THE SUITE OF Mitchell’s “choice” turned out to be on the top floor of the hotel at the end of a hall. One of its double doors was slightly ajar, and a discreet plaque on the wall beside it proclaimed it to be the Presidential Suite.

Mitchell opened the door all the way for her, and Kate walked past him, stepping into a spacious foyer, then turned left and caught her breath. The exterior walls of the palatial suite were made entirely of glass, providing an uninterrupted, panoramic view of the Caribbean, both to the west and to the north. The carpeting was the same shade of aqua as the sea, the furnishings predominantly white, with huge vases of lush tropical flowers providing splashes of color.

Near the foyer was a formal dining table with six chairs. Directly in the center of the suite, facing the windows, was an enormous bed covered in a fluffy white duvet and a mountain of pillows. It was situated so that the occupants could lie in bed and view the Caribbean. In the ceiling, muted cove lighting mirrored the outline of the bed, bathing it in a pale glow. The lighting was positioned so that the occupants of the bed could see what they were doing to each other... Kate yanked her gaze from the bed and moved a few steps forward.

Beyond the bed, on the other side of the room in front of the windows, was a grouping of white sofas and chairs covered with plump pillows and arranged in a U so that they all looked out across the Caribbean.

“This is absolutely breathtaking,” Kate said.

“I’m glad you’re pleased,” Mitchell replied, starting toward the large, enclosed balcony that opened off the western side of the suite. A man who Kate assumed was Diederik was standing out there at a table beneath an aqua umbrella, pouring wine into glasses. “Take a few minutes to look around while I see if Diederik has done anything about food out there.”

“You sound like you’re starving,” Kate teased.

He turned and Kate felt the full seductive force of his slow white smile and direct gaze. “I have a very hearty appetite, Kate.”

His meaning was unmistakable, and Kate’s entire body tensed, partly from nervousness and partly from anticipation. He’d been so preoccupied and distant in the taxi that she’d wondered if he was having second thoughts about going to bed with her. After his last remark, she wondered now if he planned to have lunch with her in it, in order to save time. Belatedly realizing that she was standing there as if she’d taken root in the carpet, Kate wandered slowly along in his wake.

A large wet bar with four stools was positioned near the open balcony doors. In the wall to the right of the bar was an arched entrance into another room, which turned out to be a bathroom/ dressing room with a beautiful wall mosaic depicting an island scene. In the center of the room, beneath a domed skylight, four steps descended into a huge sunken tub lined with mosaic tiles and surrounded by pillars. A shower large enough for four or five people was enclosed in glass on three sides with shower heads at various heights and an array of faucets on the remaining wall.

Kate put her purse down on one of the vanities that ran most of the length of the room on two sides; then she used the bathroom. She was drying her hands when she looked down at her purse and Evan’s phone messages came back to haunt her.

She’d always known he cared very much for her, but she never imagined he could be driven by worry and fear for her into actually proposing marriage on the telephone—no, in a voice mail message! What a touching, uncharacteristically impulsive thing for him to do. Until now, he’d let her evade the subject of marriage, and Kate had always assumed that was because he was secretly satisfied with the status quo—a life that was filled with work he enjoyed, a woman he enjoyed, and all the golf games he could sandwich in between those two things.

But maybe that wasn’t true at all. Maybe he cared so deeply for her that he’d been willing to postpone a marriage he wanted very badly because he didn’t want to pressure her into making a commitment until she was completely ready.

What a generous, selfless, tender way for him to behave...

Kate shook her head, trying to clear away the guilt she was feeling; then she picked up her purse and carried it with her into the main room. She put it on the barstool at the end of the bar, started toward the balcony doors, stopped, and turned back around. Earlier, when she’d checked her voice mail, she’d had three unheard messages, but she’d listened to only two of them. The third message was probably from Louis at the restaurant. If so, she really ought to listen to it. With her back to the balcony, she reached into her purse, grasped the phone, and then let it go.

