Mercy

though it was on

fire, and she was having difficulty catching her breath. Her endorphins were going crazy too. She was feeling light-headed.

If he took another step toward her, she knew she'd start hyperventilating. And wouldn't that be a wonderful turn-on. Men

weren't the only ones who needed to take a cold shower to squelch their sexual appetites. She felt like she needed to dive headfirst into her freezer.

She blamed him for her scattered thoughts. He was the one giving her the look, after all.

He was slowly walking forward, obviously giving her time to make up her mind. Her feet were rooted to the floor and her

stomach started tingling. 'It would complicate things.'

'How?'

'We'd have sex, and then-'

'Great sex,' he corrected. 'We'd have great sex.'

He had her thinking about it, and the look in his eyes told her he was thinking about it too. She nodded, tried to swallow, but

her throat was too dry. Her pulse was racing. Probably a hundred sixty beats per minute. Irregular too. Great, she thought, a gorgeous man flirts with her and she goes into ventricular fibrillation. If he took another step, she thought she just might drop

dead. Wouldn't that be something? The pathology report would show cause of death was cardiac arrest.

He stopped a foot away from her. He gently stroked her cheek with his fingers and then nudged her under her chin, forcing

her to look up at him. She felt awkward and unsure, until she saw the laughter in his eyes.

'So what are you thinking?' he asked.

As if he didn't know. 'That you're making me nuts. Theo, you might as well understand before this goes any further…'

'Yes?' he asked softly. His hand had moved to her neck, his touch warm.

'What?'

'You said I need to understand something.'

He was rubbing the back of her neck now. She got goose bumps.

'Yes, you do.' She nodded. 'No, I mean… oh.' Breathe, she told herself. Take a deep breath and try to locate your brain. 'Okay, here's the way it is. I'm not cut out for a casual fling. I have to have a… solid connection with a man before I go to bed with him. I don't believe in recreational sex.' She forced a smile in hopes of lightening the moment and added, 'I'm a dinosaur.'

'Did I mention I like dinosaurs?'

Oh, boy, she inwardly sighed. Oh, boy.

His fingers gently played with the hair at the nape of her neck. 'Your hair is so soft,' he whispered. 'The color's like fire.'

'I get the red hair and freckles from my mother,' she answered, grasping for a rational thought.

'Did I mention I like women with freckles? I get this overwhelming urge to kiss every one of them.'

'I've got freckles all over my body.'

'We'll get to those.'

She felt light-headed again. 'It isn't going to happen.'

'We'll see.'

Lord, he was cocky. He really needed to work on that flaw, and she meant to tell him so when her head cleared. Right now,

she was too busy trying to stand on her feet. The man aroused her simply by touching her. Every nerve ending in her body responded to him.

When she realized she wanted to tear his clothes off, she pulled back. She gently pushed his arm away. Her legs felt like

Jell-O, but she managed to turn and walk to her bedroom. As she was shutting the door behind her, she made the mistake of looking at him. He was leaning against the doorframe smiling at her.

She wasn't going to let him know how potent his touch was. Mr. Big City Boy needed to be taught a lesson. He wouldn't get

his way.

'You mess with me and you pay the consequences,' she said. 'You can take a cold shower after I do.' How telling was that?

Too late, she realized what she'd given away. 'I'm taking a cold shower because I'm hot,' she explained, and then realized she'd only made it worse.

'Michelle?' he drawled out.

'Yes?'

'I haven't begun to mess with you.'

She shut the door and leaned against it. 'Oh, boy,' she whispered.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Michelle was counting all the reasons she shouldn't and wouldn't get involved with Theo. She'd gotten up to number twenty

when he knocked on the bathroom door.

'I haven't taken my shower yet.'

'Yeah, I know. I was just wondering if you wanted me to hook up your computer for you?'

'You found it?'

She opened the door a crack and peeped out, holding her cotton robe together across her breasts.

'It was hard to miss. I tripped over one of the boxes when I put my clothes on the washer. So do you want me to or not?'

'Hook up my computer? Sure,' she said.

She shut the door in his face and started counting all over again. When she got to number twenty-three-she'd have to change

the sheets-she realized she was getting desperate and went back to the number one reason. The man would break her heart.

She stepped into the bathtub and turned the shower on full blast. The icy cold water made her grimace. She adjusted the temperature and let the warm water soothe her.

By the time she rinsed the shampoo from her hair, she'd worked herself back up into a fit of indignation. Mess with her indeed. She wasn't so easily manipulated, she thought as she combed the tangles out of her hair and then turned on the blow dryer.

He'd probably be a demanding lover…

'Hell,' she whispered. Slow and easy. Would she ever get those words out of her mind? It was like a song that kept replaying in her head.

She brushed her teeth, then put moisturizer on her face and stared at herself in the mirror. 'Admit it,' she whispered. 'You want

to sleep with him.'

She shook her head. No, that wasn't true. She wanted to have sex with him. And what was wrong with that? Absolutely nothing. She was merely fantasizing, and fantasy was a perfectly healthy function of the human psyche.

Acting upon the fantasy was another matter altogether. Reason number one… that heartbreaking thing… 'Been there, done that,' she whispered.