“I think maybe there could be a lot of different kinds of love. And there are people we’re supposed to love and people we do love. I couldn’t stand my mom and dad. I love my uncle. As for the movie kind of love…” He smiled. “I’m a guy. Sometimes we think with our dicks.” He met her gaze. “There were a few moments back there that if you’d asked me, I would have said I loved you.”

And there were a few moments that he had been the giver of a pleasure so intense that she had loved everything about him, his body, his skill, the way he had made her feel part of him. She had wanted to keep him with her forever. “But I didn’t ask you. I promise I’ll never ask you.”

“I suppose I should feel relieved. I guess I do.” He glanced back at the road leading to the reservoir. “Sure I do. You’ve just made me a little dizzy. You’re right, this is what’s going to work for us.” He paused. “As often as possible. When?”

“Tonight.” She looked at him. “Every night. Until we decide we don’t want it anymore.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“It might.” But it didn’t seem possible to Eve, either. She had thought she was satiated when they had left the reservoir, but she could feel a stirring as she gazed at him. She knew his body so well now. It was a beautiful body, sleek and tough and strong. He could lift her, move her, hold her, with no effort. Yet he didn’t make her feel helpless. She’d learned she could stop him with a touch, make him shudder just by a movement. She hadn’t realized she’d have that power. He’d always been so dominant and forceful that it had amazed her that she didn’t have to take power, it had been given.

He pulled up in front of the development. “You’ll only have a few hours to sleep. Are you going to go to school today?”

“Of course.” She got out of the car. “School is important. I told you, I can’t let this hurt me.” She started across the street. “It probably won’t be like this every night.”

“No?” She heard the car pull away from the curb. “Don’t count on it.”

She couldn’t count on anything, she thought as she unlocked the door of the apartment. Everything was new territory. She just had to keep on with her usual routine and try to keep her head straight.

Shower, first. Then set the alarm.

Even the drops of warm water falling on her body felt different. Her breasts were taut, and there was a tiny mark. A bruise? Strange. She hadn’t been aware of any roughness. But at times they’d been like two wild animals. She remembered his mouth … It could have happened then.

Don’t think about it. Her breasts were swelling, and she was feeling her body tingling, readying. All it had taken was the memory, and the heat was returning.

She wanted him again.

She leaned her forehead against the wall of the shower. It was all crazy and mysterious and sometimes a little frightening. If this was what sex was like, what would it have been if there had been love between them?

But she understood love even less, and its potential could be even more dangerous. Hadn’t both she and John agreed that it could be deceptive and was to be avoided? She didn’t know enough about John Gallo even to explore the possibilities. Yet when they had been talking, she had felt a curious sadness.

No, she did not love him. She would not love him. The only thing of which she could be both certain and secure was that she loved his body.

That would be enough.

*   *   *

“I LIKE THE RESERVOIR BETTER.” Eve turned over in bed and gazed at the sheets of rain pounding the window. “I felt strange coming here.”

“I couldn’t control the weather.” John drew her closer. “And this isn’t a bad motel. It’s clean and not seedy. I made sure of that.”

“It just made me think of—” She broke off and pushed away from him. “I have to go to the bathroom.” She swung her legs to the floor and stood up. “I’ll be back.”

“You sound like Schwarzenegger in The Terminator.” He put his arm behind his head, watching her as she went toward the bathroom. “Though you don’t look anything like him.”

“Thank heavens.” She closed the bathroom door. A few minutes later she was washing her face and hands and stopped to stare into the mirror. She was naked, her cheeks were flushed and her hair tousled, her body ripe and glowing. She looked like she’d been doing exactly what she had been doing.

She turned and went back into the motel room but didn’t go right back to bed. She went over to the picture window and drew back the curtains and looked out onto the parking lot. “I can’t see anything. It’s raining rivers…”

“What’s wrong?” John asked quietly. “Did I do something you didn’t like?”

“No.” She always loved everything he did to her. Even though she had been a little uneasy when they’d come there, it hadn’t changed her response. She was wondering if anything could. For the past three weeks, they had been together every night and every other spare moment they could steal. Those hours had been as sensual and hazy as a harem dream. She had only been aware of touch and scent and coming together. Her body had become so attuned to his that all he had to do was look at her, hold out his hand, touch her hair, and it started. “It was kind of … exotic. Where did you learn to do all that?”

“That’s a question you shouldn’t ask.” He stood up and walked toward her. “I figured if I liked sex, I should do it well. And I didn’t wait until I was sixteen like you to start.” He grinned. “I was trying to avoid coming home as much as I could, and I had to have something to keep me busy.” He pushed her hair aside and pressed his lips to the back of her neck. “And then I found the Kama Sutra.”

She shivered and whispered, “I think you wrote the Kama Sutra.”

“At any rate, I thought you were ready for a little distraction. You were acting pretty stiff when I mentioned the motel.” He slipped his arm around her waist. “You’re never stiff. You bend.” He delicately licked her ear. “You open…”

“And I did. Again and again.”

“Yes.” He went still. “But not right now.” He pushed her away from him. “I think we’ll have a little downtime.” He crossed the room to his duffel on the floor. “I brought you a present.”

“What?” She stared at him in astonishment. “Why?”

“Because I wanted to do it. You must have noticed that’s all the reason I need.” He reached in the duffel and brought out a tissue-wrapped object. “My uncle brought it back from Japan years and years ago. He meant to give it to his girlfriend, but she jilted him. So he gave it to me and told me to make a kite of it. I never got around to it.” He tore off the tissue and unfurled a length of gold silk. “I was thinking how pretty it would be against your hair.”

She put out a tentative finger and touched the silk. “It’s beautiful, but it’s not a scarf, John.”

“It is if I say it is.” He draped it over her hair. “Beautiful. Sun on fire.” Then he arranged the rest of the cloth over her shoulders and breasts. “There, you look like a harem girl.”

She smiled. “That’s odd. I was just thinking that these past weeks have been like a harem dream.”

“Is that good?”

“It’s … erotic.” She slipped the length of gold off her hair to pool around her shoulders. “Thank you. But it’s not really my style. I’m too…” She remembered Teresa’s description. “Serious.”

“I like serious.” He was drawing her over to the easy chair in front of the window. “But I like erotic better.” He dropped down in the chair. “It’s a good thing it’s raining so hard that no one can make out anything through this glass. The office would be getting complaints about those shameless nude people in 2A.” He reached up a hand to pull her down on his lap.

Instead, she dropped down on the carpet in front of the chair and linked her arms around her knees. “Why did your uncle’s girl jilt him?”

“Another guy. He was overseas a lot on missions. He didn’t blame her.”