I could guess the answer to the second question. Likely it was between 4:30 and 5:00 a.m. The sky was dark, but I felt well rested. The sun wouldn’t rise for another two hours at least.

The last question required deep consideration, a thorough replay of the evening’s events, and an analysis of all most likely future outcomes based on and due to the event. I decided to start the deep consideration now, and compare my present feelings against those of the night before.

I found that, despite my protests, he was right. I was in love with Alex, and I’d almost said it out loud any number of times during our love making—which didn’t make any sense because I still didn’t know anything about him. Therefore, I had no idea whether we had a future together.

Except, now I knew he left after making love. Despite all the things I’d mentally written in the pros column about Alex, this was going in the cons column.

The three-peat, mind-bending, fantastic lovemaking—despite his eager and early misfire—was going in his pros column. I didn’t expect to have any orgasms his first time at the rodeo. Once again, he’d surprised me.

I sighed dejectedly and uncurled myself, stretched, yawned, stared at the ceiling.

I loved him. I’d fallen for him entirely too fast. Stupid me; I trusted him even though he obviously didn’t trust me. He’d asked for my leap of faith—to love without knowing—but he was unwilling to take a similar chance on me. He wanted to be with me, but didn’t trust me to stay if I knew his past.

Stupid, stupid man.

Stupid, stupid Sandra, my brain countered.

“Stupid, stupid brain,” I responded aloud, and then I rolled my eyes because I was talking to myself.

I sat up and the sheet pooled around my waist. I stretched again, and that’s when I heard it: the sound of running water. I glanced at the bathroom door standing open, and saw that the light was off. Obviously, the sound originated from elsewhere in the apartment.

Wrapping the sheet around my chest because I was cold, I stood from the bed and walked from the room. I exited the hall and paused, listened for the water, and found that it came from the direction of the kitchen—not the other bedroom.

Curiouser and curiouser.

With the sheet gathered, I walked to the kitchen, squinting against the bright overhead lights. When my vision adjusted, I almost swooned. I know I gasped. And I was pretty sure I also moaned.

Alex was standing in his suit pants, but nothing else—no shirt, no shoes—and he was doing me a service. He was washing the dishes from dinner. My mouth watered as I watched the muscles in his back and broad shoulders flexing as he worked. His strong body made the simple movements artful, fluid, and completely hypnotic.

I was wrong. He was a hypnotist.

I mentally erased the mark I’d placed in the cons column from his leaving the bed after making love. I firmly set it in the pros column for leaving the bed stealthfully with the intent of washing dishes.

Nothing screams lady-mind- p**n  like a hot, shirtless, sexy man doing dishes after giving her a reason to be exhausted.

Witnessing this scene would complicate everything; I would have a great deal of difficulty trying to sort through my feelings with the solid objectivity required to make intelligent choices.

I could see it now. My brain would say, He doesn’t trust you! He’s a world-famous computer hacker! He’s emotionally damaged!

And I would say, Yes, but he does the dishes shirtless, and—have you seen his body? I want to keep him!

I was a mess. I moved my hand to my forehead and dreamily watched him feeling both despair at my loss of objectivity and glorious surrender to the lovely present reality of Alex.

Alex glanced around absentmindedly at first, as if he didn’t expect to see anything. Then he did a double take.

His eyebrow arched; he gave me a dazzling, nearly blinding smile, and he surveyed me over his shoulder.

“Hey.”

“Hey…you.” I punched the air. It was an extremely awkward movement. I closed my eyes and let my chin drop to my chest.

I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I was a functioning, intelligent, adult woman who turned into mushy corn flakes when faced with the man I loved.

I heard Alex turn off the water. There was a bit of a delay, presumably while he dried his hands, and then he was standing in front of me. His palms moved up and down my arms first then planted themselves on my bottom, bringing me against him.

“Why are you up?” His mouth was already on my neck, lavishing me with wet kisses.

“What time is it?” I leaned into him and couldn’t fight the soft sigh that escaped my lips.

