873

g, making ribald jokes, speculating on how good I was
probably getting it. It wasn't that I'd sleep with a woman because
someone else expected me to, but after a little while, I guess the
expectation became my own. I was beginning to think something was
wrong with me because I wasn't panting after everything in skirts."
A self-deprecating smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. He drew
up a knee and rested his forearm across it. "I used to do that. Way
back, before Joanna, before Nam. I pretty much screwed my way through
high school. I figured that I'd make up ######ually for what I didn't
have mentally. When it came to getting the girls, I was way ahead of
the guys who drove around in their little red Corvettes." His smile
vanished, his pose lost its indolence, and his voice dropped into a
chasm of pain. "Then came the war. Once I took that hit, I wasn't
thinking of ######. I was thinking of surviving. And when I realized
that I would, I began thinking about life itself and the gift that it
was. I began thinking that I owed it to someone upstairs to do
something more than take a cheerleader under the stands during
halftime." He took a deep breath. "Just about then I met Joanna at
the VA hospital. Maybe because of where and why we met, ###### was never
one of our big priorities."
Though he'd intimated as much before. Faith had trouble reconciling
the potently masculine man before her with a relationship weak in
######.
"Did you ever cheat on her?"
"No."
"Did you ever want to?" "No. Even after I was well,Puma Speed, I had other
things on my mind besides ######. I guess that's how it's been ever
since. I have a comfortable life. My work is exciting. I convinced
myself that if there was a right woman for me, she'd come along and I'd
want her, and until that happened, I wasn't going to spend the goods
just for the sake of the spending." He thought back to all he'd
said.
"So yes, I've been without,puma womens shoes, but no,Puma Basket, that's not why it's so strong
between us."
Faith wanted