She pulled out a foil package and tore it open with her teeth, then slowly sheathed him, turning it into a little game. Liam felt a knot of desire tighten in his belly. He slid her panties down, and when she’d kicked them off her feet, he knew he couldn’t wait any longer. He pulled her back on top of him, anxious to bury himself in her warmth.

Ellie bent and kissed him, sliding along the length of his shaft as she did. Liam grabbed her hips to keep her from moving. But Ellie wasn’t content to wait. She rose on her knees and then slowly came down on top of him, taking him inside her until he was buried to the hilt. A soft sigh slipped from her lips and she closed her eyes, settling herself above him.

They stayed like that for a long moment and Liam watched as a smile curved the corners of her mouth. He felt the knot tighten and he reached between them and touched her. Ellie’s smile intensified and she began to move, slowly at first and then with greater abandon.

Liam’s pulse pounded in his head and he lost himself in the feel of her body, the wet heat driving him closer and closer to his release. Every thought was focused on their joining, every nerve poised to explode. He wanted to possess her, completely, to touch her soul and share her release.

Though instinct drove him, Liam was still acutely aware of what he was feeling. And it was like nothing he’d ever experienced before. Their joining was beyond just two bodies engaged in the heat of the moment. They’d stripped away the barriers and they were two souls merging into one.

Ellie moaned softly, then murmured his name. Liam knew she was near her own orgasm and he wanted to wait and experience it before taking his own release. But then she was there, contracting around him, and Liam knew he couldn’t wait.

He murmured her name, spanning her waist with his hands and driving into her one last time. His release was so shattering, so intense, that he wasn’t sure it would ever end. Spasms of pleasure rocked his body and he lost all sense of who he was and what he was doing.

And when Ellie finally collapsed on top of him, he ran his fingers through the hair at her nape and tried to slow his breathing. It had never, ever, been like this before. He wanted to tell her that, to make her understand what they had shared, but he couldn’t find the words.

“You’re the kind of man my grandmother warned me about,” Ellie murmured, nuzzling her face into her neck.

“And what kind is that?”

She pressed her palms against his chest and smiled down at him. “The kind of man who makes me forget what a good girl I am.”

“You are a good girl,” Liam said. “But you can be very, very bad.”

Ellie giggled. “And I can be a lot worse. Just give me a few minutes to recover.”

SHE FELT HIS LIPS on her shoulder and then on her neck. Ellie slowly opened her eyes to the morning light. Liam lay next to her in bed, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. A tiny smile curved the corners of her mouth as she stared into his eyes. “Morning,” she murmured.

“Morning,” he said, stealing a quick kiss.

“What time is it?”

“A little after nine. Go back to sleep.” He brushed a strand of hair from her eyes. “God, you’re pretty in the morning.”

Ellie felt a warm blush creep up her cheeks. She knew quite well what she looked like in the morning and he was definitely too charming for his own good. But then, that’s what she loved about Liam. He made her feel like the most beautiful woman in the world.

“Until I brush my hair and have my first latte, I’m a monster,” Ellie teased.

“Then I better go out and get you coffee. I’ll bring us something to eat, too.”

“Maybe I’ll take a shower.”

Liam grabbed her waist and rolled on top of her, pinning her hands at her sides. Then he kissed her softly. “If you wait for me, I’ll wash your back.”

“Deal.”

He kissed her again, then scrambled off the bed. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Don’t go anywhere.”

Ellie watched him leave, then moaned, turning her face into Liam’s pillow. Last night had been so wonderful. She’d known it would be. How could it be anything else but mind-numbingly incredible with a man like Liam Quinn? He was so beautiful and sexy, and the things he’d done to her were just so…

She moaned again, then bolted upright, brushing her hair out of her eyes. She’d be waiting for Liam when he came back, but at least she had time to brush her teeth and comb her hair. She hopped out of bed and grabbed the Patriots jersey, tugging it over her head. Then she found her cosmetics bag and headed to the bathroom.

But instead of opening the second door on the left, Ellie opened the first and stepped into a room lit only by a red bulb on the far wall. She quickly turned around to leave, but then her curiosity got the best of her. Photos hung from wires stretched above tables and the single window in the room had been painted black. This was Liam’s darkroom!

