to him, gazing at the pool as if entranced. She looked like a goddess in her sheet toga, with the sun turning the tumbled cascade of her hair to burnished gold. The sheet had slipped low in the back, baring the seductive and graceful curve of her spine. Athena, strolling the gardens of Olympus.