Tender Loving Care

saying no.” She was wearing a coral blouse with a neckline that annoyingly blocked his view of her throat and that for some inconceivable reason buttoned at the shoulder. He opened those buttons one at a time. “You have extraordinary green eyes, love.”

“You never told me you had two brothers. That you could fly. Where you rented the plane. How you found this place-”

“Suddenly, you’re chattering like a magpie. Am I making you nervous again?”

“I want to hear more about your mother,” she said stubbornly. “And what your father’s like. I didn’t even realize you came from South Dakota, did you know that?”

“You are nervous.” His breath fanned her lips just before his mouth touched down. “Good,” he murmured with satisfaction.

The Oregon sun filtered in the windows. The cabin was cool by morning, and invaded by the smells of sea and woodsmoke. Rafe watched her sleep, aware of the faint, lingering scent of her perfume. Her skin had the blush of dreams, and her hair was tousled on the pillow. Zoe inevitably slept sprawled on her tummy, except for those times he’d tucked her close to him in the night.

He’d kept her tucked close until dawn, and he had in mind keeping her close for a lifetime, but Zoe…he was so unsure of Zoe.

Especially these past two weeks, he’d carefully led her to believe that kids were a low priority for him, but it was like traveling on quicksand-he didn’t know how to be careful enough. The kids had nothing to do with what he felt for Zoe, but getting her to believe that had him tied up in knots. That Steven character had wanted her on a package-with-children basis; there was no way he wanted her to think this was the same thing.

He’d deliberately told her he couldn’t handle the responsibility of children alone. He’d deliberately tried to show her that he felt just as inadequate as a father as she could possibly feel as a mother-when Parker was ill, for instance. If she could just see that the little imps needed both of them, he knew they could work through any lingering fears or negative emotions she’d built up about children. She adored the twins, whether she knew it or not. And so did he, but it was a thousand times more important to make Zoe see that there was nothing they couldn’t tackle as a twosome.

He didn’t plan to spend the long stretch of lonely years without her, but two days wasn’t long enough to make absolutely sure Zoe felt loved for Zoe. He had in mind binding ties and complicating her emotions and wearing down her resistance and stealing the alternatives away from her. He had in mind sneaking in some love whenever he could. He had in mind assaulting the lady where she was most vulnerable.

Sleeping, she was most vulnerable. Gently, silently, he slid the comforter off her, then the sheet. Her bare skin had the satin glow of sleep, and the long expanse from the nape of her neck to her toes confronted him with far too many options for the ruthless assault he had in mind. Her slim thighs were his personal preference, but he could also build a ladder of kisses up her spine. Her neck enticed him, but so did the curves of her calves.

It was going to be a long war if the choice of first battle was going to be this difficult. Finally, he chose her fanny, primarily because he was sure no one had ever begun a seduction with Zoe on that particular portion of her anatomy. He attacked with assorted kisses, some butterfly soft, some lingering. The firm skin sloped with delicate feminine perfection, which he always knew. His tongue scouted the hollow at the base of her spine, and then dawdled down to the tops of her thighs.

Ruthlessly, his lips coasted down the long expanse of her right leg, then up her left. Where he kissed, she was his. He didn’t dare miss a spot-it was a superstition, like avoiding stepping on cracks in the sidewalk. Everything would be all right…everything had to be all right…if he labeled every inch of her skin Rafe Kirkland’s, if he did it gently enough, softly enough, lovingly enough.

Somewhere en route, he forgot the war.

It was Zoe’s fault. Her skin had this scent, all sleepy female, and the supple texture of her flesh yielded so readily to lips and fingertips. Kisses climbed up her sides to where her breasts were being cruelly crushed to the mattress. His tongue laved that plumpness. When he heard the hoarse little murmur that escaped her throat, he felt irritable. “Lie still,” he murmured. “I want you to wake up nice and slow.”

“It’s far too late for that,” she whispered, and twisted over in one lithe, feminine move that did nothing for his sanity. The rosy tips of her breasts were tilted up, as neglected as the firm white flesh around them. Her tummy… he hadn’t even touched her tummy yet, and below she had a lush pyramid of soft curls that needed finger-combing, teasing, kisses, the caress of a tongue…she still wasn’t used to that kind of caress. She took for granted that he wouldn’t want to. The lady had no idea how much he wanted to.

“Rafe…”

The single word drew his attention to her mouth, the curve and swell of her lower lip, the more fragile heart shape of her upper one. She tasted sleepy, possibly the most intimate taste a man could steal. There was only one spot on her body softer than the inside of her cheek, but he settled there first.

His hunger grew, the more sweetness he found with his tongue. Breathing was becoming an effort, and the temperature in the cabin seemed to soar. He had every intention of making this last for a good hundred years, but she wasn’t helping by responding like an abandoned, sultry, wanton, vibrantly sensual…

“Rafe?”

“Honey, I’m so busy. Could we talk later?” He had more work wiping off that perfectly wicked smile of hers.

“There seems to be something terribly wrong with me,” she murmured.

“Take my word for it, love. There is nothing wrong with any part of you.”

There was. Heat had replaced bones, and the surface of her skin was shimmering. She’d wakened to a man intimately, sneakily, lazily taking advantage of her, and she’d entered into that spirit of play. One look at his eyes and she knew he wasn’t playing any longer. Suddenly, neither was she.

Everywhere she touched, she could feel need rippling through his skin. His lips craved contact. Hands kneaded and clutched and held, suddenly not so gentle. Outside, lonely waves crashed endlessly on rock, the silkiness of water eroding the hardest stone over thousands of years. Zoe urged the man inside her where she could hold him, the deeper Rafe, the vulnerable Rafe, the Rafe who shouted with his touch how much he wanted and needed her.

When he claimed, she became silk. Flesh grew slick as they discovered their own desperate rhythm. The roar of endless loneliness was just outside, but not here. Her legs clamped around him, she drew him down into yielding softness, caring, hope, woman, love.

In claiming her, he drove in his need to have, to hold, to protect and care for, to love.

You can’t turn away from this, she told him with her lips.

See what we have, he whispered in his heart.

She fought the climax because it would have meant the end, and she had all of him for this moment. It didn’t work; it couldn’t. Waves of sharp, bright color rolled through her like the tide, powerful and inescapable and relentless. Her lips released a fragile cry, and then he folded her close and held her and held her…

And held her.

“I’m not climbing that, you overgrown bully.”

“You’re probably more fit than I am. Come on, Zoe, you’re no sissy.”

“I’m swim-fit. Not climb-fit.” Southern Oregon fashion, the sand dune facing Zoe was at least 150 feet tall. Rafe was sitting at the top holding a can of beer, the lazy good- for-nothing. She’d made it halfway. Considering how little sleep he’d allowed her last night and this morning, she evaluated that distance as reasonable. The weather bureau had reported the temperature as a cool sixty, but where sun beat down on sand Zoe could have testified to at least a hundred.

“Lunch is waiting for you at the top,” he called.

“Bring it down.”

“Nope.”

“When…” She dug up fistfuls of sand as she crawled toward him. “When I get up there, Kirkland, you’re going to be such dead meat. You’re going to be such cooked goose. You’re going to be such fried fowl…”

When she reached the top, panting and sweating, Rafe was lying flat on the sand holding his stomach. He