I held Tia close. I held her the way I'd wanted someone to hold me when my life after Iraq was a bewildering landscape of confusion and pain. I think my determination not to let go surprised me more than it did her – after all, Tia didn't know me that well. I knew myself. I knew it had been years since I'd felt anything like that blind urge to face suffering – whether my own or someone else's – and not to turn away.

The sun was beginning to set by the time her body stopped shaking and her breathing slowed. It didn't matter. I would have held her all night if that's what she needed. And even then, when the storm of emotions had passed, she stayed where she was, her face hidden in my neck.

When she finally did look up, her eyelashes and cheeks wet with tears, our eyes met. And when that happened, something changed. The connection between us, the feeling in the air. I don't even remember who kissed who first. All I know is that my mouth was suddenly on hers, that we were reaching for each other, clinging to each other with the kind of raw need I'd spent years trying to avoid.

I was hard immediately, my body responding to the aching hunger in her kisses, to the way she was reaching for me, before my mind had time to even begin figuring out what was happening – or if it was a good thing. She felt so good, so warm and alive and real against me. It had been a long time since I felt that. Not the physical sensation of a woman in my arms but the psychological part of it, the thrill of needing and being needed.

"Dallas," she breathed, leaning her head back as I kissed her neck, lifting her arms over her head so I could pull her shirt off and then pushing her fingers into my hair, pulling me against her. Just the sound of her voice saying my name got my blood up. All I wanted was to be inside her, as close to her as it was possible to be. And Tia wanted exactly the same thing, we both knew it – it didn't need to be spoken aloud. I unhooked her bra and sat back for a second, drinking in the sight of her beautiful breasts as I played with them, stroked them, cupped them in my rough, work-worn hands.

She whimpered and pulled at my hair like an animal when I bent down and wetted one of her stiff nipples with my tongue before sucking it into my mouth. Jesus, her skin was so soft. My cock was straining at my jeans, so sensitive I was actually worried I might come the second I felt her warmth around me. My plate fell off the table and smashed on the floor when she stood up, fumbling with the zipper of her jeans as I ran my hands over her belly and the curves of her waist.

It was happening very fast. I reached down and unbuckled my belt, so close to what I needed I could almost taste it. And then, as Tia yanked her jeans down, she said something I definitely wasn't expecting.

"Dallas – I'm a virgin."

It didn't register right away, I was still struggling with trying to unzip my pants while also keeping one hand on Tia. When it did, I wondered briefly if she was joking. But she couldn't be. Nothing about that afternoon lent itself to joking. I looked up at her, almost stupefied by my own lust.

"What?"

"I'm a virgin. I just – I thought you should know."

Mind. Blown. Getting up from that table, with Tia naked from the waist up in front of me, ready and waiting for me to give her the only thing I wanted to give to anyone in the whole world, was extremely difficult. But I had to. I couldn't stay where I was, with her right there, and take in what she'd just said. I turned away and ran my hands through my hair. She was a virgin? How? She'd never been with anyone before? Maybe I'm a pig for assuming a girl that gorgeous couldn't be a virgin, but I was baffled. She wasn't lying, though. I could see the anxiousness in her eyes, the worry that she'd just ruined everything.

"Jesus Christ," I swore when I turned back around to face her. "Jesus Christ, Tia. What am I supposed to say to that? What am I supposed to do with you standing there like – like that."

"I – Dallas – did I say something wrong?" she asked plaintively. "I didn't tell you because I wanted you to stop, I didn't –"

I couldn't touch her, I knew that much. The minute I felt her soft skin again was the minute the very last thread of my resolve would snap.

"I know," I told her, stepping away when she reached for me. "I know, Tia. I just, fuck. Just give me a second, OK? Just give me a second to take this in."

I leaned against the kitchen counter, trying to slow my breathing, trying to will my cock into submission. A virgin. I already felt protective of Tia. I already felt so many things I told myself I wouldn't allow myself to feel again. And now this? It would have been so easy, I knew that – I could see it. She was taking my reaction badly, too, I could tell from the shocked look on her face.