If the message was from Evan, she couldn’t bear to hear it. Not now. Not when she’d just checked into a hotel with a stranger to whom she was drawn so deeply, and on so many confusing levels, that she couldn’t begin to understand what was happening. All she knew for certain was that she’d felt something profound and magical last night, and she wanted to experience it again, all of it: the desperate longing that came from being kissed by Mitchell; the exquisite joy of being crushed in his arms with his body straining against hers; and the unexplainable sense of profound closeness she felt at times just looking at him or listening to him speak.

But there was no denying that she’d known him only one day, which made everything she was thinking and planning to do seem terribly rash. Totally reckless. A little insane.

Tension and indecision tightened the muscles at the back of her neck into a knot. Thinking she might be on the verge of getting another headache despite the pills she was taking, Kate reached up to rub her nape; then she pulled the elastic band out of her hair and shook it loose.

Standing on the balcony, Mitchell watched Kate’s thick hair tumble down over her shoulders in a wavy dark red waterfall, and he lost track of what the suite’s butler was telling him. She was wrestling with some sort of decision, he sensed, and then she gave her head a toss, turned on her heel, and started toward him. Lifting his wineglass to his lips to hide his appreciative smile, he watched her walk out onto the balcony—a wholesome, unaffected, all-American girl who looked artlessly feminine in a white T-shirt and jeans... a churchgoing Irish girl with lofty principles, an amazingly soft heart, and a prosperous, well-educated would-be fiancé who lived in the same city she did.

Mitchell had no right to take her to bed and jeopardize any of that for her.

She stepped out onto the balcony and walked up to him—a smiling, sexy, desirable woman with a provocative mouth that was made to be kissed, heavily lashed green eyes that melted him, and a slender body he was dying to caress and join with his own.

Mitchell decided he had every right to take her to bed, as long as he was honest with her in advance and made sure she had no false illusions or unrealistic expectations.

He picked up a glass of white wine and handed it to her. “Diederik was telling me about the former occupants of this suite.” His expression told Kate he didn’t give a damn about that topic but was making polite small talk while Diederik was there.

Diederik was in his early forties, with a bald head and neat mustache, and he’d definitely anticipated Mitchell’s desire for food. The table was already laden with trays of fruit and cheese, a huge fresh salad, a plate of finger sandwiches, a tureen of soup, and two hot covered bowls, and he was in the process of arranging sliced lemons and parsley around a platter of prawns. He’d been speaking to Mitchell in Dutch, but he switched automatically to English because that was the language Mitchell had used to speak to her. “The former occupants were young newlyweds, inexperienced at foreign travel, who arrived three days ago for a four-day stay with us,” Diederik explained. “On their first day, they visited some markets on the other side of the island, and they ate some food that was not fresh. The next morning, they were so ill that the hotel doctor had to start them on medication for food poisoning, and they haven’t been able to get out of bed, except for necessities, since then.”

Kate remembered the hotel manager’s brief discussion with Mitchell in the lobby, and she aimed an accusing look straight at Mitchell while directing her question to Diederik. “Where are the young newlyweds now?”

“I had them dragged out of here and thrown off a cliff,” Mitchell replied.

“They are in another suite,” Diederik provided simultaneously, “which Mr. Wyatt very kindly offered to pay for. The young bridegroom was greatly distressed over the cost of this suite which they were unable to enjoy.” Satisfied with his garnishment of the prawns, he looked at Kate and said, “I will unpack for you before I leave. Do you have anything with you that you would like me to press for you?”

“No, thank you,” Kate replied as she picked up half a watercress sandwich and walked over to the chest-high balcony wall for a better look at the view below.

Behind her, Diederik said, “I’ve pressed your clothes, Mr. Wyatt, and hung them in your closet.”

Unaware that Mitchell had followed her, Kate whirled around and almost smashed her sandwich against his chest. “You have clothes to wear?” she exclaimed in delight.

Bracing his hands on the wall on either side of her, he trapped her and studied her with amused fascination. “You look ready to cheer with relief.”

Before Kate could respond, Diederik said politely, “When I finish unpacking, may I be of any further service?”

With his smiling gaze still fixed on Kate, Mitchell replied, “Please turn down the bed before you leave, and see that we are not disturbed.”

Kate gaped at him in horror. “Could you possibly be more obvious?”

“This is a hotel,” he pointed out reasonably.

“I know it is. But in the last five days I’ve checked into two of them with different men. I’m feeling like a complete floozy.”

