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bloodshot, as if he hadn't slept any better than she had.
"Why?" she asked softly. "So you can start on me all over again? Carry on where you left off
yesterday?"
He drew in a slow breath, ramming his hands into his jean pockets as he leaned back against the wall
and stared at her. "I found out everything I wanted to know about you yesterday," he said. "Every
single thing, in the one way I could without the risk of being lied to. I didn't mean to frighten you
quite so badly, but I wanted answers you wouldn't have given me any other way." .
She stiffened. "You mean you did that on purpose?"
He nodded solemnly, "It was a revelation. I had a feeling that you weren't half as sophisticated as I'd
given you credit for being. The first time I kissed you, I had to force you to open your mouth hardly
the response of a woman who knows much about kissing," he added with a faint smile. "And you were
far too devastated by what happened at the lake, as if it was something totally new. It all added up to
one thing. When I kissed you on the way home, the way you reacted clinched it. What I didn't bargain
for," he added on a weary sigh, "was the fear. Surely to God you knew I wouldn't force you?"
"No," she admitted, turning back to the coffeepot. "I didn't know that. You . . .
you were so rough."
_ "Someday you might understand why," he told her. "But I don't think I'll try to explain it right now."
He was across the room in three long strides, his nearness sudden enough to be startling. She could
feel the heat from his body, feel his warm, smoky breath stirring the hair at her temples, but still he
didn't touch her.
She looked up apprehensively, helpless in the pull of his silvery eyes.
"I don't want you to go," he said quietly. "Now that I know the truth, I'll never handle you so roughly
again."
Kindness from him was so new that it was startling. "But, we're enemies," she whispered.
A muscle flinched in his square jaw. "We were," he agreed.
"You don't even like me," she persisted. "Why keep me around to irritate you even more?"
His face relaxed a little. One big, long-fingered hand came out of his pocket to touch, gently, the soft
line of her cheek. "Because, little one," he murmured, "I like the way it makes me feel when I touch
you."
Her cheeks flamed. Her lips parted. "Don't . . ."
He bent, brushing his lips over her forehead, her eyelids, her eyebrows in a silent caress that tingled
with sensation. The whispery touch made her knees feel rubbery.
"You see?" he asked softly, drawing back to catch her stunned expression. "I'm not always rough."
She gazed up at him, fascinated, her eyes wide and very dark and curious.
His breath came roughly as he met that look, and like a man in a trance, his big hands came up to cup
her face and hold it up to his.
"Come close," he breathed, bending toward her again. "I won't hurt you."
She obeyed him because the temptation was too much to resist. She loved the feel of his big body
against hers, its strength and warmth; she loved the touch of his calloused hands against the tender
skin of her face. She loved so much about him. .
. .
He brushed his mouth tenderly over hers, smoothing it, teasing it, and she caught her breath at the
exquisite sensation and drew back an inch.
"Don't draw away," he murmured, his thumbs caressing the corners of her mouth. "It won't be like
yesterday. Come here, darling."
And this time, he made it sound like an endearment. His mouth pressed softly, gently against hers, not
forcing it open, not exerting any kind of pressure at all.
It was the gentlest kind of kiss, and everything womanly in her responded wildly to it.
She eased up on her tiptoes, her fingers resting against his warm chest, feeling the rise and fall of his
heavy breathing. Her eyes closed as she increased the pressure of her own mouth, wanting something
more, something . . . more!
"Please . . . please," she begged, uncertain herself what she was asking of him.
"Are you sure?" he whispered against her pleading mouth. "It won't be this tender if I kiss the way
you're asking to be kissed."
Her eyes lazily slid open and looked up into his. "Oh, yes," she breathed shakily,
"I'm sure . . ."
His fingers tightened at the sides of her head, his own eyes slitted and fairly blazed with hunger.
"Open your mouth for me, darling," he whispered, and she felt his own lips parting even as he spoke,
felt the moist insistence of them on her yielding mouth. Her eyes closed. The world began to spin
around deliciously as she felt his tongue caressing the inner sweetness of her lips. . . .
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