The man had proved irresistible; that was the problem. Lord knew why. Susan hadn’t been looking for love, nor did she appreciate dynamite. Physical men had always put her off. She liked bookworms like herself-men who took off at the speed of light when she said a polite no. Griff didn’t acknowledge the existence of the word.

His hard thigh beneath the nape of her neck spoke for itself, with its tough sinew. Just above that hard thigh was a distinctly masculine appendage that never seemed to tire. Above that were muscular arms and a powerful chest. Yet there was a clever brain beneath all that brawn. Griff had inherited timberland north of Duluth, but he’d built up the two electronic components plants in St. Paul strictly on his own.

Susan’s head tilted sleepily back, and she took a long look at him, just to make sure she hadn’t forgotten any of the rest of her husband’s features while he’d been at work. She hadn’t. A square chin that no one argued with. Beautiful teeth-her own had cost her father a fortune in orthodontia. A straight nose and shrewd brown eyes that saw far too much. Thick, short, brushed-back hair-Norwegian blond, just like the hidden mat on his chest. And elsewhere. His face was still tanned from summer, weathered from thirty-nine years of living, and at times his eyes could darken with pain. Life’s pain. Griff took so damned much in.

He could explode in temper or be gentle as a sleeping lion, but no one could guess, looking at him, how very hungry the man was for love. He was capable of incredible tenderness… Lazily, Susan stretched, her tired muscles protesting against the hardwood floor. Griff’s thighs were a ton more giving.

Orange flames lapped up the chimney, snapping with enthusiasm. The fire cast elusive shadows on the empty bookcases, on the silver sconces over the fireplace, on the elaborate moldings of the ceiling. The room was starkly empty. There was no furniture-only a single bag of marshmallows and the remains of her favorite take-out dinner rested beside the hearth. The bay windows had yet to be curtained; the shelves were begging to be filled. The house was a beginning, just as their marriage was beginning, and Susan felt a crazy mixture of lush happiness and a strange restlessness of wanting to add substance to the dream, reality to the promise.

“Oriental rugs,” she murmured. “We have to have Oriental rugs, Griff. It isn’t the kind of house for wall-to-wall carpeting.”

“Too hard to keep up.”

“Hmm.”

He knew that velvet little “hmm.” An amused smile crossed his features as his finger touched her cheek. She lifted her face to his, baring her throat like a kitten requesting a stroking. The pads of his thumbs traced the soft lines of her cheekbones, then traveled down to the hollow in her throat. Her gray eyes closed.

Griff savored the curly head in his lap, the sweet serenity that Susan so instinctively offered him. He had an urge to tuck her close and wrap her up. Since his divorce four years ago, no other woman had touched him the way Susan had. After the disintegration of his thirteen-year marriage, he hadn’t wanted or expected another woman in his life, ever. Guilt over his children still preyed on him, and he felt an incredible weariness after the long-term marriage in which he had invested so much of himself had gone bad. He was brutally aware that he had more trials than gifts to offer in a relationship. He was not a man to invite any encounter when coming from weakness.

Susan had informed him he was a fool.

Griff knew better.

Yet he would have sacrificed a limb rather than lose Susan, and had felt that way from the instant he met her. The adjustments she would have to make because of his children-well, he would find a way to make that path smoother. There had been no honeymoon. Her choice. And the justice of the peace had been her choice as well. All she wanted were those first two weeks alone with him, she’d pointed out, and she didn’t want some huge period of time before the children were invited into their lives. He’d heard her real message, that frills were not romance for her, that she derived less excitement from champagne and candlelight than she did than from simply being and loving and doing things together. That, for his lady, was romance…

Absently, he glanced out the darkened window. Ancient elms sprawled in the yard. Their leaves, dark green and turning brittle in the September chill, crackled black against the house by night. A restless wind was gathering force outside. “Hurry, hurry,” the trees seemed to say as they hurled themselves against the gale. Winter was coming.

Not in this house. Susan’s castle, he’d named their rambling monster of a place. She’d brought her special brand of warmth to the fortress, a deep, true warmth he had not thought possible in his life. He stirred, stroking her hair one last time, aware of how tired his bride of two weeks was. Working all day in her store, then too many evenings on the new house, and God knew neither of them had spent much time sleeping once they did get to bed.

He was just as tired. A wee little empire, she teasingly called his multitude of business interests. That, her apartment and his, the new house… “Susan,” he murmured.