He chuckled at her description of herself and ran his knuckles up her arm in a lazy caress. “So you thought I didn’t bring any clothes with me?”

“You didn’t have a suitcase with you in the taxi,” Kate pointed out, trying to sound less affected than she was by the touch of his skin against hers.

“I dropped it off this morning when I came out here to try to arrange for this suite or at least a better one than what the reservations clerk was offering me.” His knuckles slid across her shoulder and followed the curve of her jaw, which allowed his fingertips to slip beneath the neckline of her shirt and glide over her bare collarbone. “Just out of curiosity, what did you think I was going to do about clothes while we were here?”

“I thought you’d decided you weren’t going to need any clothes,” Kate said shakily, trying to concentrate on his words and not his fingers. “According to the tourist pamphlets, some beaches in St. Maarten are nude.”

“The casinos aren’t.”

“No, of course not. I thought maybe you intended to skip the casino tonight.”

“And do what instead?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.”

Swallowing a laugh, Kate glanced toward the doorway. “Shhh. Diederik is in there. He’ll hear you.”

“Who cares?”

“I do. This may sound hopelessly unsophisticated to you, but I’ve never actually checked into a hotel for the sole purpose of going to bed with someone, and I’m a little self-conscious about it. I suppose you’ve done it lots of times, haven’t you?”

“Now I’m feeling self-conscious.”

“I shouldn’t have asked that question,” Kate said ruefully.

“Probably not,” he whispered.

Kate stiffened at the implied reprimand, but before she could think of a suitable response, he twined his left hand through her hair and tipped her head back. His warm lips came down on hers in a long, slow, searching kiss filled with lazy hunger. Finally, he lifted his mouth from hers. “Let’s go inside.”

Kate nodded agreement. By then, she would have nodded agreement if he’d suggested they jump off the balcony headfirst, but once they were in the suite, his tone and his words startled her out of her sensual haze.

“We need to talk, Kate; sit down.”

Surprised by his businesslike tone, Kate perched her hip on the arm of a sofa and watched curiously as he walked over to the windows, shoved his hands into his pockets, and looked down for several seconds as if composing his thoughts. When he turned, his expression was friendly but resolute. “Before you get into that bed with me, I want to be sure you don’t have any false illusions about what’s going on between us. I’m telling you this because I never want you to look back on our time together with any kind of regret.”

“Go on,” Kate urged when he paused to let his words sink in.

“By your own admission, you’re a ‘romantic,’ and last night, we were caught up in a situation that might have seemed more... meaningful... than it actually was. What I’m trying to say is that there’s an amazing amount of physical chemistry between us, but last night, on the beach in the moonlight, those few kisses of ours may have seemed... What’s the word I’m looking for?”

“Magical?” Kate suggested, using the word that best fit her own impression of last night. The instant she said it, she regretted betraying that much of her own feelings about the night before, but Mitchell seemed to agree with her assessment.

“ ‘Magical’ is close enough. You weren’t the only one who was influenced by the setting and the moment. I was influenced enough by it that I actually came back to you to answer your questions, which is something I never would have done under ordinary circumstances. However, that was last night and last night was an... aberration.”

Struggling desperately not to leap to any conclusions and to appear serene, Kate tipped her head to the side and asked with a slight smile, “Are you trying to warn me off?”

“Not at all. I’ve been dying to get you into bed since we sat down to dinner last night.”

“Are you trying to establish some sort of ground rules, then?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then what are you doing?”

“I’m having an attack of scruples,” he said with disgust, “and I’m trying to deal with it.”

“Is this an unfamiliar occurrence for you?”

“In these circumstances, it’s unprecedented,” he said bluntly.

“In that case, I’m flattered,” Kate replied, but she wasn’t flattered; she was confused and uneasy and becoming more so by the moment.

“I’m trying to explain that I need to be sure you’re here with me now for the right reasons, not the wrong ones. Until this morning, I didn’t know your father had just died. The two of you were obviously very close, and you’re feeling a little lost and alone. On top of that, you’re faced with the burden of trying to run his business. You’re worried and you’re scared. All those emotions may be clouding your judgment about what you and I are doing.” He paused for some response from her.

