They did two encores, and when the curtain lowered and the house lights came up, Tess felt victorious. The adrenaline rush was still buzzing through her as the armed guards escorted her among a swarm of others to the same white-draped room where a hundred twenty-five people had been invited for a postconcert champagne reception. Tess was taken straight through to her dressing room, where Cathy was waiting with yet another bottle of chilled water, and to remove her gown and replace it with a tailored trouser suit and silk blouse of Tess's favorite midnight blue-not a sequin or rhinestone in sight. Cathy also had lower-heeled pumps, and her ever-handy makeup bag with her powder brush at the ready. She blotted Tess's hot face, dulled her shining skin with translucent powder, ran a lipstick brush.

When Tess's door closed, Kenny slung an arm over Casey's shoulders and walked her farther down the hall to her room, saw her inside, then took the elevator back down to the fourth.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

In Tess's suite, a single lamp glowed softly in the sitting room at the far end of the sofa. She left it on and walked through to the bedroom where the maids had provided turndown service while she was gone. The bedspread had been removed, the sheets folded down from the center like a paper airplane. On each pillow waited a good-night wish: two chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil.

The sight of the bed, waiting, prepared, raised a fine and welcome tension within her, a sexual impatience that pressed up insistently, bringing his visage to mind-Kenny, in a sleek black tux, come to gaze at her across a crowded room with eyes that matched the suppressed desire in her own. Like water above the rim of a cup, she felt as if the mixture of emotions she held were more than the human vessel could contain. It trembled there, close to overflowing, as she removed the makeup from her flushed cheeks; as she showered and washed her hair; bound it in one towel and dried with another; put on a freesia-scented splash and stared at her dilated, dazzled eyes in the wraparound mirrors.

She touched the freckled hollow between her breasts, her trembling stomach… and assessed herself through his eyes, wanting to please him.

Tonight, she thought.

She put on the thick white robe provided by the hotel, dragged the towel from her hair and finger-combed her damp curls, impatient for his return.

In his room Kenny hung up his tuxedo jacket, removed his bow tie and cummerbund, washed his face, then sat down with a magazine and checked his watch. He'd give her ten minutes before going back up.

He lasted six before realizing he hadn't read a word or turned a page. Tossing the magazine aside he bolted from the chair and pocketed his key card on his way out the door.

The suites at the Regent had doorbells. When he rang hers it was 1:27 A.M.-a bizarre hour to go courting, he thought, but then her lifestyle was bizarre. He wondered how he'd get along blending into it once they were married.

"Kenny?" her voice said softly from inside.

"Yes."

The door opened and there she stood, in bare feet and an oversized white robe, her damp hair rollicking around a scrubbed and shiny face, the smell of flowers coming to the door along with her. Without a touch of the artifice she'd worn onstage she was even more beautiful to him.

She said very simply, "I thought you'd never get here," and he stepped inside, against her, blindly swatting the door closed behind him. Their embrace was a collision with her up on tiptoe and his arms lashed hard around her, lifting her free of the floor. Their first kiss was a desperate thing without finesse-two starving people with mouths open and bodies straining to make up for all the time apart. Then he lowered her till her toes gained purchase again, and like bends of a knot they turned into one another, trying to make two halves into a whole. The kiss changed directions as they tried a new slant on an old pleasure. She made a tor-tured sound, burrowing upward as if close were not close enough.

There were words pressing to be spoken, but their lips scarcely parted. "I thought I'd die before we could do this," she said within the satin folds of the kiss. "All those people…"

"And all I wanted to do was this." He wandered her face, his teeth taking nips of her upper lip, the edge of a nostril, her eyebrow-illogical places that only a man in love would prize. "I wanted to kick them all out!" he ranted. "Every last one of them! I kept thinking they didn't have any right to you! You were mine, not theirs!"

She smiled, loving how he'd felt exactly as she had.

Enough talking. Talking wasted lips that had better things to do, randy, wild things they'd been imagining doing together. He found her mouth again and covered it, tasting, holding nothing back. His hands slid down her back and captured her low, like an inverted heart, hauling her high and hard against him.

