He drove me to 1800 Main in his BMW Coupe, asking no questions, maintaining a comfortable silence until we finally got to my seventh-floor apartment. He had decorated it with an eclectic mix of antique-shop furniture and a couple of his own cast-off pieces. Creams and whites were balanced by dark distressed wood. And Todd had added a few touches of whimsy, like covering the inside-facing panel of my front door with an antique bamboo hula-girl screen.

Taking one look at my wretched face, Todd reached for the green chenille throw on my sofa and wrapped it around me. I snuggled in the corner of the sofa, drawing my feet back to make room for him.

"Must have been some dance," Todd said, untying his bow tie. He left it hanging loose on either side of his neck, and relaxed on the sofa beside me, as graceful as a cat. "What happened?"

"We didn't dance," I said numbly.

"Oh?"

"He took me to a dark corner somewhere. A stairwell."

"Purely for my vicarious enjoyment, tell me . . . is he good?" I could feel my face go crimson. "That good?" Todd asked.

A shaky laugh escaped me. I wasn't sure I could put it into words. "You know how when someone kisses you, you can tell they're only doing it as a step to something else? Like they're just trying to get it over with? Well, Hardy kisses like it's the only thing in the world he wants to do. Each kiss is like a complete sex act." I closed my eyes for a second, remembering. "And he's a face-holder."

"Mmmn. I love that. So did one of your brothers find you?"

"No, it was me. I screwed it all up. I freaked out in the middle of it."

There was a long silence. "Freaked out how? What do you . . . Haven, take your hands down and look at me. This is Todd. Just say it."

"I got scared. More than scared. I pushed him away and ran out of there as fast as I could."

"Scared by what?"

"I felt his . . . you know, his . . . "

Todd gave me a sardonic glance as I hesitated. "Hard-on?" he suggested. "Package? Lap-taffy? Bait-and-tackle? Come on, Haven, let's not talk about this like a pair of tweenies."

I scowled defensively. "My conversations don't usually include the subject of erections."

"Too bad," he said. "All the best conversations do. Go on, sweetheart."

I took a deep breath. "While we were kissing, I felt his erection, and all the desire just disappeared. Poof. After what I went through with Nick, the feel of that has a lot of bad connotations for me."

"Went through what?" he asked quietly. "You've never told me. Although I've had my suspicions."

"The night I left Nick," — I looked away from Todd as I made myself say it — "we had rough sex."

"Rough sex?" Todd asked. "Or rape?"

"I don't know." I was drowning in shame. "I mean, we were married. But I didn't want to do it, and he forced me, so I guess — "

"It was rape," he said flatly. "It doesn't matter if you're married or not. If you don't want to do it and someone forces you, it's rape. Holy shit, I'd like to kill the bastard." Todd's face was dark with a fury I'd never seen in him before. Bui as he stared at me, his expression changed. "Haven, sweetheart . . . you know if a woman's ready, aroused, it's not going to hurt. Especially if the man knows what he's doing, which I have no doubt Hardy does."

"Yes, but even though my mind knows it, my body doesn't. So as soon as I felt that huge thing pressing against me, I couldn't stop myself from going into a blind panic. I felt positively nauseous. God." I wrapped myself tighter in the green chenille as if it were a cocoon.

"Haven't you talked about this stuff with the therapist yet?"

I shook my head. "We're still working on my boundary issues. And she's on vacation for the next two weeks, so I'll have to wait until she's back to help me deal with this."

"Sex isn't a boundary issue?"

I frowned at him. "I've had a lot more important things to worry about than sex."

Todd opened his mouth to reply, appeared to think better of it, and closed it again. After a moment he said, "So just when things were getting hot, you told Hardy to stop."

"Yeah." I rested my chin on my bent knees. "And I . . . I wasn't very nice about it."

"What did he say? What was his reaction?"

"He didn't say much of anything. But I could tell he was pissed."

"Well, yeah, guys tend to get pretty frustrated when they're hung out to dry, sexually speaking. But the point is, Hardy didn't hurt you, right? He didn't try to make you do something you didn't want?"

"No."

"I'd say that means you're pretty safe with him."

"I didn't feel safe."

"I think at this point, safety isn't a feeling, it's a process. Starting with trust. Why don't you try telling Hardy some of things you've told me?"

"He won't be able to handle it. I know he won't. He'll be headed for the exit door before I can even finish telling him what a basket case I am."

"You're not a basket case," Todd said calmly, "and he's no f**king wimp, Haven. I think the reason you're drawn to him is that deep down you know he can handle anything you could throw at him."

"But what if he doesn't want to?"