Wary of saying anything, Kate simply nodded that she understood, even though she didn’t. Not completely. Not yet.

“Until an hour ago,” he continued, “I thought your boyfriend in Chicago was some middle-aged jerk who likes showing you off and traveling with you. Are you following me so far?”

Kate nodded slowly.

“Good. Then here’s the reality: In Chicago, there’s an eligible man who wants to marry you. Here, in this room, there’s a man who wants to take you to bed and make love to you until neither of us has the strength to move anymore. But it can’t go any further than that. It would get much too complicated.”

“And you don’t like complications?”

“No,” Mitchell said. “Especially not the kind we’d have.”

“I appreciate the warning,” Kate said, struggling to view her predicament unemotionally, without feeling mortified that she’d let herself land in this predicament in the first place. Viewed from the right perspective, she knew she was better off finding out now, rather than later, that Mitchell’s only interest in her was as a brief, convenient partner for a little recreational sex. Now that she understood, she also knew she’d end up feeling guilty and disgusted with herself for betraying Evan for something as tawdry and meaningless as what Mitchell was blatantly suggesting.

Furthermore, Mitchell’s summation of her state of mind was probably right: she was an emotional mess over her father and she wasn’t thinking rationally. Thankfully, Mitchell was thinking very rationally and behaving very honorably by letting her know how he felt. And to give him even more credit, he wasn’t pressuring her to settle for what he was offering her, either. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Having arrived at these conclusions, Kate felt truly relieved and blessedly clearheaded—and, somewhere deep inside of her, painfully disappointed and thoroughly wretched. For the moment, however, there was nothing she could do except try to be philosophical and good-natured, and then deal with the mental turmoil later, when she was alone.

“You were undoubtedly right when you said I’m overly emotional these days because of my father’s death, and my judgment is probably impaired, as well.” Even as she said that, Kate’s instincts and her heart insisted that although she may have been wrong about everything else, there was something special about the “connection” she felt with him and that he damned well felt it, too! She decided to take a small risk and lay that all out for him. There was nothing he could do but make fun of her, and she didn’t think he would do that. Raising her eyes to his, she said softly, “I think fate may have intended for us to meet the way we did and to become friends—that it was predestined.”

The instant she said “predestined,” he gave her a skeptical look, leaned his shoulder against the window, and folded his arms over his chest.

His body language was an eloquent rejection of any supernatural influences being involved, but Kate refused to let him mock her theory before he understood it. “I like you very much,” she persevered quietly, “and I think you like me, too—”

“I do. Very much,” he admitted with a sudden smile that was warm and genuine.

“That’s what I meant when I referred to fate and predestination. I’m usually slow and cautious about really liking someone, and I was totally predisposed todis like you—”

“Why?”

She chuckled. “Have you ever taken a good look at your face?”

“I shave it every morning.”

“Well, it’s too good-looking to be owned by a man who also possesses kindness and character and—and a lot of layers.” Out of words and explanations, Kate gave him the only actual example she could think of. “The best way I can illustrate what I’ve been trying to say is this—” Holding her hands out palms up, she smiled wryly and said, “Look at us now. We’re in a hotel room, the topic is sex, and we’re discussing it as if we’ve been friends forever. Without any anger or pretense, we’ve been deciding we shouldn’t go to bed together.” Finished, Kate waited for him to agree.

With eyes narrowed in thought, he nodded slowly as if he was arriving at a conclusion that surprised and somewhat displeased him. “I see. That’s what we’ve been doing?”

Since he seemed to be asking himself that question, Kate saw no reason to answer it. Furthermore, it was an odd question under the circumstances, and she was running low on clever, rational answers. Instead of replying, she stood up and strolled over to the balcony doors. “Now, since I haven’t cheated on my boyfriend,” she said lightly, “and neither of us has done anything we’ll regret later, why don’t we do what two new friends should do on such a gorgeous island—let’s go sightseeing. When I’m back in Chicago and you’re—wherever you are—we can exchange postcards from other places we go, and write things like—‘Remember that charming little café in St. Maarten.’ After we’re done sightseeing, you could drop me off at the vet’s office, if you wouldn’t mind. I’ll pick up Max and take him back to Anguilla.”