Her curiosity piqued, she walked inside. Photos plastered the walls and she stared up at the odd mix of images, hoping to find some piece of Liam in each. His portraits of everyday people were the most striking-waitresses, garbage men, traffic cops. She’d viewed photography in art galleries in New York and Liam’s work was as good as any she’d seen there.

He was talented, and from the photos, she could see a tiny bit of his soul. He saw something through the lens that an ordinary observer would never see, a beauty in the simplicity of everyday life, an honesty that spoke more of him than his subjects.

She turned to examine the photos hanging from a wire above the table. They were strangely distant and a bit unfocused. Leaning closer, she tried to figure out what made the photos so special. And as she looked, a sick feeling twisted in her stomach. Ellie snatched a photo from the wire, then walked to the door and flipped the light switch.

“Oh, my God,” she murmured. This was not a photo of an everyday Bostonian. This was a photo of her! In her robe! In her bedroom!

She hurried back to the table and began to pull each photo off the wire. Each was of her, some of her in her apartment, some of her in front of her building, ranging in various states of dress and undress. For a long moment she couldn’t take a normal breath. Her mind was numb and her heart had ground to a stop. Liam Quinn might be a very talented photographer, but he was also a sick, perverted, peeping Tom!

Ellie sucked in a long and ragged breath, that action serving to galvanize her. She raced around the darkroom, grabbing every photo and negative that even resembled her, determined to steal the last image from his possession. When she was finished, she headed for the bedroom.

She’d been so damn concerned about her safety that she’d never even recognized the true danger. In less than two minutes she’d dressed, packed her bag and snatched up the pile of photos and negatives from the end of the bed. Then the front door creaked and she heard footsteps in the living room. Ellie groaned softly. She’d wanted to leave without having to confront him. After all, a guy who took covert pictures of a woman might be downright dangerous. She’d tear up the photos, toss the scraps in his face and walk out, adding a threat to call the police if he ever came near her again. “That will do it.”

But when she reached the living room, Liam wasn’t there. His brother Sean was. He seemed surprised to see her, considering that he’d known she’d be spending the night. Ellie stalked up to him and waved the photos under his nose. “I want you to tell that sick, psycho brother of yours that I know what he’s up to. If he doesn’t want to end up locked away in jail or some mental hospital, he’d better stay away from me.”

Sean opened his mouth, then snapped it shut again. “Okay,” he said.

She stuffed the photos into her bag, yanked open the door, then made sure to slam it behind her. But when she reached the sidewalk, she wasn’t quite sure what to do. She didn’t have a car, there were no cabs or buses in sight, and she really wasn’t sure exactly where she was.

“I should have never come to Boston,” Ellie muttered as she hiked down the street. “I should have stayed in New York, kept my job there and put up with Ronald Pettibone. This whole move has been cursed from the start.”

It hadn’t been so difficult to get over the two break-ins, the near hit-and-run, or the brick incident with Liam Quinn around as a consolation prize. But now she had no choice but to add him to the list of disasters that had plagued her since she’d come to Boston.

“I can’t believe I trusted him,” Ellie murmured. She bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling. “I can’t believe I slept with him.” Her track record with men had gone from terrible to downright pathetic. She’d vowed to take time away from romance, to give herself a chance to recover. But Liam Quinn had been so sweet and so charming and incredibly heroic.

As Ellie walked she began to look at the events of the past few weeks in a different light. Yes, he’d come to her rescue so many times. But maybe he’d set it all up simply to get her into bed. “Oh, yuck,” Ellie cried. “He could be a sleazy creep as well as a sick psycho and a demented pervert.”

She quickened her pace, following the sound of traffic toward a main street. When she finally saw an elderly couple strolling down the sidewalk, she hurried up to them. She explained where she wanted to go and they pointed her in the direction of a nearby thoroughfare, directing her to take the number nine bus to the Broadway T stop. Ellie assured them that she could find her way home once she got downtown.

But when she got on the bus, Ellie wasn’t sure she wanted to go back to her apartment. Maybe she just ought to leave Boston-leave everything-behind and start over someplace new. She could go to Chicago or San Francisco. She could even go back to New York. She had friends there and the job prospects would be better. And she’d just slip back into her old life-minus Ronald Pettibone, minus all men. She had her purse and all her credit cards. She could replace everything in her apartment.