"Listen," I told her. "Don't misunderstand what this is. Because I don't want anything more than I want to be inside you right now. Anything. But I don't – I don't want to take advantage. Do you understand? You were sobbing in my arms ten minutes ago. You're – Tia, you're vulnerable. You're looking for connection and I understand that, believe me I do. I just don't want you to do something you're going to regret."

"Why won't you even look at me?" she asked. "Are you grossed out or something? Is it too weird that –"

I stood up straight and gestured to my crotch, shaking my head. "Tia, does it look like I'm put off? You've got that pretty much exactly wrong. The very last thing I am right now is 'grossed out.' I'm not looking at you because I can't. Because I don't trust myself to be able to look at you and not put my hands on you."

When she came to me that time, I just didn't have it in me to step away again, or hold her off. She pressed herself against me and my cock twitched in my pants at the feeling of her breasts against my chest. She felt so small, so perfect. When she hooked her thumbs into her panties and started to slide them down my breath caught in my throat.

"I'm not going to be able – Tia, I'm not going to fucking be able to stop if you take those off. Look at me. Do you understand? I'm not going to be able to stop myself if this goes any further. So if this isn't what you want –"

She looked up at me, then. She didn't say anything, either, because words weren't necessary. She just looked me right in the eyes and slid those panties down over her smooth, dark thighs until they lay on the floor around her ankles. Nothing has ever been sexier than Tia in that moment, standing naked and ready in front of me, offering herself to me. Saying no was no longer a possibility – that much of what I'd said to her was true. I bent down and pushed my tongue between her lips, opening her mouth with mine, kissing her deeply. And then I slid one hand down her belly, lower, until the soft curve of her pussy parted and one finger sank between her wet lips. Her breath stopped short when I did that, her body tensing up slightly.

"I don't want you to stop," she whispered, looking up at me with those big, brown eyes full of trust and wonder.

"Don't you?" I murmured, unable to concentrate on anything except that slick, maddening wetness.

"No, Dallas. No."

God, I could hear it in her voice. I could hear how much she wanted it. I couldn't wait any longer. I took her by the hand and led her up to the small loft area where my bed was. She lay down on it right away, clearly a little unsure of what to do and goddamn, that drove me crazy. Maybe it shouldn't have, but it did. Her submission, her willingness to let me lead. When she opened her legs and reached for me I was done for.

I tore the rest of my clothes off and slid my body between her legs, noting the way her back arched up a little when my cock brushed her thigh. I kissed her again as her body opened up underneath me, inviting me in.

"Dallas," she said quietly as I reached down between us and took my throbbing, sensitive length in my hand. "I don't – I don't know, um, what to do. I don't know how to –"

"Yes you do," I whispered, kissing her mouth again. "Yes you do, Tia. You're already doing it. You can't do anything wrong, OK? Do you understand? It's not possible."

"OK," she said, biting her lower lip. "OK."

I guided the head of my cock between her lips, exhaling hard and then holding my breath for a few seconds. She felt so goddamned good and I wasn't even inside of her yet.

"Are you ready?" I asked, aware that holding back any longer wasn't going to be possible. "Tia – are you ready?"

"Yes."

I nudged myself into her, grinding my teeth against the urge to just keep going, to bury myself completely in her trembling, slippery sex. I closed my eyes tightly and then opened them again, looking down. She was wide-eyed, panting a little.

"Does it hurt?" I asked as the muscles in my hips tensed with the urge to thrust down – an urge I was still somehow resisting.

"Yes," she gasped. "Yes, Dallas, oh my God!"

I forced the words out of my mouth. "Do you want me to stop? Tia? Because if you do, you have to say something now. You have to say something right now."

But she shook her head, turning her face into the pillow in a gesture of willing surrender. "No. No, Dallas, I don't want you to stop."

That was all I needed. I let go, sinking into her until she cried out and dug her sharp little fingernails into my shoulders. I could have come, right then. She was heaven. Her pussy was heaven. I didn't want to feel anything else, ever, except her exquisite warmth around me. I didn't want to see anything else except the look on her face, the battle I was watching play out in her eyes between the pain and her need to be full of me, to have me right where I was.

"Mmm," I moaned, opening my mouth against her neck as I plunged into her again, trying to go as slow as I could manage, trying to minimize the discomfort for her even as my entire self wanted nothing more than to let go and fill her repeatedly with every single inch.

