Wild, yes, but still so infinitely tender and loving, she found tears welling up in her eyes. Feeling so good had never felt so lovely as well.

"I've wanted this for a long time, Wyatt," she whispered.

"So have I."

It wasn't an admission of love, but as he slid home again, touching her somewhere deep inside, she felt pretty sure that was more than desire gleaming in his eyes.

Lily wrapped her legs around his lean hips, wanting to hold him closer, to imagine she could keep him right there, joined with her, forever. Their movements grew more frenzied, and before long, he took her to the very highest height for a third time. And this time when the physical bliss bubbled up and burst inside her, Wyatt let himself go, too.

Lily fell asleep almost immediately. It had been a long day, of course, but he had the feeling she'd just been wrung out by the responses of her own body.

Judging by how lethargic and sated he was himself, he completely understood.

He made no move to disentangle their bodies, liking that she slept while he was still inside her. He did, however, roll a little to the side, tugging her with him so he bore her weight instead of the other way around. Studying her beautiful face in the moonlight spilling in from the front window, he found himself wondering why this time, with this woman, seemed so different from any other time he'd had sex before.

Was it the emotional connection he felt to her? Was it true, what the poets said, that adding that single ingredient had taken an act he had always enjoyed but never lost his mind over, and made it the earthshaking interlude they'd just shared? Is it because you 're in love with her?

Maybe, because he undoubtedly was. Wyatt hadn't planned to be-he didn't particularly want to be-but it had happened.

"I know what you're thinking," she whispered, though he had thought she was still asleep.

"You do?"

"You're thinking you're hungry."

He laughed softly. "No, I suspect that's what you're thinking."

"Oh, yeah, right. That’s me." She yawned, her eyes still closed, and nuzzled closer to him, her head tucked into the curve of his neck. "So what is on your mind?"

"Just wondering what I'm going to do with you now that I've got you."

Her rumble of laughter said she didn't take his slightly bewildered comment the wrong way. She knew him too well; Lily had to realize this wasn't what he'd planned for, what he'd wanted. "That's easy. You have to keep me."

Keep her? Be with her? Have a normal life with her?

Wyatt's amusement faded a little. Because those things implied a future, commitment, all the things he knew he wasn't cut out to have.

She seemed to sense him pulling back. Lily kissed his shoulder and added, "I'm joking, Wyatt. You know I have no expectations."

"You should," he told her, meaning it entirely. "You should expect more. You deserve the whole works, someone younger and more open. Someone who wants the same thing you do."

"What might that be?"

"A nice, steady, normal life. One that's peaceful and includes a house with a white picket fence."

"I prefer a security gate and motion detectors," she said, pulling back to emphasize that with a stare. "And frankly, I consider a nice, normal life to be sitting with you outside in the middle of the night, wishing I wasn't craving a cigarette while you tell me about the psycho killer you're going after next."

He barked a helpless laugh. 'That's pretty demented."

"Maybe. It's also as honest as I can be. If you think I'm holding out for a marriage proposal, babies, and a house in the suburbs, you can think again. I'm not sure I'll ever want any of those things."

"Which is a good thing, since I already know I don't."

She stared, and he almost regretted laying that out so baldly. But the last thing he would do was lead her on.

"Why not?" she asked, no longer half teasing. On the surface, her question might seem a simple one, but with those two words, she was asking so much more.

He understood. She wanted to know the truth, not about his future and how it might include her. No, Lily was asking about his past, what had shaped him, made him who he was, and led him to make those kinds of decisions about what the rest of his life would be. She'd respected his privacy, kept out of it, not intruding on what was none of her business. But now he was her lover, she'd moved into his innermost circle, and she deserved to know.

Wyatt never spoke about it. Not ever. Nor did he plan to now. At the very least, though, Lily was entitled to a brief explanation, if only in gratitude for the way she hadn't researched him or pushed for answers before now.

The subject wasn't one for warm, cozy, after-sex talk. He slid out from under her, sitting up on the bed. Lily reached for him, sliding her hand down his back, caressing his bare hip. Glancing over his shoulder at her, he said, "I'll discuss this only once."

She nodded. "Understood."

"And this conversation will not evolve into a discussion about feelings or emotions or psychobabble about poor-little-me. I don't need sympathy over how screwed up my childhood must have been or speculation that it drove me to become the man I am today. I know all that already. Do you understand?"

"Of course I do," she said simply. "I've always known that, even without knowing what exactly happened."

He didn't hedge, didn't soften it. Instead, he simply explained as briefly and succinctly as possible, as if describing a case, something that had occurred to another family, another son.

"You know they call it the murder house."

Her hand stilled on his hip. "Yes."

"My father died in that house," he admitted. "He was killed there, shot down right on the back patio."

Lily closed her eyes and shook her head. "I'm so-"

He cut her off. "My mother was the one who killed him."

This time, she made no soft gestures of comfort, offered him no look of pity. Pure, unadulterated shock twisted her features as she slowly sat up. In the long, silent moment that followed, Lily moved to the edge of the bed to sit beside him, staring at the floor, absorbing it, inexorably changed by the knowledge.

It did change everything, didn't it? Learning your new lover's father had been murdered by his mother?

That was only part of it, though. Finally, Wyatt felt she was ready to hear more, and he was ready to say it, wanting only to get through it, get it over with, so it never had to be discussed again. "My father was a rich, spoiled playboy and my mother was out of her element. Her family was well-off, but nowhere in his league. She didn't know how to handle it, didn't know how to turn a blind eye to his affairs, which came one after another."

She closed her eyes briefly.

"Finally he had one too many. She followed him to the beach house and watched him with his latest mistress. After the woman left, she went to confront him. The next thing I heard was a gunshot-"

She gasped. "My God, you were there?"

"Of course. I was the boy who survived, remember?"

A mumbled curse told him she did remember the words the drunk man had said at the restaurant. A sad little sniff told him she was crying about it. Apparently, she remembered all of the drunk's words …the boy they found covered in blood.

He forced himself to go on, remaining focused on the here and now, relating this just as if it were one of his cases. "I don't believe she was really insane, despite what that idiot at the restaurant started to say."

"I don't doubt it. People do desperate things when they're hurt."

He nodded, glad she understood. "She was very hurt. She hated what he did, but she had loved him wildly.

And he was gone-she'd killed him. Strangely enough, though, she knew one thing: She did not want to live without him. Not even for my sake. So she took me down to the beach, walking in the surf as she cried and raged and figured out what to do."