T here was a pause in their conversation while the waitress brought them their drinks, and Pea was pleased to note that he didn't take his hand from hers. They sipped their martinis silently while they just looked at each other - at first shyly, and then Pea felt the temperature of his gaze change and it seemed his eyes devoured her.

The Full Flava King's female lead singer handed the microphone over to the male lead. The music slowed and the lights dimmed, and he began crooning the old seventies love song,

"Always and Forever." Pea swayed slightly to the music.

"Dance with me," she said.

His body jerked as if she'd hit him.

"I don't dance. I can't."

But she saw something else in his eyes. She had no idea why he was so easy for her to read, but as odd and impossible as it seemed, she knew deep in her soul it wasn't that he didn't want to dance with her - she knew he was afraid to dance with her. His transparency gave her the courage to speak, to say words she'd never even considered saying to any man before.

"It's not really dancing." Her voice was gentle and persuasive. "It's just holding me in your arms and moving to the music."

He closed his eyes. "My leg..."

"Does it hurt?"

"Not enough to speak of," he said automatically, then with more honesty he added, "It...it just makes me move awkwardly, so I've never danced."

"Ever?"

"Ever."

"Then let me teach you." She stood and held out her hand to him. "Trust me. I promise it'll be okay."

Slowly, as if he were swimming against a great tide of the past, he stood and put his hand in hers, allowing her to lead him to the dance floor.

Pea guided him into position - his left hand holding her right, his right at the small of her back. Then she looked up at him and whispered, "Now just move slowly with the music. I'll follow you."

At first he didn't budge. They just stood there on the crowded dance floor, like a tableau, frozen in time. Then, hesitantly, he began to sway in time to the tempo. Pea followed him. Now that she was standing so close to him, she was impressed anew by his height and the breadth of his shoulders. He didn't look at her. Instead he stared somewhere over her shoulders, his entire body tense. She thought it was a little like dancing with a mountain.

"Relax, you're doing just fine," she said.

His gaze whipped down to meet hers and she was touched by his startled, unsure look. How could any man who was so big and muscular and handsome be unsure of himself? Men were so funny sometimes. A simple slow dance could completely throw even a macho fireman off guard. She squeezed his hand and smiled up at him. "Loosen up your shoulders before you break something."

"Am I holding you too tightly?" he said, quickly slacking his grip on her and taking half a step back.

"No, it's okay to hold me tightly. It's a slow dance." She closed the space between them. "When I said you were going to break something I meant something inside you."

"Oh," he said. "Oh, I see." He gave her a quick, nervous smile and settled her back into his arms, but he also stared over her shoulder as if the answers to the most complex questions in the universe were printed behind her.

"Hey," she said.

He glanced down.

"This would work better if you looked at me. Just forget about being nervous and concentrate on the song." And me, she wanted to add, concentrate on me, but she couldn't quite get the words out.

As if he'd been reading her mind, he said, "And you? Can I concentrate on you?"

She smiled. "Absolutely."

"That I can do." He pulled her even closer, and this time his gaze didn't leave hers.

"Every day love me your own special way...."

She heard the first part of the chorus of the love song, but the longer she met his eyes, and the closer her body moved to his, the more he blotted out everything - the song, the people around them, the world. How could she read so much in a face that was partially masked? It was like he was a code, but she'd been given the key to understanding him. And understand him she did. Overwhelmed, she saw desire and fear and loneliness and longing in his eyes. And love...incredibly, inexplicably, impossibly, she saw love.

"Yes," she whispered, even though he'd said nothing aloud. "Yes, I want...I want..."

Then she noticed that the music had changed from the slow ballad to an enthusiastically sung version of Rick James's "Super Freak," and they were the only two people not gyrating to the funk.

"You want?" he asked.

She wanted him. Pea almost blurted it, that she wanted to taste him and know him and love him. What the hell had gotten into her? Totally disconcerted, Pea stuttered, "I...um...want to...to...to go to the ladies' room," she finished in a rush. "Will you wait for me?"

"Always." He lifted her hand, which he was already holding, turned it over, closed his eyes and pressed his lips against her skin.

The touch of his lips made a sweet, slick sensation tingle all the way from her palm to her crotch. A couple dressed as sixties flower children, complete with masks painted in psychedelic peace signs, did the bump right into them, shattering the bubble of intimacy Pea felt. Reluctantly she pulled her hand from his.

