“Don’t stop,” she said, pushing herself lower and lifting her hips higher as her nails dug into his skin. “I want this, Grey. I want to feel all of you inside me.”

Their eyes locked together, Grey thrust himself through her virgin’s barrier and captured her scream in his mouth. He didn’t stop until he was deeply, completely inside her. Only then did he give her a chance to adjust to him.

He waited until she moved first.

And then Grey began a gentle rhythm that only served to harden him more, as he sank deeper into her welcoming softness. Light slowly filled the summit house, blinding him to everything but this act of possession. Time was suspended. Energy sparked around them. Wave after wave of emotion coursed through his body as they rocked together, igniting a fire that touched the very center of his soul. Grey threw back his head with the force of his pleasure as he finally released his seed deep inside her.

He relaxed on top of her with a sigh, grateful that his brain still functioned enough to remember not to crush her completely. He gently kissed her forehead, then slowly rolled off their comfortable nest of pillows, onto the cold, hard surface of the concrete floor.

He closed his eyes while he caught his breath, one arm slung over his face to shield the light of the hearth, the cold floor cooling his trembling, overheated body.

Grace Sutter now belonged to him.

And Baby, he knew for a fact, did not belong to her.

She wasn’t regretful. A bit disappointed, maybe, that what had started out so nicely had ended so painfully. But Grace had no regrets.

She had always expected they’d both find satisfaction the first time, making it a romantic, magical experience. Now, though, she was only sore and mightily worried because Grey was unnaturally silent.

He was lying beside her, breathing hard, his eyes closed and an arm thrown over his face. The set of his jaw didn’t bode well, either. It was clenched so tighly that the cords bulged in his neck.

Grace became embarrassingly aware of her nakedness as a draft of air seeped down from the balcony of the summit house. As quietly as she could, she pulled her jacket out from under her and covered her body from her chin to her thighs. She lay on her back on the blanket, unmoving, and watched the intricate play of the firelight reflecting on the log beams two stories up.

What in hell was he thinking?

She stole a peek at him, then quickly looked back at the ceiling. He hadn’t moved. His pants were still down around his ankles, his boots were still on, and sweat glistened off every inch of exposed skin. She had noticed also, in that fraction of a second, that there was a smudge of her blood on his thigh.

Grace took stock of her situation.

She hurt like the devil between her legs. That was what she got for keeping her hymen intact for so many years. She knew how unnatural it was to be thirty years old and still a virgin.

And then there was the problem of the silent man beside her. How was she going to get up gracefully, get dressed, and get back down the mountain without making an absolute fool of herself? She had no experience with the aftermath of lovemaking. She didn’t know the protocol.

Grey should. He hadn’t been a virgin. Heck. He’d probably found himself in this situation hundreds of times. Possibly thousands.

That thought made her mad. Why was he lying there like a half-naked mountain of granite? And what was he thinking?

“I saved MacBain’s son three days ago, didn’t I?” he suddenly said without moving, his arm still covering his face and his body still rigid.

“Yes, you did. Three times, as a matter of fact.” Grace spoke to the ceiling above them. “Once inside your jacket as the plane was going down, once when you covered his mouth with yours and breathed life back into him, and again when you carried him down the mountain.”

“Damn.”

“You weren’t damning him then.” She turned to look at him. “You didn’t even give a thought to his heritage. You simply saw an innocent child who needed your strength to live.”

“Damn.”

Grace finally got up, holding her jacket in front of her, and reached down to pick up her clothes. She walked behind one of the couches and started dressing, watching Grey out of the corner of her eye. He still hadn’t moved.

“He’s still that same innocent baby,” she said into the silence. “And he is also my nephew. I will protect him with my dying breath.”

He stood up so suddenly Grace nearly tripped trying to pull up her pants and take a step back at the same time. Grey pulled up his own pants but stilled, seeing the blood on his thigh.

Grace hid her blush in the folds of her turtleneck as she pulled it over her head.

He finished his task as he looked at her, fastening his belt around his waist. His evergreen stare bored into her soul.

“You belong to me now, Grace Sutter. Your allegiance is to me,” he said with a fierceness she felt all the way down to her bare toes.

Grace looked away and pulled her sweater over her head. Holy Mother Mary. He was even more primitive than she had imagined. He was suddenly acting as if he owned her.

“That’s old-fashioned,” she told him, waving her socks in the air as she looked for her boots. “Women don’t belong to men anymore. That practice stopped nearly two hundred years ago.” She pointed her socks at him. “I belong to myself, Greylen MacKeage. And my only allegiance is to my nephew and my dead sister.”

He picked up his shirt and put it on, appearing not the least bit put off by her declaration. “Why were you still a virgin?” he asked.

She stopped hunting for her boots and looked at him, feeling a flush climb into her cheeks again. Damn.

She lifted her chin. “I was saving myself for marriage.”

The left corner of his mouth kicked up. “That’s a bit old-fashioned, don’t you think, for a lass as modern as you consider yourself to be?” he asked, throwing her words back at her.

“It is not. A woman keeping herself intact until she marries is a very hip, very modern concept.”

He looked down at the pillows on the floor and then back at her. “Then I guess this means I’m the man you intend to marry,” he said, his voice washing over Grace with a resonance that made her skin prickle with shivers.

“Marriage means one of us would have to move, and I doubt you’d last a month in Virginia,” she told him, walking to a chair to put on her socks, careful to keep the couch between them.

“The question is, Grace, how long will you last here?”

She looked up, alarmed. “My life is in Virginia. I have work to do there.”

He stared at her another long minute and then turned and walked over to the opposite wall. He picked up both her boots and carried them to her, holding them out for her to take.

She couldn’t move. He had her pinned into place with his gaze again.

“You aren’t going back to Virginia, Grace. The moment you decided to bring Baby back here, the decision was also made that you would be staying with him.”

How could he possibly know such a thing? She hadn’t even come to terms with her own reasoning yet.

She had taken four months from work to come here and sort out her feelings. And now he was telling her just what those feelings were?

She took her boots from him, put them on her feet, and stood up. “I’m ready to go home now,” she said, walking to the door.

He walked over to the hearth and poked the fire down until it was safely banked, then he moved to the door and pulled the heavy prop away and opened it. Grace stepped out into the late-morning light and tilted her head back, letting the mist wash over her face. Grey stood beside her, looking around at the gently crackling, frozen landscape.

“I will grant you permission to ask my men to use our equipment at the tree farm,” he said, drawing her attention. “But I am only allowing this for Baby, not for MacBain. Eventually the farm will belong to your nephew, if you ever tell MacBain that Baby is his son.”