When Mitchell didn’t reply after several moments, Kate glanced over her shoulder and saw that he hadn’t moved. He was still standing with his shoulder propped against the window and his arms folded over his chest, only now he was looking at her with his brows drawn together. She studied his handsome, inscrutable features and could not make out even a hint of what he was thinking. “Can I ask you something?” she said hesitantly.

He nodded.

Unable to meet his gaze while she asked her question, Kate turned back toward the balcony, absently rubbing her arms. “Are you disappointed that there was no real magic between us last night? That it was just the setting and the moment?”

When he didn’t immediately answer, she flicked a glance over her shoulder. No longer looking at her, he’d tipped his head slightly down and to his right, as if he were studying the carpet. “No,” he said curtly; then he lifted his head and looked straight at her. “No,” he repeated.

A realization hit Kate like a physical shock from an electrical outlet. As clearly as if he’d said it to her, she knew it was true, and surprise made her turn fully toward him. “You’re not disappointed that the magic is missing, because you didn’t want it to be there in the first place, did you?”

“You used the term ‘magic’ to describe last night, I didn’t,” he said as he straightened from his lounging position. Strolling toward her, he gave her an impatient lecture on his reality: “I do not believe in ‘magic’ or ‘magical’ events in the human experience. I also do not believe in fairy tales, miracles, spells, witchcraft, fairies, or leprechauns.”

“Watch your tongue,” Kate tried to joke.

Some of the tension went out of his face at her joke. “You don’t really believe in that garbage, do you?”

The disappointment Kate felt earlier was turning to hurt, because now she realized he was pleased with their situation today and even purposely causing it to some extent. Struggling to keep her tone neutral, she said, “Oh, so at this point it no longer matters what I believe.”

“Pretend it does.”

“All right, I do not believe in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. But I know magic when I feel it, and I felt it last night. I’m willing to agree that you weren’t the cause of it, but—”

He cut her off with a mocking challenge: “I suppose you’re going to try to convince me you have ‘magic’ with your lawyer-boyfriend?”

Kate sobered. “First of all, I’m not trying to convince you of anything. Second, if the answer to your question was yes, I wouldn’t have been with you last night and I wouldn’t be here now. Third, and most important of all, do not mention him again,” she warned implacably. “You have no right to discuss him, and neither do I.”

It was this first-time defense of the boyfriend that warned Mitchell he had now run out of rope with her and he was standing precariously close to the edge of a dangerous precipice. She had too much pride and self-respect to settle for what little he was willing to offer. She wanted magic, and without it, she was staying faithful to her boyfriend. In fact, her mind was already made up to stay with him.

“What matters,” she continued in a sweet, apologetic voice as she unknowingly shoved him clear off the precipice, “is that you refuse to believe in magic, and I refuse not to believe in it. And therein lies the gap we can’t bridge. Not in this room or anywhere else.”

Mitchell felt himself plunging through thin air, sent over the edge by a beautiful young redhead with the face of an angel and the stubborn pride of an Irish rebel. Even so, he made a manful attempt to gain a foothold and stop his fall by suggesting, “Why don’t we go to bed and see what happens there?”

She shook her head and smiled that Madonna smile of hers. “Why? So I could try to make you feel magic while you try to prove there is none? One person can’t make that kind of magic. It takes two. It’s inevitable that you’d succeed and I’d end up being disappointed. If I’m going to be disappointed,” she admitted with gentle candor, “I don’t want it to happen with you. I don’t know why, but that’s very important to me.” She turned away and stepped through the balcony doorway, looking out at the water. “Let’s go sightseeing now and try to get to know each other a little bit before I pick up Max and take him back to Anguilla with me. I’ll wait out here if you’d like to change clothes.”

Mitchell experienced the full force of his renewed free fall, complete with sensations of his stomach twisting into knots and wind howling in his ears. Drawing a long, steadying breath, he gazed at the slender back of the woman he’d allowed to do this to him. His balance returned, he felt the floor beneath his feet. On the balcony was an exquisite Irish girl who touched his heart, overheated his blood, and made him laugh. She was passionate and sweet, honest and intelligent, proud and unpredictable. She sang in a choir, smiled like an angel, and adopted ugly, stray dogs with fleas. She was a fairy tale. And he was...

