His fingers stirred in her hair, and he was amazed to find it so thick and lush, and so soft to his touch. When his fingers settled on her scalp, he massaged it tenderly. His lips touched her ear.

“I’ve been so worried about you.”

As though grasping his concern as something rare and precious, Rana’s fingers curled into the front of his shirt. Through it she could feel the warmth of his skin, the shape of his hard muscles, the crinkly texture of his chest hair.

“Where did you go, Ana?”

The pseudonym was foreign to her, and for a moment she couldn’t imagine why he was calling her by the wrong name. Then she remembered. The name was a lie. It was as phony as the rest of her. Her whole life had been a string of fakeries, a tapestry of superficiality. At that moment she longed for nothing more than to hear her name, Rana, from Trent ’s lips. She wanted to feel his breath as he spoke her name against her ear. She wanted to see her name forming on his lips.

“Why are you crying? Where have you been?”

“Don’t ask me, Trent.”

“I find you crying alone in the dark. How can you expect me to ignore that? Tell me what’s wrong. Can I help? Where have you been and why did you go without saying good-bye to me?”

She pushed herself away from him and sniffed. Unabashedly she wiped her face with the backs of her hands. Suddenly she realized she wasn’t wearing her glasses. But he wouldn’t recognize her tear-bloated eyes in the darkness.

“I had to go out of town to a friend’s funeral.”

He waited a moment, then laid his arm across her shoulders. He ran the back of his index finger down her cheek, picking up tears that her fists had left behind. “I’m sorry. Was it a close friend?”

“Very.”

“A sudden death?”

She covered her face with her hands again. “Yes, yes.” She moaned. “A suicide.”

Trent hissed a curse, and the hand resting on her shoulder tensed. He tucked her head beneath his chin again. “That’s tough. I know. Before I played for the Mustangs, I had a buddy on another team. His knees got so banged up, they finally told him he couldn’t play ball anymore. He shot himself. I know just how you feel.”

“No, you don’t,” she cried angrily, shoving herself out of his arms and standing abruptly. “You weren’t to blame for your friend’s death.” She tried to make it to the stairs, but he caught up with her and, grabbing her arm, spun her around.

“Are you saying you were to blame for this suicide?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t believe that,” he said firmly, shaking her slightly. “You can’t take responsibility for someone else’s life. No one can.”

“Oh, Trent, tell me that until I believe it.” Her hands folded around his steely biceps, and she gazed up at him imploringly. “Repeat it a thousand times if that’s what it takes to convince me.”

He wrapped his arms around her and drew her close, holding her against him tightly. “It’s true. Believe me. If this friend was inclined toward self-destruction, there was little you could have done except possibly delay it.”

“I let him down when he needed me. ”

“Most people learn to cope with disappointments. You’re not to blame that your friend didn’t.”

He closed his arms around her and held her for a long time, rocking her slightly back and forth. “Better now?” he asked softly.

“Yes. The hurt is still there, but it isn’t so sharp.”

He had turned them so that her back was to the wall. She leaned against it, but left her arms resting lightly on Trent ‘s shoulders. He pressed his lips to her neck.

“I’m only sorry that you had to suffer over this.”

Unconsciously she let her head tip backward. “Thank you. I haven’t been able to talk to anyone about it. I needed this… needed you.”

“Then I’m glad I was here.”

His caresses had gone beyond consolation and were now of another nature entirely. “So am I. ”

“Ana?”

“Hm?”

He gazed down at her, his expression filled with wonder. “Ana?”

Then his mouth was on hers, hot and hard and urgent. Imprisoning her face between his hands, he slanted his lips across hers. He made a low, growling, hungry sound deep in his throat.

Rana’s hands clenched on his shoulders, taking up handfuls of fabric. She turned her head away and gasped, “No.”

“Yes.”

He gave her no other chance to protest. His mouth was commanding as it trapped hers in a kiss that robbed her of will.

Her body went weak, and she would have slumped against the wall, had his hard form not been pressed against her, holding her up.

Her arms folded around his neck. She answered the low mating sounds that emanated from his chest with murmurs of want-primal, untamed, untutored want.

His tongue slipped inside her mouth, and it was as though her mind exploded in a riot of color and light. The warm, damp, velvety-rough texture of his tongue was new and delicious to her. She allowed it the liberties it seemed to take as its due. Its searching thrusts elicited thrilling sensations throughout her body. Her breasts tingled. Behind them, her heart was thudding with the deep bass pounding of a timpani.

They paused to breathe, looked at each other with astonishment, then fell on each other again. Having had that first taste, they were hungrier than ever, and ate at each other’s mouths.

Trent was the aggressor, but Rana was more than compliant. Hers was a greediness stemming from ignorance and deprivation. Her young husband had never kissed her with this kind of unbridled desire. Other men wouldn’t have dared.

Trent knew no such restriction. His mouth twisted over hers repeatedly. He couldn’t get enough of kissing her. And soon kissing wasn’t enough.

His hands slid down her arms to her waist. With a quick, savage motion, he yanked her up against him and ground his front against the cleft between her thighs.

“I want you,” he growled as his mouth traced a fiery path down the column of her neck.

“We can’t.”

“We will.”

“Where’s Ruby”

“We’re alone.”

“But-”

“No arguments. You and I both knew this was destined to happen.”

And she had known. From the moment she had stepped out of her room and seen him in the hallway, she had known that Trent Gamblin posed a threat to her. Not a sinister threat, but a threat nonetheless. She had known in that instant, when she first looked into his chocolate-colored eyes and fell victim to his charming smile, that he would change her life. Now she resigned herself to that fate… but resignation had little to do with her acquiescence when he laid his hands on her breasts. Her eyes closed as he massaged her nipples gently, rubbing in slow circles, dragging his thumbs back and forth across them until he got the reaction he wanted. Even then, he continued the love play as he nestled his face in her neck and let his mouth coast back and forth over her fragrant, warm skin.

He unbuttoned her blouse with frantic clumsiness, eager to see what his hands had discovered. He had known she wasn’t wearing a bra, but he was pleasantly surprised by the lacy sheerness of her slip.

“My God,” he breathed as he stepped back to look at what he had uncovered. He wished for a light, because what he imagined he saw were incredibly beautiful breasts, not large, but full and well shaped. They filled the cups of the slip with skin that looked creamy enough to drink and nipples as sweet and lovely as baby rosebuds.

With his fingertips barely touching the lace, he caressed her, this dream woman who lived inside the ugly clothes. Except she was real. This wasn’t another of the fantasies he had had to rely on to put him to sleep lately. This was actually happening. He was touching her.

Through the lace her skin was warm. And when he lightly stroked the delicious-looking crests, they responded in a way that made his sex surge to ready hardness. He actually groaned with the force of his longing. He peeled. down the straps of her slip and, with a sound that was part sigh, part moan, took one tight peak into his mouth.