"Are you joking?" His voice was hoarse.

She slowly shook her head. "Have I shocked you?"

He took a step back, shaking his head. He’d obviously decided not to believe her.

"You did ask me to tell you what I was thinking about."

"Yeah, well…"

"I’m not embarrassed."

Her face was the color of the red T-shirt.

"No reason to be," he stammered.

"Nick?"

"What?"

"What do you think about what I just said?"

He didn’t answer her. She pushed the covers aside and got out of bed. He quickly backed away from her. Before she could blink, he was halfway across the room. "I’m not going to attack you."

"Damn right you’re not."

She took a step toward him. "Nick…"

He cut her off. "Stay right where you are, Laurant." He pointed his finger at her as he gave the order… or, rather, shouted it. And he kept backing away until he bumped into the television, which would have crashed to the floor had it not been bolted to the wall. She was mortified. He was acting as though he was afraid of her. She certainly hadn’t anticipated such a bizarre response. Disbelief maybe, even anger. But fear? Until this moment, she hadn’t believed Nick was afraid of anything.

"What’s the matter with you?" she whispered.

"It’s out of the question. That’s what’s the matter with me. Now stop it, Laurant. Stop it right this minute."

"Stop what?"

"Talking crazy."

Too embarrassed to look him in the eyes, she bowed her head and stared at the floor tiles. It was too late to take the words back or pretend she hadn’t said them, and so she decided to make everything a hundred times worse and tell him everything.

"There’s more," she said, her voice whisper soft.

"I don’t want to hear it."

She ignored his protest. "When you kiss me, I get this funny, tingling feeling in my stomach, and I don’t want you to stop. I’ve never felt that way before. I just thought you should know." She heard him groan but couldn’t make herself look at him yet. "And you know what’s really odd?"

"I don’t want to-"

She interrupted him, desperate to get the declaration out before she lost her courage. "I think I’m falling in love with you."

She dared a quick look up to see how he was taking the announcement and wished to God she hadn’t bothered. To his credit, he didn’t look like he was afraid of her any longer. No, now he looked like he wanted to kill her. It wasn’t what she would consider a step in the right direction.

She seemed driven to make it worse. "No, I’m not falling in love with you. I do love you," she stubbornly insisted.

"When the hell did that happen?" he demanded. The anger in his voice stung like a whip. She flinched and blinked away the tears in her eyes.

"I don’t know." She sounded bewildered. "It just did. I certainly didn’t plan it. You’re all wrong for me," she said. "I couldn’t handle an affair. I want it all, marriage till death do us part, and I want babies. Lots of babies. You don’t want any of that. I understand we don’t have a future together, but I thought that if I could persuade you to make love to me just this one time, that it would be enough. It wouldn’t change anything."

"The hell it wouldn’t."

"Oh, for heaven’s sake, stop shaking your head at me. Forget I mentioned it. And by the way, I find your reaction insulting. I thought that you felt… that you cared as much as I… oh, never mind. A simple ‘no thank you’ would have sufficed. You didn’t need to let me know how appalled you are by the notion of sleeping with me."

"Damn it, Laurant, try to understand."

"I do understand. You’ve made your position perfectly clear. You don’t want me."

"Are you crying?" The question sounded like a threat.

She’d die before she admitted it. "No, of course not." She wiped the tears from her face, but it didn’t stem the tide. "It just looks that way."

"Ah, Laurant, don’t cry," he begged.

"It’s my allergies." A sob escaped. "I need a tissue."

She tried to walk past him to the bathroom, but he reached for her and pulled her toward him. She collapsed against his chest and let the tears come. He wrapped her in his arms, kissed the top of her head, then her forehead.

"You listen to me, Laurant." He sounded like a drowning man desperate for help. "You don’t know what you’re saying. You don’t love me. You’ve been through hell and you’re frightened, and your emotions are all mixed up now."

He knew what was happening to her. She was mistaking gratitude for love. Easy to do, given the circumstances. Yes, that was it. She couldn’t love him. She was too good for him, too sweet, too perfect. And he didn’t deserve her. He had to stop this now, before it was too late.

"I know what’s in my heart, Nick. I love you."

"Stop saying that."

He sounded angry, but he was kissing her fervently at the same time, and he was being so very gentle. She didn’t know how to interpret the mixed signals. She couldn’t stop holding him, touching him.

"Sweetheart, please stop crying. It’s making me crazy."

"My allergies are acting up," she cried against his collarbone.

"You don’t have allergies," he whispered as he brushed his lips against her neck. He loved her scent. She smelled like flowers and soap and woman.

He was lost and he knew it. He cupped the sides of her face with his hands and gently kissed the tears away. "You are so lovely," he whispered, and his mouth covered hers, demanding and urgent now, unrelenting, his tongue stroking hers. He began to tremble like a young man experiencing his first attempt at lovemaking. Only this wasn’t awkward. It was perfect.

God, how he wanted this. And yet there was still a part of him that tried to pretend he was merely offering her comfort. Until his hands slid up under her T-shirt and he was caressing warm, silky skin. The hell with comfort. He wanted her with a burning intensity that shook him to the core and scared the hell out of him.

He couldn’t stop stroking her. She felt so good against him, so soft so right. He was pulling her T-shirt over her head and trying to kiss her at the same time, even as he told her that they couldn’t do anything they would regret in the morning light.

She frantically agreed as she tugged on the snap of his shorts and then pushed them down. Her hands slid back up his thighs and began to caress him intimately.

Her fingers were magical, the feather light touch against his groin exquisite torture. He was hard and throbbing, and when he knew he wouldn’t last another minute if she kept stroking him, he grabbed her hands and lifted them up around his neck. Then he roughly pressed against her, and the feel of her soft full breasts against him was damn near his undoing. Velvety skin rubbed against his as he tried to devour her with his mouth.

He pulled away from her. "Wait, I’ve got to protect you," he whispered and then went into the bathroom to get what he needed from his shaving kit. He returned and paused for a moment. "Laurant, I…" Any second thoughts he may have had vanished when she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him.

They fell into bed together, all legs and arms. He shifted positions so that he lay on top of her, nudging her thighs apart so he could rest between them. He lifted his head and looked at her swollen lips and was suddenly overwhelmed by her beauty.

His hand cupped one breast, his fingers slowly circling the hard nipple. She let out a little gasp and closed her eyes, letting him know she liked that, and so he did it again and again as he watched her aroused response.

He was determined to slow the tempo, to give her as much pleasure as he could before he surrendered.

"I have wanted you for the longest time," he whispered. "From the moment I saw you, I wanted those long legs of yours around me. It’s all I could think about."

His face was dark with passion, and his blue eyes glittered dangerously. She gently trailed her fingertips down the line of his hard jaw, then his throat.