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of crisis, and during those few hectic weeks, they’d made love in moments of need, and in moments of gratitude, and in moments of nearly desperate passion. But they’d had very little time for happiness, let alone elation. On this particular Sunday morning in early September, with sunlight painting their skin in shades of gold, they made love for the sheer joy of being alive…and being together.

    *

    “Pizza or Chinese?”
    “Chinese,” Catherine answered drowsily, trailing her fingers along the crest of Rebecca’s hip. “More green vegetables.”
    “Oh, yeah. I guess I need to preserve my strength if we’re going to keep this up.” Rebecca shifted, moving the arm that she had just realized was numb. In fact, now that she thought about it, a lot of her seemed to be pleasantly enervated. “We are going to keep it up, right?”
    “Don’t tell me you still need more.”
    “Well, not right this very minute,” Rebecca conceded, wondering if she’d ever walk again, “but soon.”
    Catherine leaned up on an elbow, pushing strands of damp hair back from her face, and stared at her. “Are you serious?”
    Rebecca grinned. “Okay, maybe not until the morning.”
    “Thank God, because I am exhausted.” She settled back in the crook of Rebecca’s arm and drew one leg up over her lover’s thigh. The room was dim, afternoon somehow having slipped into dusk, and the day held that timeless quality that only late Sundays in waning summer could. It reminded her of the naïve innocence of childhood when life seemed to be nothing more than an endless stretch of warm, lazy afternoons. Bicycles and tennis and a favorite book under the shade of a tree—no concept of disappointment or loss. Not even then, and certainly never as an adult, could she ever remember having been so satisfied or so completely content. She couldn’t think of a single thing to worry about. Somewhere in the back of her pheromone-saturated mind, that fact rang danger bells, but she couldn’t bear to break the spell by probing for the source. “I’d rather be here with you like this than do anything else in the world.”
    For a second, Rebecca’s heart stopped, and she could hear the blood stilling in her veins. The idea of being that important to this one incredible, remarkable woman was terrifying and exhilarating and like nothing she’d ever experienced. Nothing in her life had ever struck her with the power of that single sentence, not even getting her shield. Not even the bullet. “Why?” Why me, of all the women you could choose?
    “You remind me of what’s important.”
    Rebecca turned on her side so she could see Catherine’s eyes. “What things are those?”
    “That’s the funny thing about love,” Catherine mused, tracing the side of Rebecca’s neck with the fingers of one hand. “They’re different things for all of us, but being in love makes us feel them just the same.”
    “You know what’s really scary?” Rebecca asked quietly, wondering if she’d ever be able to take a full breath again. Her chest was so tight, and it had nothing to do with getting shot.
    “What?”
    “I know what you’re talking about.”
    “Yes,” Catherine whispered, her voice thick with so many feelings, and her skin still raw with the aftermath of passion, “I know that you do.”
    “How hungry are you?” Rebecca gathered Catherine’s breast into her palm, rolling the nipple under her thumb.
    “Starving,” Catherine replied, tilting her head to catch a full lower lip between her teeth. And I never even knew it .

    *

    “Are you going to eat that?”
    Catherine studied the last shrimp in Szechwan sauce. It looked inviting. “I want it, but I think I’m full.”
    “I’ve heard that before,” Rebecca commented as she quickly captured it with her chopsticks. “There’s no time to waste then.”
    They were sitting naked on the bed, the Times stacked at the foot and open containers of food, paper plates, and napkins between them.