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challenge, she flatly stated, "So get rid of her."

Again, Henry wondered if her eyes flashed lethal lightning or promiscuous promise. He loved Kit, always had, but he wasn't going to hand her this win on a silver platter.

"Why would I do that to a perfectly lovely woman, Kit," he challenged, feeling every inch the liar he was.

Kit felt his defenses weakening and went for the kill, "Because I'm more," she stated flatly, blowing past him to the kitchen where she rummaged through his fridge for sandwich stuff.

Henry understood what she had shorthanded and knew it to be true. She was more of everything he wanted, needed, and desired, whether it was best for him or not.

They had been thrown together years ago after meeting at work. She was forever in his heart and he in hers. Their lives were irrevocably entangled. Together they were a force to challenge Heaven, though the match may have been the design of hell.

Without waiting for his reply, Kit poured a Coke into glasses, asking, "Where do you keep the rum?"

Henry stood behind her smiling, enjoying the sweetest derrière he had ever admired, quite lost in a flood of memories. With his libido barely in-check, he relented, "Okay, I give. Be quiet and I'll get rid of her."

"K," she acknowledged, with off-the-cuff nonchalance, as though there hadn't been another option.

Henry climbed the stairs pretending to gently remove the fictitious suitor from his bed and escort the figment out the door, then remembered to place a noisy kiss to the back of his hand for effect.

Kit had perfected her ambivalence long ago. Infuriatingly, her countenance gave nothing away. On more than one occasion he couldn't have guessed if she'd just won the lottery or had totaled his car.

Silently, he laughed at himself knowing this was the source of his unease; her unpredictability, and her capacity, to touch me profoundly even without physical contact.

I should have known, he chided himself, we have always been connected somehow. I've always known when she was hurting or when she really needed me.

Kit broke her silence and his train of thought, "Hi, Henry, I've missed you."

Her affectionate lilt sent him reeling headlong into his own hard-won defenses, like a wrecking ball into walls it had taken years to erect, and he acutely recalled their painful separation.

For half a second, he wondered if she could hear the noises; the explosion of brick and mortar, the racking sobs that rivaled cumulative wailing wall cries, and the rending of coveted fabrics into separation; the sounds that still haunted his sleep when dreaming of their split.

His shredded heart still screamed its excruciating pain; the shattering of his personal safety now an illusion that lay quivering in bloody chunks, whimpering in the spaces between them, and dying at her feet - and he wondered, Does she know? Can she feel it, hear it, or is this solely my experience?

Henry swallowed hard around the lump in his throat and fought for composure, "Hi Kit, how have you been?"

Henry was well aware that being raised by wolves would have been preferable to the rearing she had received. It was the pink suede elephant perpetually in their personal space. She had spent too many years trying to escape what was done to her in the name of love, family, relationships and obligation.

Henry had no doubt that she loved him, but was fully conscious of the fact that she had no acceptable definition of it. She had only a few dreadful examples for comparison and all of them made her feel sick and suffocated. If she couldn't avoid the feeling, she had certainly stricken the word from conversation.

"I'm fine. You?"

"Kit, you always say fine when you're not. What is it?"

He hadn't meant to blurt it or care as much as he did, but she was here and, in her presence, he was suddenly invested again.

"You know, just stuff, life happening," she said, with eyes focused on the floor, hugging her secrets tightly to her.

"Yeah, I hate it when that happens," he quipped, trying to lighten the moment.

"I'll drink to that," she smiled, relaxing into the overstuffed couch.

Henry checked the time already knowing he would never make it to work as expected, and knowing that there would be no untroubled sleep tonight. He went to replenish their drinks, asking over his shoulder, "How about we have another and we'll watch your favorite movie? I can play hooky tomorrow."

"Sounds heavenly. It's okay to crash on the couch?"

"As long as you don't mind if I pull out the sofa bed while we watch the movie." He held his breath wondering if she had just changed her mind and remembered, Kit can downshift faster than the speed of light.

With so much of her youth being lost to mental enslavement and emotional blackmail, Kit had sought out the only love she could relate to. At eighteen, she'd left home and become involved with several abusive men.

Later, she took refuge in a motorcycle gang. They were warm, welcoming safety in numbers, able and willing to abuse anyone who mistreated one of their own. Ultimately, they were the family she needed.

A precious few had been lovers, but all afforded her protection; gave her a semblance of stability, shelter and succor. They accepted her unconditionally. She belonged solely to herself and with her chosen family. As long as she owned what was left of her battered mind and body, they were balm to her wounded soul.

Kit understood love only in that context. She was safe with them. Anything resembling obligation or commitment made her want to run screaming.

She studied him with an expression that could be filled with infinite affection, guileless innocence, or wanton lust, as quickly as she could drop an iron curtain veiling malice, venom, and murderous intent.

Henry risked a timorous guess, testing the waters in making the couch bed into a comfy sanctuary.

Kit seemed content and, thankfully, ill-prepared to bolt. He sensed she needed a cozy hideout in a familiar fortress. She came to him for stability and consistency.

He loved her more than the salvation of his soul, and Kit certainly can test a man's soul, he thought, rubbing his temples as the memories flooded his mind.

With certainty, he knew they could climb to ecstatic heights of incomparable pleasures, founded solely in genuine love, as certainly as he knew she would vanish before he woke.

He had wanted to give her the world, but she already had her world on her terms.

What Henry learned the hard way, and only just realized, is that he wanted to give her his world, on the condition that she share it as he defined. He would ask her to bend after a lifetime of bending and breaking. His idyllic view of family would be her certain death.

At last, he understood and accepted that clinging to her freedom was no more selfish an act than asking her to love him in the fashion he would visit upon her. How could I expect her to conform to my definition of love and family? She comes from her own little war zone; her own personal hell, having that exact prerequisite.

Henry wanted to give her the love and safety she longed for, and so obviously needed, but in a flash of understanding, he realized that the most loving thing he could do for her is let her go, no matter how many times he would have to. Bikers were her family and, for the foreseeable future, he was her home.

As they rested, spooned together, safe in the night, with all other appetites satisfied, her words came back to him, "Because I'm more" and he thought, She's absolutely right, but so very wrong.

Henry closed his eyes, slipping into sated sleep whispering, under his breath, "Because you're everything."

Kit smiled knowingly in the darkness, and closed her hand around his. With her need of love, affirmation, and acceptance; her ultimate cravings finally fulfilled, by the only man she ever truly loved, she fell into a more peaceful sleep than she had ever thought possible. She was home.

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