As he looked down at her, immobile, with the shadows finally 
clearingfrom his eyes, she gripped his head in her hands and brought 
his head down, claiming his lips with her own.
	
	Mamoru was swimming in sensations.  Usagi was attacking him 
with her sweet lips, and he was more than happy to surrender and begin 
his own assault.  God, how he had missed her, the feel of her, the 
taste . . . Some tiny part of his brain was trying to come through, 
to remind him of something, but he ignored it completely and focused 
only on the dark sensations that Usagi's kiss engendered.  Her little 
body was pressed up against him, and with a groan of defeat he engulfed 
her in his arms, holding her tightly and kissing her with such a 
ferocity that her back angled until she lay over his arms.  His hands 
were pressed against innocent flannel and clutched handfuls of her 
golden hair, using the glittering strands as tools to angle her neck 
back, too.

  Usagi was completely dazed by the onslaught.  When she had initiated 
the kiss she had meant to shock him back to her, to remind him of what 
he missed.  Never had she thought that he would go crazed, that the 
kiss would serve as a key to a floodgate of emotion he had kept checked 
for weeks.  Yet, however befuddled she may have been, she welcomed and
participated in the embrace whole-heartedly.  She could not get enough 
of his taste, of his scent, of the feel of his strong body holding her 
own. Her back was strained almost to the breaking point and she didn't 
give a damn.

	Mamoru never wanted to let go of this well-spring of emotion.  
It felt as if he held spun sunshine in his hands, warming his entire 
being like intoxicating wine.   Whenever that  persistent little voice 
rose up to make him try to think he would block it out, clutching Usagi 
like a life-line and drowning himself in her just the same.

  Usagi, for her part, had long ago used up the last of her breath, but
had entered that ethereal place where air was no longer necessary.  Any
air she needed she took from his lips.  Her body was a melting mass of
Jell-O, anyway, that did not need oxygen to sustain it.

  Minutes that spanned a thousand years passed before something 
intruded into their consciousness, tearing them away from the hot 
spring they were
riding on.