The intensity, of course, could not be sustained. Like any glut, it filled them, and soon they needed something less. His embrace slackened and her heels touched the floor. They drew apart and their gazes caught at close range. One of them laughed-it was he, murmuring, "We're awful, aren't we?"

She laughed, too. "Yes, and isn't it wonderful?" His arms were doubled lightly beneath her shoulder blades while they took the time to gaze at each other as they had not when he first came in, to appreciate the face of the other, turned perfect by love. The kiss resumed, gentler than before, now that the first desperation was gone. Their hands began roving. His back was smooth cotton, hers was rough terry. They explored with palms spread flat, reacquainting, thrilling each other with the simplest of touches. Time flowed into the wee minutes of the night while they remained near the door where only dim light found them from the lamp across the room. He reached to untie her belt, but she caught his hand between them and looked into his eyes.

"I have to know first… about you and Faith."

He said, with neither smile nor regret, "I've asked her to take her things out of my house. It's all over between us."

"Really? All over?"

"I'd never lie to you, Tess, not about that." Then he added, "Not about anything."

She knew he wouldn't. He had never been anything less than truthful about himself and Faith, right from the beginning.

She released his hand and a moment later the belt dropped to the floor. He reached inside and found her warm skin. Fragrance lifted from it as his hands caught her waist and his wrists parted the terry robe. He gave a gentle tug and she bumped up against him, resting there lightly while their bodies formed a wishbone and their eyes engaged in playful approval, just this side of full intimacy. She was supple and compliant, catching him behind the neck and leaning back while they swayed a little, all hurry gone.

"You smell good," he murmured, still gripping her waist as if to lift her into a carriage where none waited. Only her bed waited in the other room. And they, in this one, pretended nonchalance.

"I put something on for you. Freesia."

"Freesia. Where?"

"Everywhere."

They took some time to flirt with the suggestion, to let it play upon their libidos while their bodies swayed in a lazy figure eight. She thought he would bend down and kiss her, perhaps between her breasts, but instead he gathered her close once more, and putting his face to her neck, threaded his arms inside the robe, caressing her sleek warm back not only with his hands, but with his starched sleeves as well. He ran them along her sides, a crisp contrast to the smoothness of his palms as they slid down the slope of her spine to her naked buttocks. And from there one hand shifted at last to her breast and held its precious weight like a fruit warmed by the sun. It seemed forever they'd been imagining this first naked touch. Now it was here, better than imagined, spreading warmth and want deep within them. For a long while they paid homage to the moment, holding still everywhere else, absorbed in the pleasure of nothing more than his hand cupping her breast. Then her head fell back, her eyes closed and she put her hands in his hair, holding his head while down the gap in her robe he fit her bare body to his clothed one.

"I missed you so much," she told him.

"I missed you, too," he said, bringing his other hand into play. "So much…"

"After I left Wintergreen it was…" His thumbs moved and she shuddered once, and lurched, then let herself fall forward against both of his hands. "It was…" The word escaped her. All words escaped her. "It was…"

"It was hell," he whispered for her.

"Yes… it was hell."

Her forehead rested against his chin and his breath beat against her uncombed hair. Her hand dropped between them, playing over the worsted wool of his trousers, learning his shape within his clothing.

"Tess…" he breathed, before silence became their ally. Only silence, mingling with his disbelief that he was here with this woman, doing this incredible thing, feeling her hands on him after all the years she had been far, far beyond reach.

"Take me to bed, Kenny," she whispered.

He was struck by a broadside of awe, realizing who she used to be-the Tess from his past. Who she'd become-Mac, the superstar, adored by millions. And who he'd become-the man she wanted as fully as he wanted her.

She sensed a change in him and looked up. "Kenny?" she whispered, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. It just…" He appeared momentarily beleaguered. "It just hit me where I am, and who I'm with, and what you just said… and I'm human enough to be a little stunned by it, that's all."

"Don't be too stunned," she murmured softly. "It's just me, Tess."