When she was standing no more than a caress away, he lifted a hand and tenderly brushed his knuckles against her cheek. “I can’t make promises. You know that.”

“I’m not asking for any,” she whispered, her eyes downcast so he couldn’t see that, while she wasn’t asking him for promises, she was praying for a miracle. She would take whatever he would give her, but her heart was hoping that would be a lifetime.

Shane tipped her chin up, but before he could comment on what he saw in her gaze, she said, “I’d like to know what it is to have a man want me.”

It was the truth. Sex with William had been infrequent and unsatisfying. Her ex-husband had never set her on fire with a look or a touch. He had viewed their physical relationship as a necessary evil, and she had accepted that with a mix of guilt and relief. It was Shane who had awakened the latent sensuality in her. It was Shane who made her feel like a woman, who made her yearn for a man’s touch-for his touch.

Now he bent his head to hers, his gray eyes glowing with desire. “Lord, Faith,” he said on a growl, “how could any man look at you and not want you?”

He kissed her with barely restrained passion, groaning as she melted willingly against him. With trembling hands he pushed the ivory robe back off her shoulders, exposing her bare skin to his touch. Satin whispered to the floor at their feet, and she was naked in his arms.

His lips trailed along her jaw to her throat as his fingers trailed down her supple back, and lower, to the full curve of her buttocks. He lifted her, fitting her against the erection that swelled and strained against the front of his jeans, letting her know just how much he wanted her.

Faith shuddered with raw anticipation. She gasped at the feel of him pressing intimately against her, and at the feel of her nipples burrowing into his chest hair. Need ribboned through her, brushing every nerve ending to awareness so that when Shane stood her away from his body, she nearly cried out at the sudden deprivation.

Mesmerized, she stared at him, her eyes passion-glazed and heavy-lidded as she watched him slowly lower the zipper of his jeans. Her breath held fast in her lungs as he peeled the denim from his lean hips and let the pants drop to join her robe on the floor. This wasn’t the first time she had seen him naked, but the sight still sapped the strength from her knees. He was beautiful and completely unselfconscious as she feasted her eyes on him.

Time ticked by unheeded. Shane’s gaze roamed as hungrily over Faith’s body as hers did over his. She was utterly feminine, all soft curves and creamy flesh. Her breasts were full, their swollen mauve tips begging for his attention. Her small waist flared into womanly hips. The delta of soft curls at the juncture of her thighs was more red than gold, and Shane’s whole body throbbed with the need to discover the sweet secrets that lay beyond.

Ruthlessly checking his own rampant desire, he reached out and took her hand. If passion was all he could give her, then he would make it as perfect for her as he knew how.

“It’s been a long time for me,” she said shyly.

Shane drew her into his arms and kissed her tenderly. “Don’t worry, honey. I’ll take care of you. Just lie back and let me love you.”

As they sank to the bed, Faith breathed in the mingled scents of potpourri and man. Shane slid down her body, his hands tracing every line and curve of her. He caressed her breasts, his fingers stroking and kneading. Gently he fastened his lips around one nipple and sucked at the eager peak. She moaned and writhed beneath him. Her back arched off the bed, pressing her breast even deeper into the heat of his mouth.

Shane swept one hand down her side and across her hip. His fingers slid through the downy curls that covered her femininity and delved between her parted thighs to stroke the essence of her. She responded with tight little whimpers that spurred him on. His own need was a savage ache in his groin, but his focus was on Faith. Her body was begging for release. He could sense how close to the edge she was, and he coaxed her closer still with his hand and mouth.

“No!” she whimpered, tears of disappointment sliding from the outer corners of her eyes as her pleasure crested abruptly in a blinding flash.

Shane was beside her in an instant to kiss the moisture from her temples. “Shhh, honey, don’t cry. What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?”

“I wanted you… with me.”

“I will be,” he promised, nuzzling her cheek.

“You don’t understand,” Faith mumbled, feeling miserable and inadequate. “That won’t happen for me again, Shane. I-”

“You don’t think so?” he asked, smoothing a hand back through her tousled hair. His smile was uncharacteristically soft. “That was your first trip to heaven, sweetheart, but I promise you it won’t be the last time I take you there tonight.”

He couldn’t promise her much, but that was one pledge he would definitely keep. He was a long way from being finished making love to this lady. His hunger for her was beyond anything he’d ever known. It was a hunger not only to take pleasure but to give it as well.

In the soft glow of lamplight be bathed her with kisses, his lips lingering over every detail of her face, her throat, her shoulders. He drank in the taste of her and the powder-soft rose-petal scent of her, absorbing every detail of her body, every nuance of her response.

Obediently passive beneath his tender assault, Faith discovered she had erogenous zones she had never dreamed of. Shane’s tongue flicking across the inner crease of her elbow made her gasp. A kiss planted on the back of her knee stopped her breathing altogether. And when he parted her thighs and settled his mouth against the most feminine part of her, she thought she would die of the pleasure.

Her first impulse was to push him away, but that response was quickly overruled by need, the need to have him touch her and love her and cherish her in every way he wanted. So she opened herself to his intimate kiss and this time when completion rushed through her, stunning her with shock wave after shock wave, she let herself be swept along on the tide. This time when he came back to her, she greeted him with a smile instead of tears.

“Can I touch you?” she asked softly.

Shane’s eyes darkened from smoke to midnight at her request. He brought her hand up to his chest and abandoned it. “Please do.”

Lovingly Faith stroked her fingertips over his chest, carefully avoiding the bandage on his left shoulder. Feeling wonderfully bold and uninhibited, she leaned over him and flicked her tongue across his flat brown nipple, then sent him a smile that was pure wickedness when he sucked in his breath. Her hand strayed down over his taut belly, following the line of downy black hair that ended in a thicket on his groin.

Gently she closed her hand around his arousal. Her groan of appreciation echoed Shane’s. He was warm and hard, steel sheathed in velvet, throbbing with need for her… as she was for him.

She turned to him with a look of near desperation and breathed his name. Shane needed no more invitation than that. He rolled Faith beneath him and kneeled between her thighs as he took care of protection. An instant later he was sinking into her embrace-the embrace of her arms and the embrace of her womanhood. Lifting her hips into his, she accepted him gradually, her tight warmth closing around him, welcoming him. He closed his eyes for a moment savoring the sensation of sweet bliss.

He loved her tenderly, gently, with slow, deep strokes that seemed to reach to the very heart of her. Faith held him, moved with him, letting her love for him pour out of her every way she could without actually speaking the words. She let her body tell him with each caress, with each sigh. And this time, when the end came for them both, the tears that filled her eyes were tears of love.