Behind her, she heard him sigh, and when she turned around, he was pulling up his Levi’s. He reached for his shirt, then his gun. When he was dressed, he looked at her.

She wrapped herself in a chenille throw from the back of the couch and turned away to stare out the window into the black, stormy night. Her earlier euphoria had drained right out of her. Holding on to any pretense seemed exhausting.

“You okay?” He spoke quietly from behind her.

He’d come out into the night to rescue her when he hadn’t necessarily wanted to see her. He’d given her a mind-blowing orgasm—two actually—when he hadn’t meant to have sex with her. He’d given and given, and she’d taken and taken. It was a terrible pattern, a revealing one that filled her with self-loathing, and yet she didn’t possess the courage to stop the madness. “Did you mean it?”

“Yeah,” he said, knowing exactly what she was asking. “I meant it.”

“Joe.” She felt hot, cold. Anguished.

He let out a sigh and moved to the door.

“Joe, wait.”

“For what?” His eyes glittered with dark emotion as he rounded on her, stalked back across the room to go toe to toe. “Round two? You need me to screw you blind again?”

Embarrassed, she tried to turn away but his hands came up to hold her still. “You don’t like it worded like that? Well, here’s a bulletin. I don’t like feeling it.”

“It’s not like that.”

“No, it’s not. It’s not like that at all, not for me. Red, when I’m in you and you look at me…” He let out a rough sound and backed away. “I feel like Superman,” he admitted. “How’s that for being embarrassed? You make me feel like a damn hero.”

She hugged herself, silent as she contemplated his words. He was a hero, in her eyes. He was the only one always there for her, no matter what, and yet she didn’t know how to say it.

“You said for me to wait. What for, Red? For you to stop shoving me away when I get too close? You to open up and talk to me? Christ, I’m only human here. I see you hurting and it kills me, but you won’t let me in.” He turned away. “I have to go.”

“Did you…did you love me like this back then, too?”

He was quiet so long she wasn’t sure he’d answer, then he slowly turned and looked at her, eyes solemn, hair wild, no dimple in sight. “That was years ago. What I felt then no longer matters.”

“Yes, it does.”

He looked away, into the night. “You were all I had. You were everything to me.”