Stephanie knew the next words out of her mouth were fundamentally important if she was ever going to convince Lou to take a chance on there being something between them. She took a deep breath. “Okay, first, I couldn’t ever imagine telling you how I felt about you. Or even a situation where that might be possible. You had shut me out, quite rightly, and I couldn’t find a way back in. Second, I was still coming to terms with my sexuality, and a friend suggested this would be a good way to find out if I could really…be physical with a woman. I…I didn’t want to date someone, get to the intimate stage, and run out on her. That would be awful. I-I have some issues with the physical side of things. Or at least until tonight I thought I did.” She smiled ruefully as heat crept over her face. “I’m really not sure that’s true now. But when I first decided to come here, I figured if I changed my mind or couldn’t cope with it, it wouldn’t matter so much if I was with a stranger.”

Lou nodded slowly and dropped her gaze to the beer bottle in her hands. Stephanie waited, giving her time to process what she had heard. Lou finally lifted her haunted eyes and said, “Are you disgusted by me being here?”

“God, no!” replied Stephanie forcefully. “I think I understand why you come here, and I’m glad you’ve been able to find this.”

Lou inhaled sharply, her relief palpable, and then she finally smiled her full, glorious smile, the one that utterly melted Stephanie’s insides.

“Thank you,” said Lou, obviously relieved, and then she snorted out a laugh, tipped her head back, and gazed at the ceiling. “God, this is just crazy. I can’t believe I’m sitting here with you having this conversation in this club.” She brought her head back down and turned to look directly into Stephanie’s eyes. “I-I’ve…liked you since I first met you, but you know what my problem is. This isn’t going to be easy for me.”

Stephanie shivered from the intensity in Lou’s eyes. She reached out a hand to touch Lou’s arm. “I know,” said Stephanie. “But actually, don’t you think that suits me? I really…like you too, but I need to take this…us…slowly. I’ve got a lot to discover about myself, so maybe you are just perfect. If you were all full of yourself and jumped my bones, I’d probably run a mile.”

Lou laughed and gazed into Stephanie’s eyes, and Stephanie laughed with her. The craziness of the evening was catching up with her. Then, somehow, they were holding hands, and an extraordinary jolt of desire struck Stephanie again, just from that simple touch. She stopped laughing. Lou looked at her, looked down at their hands, and sighed. She looked back up into Stephanie’s eyes.

“So what now?” Lou swallowed. “You came here for a purpose—do you still need to go through with that?” Her tone was neutral, if a little forced.