The door closed behind him with a soft click of the latch.

"Pleasure?"

"P-L-E-A-S-U-R-E. As in what was missing in your initiation into lovemaking. I took a lot, gave very little. I want to make that up to you."

"You mean you want to…uh…"

Nodding his head, Linc moved forward with a prowling gait. "Yeah, that’s what I mean." Reaching her, he took her shoulders between his hands and drew her against him.

"But we can’t." Her protest was as faint as the resistance she exerted when he adjusted his body to fit hers.

"How come?"

"Because we don’t even like each other."

He shrugged. "You’re all right."

"And every time we’re together we fight."

"Makes life interesting and keeps me on my toes."

"You’ll always hold it against me that I tricked you."

"But I admire your craftiness."

"In my mind you’ll always be a mercenary even though you wield a camera instead of a gun. And – "

"And in spite of all that, we’re physically attracted. Granted?"

She stared into his tanned, lean face. Her stubborn will capitulated to the urging of her body. It was awakening, as a morning glory does with the sun. Unfolding itself. Seeking the warmth. Flowering open.

Kerry tried to remember all the reasons why this was untenable and unworkable, and a downright bad idea. But her body had a memory of its own. Her senses recalled each touch, sound, and taste of his lovemaking and wanted to experience them again. Thread by thread her resistance became unwoven.

She laid her hands on his chest. "Granted."

"Then for tonight, can’t we set aside all our differences and concentrate strictly on that?"

"Isn’t that a rather irresponsible approach to going to bed together?"

"Don’t you think we deserve to be a little irresponsible?" His gaze was moving over her face and hair. "After all we’ve been through?"

"I suppose so." Because his shirt was open, she could feel part of his bare chest against her palms. His skin was hot. The hair that matted it was crinkly and soft. She wanted to feel it against her face, her mouth.

"Don’t think about all the reasons we shouldn’t, Kerry," he said in a stirring voice. "Think about this."

Cupping her chin in one hand, he tilted her head back and pressed his lips against hers, nudging them apart, and breaching them with his tongue. Kerry’s world careened. She did as he suggested and focused all her attention on the kiss, the heat and passion and hunger behind it. His lips were firm, but not forceful. His tongue was bold, but not abusive. Linc used it to make love to her mouth.

When he raised his head, she slumped against him and laid her cheek on his chest. Beneath her ear she could hear his heart pounding. Their kiss had affected him as much as it had her.

"You’re good," he whispered to the crown of her head.

"You just haven’t had anyone else lately."

"No. You’re good."

"lam?"

"Yes, ma’am. Very good. Damn good."

Before she could prepare herself, he tilted her bead back again, just in time to meet his descending mouth. He pulled her against him tightly, wedged her thighs apart and tucked the lower part of his body between them. It was a thrilling contact and one that would have made her gasp, had his mouth not held such mastery over hers. His lips ground against hers with a need close to desperation. She recognized the same kind of clamoring need within herself.

Working her hands from between their bodies, she linked them around his neck. When her breasts flattened against his chest, each of them uttered a gratified sound. She laced her fingers through his hair and stretched up on tiptoe. His moan originated in the bottom of his soul. He slid his hands do’wn to her derriere, pressing her higher and harder against the front of his body.

They couldn’t continue for long without incinerating. Gradually Linc ended the kiss. His lips, moist and soft, rubbed against hers and his hands moved to the more neutral territory of her waist. It was incredibly narrow and his hands kept gently squeezing it as though marveling over that. Kerry eased down to stand flatfooted again between his wide-spread feet. Her hands glided down to his shoulders, touching his ears, his jaw, along the way. She toyed with the buttons on the epaulets of his shirt.

When she lifted her shy gaze up to his, he did something she’d rarely seen him do. He smiled. She remarked on it, telling him that he had a nice smile.

He laughed softly at the innocent compliment. "I do?"

"Yes. I haven’t seen you smile very often. You were usually frowning at me."

"Because I wanted to be on top of you so damn bad."

His emotion-packed words had a profound effect on Kerry’s insides. They absorbed them like a blow from a velvet wrapped fist. To put things back on an even keel, she said inanely, "Your teeth are straight. Did you wear braces?"

"Hell no."

"I did."

"I’ll bet you were adorable." He pecked a light kiss on the tip of her nose. "But every day you spent in braces was worth it." He ran the tip of his tongue along her upper teeth, barely inside her lips. She shivered with the pleasure he had promised to give her. "Cold?"

