“Mmm, not like you.” Bending his head, he licked the smooth curve that plumped out of her bra, inhaling the warm female scent of her as his fingers slid along her rib cage to the back, unfastening the hook so that her breasts spilled into his waiting hands.

“Still need more,” he decided, and stripped away their remaining clothing, easing her down on the bed, coming against her as the sheets shifted beneath them, as the evening breeze drifted in the window and over their skin.

Naked flesh against naked flesh. Moving, touching, holding, tasting in slow, erotic intent, reveling in the mutual delight. Mutual joy.

He definitely found more than he sought. More than he intended, as his senses soared, his soul stirred and his heart opened.

“Nick,” she whispered as he slid into her, her voice filled with all the awe he’d already discovered.

“I know.” Joined, vulnerable yet strong, he moved. She moved with him, and the passion rose, consumed, taking him unaware, the hunger made all the more poignant by the accompanying fear that this was unique. Theirs.

Forever.


DARKNESS HAD FALLEN outside, but for Ted, that darkness went soul deep.

He stood outside some godforsaken bed-and-breakfast inn called Twin Oaks.

Hell, is what he would have called it. He’d seen them. He’d stood outside, cloaked by the night, and watched them embrace through the glass picture window.

Danielle and her new boyfriend. She’d gotten herself a new boyfriend.

She’d be punished for that.

Even the moon had gone to bed while Ted stood there in the woods. Watching. The window went dark.

Which meant right at this moment, somewhere inside there, lay Danielle with another man.

The fury nearly blinded him, but he forced a long, deep breath. Nothing had changed. She would come back to him. She would.

He would make her.

14

NICK SLEPT with Danielle that night, and the next, both against his better judgement.

But he was discovering, when it came to Danielle and his emotions, there was little better judgement to be found. They made love, they talked, they laughed.

And continued to play at being engaged for Nick’s family.

But though staying had been his own choice, it turned out to be incredibly difficult, because with each passing day he became more and more sure of the one thing Danielle wouldn’t want to hear.

They were meant to be together.

One morning, he woke up to an empty bed. When he surged up with a moment of panic, Sadie opened one eye from her perch on the floor and sent him a baleful stare.

“Well, if you’re still here, she must be, too,” he decided, relaxing.

Without comment, Sadie closed her eye, ignoring him.

But when Danielle came out of the bathroom, fully dressed, Sadie leaped up to be petted.

“Hey,” Nick said softly, still prone. “Come back to bed and wake me up.”

“You look awake to me.”

“I’m having a nightmare. Comfort me.”

She reached down and clipped Sadie’s leash. “Sadie needs to be walked.”

With a sigh at leaving the warm, cozy bed, Nick rose, jammed his legs into his jeans and came up behind her. “How do you do that?” He stroked a finger over the shoulder left bare by her sleeveless sweater.

“She has to go-”

“Love me with all your heart during the night, then in the light of day pull back. Distance yourself.”

She went very still. “I don’t do any such thing.”

“Really?” He turned her to face him, and looked into her cool gray eyes. “You’re doing it right now. Working up a temper to avoid the real issue.”

“Which is?”

“Us.”

“Nick-”

“Why is that, Danielle? Why do you let me in only when I’ve got you naked and writhing and desperate for me to make you come-”

“I’m never desperate.”

She tried to turn away again but he pressed her into the door. “Wanna bet?” he asked silkily, his thumbs brushing the barest of touches on the very undersides of her breasts, a spot he knew by now made her stretch and purr like a stroked cat.

Her eyes fell closed. “That…won’t work.”

“Uh-huh.” He’d heard the helpless hitch in her voice, and made the movement again, this time reaching slightly higher, nearly to her nipples.

At the base of her neck, her pulse raced. He put his mouth there, tasting the spot, and she let out a little whimper.

“This is…” She trailed off to gasp when he dotted hot, wet, openmouthed kisses down her throat.

He lifted her, just enough to press his erection against the V of her shorts.

“Nick…what are you trying to prove?”

He could hardly remember. “Something about making you desperate for me,” he muttered, his mouth still full of her flesh.

“I’m…never desperate.”

But the words sounded satisfyingly weak when he ran his hands up the backs of her thighs, spreading them open so he could step between them.