Her eyes blinked open, a soft pewter gray. “We have to do Barbara’s room first, Griff. Before she comes in two weeks. The boys might not care, but your daughter… We can completely skip the living room for now.”

He propped her up and then smiled as he uncoiled his long legs and stood up. “For now, we can skip all of it. Let’s get this cleaned up and head back to a nice warm bed at the apartment.”

Susan yawned sleepily. “Powder blue or pale green for Barbara?” She sighed. “Tiger’s so easy. A Minnesota Vikings poster and bunk beds.” She hesitated. “Maybe he won’t want bunk beds…”

He bent over to kiss her forehead before gathering up their dinner debris. “Will you stop worrying about them? They’ve been camping out weekends at my place in sleeping bags for ages. None of them care about furniture.”

“Hmm.” She trailed him absently into the kitchen, snatching up the last contact paper scraps from the floor to toss them in the trash.

“I heard that.”

“Pardon?”

She glanced up to see the grin that was so uniquely Griff. One arched eyebrow and a slash of a smile. “Whenever I hear that little ‘hmm,’ I know you’re going to do whatever the hell you want to, regardless of World War Three.”

Her smile was impish. “I never did believe in wars.”

“You just set up minefields in velvet.” He shook his head ruefully and switched off the kitchen light. “We’ve got to put out the fire in the library-”

“Griff.”

She’d had her mind on his three children for days. She was worried about whether or not they would accept her, desperately aware of how important they were to him, and uniquely conscious that their idyllic twosome couldn’t last much longer. She’d known about his kids from the beginning, and she truly wanted to be a second mother to his brood. She might know nothing about child rearing, but she was not afraid of loving, and Griff himself had expanded that capacity for love within her.

Pinpricks of anxiety had gradually haunted more of her waking moments, yet at this instant, at this minute, Griff was standing in shadow, all tough sinew and moonlight-silver hair and dark, beautiful eyes. Hers alone. As male as danger, and sexual in a primitive way. He evoked vulnerability and he evoked desire, both still seeming strangers in Susan’s cool, efficient and well-ordered world. He’d encouraged her to break all her comfortable rules, yet she hesitated now, not sure how to ask for what she wanted. “We really won’t have to go back and forth to the apartment much longer,” she said hesitantly. “The kitchen’s done, and the painting’s finished…”

“We don’t need to rush the move. All our clothes are still at the apartment. We can hardly commute from here to there to change for work.”

“You’re right,” she agreed, turning away.

“We don’t even have a bed in here yet.”

“You’re right,” she repeated, and headed back to the library to take care of the fire. It had been an impulse, a silly, impractical impulse to stay here. To christen the house, just the two of them. In a week, the whole place would be livable-not fully furnished that quickly, but certainly inhabitable. They had a lifetime to spend in the house. There was no hurry.

She crouched down on the marble hearth. Their little fire was now only glowing coals; the large, shadowed room was hauntingly empty behind her. She adjusted the damper, set the screen in front of the fireplace and stood up again, only vaguely aware that Griff hadn’t followed her.

He was there, suddenly, in the shadows of the doorway, with a mound of sleeping bags in his arms and a cold draught of air following him that announced he had just been out to his car. He said nothing for a moment. The wind had whipped his blond hair, and with his square Nordic features and brawny build, she thought of him as Viking, an undeniably physical man with the inner strength of oak…and an incredible gentleness when it came to pleasing her.

“Our room, Susan?”

Something caught in her throat. “How dare you know what I’m thinking even before I do, Griff? I just can’t imagine why I love you.” She volunteered a kiss, took the pillows from the top of his bundle, and volunteered another kiss, then followed him through the dark, silent hall. Their staircase had a landing halfway up, with a long, low built-in window seat to match the long, low windows that stared out on their three acres. Normally, she would have been mentally hanging pictures and stuffing cushions for the window seat as she walked up the stairs. Not tonight.

Tonight her heart was full of Griff, and her mind was totally on him. On the intimate touch between them that she knew was coming. He was the kind of man who tried very hard to guess her every wish, who must have known hours before that she would want to stay here this night. He’d moved mountains to get her the house, just because she wanted it. And he’d moved her own private defensive mountains just to get her, making it very clear he’d be happy to treat her like spun glass if she wanted that. She didn’t. She just wanted…Griff. His happiness was already irretrievably linked to her own.