“He’ll listen to you,” he said. “I know he will.”

She gave O’Bailey a grim look. “I’ll try,” she said.

She walked into the bar. There was another man, one who looked about half as drunk as Rourke. He spotted her and got up, grinning from ear to ear.

“Well, look what a pretty little fairy just walked in the door,” the man exclaimed. He caught her by the arm and tried to pull her to him. “Precious, how about coming up to my room…?”

In an instant, Rourke had him by the throat. His one eye was dark with rage. “You touch her again and I’ll kill you!” he said through his teeth. He threw the man backward. He fell over a table and picked himself up and ran out of the lounge, holding his throat.

“Stanton,” Clarisse said softly.

He looked down at her. He was breathing roughly. He reeked of whiskey. He peered at her, frowning. “Why are you here, Tat?” he asked in almost a whisper.

“I came to get you.” She slid her cold, nervous hand into his. He’d frightened her when he grabbed the man by the throat. But he didn’t look violent at all now. “You have to come with me.”

“Okay,” he said easily.

She tugged on his hand. He let her lead him right out of the room, to where O’Bailey was waiting. She could hardly believe it. The bar was a wreck. Men, big men, were against the wall, behind tables, as if they were hoping Rourke wouldn’t notice them. Grown men were afraid of him, but he was following along with Clarisse like a lamb.

“I’ll talk to him. Is he staying at this hotel?” Clarisse asked the Irishman, grimacing as she noted the bartender just peering over the bar and looking hunted. “He’ll pay for the damage,” Clarisse said.

O’Bailey nodded. “Rourke’s in room 306. I imagine the key’s in his pocket.”

“Thanks,” she said.

“No, ma’am, thank you!” he replied, and she smiled.

He nodded, grinned, gave Rourke an apologetic smile and went into the lounge.

Rourke looked down at Tat. “Why are you here?” he asked angrily. “Won’t your fiancé miss you?”

“He’s in Argentina with a patient,” she reminded him. “He won’t be home for several weeks.”

“What a tough break for him,” he said, looking down at her with barely hidden hunger. “God, you’re a knockout,” he said huskily. “I ache just looking at you!”

She flushed. She turned and led him into the elevator. They rode up in silence to the third floor. He was watching her with unnerving intensity.

She led him to his door. “You need to get out the key card,” she said.

He leaned against the door. “No.”

“Stanton,” she groaned.

“Once I open the door, you’ll leave,” he said heavily.

She nibbled her lower lip.

“I can always go back to the bar,” he said cagily, shouldering away from the door frame.

“No!”

“Promise you’ll stay with me until I fall asleep, then,” he said, his voice only slightly slurred. “Give me your word, Tat.”

She ground her teeth together. He wasn’t quite in control of himself and she was afraid of him. Not of his temper, but that he might try to continue where they’d left off when she was seventeen. That had been a near thing. Not until she was in her twenties did she realize just how near.

“I won’t…do anything you don’t want,” he promised.

She drew in a slow breath. “I’ll hold you to that, Stanton.”

He smiled. He drew out the card and pushed it into the lock. There was a click and a tiny green light went on. He pulled the card out and slipped it back into his pocket. He opened the door. “After you.”

She walked into the room, a poem about spiders and flies teasing around the edge of her mind.

The room flooded with light as he touched a switch.

She turned to him. He looked harder than she’d ever seen him. His handsome face was tense with some powerful emotion as he stared down at her with his one good eye.

She looked back, wincing at the eye patch.

He misread the look. “Ya,” he said coldly. “I’m disabled. That what you’re thinking?”

“I was remembering when it happened,” she said softly.

The tension grew worse. “I’d just…been told something that upended my life,” he said evasively, avoiding her quiet gaze. “Like a rank beginner, I walked right into an ambush.” He laughed coldly. “Lost an eye, took a bullet in the chest…” His eye cut back around to her face. “You were there, sitting by the bed when I came out from under the anesthesia.”

“K.C. called me,” she said. She lowered her eyes to his chest. “He was scared to death, and he didn’t want to start gossip all over again by sitting with you. Nobody thought it unusual that I did. I knew most of the hospital staff in Nairobi.”

He drew in a breath. He felt sick. Sweaty. “There was a lot of gossip after that.”

“I never noticed. Neither did you.”

He studied her downcast face. “As soon as the stitches came out, I invited Anita out to the game farm and sent you home to D.C.”

She bit her lip. “Yes.”

He closed his eye, anguish in his whole body as he recalled that act of cruelty. “I didn’t even thank you, for what you did. I wanted to die when they told me I’d lost an eye, that I might go blind. You made me want to live.”

She didn’t say anything, but her posture was eloquent.

He swayed a little. She caught him as he reeled.

“I’m drunk, Tat,” he managed with a breathy laugh.

“You don’t do this much.”

“Only rarely,” he agreed as she helped him toward the bed. “I don’t like being out of control.”

“You never did.”

He eased down onto the bed, shoes and all. He looked up at her quietly. “Help me undress. I can’t sleep in my clothes.”

She stared at him while the soft plea made her flush.

He held out a big hand. “Come on, chicken,” he said with a faint smile. “Tat, I’m drunk,” he reminded her when she hesitated. “I can’t get hard. If I can’t get hard, I’m no threat.”

The flush got deeper.

He laughed huskily. “And all these years, I thought you’d had one man after another,” he said. His face twisted. “Damn me for what I did to you!”

She didn’t understand the anger. She didn’t understand his change of attitude. She didn’t really trust it, either.

“Don’t,” he said, seeing the debate going on in her mind. He shifted and winced. “Help me, Tat. I just want to sleep.”

She moved closer to the bed. Hesitantly, she pulled off his shoes, and then his socks. He had beautiful feet, for a man.

He sat up. She dropped down onto the bed beside him, still wary. He pulled her hands to the buttons of his shirt. He stared into her wide eyes. “Take it off,” he whispered, his voice like deep, soft velvet.

She felt her heart run wild. It had been years since she’d been this close to him, since he’d wanted her this close.

“Come on,” he whispered again, coaxing her fingers to the first button while his mouth hovered just above her eyes.

The tone, the proximity, got to her. She worked buttons out of buttonholes, noting the thick hair that covered his bronzed chest as she pushed the shirt back over his broad shoulders. There was a raised place just to the left of his breastbone, where he’d been shot when he lost his eye. It was hardly noticeable now.

He felt his body going taut as the shirt fell off. Her eyes were so expressive. She loved looking at him. He loved letting her. He was getting aroused, despite his protests to the contrary. So many years. A lifetime.

“You can…do the rest, I’m sure,” she said, and tried to get up.

“No, I can’t.” He smoothed her cold hands to his belt. “Help me, Tat,” he whispered.

He lay back down. When he did that, she relaxed, just a little.

She managed a shaky smile. “I’ve never undressed anybody except myself,” she blurted out.

She unfastened the belt and pulled it out of the loops, noting the expensive leather it was made of as she dropped it into the chair beside the bed. She hesitated.