By that point in my life, I had become so good at thinking of sex as a purely physical means to an end – like eating when I was hungry or sleeping when I was tired – that I didn't even notice it right away. But it felt different. With Tia, it felt different. The desperation I sensed in her – and in myself – wasn't just physical. She'd surprised me with her vulnerability, the way she'd sought out comfort from me, from another person. I'd spent years finding solace anywhere but there. I found it in solitude, self-sufficiency, tending my land and keeping my animals, supporting myself. So when I say I felt part of the foundation of my very being shake when she looked up at me with such trust and such naked need for connection in her eyes, it's not hyperbole.

So I was torn. Torn between how right it felt, how natural, and what that might mean. Maybe, if our bodies hadn't been joined together at the time, I would have been able to ignore it or pretend it wasn't happening. But they were joined, and she wasn't holding back or hiding herself from me. I suspect she didn't even know how to conceive of doing such a thing, let alone possess the wherewithal do it. Her wounds were too fresh, there hadn't been enough time to build up the psychological scar tissue I had.

Because make no mistake, what happened that afternoon in my cabin was about pain. My only mistake was in thinking, at first, that it was about hers alone.

"Does it hurt?" I asked, gazing tenderly down at her and kind of bemused because I meant it – and because I actually cared about the answer.

Tia shook her head. "A little. Just a little – Dallas, I –"

"What is it?" I whispered, thrusting down into her again and slipping my arms under her shoulders so I could pull her up against me. I needed to feel as much of her as I could.

But all she could do was breathe my name again and again. She was softening, I could feel the tension in her body slipping away. And something about knowing that I was doing that to her just drove me fucking wild. I wasn't going to last much longer, I knew that. But when I felt Tia angle her hips up to me a little, and saw the way her lips parted and her eyes closed when I pushed into her again, I knew I had to wait.

"Mmm –" she moaned, squirming underneath me.

"Tia," I said, kissing her soft earlobe. "Tia, are you going to come? Do you think you're going to come, baby?"

She looked up at me. "I – I don't, oh God, Dallas – I don't know. I think I – maybe? Mmmm. Dallas, Dallas..."

"If you keep saying my name like that you're gonna make me come, I can tell you that."

That seemed to do something, hearing me say that. I felt it inside her, a little tightening. "Fuck," I groaned, listening to her breath quickening. "You're so sweet, Tia. You feel so good, Jesus."

She was going to come. I saw the focus in her eyes a few seconds later as she rocked her hips up again, asking me for more. I heard it in the way her voice suddenly took on a higher pitch. Now the only question was whether or not I could hold off long enough to get her there.

"Dallas!"

That time, when she sunk her fingernails into my back, it wasn't because it hurt. I kissed her mouth, flicking my tongue between her lips, leading her, showing her how to get where she was going. "Come," I panted. "Tia, come for me. I want to feel you, I want –"

Her body suddenly arched up off the bed and she buried her face in my neck, whimpering my name over and over. The last remnant of my control dissolved at that exact moment and I buried myself in her pussy, letting go, letting her spasms pull the cum out of me.

"Fuck," I growled, locking my hips down, holding her there under me. "Tia, baby, oh Jesus, oh fuck..."

And then there was only pleasure, only the feeling of coming inside her, filling her, giving her what I needed to give her. She wrapped her arms around my head and held me close, gasping, until I was finished.

I pulled out slowly, gently, worried about hurting her, and lay down beside her. We were both shiny, our skin slick with sweat. She didn't say anything. Neither did I, not right away. I think we were both trying to make sense of what had just happened, trying to figure out, in our minds, what to think. Speaking for myself, I can say I had no goddamned idea what to think. I didn't know her. She didn't know me. If she did know me, the possibility that she never would have let me do what I'd just done had to be faced. I wasn't boyfriend material. I wasn't even friend material.

"Are you OK?" I asked, finally, because it seemed to be the obvious question, and boyfriend material or not, I wasn't a total asshole. "I mean, are you sore?"

I rolled over and looked at her. God, she was beautiful. I couldn't help reaching out and flattening one hand on her soft belly. She smiled when I did that.