"No." Then the absurdity of the question struck her and she laughed. "No," she stressed, shaking her head.

His eyes became as glowing and hypnotizing as lantern light in the middle of a nighttime forest. They were all Kerry could see. Twin stars at the center of this private universe.

"Hot?"

She nodded.

"Where?"

"Everywhere."

He pressed his open palm against her stomach. Never removing his eyes from her face, he slid his hand down, following the tapering line of her body, until his hand conformed perfectly to the delta shape. “Here?"

Kerry made a yearning sound and swayed toward him. "Yes."

"Tender?"

"A little."

"I’m sorry."

"I’m not."

"You’re not?"

"No, Linc I’m not."

They kissed, and because it was such a torrid kiss, he removed his hand, caught her, and held her close, rocking her slightly. "We’re getting ahead of ourselves," he whispered raggedly. He nuzzled her neck. Kissed it. Touched it with his tongue. "You know the song that goes, ‘I want to kiss you all over’?’’ She made an affirmative motion with her head, though she didn’t move it away from the hollow of his shoulder. "Well, that’s what I want to do to you. Kiss you all over. And over again."

He encircled her upper arms and eased her away. When her eyes drifted open, he said, "Desire was the only thing that kept me going while we were tramping through that damned jungle. Basically I’m a coward."

"Impossible," she said fervently.

He grinned crookedly. "You caught me on a brave week. Anyway," he said, giving a dismissive shake of his head, "the motivation that drove me was that one day, by some miraculous twist of fate, I was going to have you in bed."

"You don’t fool me, Lincoln. Other people might buy that callous air you assume, but I don’t. Your motivation was to get those orphans to safety."

He had the grace to look chagrined. “Well it made the situation a helluva lot more bearable to fantasize about you along the way."

"Did you?" She assumed the posture and expression of a practiced coquette, though the gestures came to her subconsciously.

"All the time. Constantly. Continually."

His hands moved over her throat and chest. The pads of his fingsrs glanced over her skin, barely touching it. Even though they were sensitive to the intricate dials of a sophisticated camera, they were appealingly rough and masculine.

Lightly, he placed his hands on the sides of her breasts. He applied a slight pressure, then relaxed. Several times he did that, making her breasts move beneath the nightgown, which was made of a cotton so thin and airy that her nipples showed up as enticing shadows beneath it, even in the darkness of the room.

"Your breasts fascinated me. The way they moved every time you did. It seemed like your clothes were always getting wet. The night you bathed in the stream. The river crossing. Even perspiration made your shirt cling to you. And I’d see…"

He brushed his thumbs over her nipples. Not that they needed any encouragement. His words had already brought them to aching hardness.

"They bewitched me. All I could think of was touching, kissing."

He bent his head and kissed her breast through her nightgown. The wet, stroking caress of his tongue seeped through the sheer cloth and caused it to mold provocatively to the rosy tips. "Nice."

"You said I was small."

"You are. But I never said I didn’t like small." He lowered his head to her again and kept up that particular pleasure-giving caress until her knees threatened to buckle beneath her.

"I want to see you." She surprised herself by saying that. But she didn’t lower her gaze in maidenly bashfulness. She met his steadily. "Take off your shirt. Please."

Her polite afterthought amused him, but he made no comment on it as he peeled off his shirt. Holding it out to his side, he dropped it to the floor. He stood perfectly still, indulging her curiosity.

She smiled compassionately over the angry red scrape the bullet had left. She wouldn’t dwell on how close he had come to being seriously wounded or killed. It made her slightly ill to think about it. She pushed the thought from her mind and, as they had agreed to do, centered her thoughts on loving.

Her touch was delicate and inquisitive when she first laid her hands on the upper, curving portion of his chest. The hair was intriguing, and she combed her fingers through it. It spread in a wide fan shape over his breasts, then funnelled to a silky stripe down the center of his stomach. She bracketed his ribcage with her hands and moved them down as far as his waist, then back up, letting her fingers climb over each rib. They finally came to rest beneath the solid, curved muscles. Her thumbs came dangerously close to touching his nipples before they shied away.

She looked up at him inquiringly. "Touch me like I do you," he said tightly. His face was taut and his breath was rushing between his teeth.

Against her fingertips, the feel of his erect nipples was erotic and exciting. His trembling response to her caress gave her courage. She shed the remains of her shyness and did what she had long wanted to do, she nuzzled him with her mouth. When her lips touched his nipple, both of them sighed with pleasure. She rubbed her tongue against it with no more hurry than a languid kitten at his morning bath. It came as a mild surprise to her that she derived as much pleasure from sucking it tenderly as it obviously gave Linc. Reflexively he thrust his manhood forward, rubbing it rhythmically against her.