“Two thirty. Did I wake you?”

I placed my hand against his chest, fought the urge to lower it to his stomach. I couldn’t believe it was only two thirty. All hail the restorative power of Alex’s penis!

“No, I woke up on my own.”

He backed me out of the kitchen, and his chest rumbled the words, “Well, since you’re up….”

Alex was full of buoyant energy, and his hands were everywhere, but mostly trying to tug the sheet from my body.

“Wait, Alex. Wait…oh, that feels good.” I melted against him and his twenty-one-year-old frame. I reminded myself that he was, indeed, a twenty-one-year-old. That at least had been established. Hence, he had the sexual stamina of a twenty-one-year-old. In addition, he’d just flexed that muscle—inside a woman—for the first time last night.

All of this taken together pointed toward him having expectations and hopes. Obviously, these expectations included lots and lots of horizontal and vertical and everything-in-between times for the foreseeable future.

If I were ever going to pry his history from him, now was the time. He needed to take a leap of faith with me.

I firmed my hand against his chest and stiffened under his capable hands and lips. “Alex, I mean it. Stop.”

My voice wasn’t as convincing as I’d hoped, but the words were right.

He stopped, but he didn’t move away. In fact, he drew me closer, into an embrace. I found myself wrapped in his arms, and he was holding me as though I might disappear at any moment.

I gave him a full minute—maybe more—and I returned his hug. I snuggled close and reveled in our shared warmth. However, it felt more and more desperate the longer we stood in silence.

“Alex?”

“Please don’t leave.”

His words might as well have been a knife in my chest. I couldn’t leave him if I wanted to. I didn’t know how healthy or rational that made me, but there it was.

“I’m not going to leave you.” I squeezed him tighter then added, “Please don’t leave me.”

This at last seemed to satisfy him. His grip slackened and he moved his hands to my arms.

“I’m not going to leave.” His gaze found mine, held it; both his words and eyes were filled with conviction.

“Good. Me neither.” I smiled for him, rescued my sheet before it could slip from my chest. “Now that we’ve established our permanence, perhaps we could talk for a moment?”

His eyes narrowed. “You sound different.”

“Yes, well, I’m trying to sort through some things.” I could tell my response did nothing to ease his mind, so I added, “And, besides, the longer I can keep you shirtless, the happier I am.”

He shook his head, his eyes now slits. “Don’t patronize me. That’s not going to work.”

“I’m sorry. I won’t.” Leave it to the brainiac to see right through that tactic.

I dug deep and forced myself to dispense with shrink Sandra. Instead, I said what I would have said if he’d already told me everything, if there were no secrets between us. “Okay, in complete honesty, I am considering knitting you a few chestless sweaters in addition to assless pants.”

Much of the suspicion in his expression cleared, and he visibly relaxed. Alex found my free hand and tugged me toward the bedroom.

“Let’s go lay down.”

I didn’t move.

Be Sandra, I told myself. You need to feel your way through this, with him. Don’t overthink it.

“No.” I shook my head. “I don’t want to lay down. I want to talk to you.”

He studied me, and I noticed that his expression had changed. Whereas before he’d been suspicious, he now looked pensive. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Anything, honestly; I just want you to tell me anything.” My eyes stung. I took it as a sign that I was successfully not thinking.

His breathing deepened, and he seemed visibly torn. “You don’t want to know.”

“You’re wrong. I do.”

“No. You don’t. I’ll tell you, and then you will leave.”

His words made my chest ache. “Alex. You asked me to have faith in you. Now I’m asking you to have faith in me.”

He let go of my hand and glanced away from me—at the floor, the ceiling, all four walls. I watched him for a sign that he was at least willing to think about it.

At this point, I’d turned into that dumb female all other women judged for her blindness.

But I wasn’t blind. I was knees over knuckles in love with this guy. I knew I wasn’t going to fix him. I just wanted desperately to know him, and have his trust. If he couldn’t give me that, then we were already over.