One More Knight

She shook her head with controlled fury, hugging herself as if to keep from coming apart. “No, you don’t. I want to-I do. Lord knows, I’m crazy, but…I do. All right, so I’m out of my mind. But I’m not stupid, okay? I’m not stupid. We can’t…do this.”

And all at once Troy was pretty sure he did understand. Taking the kind of heart- stopping, gut-tightening gamble he thought he’d left behind him for good, he reached into his jeans pocket, took out a small foil-wrapped package and tossed it onto the bed. “This what you’re worried about?”

Her startled glance flicked at it, then at him. She caught a breath, and some of the fight and fury went out of her eyes and was replaced with laughter. Husky and breathless with it, she murmured, “I should have known. You were a Boy Scout, right?”

“What? Oh, Be Prepared, you mean?” He shook his head, half-smiling. “No, ma’am-navy. SEAL.” He paused, then said stiffly, “I want you to know, just because I believe in being ready for any and all contingencies, doesn’t mean I expect those contingencies to take place. You understand? What happened out there just now-maybe we both got a little bit carried away, okay? You want it to end right here, you say the word and I’m gone. No questions, no blame.”

She heard him out, lips slightly parted, eyes never leaving his. And when he’d finished she went on like that, just staring at him, while ropes of tension coiled and tightened around his chest.

Finally, unable to stand the torture any longer, he growled, “Well? What’s it gonna be?”

She shook her head and said slowly, “I can think of about a hundred reasons why you should go…and only one reason why you should stay.”

“And that is?”

“Because-” the growl in her voice became a purr, a vibration he could almost feel in his bones “-I want you to.”

She came toward him, one slow step, then another, her eyes catching fire the way hazel eyes can, sometimes, when the light’s just right. “Because,” she whispered, “I’ve just had one of the worst days of my life.” She stopped right square in front of him. “And I don’t feel like sleepin’ alone.”

He let out a breath, lifted his hands to her upper arms and brushed his fingers back and forth over the smooth, cool skin, and still felt as if the fire in her eyes were consuming him alive. “You don’t have to do that,” he mumbled, his throat dry and scratchy as kindling. “If that’s all you want…”

“Don’t be stupid.”

He laughed then, a soft hissing like the sound rain makes when it falls on live coals. He tightened his hands on her arms, and she swayed toward him, leaning against their support. “Lady,” he growled, “your clothes are soakin’ wet.”

“So are yours.”

“Maybe we’d best get out of ’em-”

“-before we catch our death.”

Their laughter tumbled giddily together with shivers as he skimmed his hands down her sides, gathered in the damp, limp fabric of her top, drew it from her waistband, peeled it up and over her head. Her bra was the kind that closed in the back; he reached around her and unhooked it with the kind of practiced ease he could feel grateful for without being proud of. Some things about his life he’d learned it was best not to agonize over, or regret too much, but just to accept as part of what it had taken to bring him to where he was.

And, he thought, where he was now was just about the last place he’d ever thought he’d be when he’d gotten out of bed that morning. Life could be full of surprises.

He flattened his hands and splayed his fingers across her back, then moved them slowly upward, watching her eyes as he hooked his fingers under the straps of her bra, willing now, since he knew it was okay, to let the fire take him.

Slowly he drew the straps over her shoulders and down her arms, lightly grazing her skin with his fingernails so that every tiny follicle sprang erect in a rash of goose bumps. So that when he let it fall, the bra brushed over nipples so hard and sensitive she had to gasp with the exquisite shock of it. Then and only then did he let his gaze leave hers, and set it free to explore what he’d uncovered.

He felt like a kid, opening up his own special box of treasures. Her breasts were small but round and full, the nipples tight and pert, the exact pinky brown of certain seashells. He could almost taste them, cold and sweet on his tongue, feel them warm and. swell and soften in his mouth…

His body’s response to that notion nearly made him groan aloud. Tight and airless with self-control, he managed an edgy laugh. “You’re freezin’ to death.”

Her response was immediate, if bumpy. “Then warm me.”

Her hands were on his sides, already entangled in his rain-damp shirt. He meant to let go of her just long enough to haul it up his back and over his head and toss it aside. But now her hands were tugging at his belt buckle, and it seemed like a smart idea to dispose of that obstacle, too. And then there was her belt. And her hands under his waistband, sliding over the slick, sensitive places just below. And his hands inside her trousers, inside her underpants, pushing them over the swell of her hips so that they fell in a pool around her feet, leaving his hands free to touch, to savor and explore…

His hands stirred over Charly’s cold-prickled flesh like a magician’s wands, leaving behind showers of sparkly shivers; electricity skated up and down her legs, generating heat that turned her insides to melted honey. Her body grew heavy; pulses throbbed in her belly and between her legs. She leaned against him, lightning flickering around the edges of her consciousness, weak with wanting, so tightly strung with need that every muscle and fiber and sinew in her body quivered, like a tuning fork that hadn’t yet found the right overtone. She would know it when she found it, that moment when all the vibrations meshed into one perfect harmony that would drown the dissonances inside her head-the rage and sorrow and pain and regret. The loss and betrayal. The guilt.

For that, she needed…this. Needed him. Needed him kissing her until she couldn’t breathe, needed to feel the weight of his body crushing down and his fire and force deep inside her. Needed more.

She cried out with wordless affirmation when she felt his hands cupping her buttocks, lifting her into him. She laughed when she felt his back muscles harden beneath her palms as his head came down and his mouth found hers.

Yes! she thought as she lifted and opened to him. Come inside me! Kidnap my soul! Take it away and hide it from me. Then maybe I won’t have to think or feel or remember.

In all his life Troy couldn’t remember ever experiencing anything like this. He’d never had a woman respond to him like this, with all need unmasked, all passion unbridled. He found it irresistible. Impossible not to get caught up in it, like being in the path of a flash flood. What else could he do but go with it, let it sweep him away, ride the crest for as long as he could, wherever it took him?

At the same time there was a part of him that knew and acknowledged that, for all the thrill and intensity of it, what was happening between them wasn’t the real thing. That in a way it was more like an amusement-park thrill ride than a force of nature. That the thrills were temporary, and barring some weird catastrophe or some really stupid lapse on his part, the consequences minimal. This was fantasy. Fun. It had nothing to do with love. And nothing to do with the rest of his life.

He recognized, too, that there was a darkness in this woman’s passion, a kind of desperation in the way she kissed him. He did. And God help him, he ignored it. Maybe he didn’t have time to think about it then; maybe he simply didn’t want to.

She kicked off her sandals, and he plucked her out of the pile of sodden clothing, carried her, cradling her bottom and riding her soft places against his hard ones while she wrapped her arms and legs around him, threw back her head and laughed out loud. He threw away his thoughts as he laid her on the bed and followed her down, holding himself away from her with his arms while his head swooped down to capture her mouth. She lunged forward to meet him, nipping and tugging hungrily at his lips, raking his back with her fingernails, inflaming him almost beyond the limits of his endurance.

Dimly aware that things were moving a lot faster than he wanted them to, he tried to get his brain to order his body to back off, ease up, slow down. He might as well have tried to stop a cyclone. Still kissing her mindlessly, his tongue deep in her mouth, he felt for the condom he’d tossed on the bedspread. Found it, and bracing himself with one hand, tore his mouth from hers and ripped open the packet with his teeth. He heard her approving chuckle, felt her hands helping him…a silky coolness, more agony than assistance. And then he was sheathed, first in latex and