When he could stand no more, he pushed her away and angled her head back. "I thought tonight would get you out of my system," he ground out. "Now I’m not so sure. You’re a powerful narcotic, ferry."

He kissed her, sending his tongue into the satiny warmth of her mouth. With an impatience bordering on violence, he ended the kiss. Taking her hand, he led her across the room to a ctair near the window. He sat down in it. She remained standing hi front of him.

"Take off your nightgown."

Kerry swallowed a knot of trepidation. He had removed her clothing today, but they’d been in an embrace. Disrobing in front of him, strictly for his entertainment, caused her heart to flutter with anxiety.

But with something else, too. The only name she could put to this odd sensation was titillation. She had a deepseated desire to tantalize and dazzle the worldly Lincoln O’Neal.

Her eyes took on a mysterious quality, a seductiveness, a lambency, a knowledge as old as Eve. Kerry turned her back on him. She sensed that he was about to make a protest but withheld it when he saw her cross her arms over her chest and move her hands to the shoulder straps of her nightgown. They were thin. It took the merest flick of her wrists to lower them. They slipped to her elbows. With painstaking slowness she relaxed her arms until they dropped to her sides. When that happened, the nightgown slithered from her body and fell to the floor.

She could almost feel Linc’s eyes burning into her back. She knew he was taking in her figure, the way her waist melded into the flare of her hips. Was he pleased? Had he noticed the dimples at the base of her spine? Did he find them cute? Sexy? Fascinating? Was he entranced by the shape of her bottom? Did her thighs look heavy and lumpy?

She stepped out of the pool of fabric at her feet and turned around slowly until she was facing him. She kept her eyes lowered. When she gathered enough courage to look at him, what she saw in his eyes caused her heartbeat to soar.

"Let your hair loose."

That wasn’t what she had expected him to say, but the gritty inflection of his voice told her what she wanted and needed to know. He liked what he saw.

She dragged the single braid over her shoulder. The curling end of it lay against her bare breast. Her attentive audience wet his lips. She pulled the rubber band off the end of the braid. Then, unlooping the strands slowly, she made a ballet of unraveling it.

Linc watched every graceful movement of her fingers, as though she were executing an intricate task that required incredible talent and perfect timing. When the entire braid was undone, she tossed the heavy skein of hair over her shoulder.

"Shake your head." Kerry moved her head from side to side. Her hair undulated over her skin in a slow sweep. "Comb your fingers through it." She lifted handfuls of her hair up and away from her face, pulling it through her widespread fingers until every strand had been filtered through. It fell over her shoulders and chest, almost reaching the tips of her breasts.

Linc’s chest was soughing in and out. She knew that he was about to explode, but when he made his move, she still wasn’t braced for it.

His hands shot out and clasped her waist. With one motion, he moved to the edge of the chair and pulled her forward. His open mouth landed with a soft, damp impact on her naked belly and she gave a sharp cry of surprise.

He kissed her fervently, several times, stopping only long enough to move his lips from one spot to another. His arms went around her. His hands cupped her bottom, and his caresses stole her breath with the unrestricted license they took. She laid her hands on the sides of his head, curling her fingers around his ears, and watched as his dear head moved from side to side, branding her with his hot, ardent kisses. His breath stirred the triangle of downy hair before she felt his hips moving in it.

Her knees gave way and she made another whimpering sound that snapped him to his senses. He stood up and enfolded her in his embrace. He murmured endearments spiced with expletives. The words stumbled over one another and became erotic lyrics that thrilled and aroused Kerry even more.

When he slipped his hand between her thighs, they parted without hesitation. It seemed right that he favored that part of her with gentle probings that took his fingers deep inside. She softly cried his name.

"Does that hurt?" Her answer was a wordless, mindless tossing of her head. "I’ll never hurt you again, Kerry. I swear it."

As he kissed her, he unzipped his pants and shoved them down his legs. It took some doing, but he stepped out of them without having to release her mouth from his tempestuous kiss.

She felt him, warm and hard and urgent against her. In a leisurely manner that in no way matched their clamorous passions, he smoothed his hand down the back of her thigh and gently lifted it up over his.

When the most intimate parts of their bodies touched, she reacted with total abandonment, throwing her head back until her hair almost reached her waist and arching against him to bring his sex to the very portal of hers.