Completely enchanted.

Walking up behind her, he slid his arms around her and drew her back against his chest. “Let’s get complicated, Kate,” he said with a smile in his voice.

“Thank you for the offer,” she said politely, “but it’s better to leave things just as they are.”

Ignoring that, Mitchell pressed his lips to the top of her head and whispered, “Chant your incantations and get out your amulets, lovely witch. Weave your magic spell.”

“Please stop this, or we won’t end up being friends, after all,” she warned.

“We’re already friends,” he murmured, trailing his mouth to her ear. “We’re about to become lovers.”

She shivered at the touch of his breath on her ear, but refused to relent. “I told you, I don’t want to.”

“Yes, you do, and so do I,” he said, and kissed her temple. “Put your arms around me and wrap us up in magic. I can’t do it without you.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” she burst out. “What do you think you’re—”

Mitchell switched from tender persuasion to assertive action and clamped his hand over her mouth before she could finish. “Kate,” he warned in a low, implacable voice, “for the next hour, the only sounds I want to hear from you are moans of delight and the words ‘yes,’ ‘more,’ and ‘please.’ ”

He lifted his hand a fraction of an inch, and she said, “Stop it!”

“Wrong words,” Mitchell said, and twisted her around. “Look at me, Kate.”

Green eyes, wary and annoyed, glared at him from beneath graceful russet brows drawn into a dark, warning frown.

Mitchell heeded her expression and carefully softened his tone. “I am trying to concede. The truth is that I felt all the same things you did last night, and you know I did.”

Looking into his cobalt eyes, listening to the slightly husky timbre of his baritone voice, Kate sensed he was telling her the truth as well as allowing her a glimpse beneath another of his “layers,” and she felt a sharp tug on her heart. His next explanation was equally revealing:

“The discouraging things I said to you a few minutes ago were mostly the result of my halfhearted desire to protect you from me—” He stopped, cocked his head to the side, and after a moment’s thought, he admitted with amused irony, “Actually, it may have been the reverse.”

Trying desperately not to laugh, Kate bit down on her lip and swiftly shifted her gaze to his shoulder, but looking away didn’t help. She was so hopelessly drawn to him in every way that there was no refuge. Marveling at her own helplessness, she shook her head a little. Mitchell evidently mistook that shake of her head as an indication she was about to reject what he’d said, and he gave her a stern warning: ” ‘No’ is not on the list I gave you of acceptable words.”

Caught between mirth and tenderness, Kate succumbed to defeat. Smiling into his eyes, she laid her palms on his chest and softly sighed a word that was not on his list. “Mitchell...”

She saw pleasure flicker in his eyes when she said his name that way. “You may add that word to your list.”

Leaning up on her toes, eyes shining with laughter, voice shaky with awakening desire, Kate twined her arms around his neck. “Please,” she whispered, her lips almost touching his.

“An excellent choice,” Mitchell decreed, and brushed his lips back and forth over hers in a light, teasing kiss.

“More,” Kate murmured when he lifted his mouth.

“An even better choice,” Mitchell said with a grin, and gathered her tightly into his arms, preparing to leisurely savor and explore that mouth of hers. She took him from relaxed humor to raw hunger in minutes.

He maneuvered her—without resistance—to the side of the bed, and let go of her while he pulled his shirt off. When he dropped it to the floor and reached out to help take her T-shirt off, she smiled up at him and shook her head slightly as if she wanted to do it herself for him. She tugged her T-shirt out of her waistband, caught it by the hem, and drew it up and over her head. When she finished, she stood in front of him in a white lacy bra, and Mitchell found himself smiling back at her—a warm, playful smile tinged with a challenge.

He dropped his gaze from her green eyes, and his hands went to his belt.

Kate had to take off her sandals before she could step out of her jeans, so she bent to deal with them. In front of her lowered eyes, his pants and briefs hit the floor. With shaky fingers, Kate concentrated on unfastening one sandal, then the other. She stepped out of them and started to straighten. Part way up, her gaze slid up a rigid male member, and she hastily jerked her eyes away. Looking at that magnificent chest of his was less nerve-racking than seeing him naked at the hips for the first time. His hands went to her shoulders, his thumbs pulling her bra straps down, leaving them loose on her arms, before he slid his hands around her back and unhooked her bra with the ease of man who had unhooked many.