By the sound of her, she could barely get her words together. Good. Neither could he, damn it.

“The records,” she managed. “They should come today.”

He knew that, he’d wakened up knowing it, just as he knew she’d be out of here when they did arrive.

“This is it,” she said. “We shouldn’t-”

“Damn right, we shouldn’t. But we are.” Not wanting to hear all the reasons they were being fools, his mouth covered hers.

He knew the reasons, every one of them. The kiss obliterated it all from his mind the moment she surrendered with a cry and started kissing him back, hot and hard and wet.

He felt a blinding need, an intense stroke of emotion, and heat raced through his body, so that if he didn’t take her now, he would die. Then her shorts were gone, his jeans opened. Lifting her higher yet, he surged into her, making them both cry out. He wasn’t sure how he could continue to want her this way, this all-powerful, earth-shattering way, but the wanting consumed him.

“Nick…” It was a sob, torn from her throat, telling him she was consumed, too.

“Wrap your legs around my waist…there. Yeah, there.” Using the door, he thrust into her glorious, giving body, until with another keening cry, she came. Watching her fall apart, shuddering, mindless, his name on her lips, he followed her over the edge.

It was several moments before he could move, but he finally lifted his face from where he’d planted it against her neck.

Danielle’s head was thrown back against the door, her eyes closed, and he could feel her limbs still shaking. He would have touched her, but as his own limbs were still trembling like crazy, he was afraid to let go of his two fistfuls of her bottom, or he’d drop her.

Eyes still closed, she squirmed until he loosened his grip, then she reached for the clothes they’d scattered across the room.

Sweater held to her breasts, she turned to him, eyes miserable. “I can’t do this anymore.”

“This, as in making love?”

“This, as in playing house.” She shoved her legs into her shorts. “This pretending to be engaged.” She pulled on her sweater, forgetting her bra. “This…” She gestured to the door that they’d just done it against. “That.”

Before he could respond, there came a knock at that very door.

“Nick?” Maureen called through the wood. “Honey, Clint and I just opened some champagne with breakfast. A gift from our distributor. Bring your soon-to-be wife down, we’ll have a toast.”

Nick looked at Danielle, who gave him a long, solemn, sorrowed look that said see? It’s wrong.

“Give us a minute,” Nick said.

Danielle just shook her head.

She didn’t want to play the game anymore, but that was okay, because neither did he. And it was time to tell her. He watched her search for a sock and find it. “I want the real thing, Danielle.”

The sock fell from her fingers. “You what?”

“I don’t want to pretend anymore, either. I want to sleep with you at night, wake up with you wrapped around me. I want to share your life, and have you share mine.”

“You’re crazy,” she whispered.

“Maybe.”

“You can’t want to share my life. I don’t want to share my life.”

“I love you, Danielle.”

Her expression shuttered and she turned away. Walking to the window, she stared down at the gardens, so alive with color. “That’s ridiculous. You don’t know me.”

“I think I do,” he said evenly, which was difficult, as she’d cut him deep with her disbelief.

“Okay, then.” Danielle’s shoulders were stiff. So was her neck. Hell, her entire body felt so tight she was going to crack and fall apart, limb by limb. “I don’t know you.”

“Just because you feel like your back is up against the wall,” he said, more quietly now, “isn’t a reason to lie to me.”

She whipped back to face him, a hot retort on her lips, but it died when she saw that while his voice had sounded confident, he was far from sure of himself.

Above all else, his love for her was shining in his eyes. “Oh, Nick.”

His jaw tightened. “You’re thrilled.”

Terrified, more like. How could facing his love be harder than facing Ted’s hatred? “We lead very different lives.”

“So?”

“So…you’ve told me yourself, your job takes you far and wide. You’re rarely home.”

“And I’ve also told you, I’ve enjoyed this break. So much that I’m thinking a little lifestyle change wouldn’t be a bad thing. I can still write, Danielle, and not vanish for months at a time.” His gaze deepened. “If it’s permanence you’re looking for.”

“That’s just it. I don’t know what I’m looking for.” Liar, liar, pants on fire.

“Yes, you do. You just don’t want to admit it. God forbid you share yourself-”

“I’ve tried that, thank you very much!”

“Not with me, you haven’t.” His eyes were hot. “Don’t lump me in with him, Danielle.”