Blame It On Paris

making a lot of noise, but her body was shaking with it. and he could hear the massive gulps.

At one point a hand reached out from under the jacket.

He handed her a tissue.

She took it back into the jacket cave, honked her nose and started again.

He wanted to pull over. Wanted to disappear into Austria or Australia. Wanted to pretend she wasn't crying as if someone had broken her heart. Wanted to go back and kill her damn father.

But midafternoon traffic in Paris was a lot like NASCAR back home. You just didn't have a choice about paying attention. It was that or die. The other drivers were a lot more homicidal than suicidal.

'He didn't want me. At all,' Kelly said from the muffled, dark depths of her jacket.

'Now. Kel. That's not necessarily true. Finding out about you was obviously a shock.'

'Well, it's a shock for me, too! Everything's been a shock for me since I got here. He didn't even say once that he was glad I was his daughter, or glad he had a daughter.'

Oh, yeah. He liked these kinds of conversations. Not that he'd ever had one exactly like this before, but a guy didn't need to be shot to know a bullet wasn't fun. 'Now, cookie,' he said gently, 'those were complicated waters you two were trying to wade into. Even if he'd felt that way, there might not have been a chance for him to say it.'

'Horse spit. He found plenty of chances to bring up DNA. That's all he wanted to talk about. Proof. When all I had to do was look at him to know we were related. He had to know the same thing, looking at me! But he was so…cold.'

'Now, Kel.' Other drivers were shooting him fingers right and left. And sweat was clustering at the nape of his neck, not from the drivers, but the stress of this whole type of emotional conversation. 'I don't know that he was cold. I really think he was just stunned, that he wasn't sure what to do, what to say, how to react.'

'And I had magic answers for those things? How would you like it if you found out your mom had slept with a married man? And I don't even know if she knew. But he sure as hell knew he had a wife and kids when he seduced my mom. And then to just drop out of the picture before even wondering if she could be pregnant-although, of course, maybe he did know. Maybe he thought she'd get an abortion. Or maybe he didn't care. Or maybe she didn't tell him. I mean, how does he get credit for suffering more shocks than me?'

Her hand reached out from under the jacket again. He handed her another tissue, and hoped that'd be enough, because there were no more. Ten more minutes and they'd be home. Ten more. She just had to hold it together for ten more.

Finally they got there, but he'd barely squeezed into the parking place before she'd flown out of the car. When she yanked off the jacket, he saw her face.

She'd stopped crying by then.

She'd stopped talking.

Usually that made him feel grateful, but now he wished she'd chatter up a storm. The look on her face killed him. The gorgeous eyes and nose were all red. No color in her cheeks at all. She looked so damned…sad. Sad and lost. From the inside out.

'It's okay,' she said. 'Don't look so scared. I know I was having an emotional fit, but I'm through now, honest.'

Maybe she was. but that didn't really help him. He started to say something, then realized, for the dozenth time in the past hour, that he didn't have a clue what to say. What she needed. What would help.

He'd been rescuing his sisters-and other damsels-since he was in diapers. Granted, he was fed up with that. But for the first time in a blue moon, he actually wanted to rescue a female, and he didn't know how.

He turned the key, pushed open the door. She ran inside first, and said. 'I'm going to call my mother.'

He'd barely hung up the keys and scooped up the mail before she returned from the living room.

'Well, that's not going to work. I dialed. But then I hung up. Darn it, I can't talk to her. Not until I'm a lot less upset and can be a whole lot clearer about how I want to bring all this up.'

When she scrubbed her face with a tired hand, something snapped in him. That was it. He'd had enough. He crossed the room in four long strides.

She saw him. In fact, she cocked her head when she saw him slamming across the room, but she still looked surprised when he suddenly grabbed her. When he lifted her up, she just naturally wrapped her legs around his waist for balance, which enabled him to take off with her down the hall at a hell-bent pace.

'Will-'

Yeah, yeah. He could guess all the crap she wanted to say. She was miserable. Not the right time. Not in the mood. And he didn't pull cavemen stuff, because he wasn't a caveman type. That Rhett Butler scene in Gone with the Wind where Gable carts Scarlett up the stairs-not for him. He liked to know he was wanted ahead of time. He liked an engraved invitation. He hated sticky stuff, never dove in until he'd thoroughly tested the waters, got queasy when he thought of pushing a woman to do anything.

But this wasn't like that.

That was more like…a guy had to do what a guy had to do.

She wasn't crying anymore today. He couldn't fix her complicated life. In the long run, probably it'd all work out, anyway. It was just now, this week, this day, these past hours, that had her so twisted up and confused. It would have helped if Henri Rochard had at least given her a hug. Or said a simple hello to his daughter. Or said something, anything, the son of a bitch, that indicated he noticed that she was a beautiful woman. Beautiful, interesting, wonderful, independent and courageous.

Okay, so she wasn't so courageous at just this second.

But that was the point.

That was precisely the reason why, right then, he dropped her on the bed. Dove in. Dove on.

Strips of hot afternoon sunlight striped her face, so bright she had to close her eyes, which made it all the easier to kiss her long and hard.

She didn't reject the kiss. Didn't scream or rant at the behavior or anything, but she didn't do much of anything until he took her tongue.

Then, suddenly, she unraveled. All that miserableness seemed to gather up inside her. transform into another kind of energy altogether. That long kiss he was coaxing from her turned into a bite-a bite coming from her-and then she was pulling, yanking on his clothes.

He twisted around to help her. only his movements enabled her to climb on top of him instead of the other way around. She'd played the inciter before, but not the aggressor. It wasn't so easy for her, being vulnerable that way, admitting what she needed, going after it. She was raw-new at it. elbows appearing where no one wanted them, her knee threatening his groin, her hair tangling in his fingers…amazing, how all the awkwardness inspired them both.

At least it inspired him. And for sure she was responding.

Her skin needed cherishing, he thought. And once he had her naked, he obliged. The curve of her shoulder. The tender crease under her breast. The inside of her thigh-oh. mama. She all but sprang off the bed for a tongue there, and hell, he hadn't even started.

THE SHARP, HARSH ribbons of sunlight seemed to soften. Outside, traffic started to quiet down. The air stilled… They must have napped after the first time, because when he opened his eyes next, the ambient light was the fuzzy violet of dusk.

She was draped over his body like a blanket, her cheek carved into his shoulder. He turned his head, kissed her forehead.

It was enough to wake her. 'You hungry?' she murmured sleepily.

'Beyond belief. I could eat a pair of steaks.'

'Me, too.'

Big talk, he noted, for a woman who stretched like a lazy cat and then curled right back on top of him and closed her eyes again.

'Will?' she murmured.

'Hmm?'

'You make it all go away.'

'Make all what go away?'

The piker was only pretending to be sleeping. She eased up. her eyes open and alert and aware, her mouth still