"Not yet," he whispered.

Then his hand was there again. And his fingers were working magic, discovering secrets, finding the key to what made her woman. When he unlocked it with his exquisite touch, joy and pleasure and love rushed through her. Her nails made dents in his shoulders. Her teeth made imprints on his chest. He welcomed them. He savored each single spasm of pleasure that gripped her.

Kerry wasn’t allowed to luxuriate in the sweet aftermath, Weakly she leaned against him, panting softly. He cradled her in his arms and carried her to the bed, where he tenderly deposited her on the pillows. Her eyes were almost too languorous to remain open, but the sight of Linc, naked and proud, bending over her, brought them wide open.

"You’re beautiful." She could barely speak the words, but he read them on her lips.

"Who me?" He looked at her with skepticism. It twisted his smile, wrinkled his brow, and narrowed his eyes, making his expression roguish and sexy.

She smiled. "Yes you. And what you did to me. That was beautiful."

"Ah, that I agree with." He was on his knees. He straddled her thighs and ran his hands up and down them.

"I didn’t make a fool of myself?"

He touched the moist cleft between her thighs. "It was beautiful to watch. To feel against my fingers."

She bit her lower lip to hold inside the yearning sounds that pushed at her throat. "It… I don’t think…"

"Hmm?"

"I’m not finished," she said breathlessly.

He smiled. "Good, good."

"But I want… ahh… Linc…"

"What? Tell me what you want." He wasn’t taunting; he was begging. There was no cruelty on his features. His eyes were imploring. His jaw tensed with need. His face contorted with desire kept bridled too long. His entreaty endearingly vulnerable. "Show me, Kerry. What do you want?"

She placed her hands on the tops of his thighs. When she caressed his pronounced hipbones, he hissed a vivid curse. Her fingers tangled in the dark hair, and he dropped his head forward. And when she cradled his straining manhood between her hands, he released a tremendous groan.

His penetration was swift and deep. Kerry felt again the smoldering heat in the depths of her body. Like glowing embers being fanned, it burned hot, then hotter. When he began to move, she responded, lifting her hips to welcome his thrusts.

"Not so fast. Easy. We’re in no hurry this time."

Exercising amazing discipline, he relished her with the appreciation of a viticulturist for a perfect glass of rare wine. As though all of his body were covered with taste buds, he touched Jier everywhere, sampling her deliciousness.

His restraint couldn’t last forever. And soon it was he who was rushing, increasing the tempo. Kerry spun out of control again, and this time she took him with her. They whirled in a fiery dance until they either had to burn themselves out or die.

Jenny struggled to a sitting position. "Cage, did you hear something?"

"Yes," he mumbled into his pillow.

"I’d better go-"

He caught the hem of her nightgown. "Stay where you are."

"But-"

"The sound you heard was Linc going in to Kerry’s room."

Jenny’s mouth formed a small O. She lay back down, lying perfectly still. "Did she invite him in?"

"How the hell do I know? It’s their business. Now go back to sleep?"

"Do you think he’s still angry with her?"

"Jenny," he said warningly.

"Well maybe-"

"Jenny!" His stage whisper shut her up. "This is what you wanted, isn’t it? They’re together. You’ve had romantic stars in your eyes for them ever since they came through the door of this house. Now be quiet so Baby and I can go back to sleep."

"Baby wasn’t sleeping," Jenny grumbled. "She was kicking."

"Here, scooch back this way." Cage nudged her into the curve of his body where she snuggled, her back to his chest. He laid his hand on her swollen tummy and massaged it gently.

"You know," he commented, as his hand idly moved ova her, "I sorta envy ol’ Linc."

"That’s a terrible thing to say to a fat, pregnant wife!"

"‘Fraid I’ll go tomcatting around?" She poked him in the ribs with her elbow and he yelped beneath his breath. "You didn’t let me finish. I sorta envy him. I envy him the fun of the chase. But I wouldn’t trade where we are now with where they are in their relationship."

"Me neither."

"Getting you in my house and hi my bed was no small feat. Of course anything worth having is worth working for."

"I told Kerry practically the same thing today."

They were comfortable in their love for each other. But it still held elements of excitement, as demonstrated moments later when Cage asked, "Baby asleep?"

"Uh-huh, but mama’s wide awake." Jenny turned to face him. "Kiss me."

"We shouldn’t Jenny. It’s too dangerous now."

"Nothing else. Just a kiss. Kiss me, Cage. And make it count."

"Are you asleep?"

