Taylor shuddered again.

“Then my first fiancé wanted me to be a nurse, but I didn’t have the right education, so I became a medical assistant instead.”

“Ugh.”

“No kidding. The day a nurse handed me a bed pan, I walked.”

Taylor laughed, then slapped a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, it gets worse. My next fiancé thought I should be an exotic dancer. And since that horrified my mother, it was actually a bonus for a while-kind of payback for the runny noses.”

Taylor’s eyes were shining with sympathy and laughter. “You didn’t.”

“I so did.”

“Well, you have the body for it.”

“The men certainly thought so, but dancing on tables wasn’t my thing.” The teaching had given her momentary prestige, the medical profession a sense of purpose. But all the dancing had gotten her was good cash tips. She’d been left feeling…aimless. Until the cooking gig. “My last fiancé-”

“The crybaby jerk?”

“Right. The crybaby jerk. He got me started on the chef thing. Which is more than I can say for anyone else in my life.”

“What happened to them all?”

“The fiancés?” Suzanne lifted a shoulder. “I destroyed whatever they felt for me. One by one.”

“I doubt that you did that single-handedly.”

“I’m bad at love, Taylor. Just ask any of them. I’m aimless and not serious enough. I hurt each of them and it didn’t take that long either.”

“Love sucks,” Taylor said with a finality that told Suzanne she knew of what she spoke. Suzanne opened her mouth to ask about it but glanced at a movement by the door.

Ryan stood there, his big body filling the doorway. Given his intense eyes and the lack of his usual smile, she’d guess he’d heard everything. Despite that, his physical presence captured her gaze and wouldn’t let it go.

Just looking at him made her feel a little weak, a little needy, when she hated both. Could he understand, really understand, that no matter how they nearly exploded every time they simply got within touching distance, she couldn’t give in?

She wouldn’t hurt another soul.

“I don’t intend to ruin another man,” she said to Taylor, never taking her eyes off Ryan.

“Well, who needs men anyway?” Taylor turned to Ryan and bit her lower lip, a mischievous smile slowly curving her lips. “Though I have to say, they do have their occasional uses. The recreational sport of sex, for instance. What do you think, Suzanne?”

Ryan, the tall, big, sexy jerk, simply smiled. “Yes, Suzanne,” he said ever so politely while his eyes smoldered. “What do you think?”

“That I’ve given you enough stuffed mushrooms,” Suzanne muttered, grabbing the tray from Taylor. On second thought, she snatched the tall glass of lemonade from her as well.

Taylor only laughed, then hopped off the counter. Tossing back her mane of blond hair, she kissed Suzanne on the cheek. “Don’t get all snippy now. I was just trying to prove a point.”

“Which would be?”

“That having wild monkey sex with a man is not the same thing as giving up your life for one.” Leaning forward she said in a mock whisper, “In other words, go for it.” Straightening, she winked at Ryan. “See you later.” Waving perfectly manicured fingernails, she walked right out of the kitchen.

Leaving Ryan alone with the woman he couldn’t seem to get enough of.

“I meant what I said,” Suzanne said to him, turning her back, busying her hands with something in a bowl. “I don’t need a man.”

Only a few weeks ago, Ryan would have said he didn’t need a woman, either. But there was a churning in his gut when he looked at her that he’d never experienced before, a need. An insatiable hunger.

Oh yeah, he needed a woman. He needed her.

“I don’t need anyone,” she added into the silence.

“So you’ve said.” Moving in close, he put his hands on her hips. He liked putting his hands on her, and it was time she knew it. He peeked over her shoulder into the bowl, and his poor, neglected stomach growled. “What’s cooking?”

She sighed, but didn’t move away.

Progress, he decided.

“You’re hungry,” she said with another sigh. “Of course you are, you worked like a dog today. Have a seat and I’ll-”

The lights flickered once and went out.

Suzanne gasped, and Ryan gently squeezed his fingers on her hips, touched beyond belief that she’d noticed him working so hard, that in spite of whatever complicated feelings she had, she’d stop everything to see him fed. “You actually made me forget what I came to tell you,” he said. “The electricity is going off for a bit, just while Rafe cuts down a branch too close to the electrical lines. We’d do it tomorrow, but there’s supposed to be a Santa Ana wind coming through. It’s dangerous to wait.”

She whirled to face him, and he caught her scent, the sweet, clean scent that tickled him in his dreams. A strand of her hair clung to his jaw and he held still so that it stayed there.