Thinking that, she raised her gaze to his and saw a knowing expression sweep across his face, before he lowered his eyelids and pulled her bra away from her breasts and down her arms. Kate stepped out of her jeans, and his slow, languorous gaze drifted boldly over her, examining her breasts and waist and belly, then down to the curly hair at her thighs. In the way she often sensed what he was thinking, she knew he expected her to put him through the same appraisal, but although she was ready to touch and be touched, she wasn’t quite ready to take a deliberate look at what she’d seen unintentionally moments before.

His voice was deep and sure as his hand finally reached toward her, but not for any of the places she expected him to want to touch. His hand settled under her chin, tipping it up. “Are you feeling shy?” he asked.

She met his gaze unflinchingly and said, “No, just a little... uncertain.”

He mistook her meaning. “Don’t even consider uncertainty now.”

Kate bit her lip to hide her smile, laid her palms against the muscles of his chest, and while his hands settled on her waist, she exerted pressure. She slid her hands slowly up over his nipples, and then spread her fingers and slid them slowly back down while she watched the banked fires in his eyes begin to smolder. “Not that kind of uncertain,” she whispered back.

They stood naked, face to face. She had beautiful breasts, not large, but full, and as he trailed his hand up from her waist, his eyelids closed with pleasure at the sensation of her skin. At her nipple, he opened his fingers and captured it. He increased the pressure until he wrung the first gasp of pleasure out of her.

Her hands glided over his shoulders, while she covered his mouth with her soft lips and brought her body into full contact with his.

The lazy pleasure of moments ago exploded in a deluge of pure lust, and Mitchell wrapped his arms around her and twisted his body, sending them back onto the bed. His hips landed unerringly against the seductive curly hair between her thighs, and his hands shifted back to her breasts. She gazed at him, sultry and playful, eyes smiling warmly into his. He couldn’t remember ever before deriving this kind of intimate pleasure—even from just watching her face and knowing she was watching his.

Her hands smoothed slowly over his back and down his buttocks, holding him tight to her. She opened her legs, and he reminded himself that this was too soon, the preliminaries having barely begun. But he let his body touch the entrance to hers, experiencing the delight of finding her already wet. He edged inside of her just an inch, smiling a little at her hazy expression. He moved his hands to her hair. He shoved his fingers into it and, lowering his mouth to hers, slowly, deliberately forced her lips to part, opening them wide, while his hips lifted and forced her to open wide. He intended to ease just a little deeper into that tight, enclosing warmth, except that just then, she tightened her hands on his buttocks, arched her hips as much as his heavy weight would allow, and whispered an aching, imperative “Please.”

He drew back, deliberately resisting the invitation.

“Please...”

He rammed himself into her, burying himself full length into her arching body, and his own body began to move without his volition, capturing her and forcing her to move with him. With the last ounce of willpower he possessed, he rolled onto his back, putting her astride his hips to slow them both down. Pressing her palms against him for support, she forced herself into a sitting position, her rumpled hair falling down her sides. She began to move on him with a rhythm that became a part of his breathing, of the coursing of blood through his veins. He could have continued pleasuring her by forcing his body higher into hers, except that she lifted her head and gazed straight into his eyes, looking as aroused as he was but a little baffled.

“Take your time,” he whispered—an act of almost suicidal unselfishness given the urgent state of his body.

Her answer explained the bafflement in her green eyes. “I can’t,” she whispered, and with a groan of anticipation and defeat, Mitchell tossed her onto her back and began driving into her with long, deep, slow strokes. She clasped him to her and buried her face in the curve of his neck, her fingers biting into his back, her body straining and moving with his. She cried out and clung to him tighter while spasms rocked her, and Mitchell slammed forward, climaxing with her.

Afterward, she lay in his arms, looking into his eyes, her fingers idly smoothing the hair at his temple. “More?” she said hopefully.

Mitchell burst out laughing and tightened his arms around her. “That is my favorite word.”