"I think so. I can't really tell. Maybe it'll be worse later?"

"Maybe it will," I agreed. "Listen, Tia –"

"Don't."

I raised my eyebrows. "Don't? Don't what? You don't even know what I'm going to say."

"You're right," she replied. "But I've got some idea. You're going to tell me this was nice and I'm nice and you liked it but that you're not really looking for a relationship, right? You think because I'm – I mean, because I was a virgin – that I'm going to get all clingy."

Whatever I'd seen in her eyes when we were making love, it was gone. That openness was gone. She didn't look hard, she just looked kind of resigned. And was she wrong? What was I going to say? Probably pretty much what she'd just told me.

It wasn't true. Not entirely. There was a part of me that wanted her to cling, that wanted her to need me. And another part that almost instantly tried to shut that first part down. Don't be an asshole. You know you're not what this girl needs. Better to let her down easy now than drag it out and break her heart.

"You're too young to be so cynical," I said, not entirely sure where I was going.

Tia looked at me. "Am I? What about you? You're not some old man."

"You're right, I'm not. But in some ways I might as well be."

"How old are you, anyway?" she asked.

"Twenty-six. And you're what – twenty-one? Twenty-two?"

"Nineteen."

I felt my eyes widening. "Nineteen?!"

Tia giggled. "Yeah – so? You just guessed twenty-one, it's not like there's some huge difference."

Nineteen. For some reason it just felt so much younger than twenty-one. I made a face. "I don't know, it just seems so young, Tia."

"So you think you've ruined me, then? Is that it? Ruined forever?"

She was joking. "You're smiling," I told her, reaching out without even intending to and tucking one dark, glossy curl behind her ear. "It's nice to see that smile on your face."

What the hell was I doing? Not only did I have a big, stupid grin on my own face, I actually felt proud. Proud to have made Tia smile like that, proud to have made her first time something more than pain and awkwardness. Fortunately for me, she asked me what time it was before I could say anything to further embarrass myself. I grabbed my phone.

"Uh, it's almost seven."

"Oh my God, really? I have to go home – Jenny and John eat dinner early, they're probably wondering where I am."

Part of me wondered if it was an excuse to leave, but it probably wasn't. And if it was – why did I care? I didn't care about stuff like that. Did I?

I stayed on the bed and watched her get dressed, still woozy and relaxed from coming so hard.

"I love the way women do that," I said, at one point.

"What?"

"That thing you just did – doing up your bra at the front and then turning it around so it's at the back."

Tia turned and looked at me like she suspected I might be high. And, truth? I think I was high. Just not on any illegal drugs.

"I bet you've watched a lot of women do it, huh?"

"No," I responded defensively by habit. "No, I –"

"I'm kidding," she smiled. "And Dallas, I'm sure you're aware of the effect you have on women. I'm not blaming you."

I wanted to protest further but a) she was right that I'd seen a lot of women fasten their bras after a roll in the hay with me and b) I didn't want to be the guy who got his back up over stuff like that.

When Tia was dressed I walked her out to the car. She looked up at me before she got inside. I knew what she was waiting for. I knew what she wanted me to say, I knew she wanted some sign that what we'd just done wasn't meaningless. Hell, I wanted to say it. But somehow I just couldn't. She didn't get upset, all I saw was a brief flicker of disappointment in her eyes. And then she was in the car, rolling down the window and reminding me to get the groceries the next day.

The groceries. Of course. I was going to see her again – probably very soon.

"Will do," I called, holding onto Beau's collar so he didn't chase the car down the driveway.

"What was that, boy? Is she a witch? Did she put a spell on me?" I asked when Tia was gone, hoping that maybe my loyal cattle dog had developed the ability not only to speak English but to understand the emotional interplay between men and women. Unfortunately, he hadn't.

I wanted to sleep. But there was a section of fence that needed to be fixed in the top pasture, way out on the other end of the Corbett Ranch property, so I pulled a shirt on and headed out to the stable to saddle Ranger up. And then the three of us – me, my dog and my horse – rode out into the evening to take care of it. I couldn't remember being in a mood like that, so content and at ease with myself and the world, since I was a kid.