Kerry sighed deeply. "I think I’m dead."

Mischievously Linc blew gently on one of her breasts and, to his supreme delight and amusement, the nipple pearled. "You’re not dead."

She pried her eyes open and looked at him slumbrously. She was lying on her back. He was lying on his stomach beside her, propped up on his elbows and staring down at her.

"Do I look frightful?"

"Is this the woman who tramped through the jungle without so much as a lipstick or a hairbrush, worrying now about her appearance?"

"Do I?"

"Sexily mussed." He kissed her lightly. "Which is the best way a woman can look."

"Chauvinist."

"Besides, why should you care about your appearance now when you didn’t in the jungle?"

"I wasn’t sleeping with you then."

"Not for lack of me trying. And actually I did sleep with you. Remember the night under the vine?"

"You weren’t my lover then."

"Remember the night under the vine?" he repeated, forcing her to look at him. She nodded. "Did you know that if a man could die of arousal that would have been my deathbed?" She laughed and he frowned. "It’s not funny."

"I know. Because I was suffering, too."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

He looked at her across the pillow.’ ‘You’re very pretty."

"You’ve never told me that before."

"I’m not usually complimentary."

She touched his hair, removing wayward strands from his forehead. "You don’t get close to too many people, do you, Linc?"

"No." He saw the wounded expression in her eyes and hated himself for putting it there with his harsh, abrupt answer. He tried to soften it now by laying his hand against her cheek and rubbing his thumb over her lips. "I’m close to you tonight. I’m as close to you as I ever get to anybody. We’re close to each other. Let’s not spoil it by getting too analytical."

There was so much she wanted to say. Her heart was filled to capacity with love for this man. It demanded to be vocalized. But she knew that saying anything more would drive him farther away, not draw him nearer. So she held her silence.

To lighten the mood, she levered herself up and kissed his forehead. Her hair dusted his shoulder. "That feels good." "What?"

"Your hair against my skin."

Inspired then to demonstrate her unspoken love, Kerry began kissing his shoulders, taking careful lovebites that faintly nipped his skin. He made a grunting sound that showed his approval. She folded her legs beneath her hips and leaned across his back, dropping kisses randomly.

She sipped her way down his spine to the shallow dip just below his waist. Her hair followed the motions of her head. It draped his back, shifting and sliding over his smooth flesh as whimsically as the ever-changing surf upon the shore.

She ran her hand over his buttock, and with a gentle squeeze appreciated its firmness. He cast her a sly look over his shoulder and she giggled. "I couldn’t help but notice." He grinned smugly, but the expression relaxed and softened into one of sublimity when her hair brushed across his bottom and upper thighs. "Kerry?"

"Hmm?" She leaned back. He turned over. Her heart stopped.

He repeated her name. There was an unspoken please behind it. And a breathless anticipation he couldn’t disguise.

"You don’t have to if you don’t want to."

Kerry smiled at him lovingly, then lowered her head.

She kissed both his knees and worked her way up his thighs, trailing her hair behind her. She took his breath where next she kissed him. He closed his eyes and sighed her name as the loveplay of her lips and tongue went on and on. Without inhibition. With love. Then, as a refrain, she daintily dipped her tongue into his navel. Her hair swirled around his stiff manhood. The sight was beautiful and erotic and a stunning catalyst.

He lifted her atop him. Kerry gazed down at him with wide-eyed astonishment, but, acting on instinct, impaled herself on him. He sank his fingers into the fleshy part of her hips.

"Dol-"

"Oh, God, yes," he moaned. "Just like that."

She began to roll her hips in a grinding motion. He covered her breasts with his hands, brought the nipples to ripe peaks with plucking fingers, then levered himself up to love them with his mouth.

Closing her eyes, Kerry let her own sensations instruct her on what to do. With each tug of his mouth on her breast, she felt a corresponding contraction in her womb. Inside her he was strong and unyielding, and her only thought was to draw him deeper, make him an intrinsic part of herself. Again that marvelous pressure began to build to insurmountable heights, and she was helpless to stop the avalanche of emotions that overwhelmed her.

Moments later, they lay in a tangled heap of twisted bed-sheets and naked limbs. Linc was the first to regain his senses. He could have moved away. He could have left her. But he wrapped his arms around Kerry and held her tightly.

"Kerry, Kerry." There were varying elements in his voice. Yearning. Pleasure. Affection. Mostly sadness.

But Kerry, listening only to the synchronized beating of their hearts, didn’t hear that.