We’d reached the freeway and Aerin eased into one of the middle lanes.

She extended a hand out in the space between us, I immediately grabbed it with both hands like it was a lifeline.

“I missed you like crazy all day today, Harley,” she said softly. “I was so tempted to answer all of your calls – you won’t believe how hard I fought to keep from doing so.”

I teared-up again. And then, as I kissed each fingertip, I murmured the one thought that occupied my mind ever since I saw her waiting for me in the parking lot, after feeling the anguish of losing her, even just temporarily, “Make love to me, Aerin.”

She bit her lip, and answered shakily, “Wha-a-a-t-t?”

“Make love to me,” I repeated, unable to keep the deep ache I felt for her out of my voice.   I know now a taste of what it would feel like to lose you, and need to feel you tell me with your touch, with your body, that I won’t, again.

“Ha-a-r-ley,” she answered weakly. “I have to explain so much to you.”

I kissed her palm, and curved her hand on my cheek. “After,” I whispered. “I promise … we’ll talk. But …. I need you, baby.”

We were on Lincoln Blvd now, and a few lights from the road that would lead us into the Venice Canal neighborhood.

The sexual tension in the car was electric. I thought nervously, and excitedly, about how the rest of our night would go. My heart was palpitating, and my breathing grew shallow. I could hardly wait. All the stress and high emotion of the confusing day and the drama in the club earlier was churning inside of me now.

Aerin may be fighting it, but nature was going to take its course soon, and this was all going to culminate in my bedroom, I was sure of it. If we could wait that long.

This was going to be one of the most important nights of my life, after all. Just as it would be in anybody’s life – when your one true love makes love to you for the first time.

I wasn’t a virgin, by any means, but I felt that, in the truest sense of the word, I was, right at this minute, a virgin as far as Aerin was concerned. Because the lover who I’d been meant for, and who I was meant to be the one for, in turn, was going to touch me for the very first time. All my other experiences, while mostly lovely, would all be simply memories from now on.