Mollie followed him inside, her own wine half drunk. She slid onto a stool at the breakfast bar, the counter between them as he stood staring out the window. The crickets had started. She knew he would stay tonight. He’d arranged for the elderly men in his building to take care of his animals, and he’d need to stay close to Croc. He’d left her number with the police. But he’d said nothing about staying, and given his preoccupation, she hadn’t brought it up.

He pulled his gaze from the window and turned to her, his eyes a swirl of color, none of the grays and golds and blues distinct. “Your deep, dark secret’s out, sweet pea.”

“Yes, I know. We’re the subject of intense and lurid gossip.”

“Sorry?”

“Nope. I can get a lot of mileage from having had a mad, weeklong affair with a dark and dangerous Miami reporter. It’ll make me seem more mysterious.” She grinned at him, wondering if he thought she was serious. “I wouldn’t just want to be Leonardo Pascarelli’s goody-two-shoes goddaughter.”

“You think we’re having another mad, weeklong affair,” he said, a palpable seriousness descending over him.

She shrugged, refusing to let his dark mood affect her. “I left my crystal ball in Boston.”

“Mollie…”

“Don’t, Jeremiah. Being honest with me is honorable in and of itself. It allows me to make informed choices. You’re not in the frame of mind to make promises, and I’m not in one to receive them. You’ve taken a hit today.” She eased off the stool, her knees unsteady. “Absorb it first. Then we’ll figure out what next week will bring.”

“When you were twenty, you couldn’t wait to get to next week.”

She laughed. “Nothing like turning thirty to change that. I’m not into hurrying time these days. I’m off to the shower. I still smell like chlorine. If you want, you can throw some darts. I find it relaxing.” She grinned over her shoulder at him as she started down the hall. “Although less so since I took down your picture. It’s tucked in the Yellow Pages if you want to throw a few darts between your own eyes and beat yourself up a little, at least metaphorically.”

He didn’t respond, and she could feel his eyes on her, their intensity making her shudder with awareness on every level, physical, emotional, mental. With Jeremiah, there was no hiding, no pretending, no eluding. From herself, from him.

She darted down the hall and into her bedroom, her body telling her in a thousand different ways that she’d made love to Jeremiah Tabak last night. Her nightmare. Her one dark and dangerous man. Except, after seeing him with his battered young friend, he’d seemed less dark, less dangerous, less volatile and remote and determined never to connect with another human being.

“You’re getting way ahead of the facts,” she warned herself sarcastically and flung open a drawer, staring at her nightgown selection. They came in degrees of utilitarian, some with feminine touches, none with sexy overtones. Well. There was no assurance Jeremiah would even see her in her nightgown. She chose one that was full-length, white cotton, and not too utilitarian, then slipped into the shower, welcoming the stream of hot water on her tensed muscles, the smell of citrus soap and chamomile shampoo. She shut her eyes, forgetting the past, postponing the future, just focusing on the present, her shower, her body.

She toweled off and decided to blow-dry her hair just enough to keep it from becoming a rat’s nest overnight. It was not, she told herself, a delaying tactic. When she returned to her bedroom, she slipped a terry-cloth robe over her nightgown before venturing back to the kitchen and the rest of her wine.

She could hear the rhythmic tossing of darts in the den. She sipped a bit more of her wine and stood in the semidark kitchen, listening. Throwing darts was an effective release, she thought, after a twenty-four-hour period in which you’d been to bed with a woman who’d once, fervently, wished you a long stay in hell and then found a friend in the hospital. Those were enough, without the added complications of a jewel thief, a missing heir, questions from the police, and a journalistic reputation on the line.

When she went into the den, she wasn’t really surprised to see that Jeremiah had pulled out the sofa bed.

“I’ll get sheets,” she said without preamble.

A dart thwacked home. A bull’s-eye. Others, she saw, had gone wide. “Mollie.” His eyes pinned her as surely as any dart. His dark mood hadn’t lifted; if anything, it had intensified. “I want you to know I don’t regret last night. And it wasn’t a fluke.”

“I understand.”

“But I don’t know if I can be what you need.”

“I don’t want you to be what I need.” She walked around the sofa bed and stood in front of him, close, seeing every tensed muscle, every line, every speck of gray in his cropped, dark hair. She imagined that straight line of a mouth on hers, sliding over her body, bringing her to a kind of ecstasy she’d never known with anyone else. “Just be honest with me, Jeremiah, and be who you are. That’s all anyone has a right to ask.”

The straight mouth twitched, almost imperceptibly. “That’s all?”

“Well, who you are is sexy and not exactly celibate and-” She smiled, raising her eyebrows at him. “Do I really need to get sheets?”

“I have amazing self-restraint, you know.”

“About some things, I’m sure.”

“But not about you.” His voice lowered, and he closed the small distance between them. “Not ten years ago, not now.”

He swept his arms around her and caught her with a kiss that rocked her back on her feet. She nearly fell onto the unmade sofa bed. His mouth and hands were suddenly all over her, hungrily devouring any self-restraint she might have had. She exulted in the feel of him, turned her body loose, boldly slipping a hand down his chest, past the waistband of his pants, testing his arousal, teasing him with delicate flicks of her fingertips. Playing with fire.

She wriggled out of her robe. It dropped to the floor. Her nipples were outlined against the translucent fabric of her nightgown. He gave a soft moan, opened his mouth to hers, already lifting her nightgown up to her hips, cupping her bottom with his palms.

And he stopped. It was her turn to moan. “Jeremiah…”

He eased her down onto the bed, and she fell back against the cool mattress, her nightgown up around her hips. Slowly, languorously, proving he could make this last as long as he wanted, he slid his fingers between her legs, found where she was wet and hot, and did a little delicate flicking of his own. Even when her breath was coming in gasps and she was grabbing at his back, he didn’t pull back. Instead, he followed with his tongue.

He pushed her nightgown up with one hand while the other kneaded the warm, firm flesh of her bottom, while his mouth continued to plunder. She made short work of getting her nightgown off, tossing it aside.

She heard him unzip his pants. “Yes, now, now.”

In one swift movement, he was free, driving into her, lifting her hips up on him, her legs squeezing him as she responded wildly, everything fast now, furious, total delirium setting in.

Hours later, or seconds, she was clinging to him, limp, spent, aware of a cool breeze floating through the windows and her mind drifting.

A decade ago, they’d made love like that. No wonder she hadn’t forgotten.

“You’re cold,” he said, his voice ragged.

“That’s because you still have your shirt on and I don’t have anything on.”

He smiled. “I noticed.”

“So,” she said, still breathless, yet every muscle loose, warm, “do I fetch the sheets or do you think maybe we can dare sleep together? I mean, at twenty I could do this ten times in a night. But now…” She grinned at him, running one finger along his jaw. “I don’t know, once or twice more might not kill me.”

He popped up off the sofa bed, laughing. “Innocent flute player, my ass. You were a wanton woman ten years ago, and you’re one now. I’m going to take a shower and rebandage my poor cut thumb. Then, darlin’,” he said with a wink, “we’ll see who’s not twenty anymore.”