"I'll be right back."

Feeling a little lightheaded, Pea maneuvered her way through the crowd to the burgundy curtained entrance to the ladies' room. There were two parts to the restaurant's ladies' restroom area. A series of stalls were found down a short hall, directly to the right of the entrance to the lounge. In front of the entrance there was a room that was more of a makeup check and hair rearrange area. It was a twenties' style powder room, with a marble counter and sink and a great mirror. Pea dashed into the room and closed the door. She leaned against the counter, staring at herself in the gilt-framed mirror. A beautiful stranger looked back at her from beneath a sparkling mask.

"Who am I becoming?"

The knob on the door jangled and she turned the water on hastily, pulling one of the towelettes from the dispenser.

"I'll be out in a second," she said, turning off the water and trying not to sound as breathless and out of sorts as she felt.

The door continued to open, and she turned to give the intruding woman a disapproving frown. He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, locking it. They stared at each other.

"I wanted to be alone with you," he said. Then he shook his head in obvious frustration. "No, that's not right. I needed to be alone with you."

Pea knew she should ask him to leave. Or shove past him. Or threaten to scream. But when she regained the ability to speak, her traitorous voice didn't demand that he do any of those things. Instead she heard herself saying, "Would you do something for me?"

"Anything within my power."

"Take off your mask."

He untied the black velvet ribbon that held the half mask to his face and let it fall to the floor. Pea didn't speak. She simply reached up and untied her own mask, letting it, too, flutter out of her fingers. Then she studied his face.

He wasn't traditionally handsome, like Griffin, which didn't mean that he wouldn't turn heads and cause women to send him inviting, lingering looks. His face was strong and well made. His cheekbones were high and his jaw square. His nose was almost hawkish and that mixed with his thick, black hair and dark eyes gave him a definite bad boy look. And his mouth...Pea's eyes got caught there...his mouth was full and sensual. Then she lifted her eyes to meet his again, and in the way he was looking at her she saw a whole new world waiting for her there - with this man who was such a familiar stranger.

"If I don't touch you again soon I think I may go mad," he said. Pea didn't think; she just responded. "Then touch me."

He closed the space between them so quickly her breath caught in her throat and she automatically jerked back from him a little.

He froze, his hands already lifted as if to pull her close.

"Please, don't ever fear me. I couldn't bear it if you feared me."

Those eyes again...they captured her and she could see the pain and the honesty in his words.

"I'm not afraid of you. It's just that you're so big." Nervously she laughed a little.

"I'm sorry I'm not smaller."

She lifted one hand and let it rest on his chest. "Don't be sorry. I didn't say I didn't like it."

Surprised, she felt him tremble under her touch, and that small reaction sent an answering spark of hot desire through her body. Staring into his bottomless black eyes she whispered, "Kiss me...."

He bent and possessed her with his mouth. There was nothing hesitant or tender about his kiss. It was all heat and desire and heady, overwhelming passion. Her arms went up around him and she answered his need with her own. His heat and his taste engulfed her, calling to mind leaping flames and the slow burn of a fire being fed and fed and fed.

They strained against each other. To Pea it felt like he was trying to press himself into her skin.

"Yes," she said against his questing mouth. "Yes, closer."

He moaned and lifted her off her feet to set her on top of the marble counter. Then his moan turned into a rumbling growl when she slid her long bare legs around his hips and pulled his hard cock against her wet core.

"Closer," she repeated, and gasped as his rough hands skimmed up the outside of her thighs, lifting the thin silk of her draping robes around the top of her hips. His hands slid between her and the cool marble of the counter to cup her butt.

"Ah, gods! I think you've bespelled me. You're so sweet and soft. Let me taste you, Pea. I want to taste you...." He finished with a moan.

Before her mind could catch up with her hormones, he'd dropped to his knees in front of her and pulled her toward him, cocking her hips up so that her legs opened and she was completely exposed to him.

She couldn't believe what was happening! The thought flashed through her mind that it was probably something exactly like this that Venus had had in mind when she insisted Pea not wear panties tonight. But Pea wasn't the Goddess of Love. Her first instinct was to pull away and close her legs, but at that instant he looked up at her.

"Don't turn away from me. Let me pleasure you."

Mesmerized by the fire in his eyes and the heat of his touch, she nodded and, once again, told him, "Closer..."