“But I have to finish cooking. I need electricity to finish.”

“It won’t be long. You still have the candlelight.” Which was meager at best, since there were only three little ones left burning. He’d left his hands on her hips, and fought the urge to glide them over her entire body.

“W-what am I supposed to do in the meantime?”

Hell if that wasn’t a loaded question. “We could talk.”

“It was just a dance,” she said defensively, referring to the party.

“Like the kiss was just a kiss?”

“Yes.” But her breath caught, and in the glow of the candlelight, he looked into her unsure face.

Snagged by that, and the way she felt in his hands, he shifted closer, and when she let out a little murmur of helpless pleasure at the feel of him, he pressed closer still. “Suzanne.” She thought herself some kind of man destroyer, but the truth as he saw it was, she’d been hurt. She didn’t trust easily. She wasn’t someone to toy with. He knew this, just as he knew he should walk away. But he’d already decided he wouldn’t do that.

Instead, he glided his hands up her arms, over her soft throat, to her face, which he cupped, wishing he could see her more clearly. “Suzanne…what’s happening here?”

“I…don’t know what you mean.”

His hips bumped hers, she let out that helpless hum again, and this time he groaned. “You feel it. I know you do.”

“It’s just…” Her breathing quickened, and she put her hands on his shoulders, gripping hard, as if she needed the balance. “It’s just what Taylor said. A healthy need for recreational sex.”

“So if we had sex, right here, right now, you’re saying the need between us would vanish?”

He didn’t need any light to know she stood there with her mouth open, and he let out a groaning laugh, putting his forehead to hers. “Okay, let’s find you a flashlight or more candles so I can get the hell out of here before I take advantage of your unbelievably arousing silence.”

“No one takes advantage of me.” As if to prove that statement, she slid her hands into his hair and fisted them, tugging him closer. Her warm breath brushed his cheek, her long, loose hair slid over his arm.

He nearly inhaled her. God, he could eat her up.

“Come to think of it,” she murmured. “I’ve never taken advantage of anyone either. Funny, because I’ve always wanted to.” She rocked against him. “Think I could take advantage of you, Ryan?”

He went instantly hard, and he opened his mouth to offer himself as a sacrifice when she covered his mouth with hers.

Just like before, instantaneous combustion, and oh man, the feel of her in his hands, against him, letting out that rough little sound in the back of her throat…

Her fingers tightened in his hair, as if she was afraid he’d pull away. Not a chance, he would have told her, if her tongue hadn’t been dancing with his. He wouldn’t have pulled away even if he was suffocating.

Suzanne wasn’t suffocating, she was drowning, in pleasure. She had the cold counter at her back and a hard Ryan at her front, and yet she’d never felt so hot in her life. The lack of light only lent to the intimacy somehow, and that brought her back enough to break away to say on a gasping breath, “This is just what we said, no more, no less.”

“Sex.”

“Just sex. And when we’re done…”

“We’re done,” he finished.

Was she imagining things or did he sound sceptical, as though he didn’t believe it?

“Right.” She was practically panting now, and so was he. “Itch scratched,” she added.

“Right.”

“Promise?” She held his head, squinted through the dark to see his gaze.

“Suzanne…”

“No, you have to promise. You have to because…” She hesitated, then said on a shaky breath, “because I’ve never had ‘just sex’ before.”

He looked shocked, Suzanne thought, very shocked.

“Never?”

“Never,” she admitted. “I want to have sex without getting engaged, Ryan.”

He hesitated, damn him. “No,” she said fiercely. “Don’t hesitate.”

“I feel something for you, Suzanne, something I don’t understand yet and I won’t make a promise I can’t be sure I can keep.”

“You have to,” she said, and heard her own desperation.

“What if more than just sex is better?”

“No. Promise, Ryan. Please.”

For the longest moment, he just looked at her, her dark and beautiful tree man.

“Ryan? Promise me.”

Night had fallen around them, so that without the electricity, there was little but candlelight and the faint glow from the building across the street. The sound of the wind outside the window felt rhythmic, hypnotic, and so did the feel of Ryan engulfing her in his embrace.

When he groaned and pulled her even closer, she melted against him. And some of the odd emptiness she’d been feeling faded. They could do this and be done with it. Get on with their lives. And afterwards, this inexplicable need for each other would just go away.