Birthright

happy until you finish this out. So I’m going to hound you, and I’m going to help you. Then when it’s finished we can deal with you and me.”
    “And that’s the way things are.”
    “That’s the way they are.” He took her glass, filled it. “Now catch up,” he ordered and pushed the glass back into her hand. “So I can get you into that sleeping bag.”
    “I’ve got a better idea.” She drank the wine down, set the glass aside. “I’ll get you in the sleeping bag.”
    “Just got to have it all your way, don’t you?” He let her take his hand, tug him to his feet. “Be gentle with me.”
    “Yeah, sure, right.” And yanked his shirt over his head.
    L ater, when she lay sprawled beside him, her breath still choppy, her skin slicked with sweat, she smiled into the dark. “Feeling pretty happy.”
    He traced the curve of her hip, her waist, with his hand. “It’s a start.”
    “I want to tell you something.”
    “It can’t be that you were once a man, which is something I once feared and suspected given your very sensible attitude toward sex.”
    “No, and that’s a really stupid and sexist remark.”
    “Sexist, but not stupid. A number of attitudes no longer considered politically correct are actually realistic when considered within the—”
    “Shut up, Graystone.”
    “Sure, no problem.”
    “Roll over the other way. I don’t want you to look at me.”
    “I’m not looking at you. I have my eyes closed.” But he grumbled and shifted onto his side when she poked and pinched.
    “You said, a couple of times, that I didn’t need you. Before. That wasn’t completely accurate. No, don’t turn around.”
    “You didn’t need me. You made sure I knew it.”
    “I thought you’d run for the hills if you thought I did. You weren’t known for your long-term commitments. Neither was I.”
    “It was different for us.”
    “I knew it was different for me. And it scared me. If you turn over, I’m not saying another word.”
    Cursing under his breath, he settled down again. “Fine.”
    “I never expected to feel what I felt with you. I don’t think people, even people who have a romantic bent, expect to be consumed that way.
    “I could read you perfectly, when it came to the work, or other people, general stuff.” She sighed. “But I could never read you when it came to us. Anyway, some of it has to do with what you’d call my family culture. I don’t know a couple more devoted to each other than my parents. As in tune. And still, I always saw that it was my mother who had the need.
    “She gave up her music, moved away from her family, made herself into the perfect doctor’s wife because she needed my father’s approval. It was her choice, I know that. And she’s happy. But I always looked at her as a little less. I always promised myself I’d never put myself second for anyone. I’d never need someone so much that I couldn’t be a whole person without him. Then you exploded into my life, and I had to rush around and pick up the pieces just so I didn’t forget who I was supposed to be.”
    “I never wanted you to give anything up.”
    “No. But I was terrified I would anyway. That I wouldn’t be able to think without asking myself what you’d think first. My mother used to do that. ‘We’ll askyour father.’ ‘Let’s see what your father says.’ Drove me crazy.”
    She laughed a little, shook her head. “Stupid, really, when you think of it. Taking that small part of their marital dynamic and making it personal. I didn’t want to need you, because if I did, that made me weak and you strong. And I was already crazy because I loved you more than you loved me, and that gave you the edge.”
    “So it was a contest?”
    “Partially. The more I felt at a disadvantage, emotionally, the more I pushed you. The more I pushed, the more you closed up on me, which made me push harder. I wanted you to prove you loved me.”
    “And I never did.”
    “No, you never did. And I wasn’t going to tolerate somebody who couldn’t cooperate enough to love me more than I loved him so I’d have the controls. I wanted to hurt you. I wanted to cut you deep. I wanted that because I didn’t think I could.”
    “It must make you feel better to know you broke me into small, bloody pieces.”
    “It does. I’m a failure as a human being because it makes me feel so much better to know that.”
    “Glad I could help.” He pulled her arm around him, then carried her hand to his