He kissed the inside of first one thigh and then the other, his tongue circling her skin, drawing ever nearer to her core. Then his hands tightened on her and his mouth moved to her labia, beginning a slow, steady glide of his tongue the length of her sex. At first he just tasted her, teasing the bud of her clit as he explored her wet folds.

Pea moved restlessly, wanting more. She spread her legs wider. His response was instant. With a moan he plunged his tongue inside her. Pea gasped.

"You taste like ambrosia, only slick and hot." His words vibrated against her mound. His tongue snaked out, gliding slowly over her sex, rhythmically circling her clit and then gliding away again.

"Oh, god! What are you doing to me?" She gasped.

"Making you my own," he murmured.

"Yes." She panted. "Yes, closer!" She wound her fingers in his thick hair and pulled him more firmly against her.

With a snarl the tempo of his teasing changed. Now he focused on her sensitive nub, circling it with his tongue and then suckling it...circling it and suckling...

Pea felt the world spiral down. Her back bowed and all she knew was his mouth against her and the hot, insistent vibration of his tongue. She lifted her thighs and began to move with him, showing him the speed of her pleasure.

"Yes," he whispered against her. "Give yourself to me."

He moved one hand to spread her sex open to him, and then he covered her with his mouth. His tempo changed again, this time to a steady, rhythmic pulsing against her clit. She ground herself against him. Faster and faster his tongue flicked against her and she heard her own incoherent cries for more echo around them, mixing with his guttural moans of pleasure, creating a cacophony of sex and sound. Then, when she thought she could bear no more he pushed even harder into her. Opening his mouth he began sucking her clit until the pressure was incredible.... Then fire exploded over her body as her orgasm cascaded through her. Pea threw back her head and screamed her pleasure.

The knock at the door was hard and insistent.

"Everything okay in there?" a male voice demanded.

Pea could barely think. She felt like her body had dissolved. Then his strong arms were anchoring her back in the real world. He kissed her gently. "Answer him, little one, or I will be forced to get rid of him myself."

Pea cleared her throat and looked over his shoulder at the closed door. "Yeah," she called, trying not to sound entirely breathless. "Everything's great." She grinned mischievously up at him.

"Good," the voice responded. "Oh, it's last call. The bar's closing. And, just in case you have a fireman hidden in there with you, you should know they're loading up the trucks from the Midtown Station. Time to go!"

"Ohmygod, you have to get out of here!" Pea blushed at the thought of everyone seeing him leave and knowing that she'd just been serviced in the ladies' lounge. He looked down at her, and she saw understanding in his eyes. He touched her cheek with his fingertip. "No one will know about this. What happened here belongs to us alone."

"You won't go back and tell the rest of the guys at the fire station?" Pea knew she sounded like a little girl, but she was feeling vulnerable and overwhelmed by what had just happened between them.

"Your honor will always be safe with me." He kissed her again. "Now go out first. I will follow."

She wrapped her arms around his neck. "Find me in front of the restaurant. There's someone I want you to meet."

"I will find you, little one," he assured her. He lifted her off the counter, and watched with proprietary eyes as she straightened her robes. He helped her tie on her mask, and then brushed the thick curls of her hair aside so that he could kiss the soft spot where her neck met her shoulder. Pea shivered and leaned back into him so that his still engorged cock pressed into the valley between the round globes of her ass. He whispered huskily against her skin, "If you don't leave right now I may keep you here with me for an eternity."

She turned and smiled up at him. "That doesn't sound so awful."

He touched her cheek again. "Go, little one."

They kissed and she hurried out the door, glad of the mask that hid most of her flushed face. Pea joined the crowd making its way to the restaurant's front door. With a shaking hand, she tried to pat at her mussed hair and tug her costume more firmly into place. What in the hell had she just done? Now that she wasn't with him, Pea was filled with questions and second thoughts. Who was he anyway? And her next thought brought her to a complete halt. My god. She didn't even know his name!

The man behind her bumped against her. "Hey, ya gotta keep moving in this crowd."

"Oh, sorry," she muttered and forced her legs to move again. Mortified, Pea ducked her head and kept plowing toward the front door, hoping Venus was still outside, and not because she wanted to introduce the goddess to a man whose name she didn't even know, but who she had just let bring her to orgasm in the ladies' lounge. What had she been thinking?

She definitely needed the advice (or the absolution) of a goddess.