He didn’t stop until she came at least once again and was listless and breathless, begging him softly to give her a moment.

He turned onto his back, unzipped his shorts, and took them off. Seeing his erection made her smile drowsily. Reaching for him, she traced the rigid length with her fingertips, her touch as light as a whisper. He groaned and tried to move her hand aside. But she began to stroke him, and when her thumb pressed the smooth tip, his breath hissed through his teeth. “Stop, please. I don’t have anything.”

“I’m aware of that.” She moved onto him and slowly bent her head over his lap.

He thought the sexiest sight he’d ever seen was Britt’s damp hair spread loose and shiny across his stomach and thighs. But it wasn’t. Even sexier was when she gathered her hair in one hand and held it back so he could watch as her lips closed around him.

He heard his first gasped expletive when her tongue found the slit. And stayed. And kept on doing what it was doing until any sounds he made were completely involuntary and incoherent.

From that point forward, he didn’t know what else he said, or if he said anything, because the sensations that assailed him rendered him mindless to anything except this, this incredibly erotic experience that was all the silky wet dreams he’d ever had concentrated into one.

Sexier still was after he climaxed, when she pulled him over onto her. He lay his head on her breasts while he caught his breath and let his fever cool. It was so good, feeling her fingernails idly scratching his back, the gentle rise and fall of her breasts beneath his head, the beat of her heart against his cheek.

Finally he lifted his head and surveyed the exquisite terrain. He grazed her nipple with his lips. “They’re always slightly raised.”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“It’s maddening.”

“You didn’t buy the right kind of brassiere.”

“That depends on your point of view.”

Her soft laughter turned into a whimper of pleasure when he touched her lightly with his tongue, then sucked her into his mouth. Her legs folded across his back, hugging him close. That was sexy as hell.

But the sexiest yet was when he lowered his mouth to hers. It was a lazy kiss that went on forever, a melding of their mouths, an exchange of tongues, intensely intimate, dangerously evocative.

He got hard against her belly, and he wanted to be inside her so damn bad his heart ached for it as much as his body did. He had just enough willpower to resist burying himself again in the snug, wet heat he remembered from that one time that had been way too rushed, too brief.

He had to content himself with her nakedness beneath him, and with her matching desire, which manifested itself when she gripped his ass and pulled him tightly to her, groaning something about life not being fair.

She said, “You could-”

“I could, but I wouldn’t. Once inside you, I know I wouldn’t.”

So they had to settle for kissing, touching, and eventually spooning, his arm across her waist, their hands clasped between her breasts.

Just before drifting off, he whispered sleepily, “I may like you a little.”

BRITT?”

“Hmm?”

Raley, already up and dressed, leaned down and rubbed the curve of her hip. “Get up. Time to go.”

Squinting against the cruel glare of the overhead light, she rolled onto her back and came up on her elbows. Shaking her tousled hair off her face, she yawned. “What time is it?”

The bedcovers dropped to her waist. Her breasts were within reach and looked oh-so-touchable. But he resisted. “Just after six.”

“Six? It’s only a two-hour drive to the capitol.”

“That’s right.” He grinned at her bafflement. “I’ll explain in the car. Come on. Haul ass.”

Fifteen minutes later, as he drove away from the motor court, he noticed her yawning again. “Did I get you up too early?”

“You kept me up too late.” Then, smiling shyly, she looked across at him. Their gazes held for several seconds, but neither remarked on what had transpired between them last night. None of it. Not their fight. Not their first heated embraces. But especially not…

No, don’t even think about that. Like her sleep-flushed breasts, it was a distraction he couldn’t allow himself this morning.

She said, “I’m surprised.”

“At what?”

“Your bringing me along. I intended to come, but not without an argument.”

“After what you did to Butch and Sundance’s car last night, they’ll be breathing fire this morning. I was afraid to leave you alone.”

“They couldn’t have followed us.”

“I wasn’t willing to take even the outside chance.”

“You would worry about me?”

He gave her a look, and the smile she sent back was as good as a caress.

Well, almost. Not quite. Her caresses were mind-blowing.

He turned his attention back to the road and concentrated on his driving.

“How do you plan to sneak me into the capitol?” she asked. “I’ll be arrested on the spot.”

“I have a plan.”

“Good to know. But I have one, too.”

“What’s that?”

“Pull in there.”

“Wal-Mart?”

It was one of the chain’s superstores, open twenty-four hours. Since the sun was barely up, there were only a few other cars in the vast parking lot. He wondered what this was about but did as she asked.

She opened the glove box and rifled through the contents: the paperwork he’d got when he bought the car, the owner’s manual, a folded state map, a card about air bag safety. She ripped a blank page from the back of the manual. “Do you have something to write with?”

He didn’t, but a former owner had left behind a ballpoint pen. It was almost dry, and the tip had lint on it, but it was usable enough for her to scratch several words onto the paper. Passing it to him, she said, “Your shopping list. If they don’t have that particular brand in stock, it’s okay to buy another so long as it has the same features. I’ll reimburse you, of course.”

He read what she’d written, then nodded his understanding. “Keep your head down. I won’t be long.”

In less than ten minutes he returned with a package tucked under his arm and carryout cups of coffee in both hands. Once they were under way again, she placed her coffee in the cup holder and began unpacking the shopping bag. Raley watched out of the corner of his eye as she tore into the box containing the camcorder.

“Do you know how to use it?”

“Do I know how to use it,” she muttered with scorn. Then she told him about the smaller stations where she’d got on-the-job training in every aspect of broadcast news. Some of the work had been menial.

When she finished, he said teasingly, “If this TV thing doesn’t work out for you, you can always go back to sweeping floors.”

“Ha-ha.” She plugged an adapter cord into the car’s cigarette lighter so the camcorder battery could charge. She adjusted the small video screen that served as a viewfinder, fiddled with the zoom, and tested the built-in microphone. “I’ve operated cameras more sophisticated. This one is a no-brainer. I’m no Spielberg, you understand, but I’ll get an image and audio. Besides, I’ve got hours to practice.”

“You’ve got less than two,” he said.

“But the appointment isn’t until eleven.”

“That’s when the appointment is, but that’s not when we’re meeting with the attorney general.”

“How did you know where he lives?” Britt asked when Raley pointed out the stately, red-brick Colonial. They cruised past it slowly, then continued down the street and turned at the next corner.

“After he was elected, I followed him home from the capitol one day.”

“To confront him?”

“No, just to seethe. I had a lot of time on my hands, nothing else to do but stoke my bitterness. His career had soared at my expense. At Suzi Monroe’s expense. I resolved to set things right one day.”