“Maybe you can’t see it because you’ve had enough for one day.”

“And you’d be willing to take my mind off this.”

“The thought crossed my mind.”

“In the interest of truth, I’ll admit the thought crossed mine.” She turned to him. “My mind’s pretty busy, Coop. It’s going to take some doing to distract me.”

“I think I can handle it.” Even as she reached out he rose, evading her.

“Straight upstairs, huh? I thought you might warm me up a little right here.”

“We’re not going upstairs.” He turned off the lights so only the fire glowed, then moved to her little stereo and punched the button for the CD player. Music poured out, low and soulful.

“I didn’t know I had any Percy Sledge.”

“You didn’t.” He crossed back, took her hand to bring her to her feet. “I figured it might come in handy.” He drew her in, and swayed. “We never did this much.”

“No.” She closed her eyes as Percy’s magic voice told her what a man would do when he loved a woman. “We didn’t do this much.”

“We’ll have to start.” He turned his head to brush his lips over her temple. “Like the flowers. I owe you several years worth of dances.”

She pressed her cheek to his. “We can’t get them back, Coop.”

“No, but we can fill them in.” He ran his hands, up and down, up and down the tensed, tight muscles of her back. “Some nights I’d wake up and imagine you were there, in bed beside me. Some nights it was so real I could hear you breathing, I could smell your hair. Now some nights I wake up and you’re in bed beside me, and there’s this moment of panic when I hear you breathing, when I smell your hair, that I’m imagining it.”

She squeezed her eyes tight. Was it her pain she felt, or his?

“I want you to believe in us again. In me. In this.” He drew her back until his mouth found hers. And took her under, deep and breathless while they swayed in the gold shimmer of firelight.

“Tell me you love me. Just that.”

Her heart trembled. “I do, but-”

“Just that,” he repeated, and took her under again. “Just that. Tell me.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, Lil. You can’t believe the words yet, so I’ll just keep showing you until you can.”

His hands skimmed up and down her sides. His mouth sampled and savored hers. And the heart that trembled for him began to beat for him, slow and thick.

Seduction. A soft kiss and sure hands. Easy, easy movements in golden light and velvet shadows. Quiet words whispered against her skin.

Surrender. Her body pliant against his. Her lips yielding to a gentle, patient assault. A long, long sigh of pleasure.

They lowered to the floor, kneeling, wrapped close.

Swayed there.

He drew her shirt away, then brought her hands to his lips, pressed them to her palms. Everything, he thought, she held everything he was in her hands. How could she not know?

Then he laid her palm on his heart, looked into her eyes. “It’s yours. When you’re ready to take it, to take me for what I am, it’s yours.”

He pulled her close so her hands were caught between them, and this time his mouth wasn’t gentle, wasn’t patient.

Need leaped inside her, alive and fierce, while his heart kicked its wild beat against her palms. He tugged her jeans open, and drove her roughly up and up, drove her higher even when she cried out.

When she went limp, when it seemed she melted to the floor, he covered her with his body. Took more.

His hands and mouth stripped her, left her raw and open, weak and dazzled. Her breath sobbed out, caught on a fresh cry when he thrust into her. He gripped her hands, held tight as her fingers curled with his.

“Look at me. Look at me. Lil.”

She opened her eyes, saw his face washed in the reds and golds of firelight. Fierce and feral as that heartbeat. He plunged inside her until her vision blurred, until the slap of flesh to flesh was like music.

Until she’d given him everything.

She didn’t object when he carried her upstairs. She didn’t protest when he lay down with her and drew her close, his arms wrapped tight around her.

When he kissed her again it was like the first in the dance. Soft, sweet, seductive.

She closed her eyes and let herself dream.

IN THE MORNING, she rolled out of bed as he came out of the bath, hair still dripping.

“I thought you might sleep longer,” he said.

“Can’t. Full day.”

“Yeah, me too. Some of your people should be here in about thirty minutes, right?”

“About. That’s assuming they all remember how to work the new gate.”

He crossed to her, skimmed a thumb down her cheek. “I can wait until some of them get here.”

“I think I can handle myself alone for a half hour.”

“I’ll wait.”

“Because you’re worried about me or because you’re hoping I’ll use the time to fix you breakfast.”

“Both.” Now that thumb traced the line of her jaw. “I picked up bacon and eggs since you were out.”

“Do you ever give a passing thought to cholesterol?”

“Not when I’ve got you talked into fixing me bacon and eggs.”

“All right. I’ll slap a couple biscuits together.”

“I’ll toss a couple steaks on the grill tonight. A trade-off.”

“Sure, eggs, bacon, red meat. Screw the arteries.”

He caught her hips, levered her up for a hard good-morning kiss. “So speaks the beef farmer’s daughter.”

She headed downstairs thinking it seemed almost normal, this talk of breakfast, of dinner plans, of full days. But it wasn’t normal. Nothing was quite within that safe, normal zone.

She didn’t need the scattered clothes on her living room floor to remind her.

She swept in there first, gathered them up to shove the whole armload into her laundry room.

Once the coffee got going she heated up a pan. Leaving the bacon sizzling, she opened the back door, stepped onto the porch to breathe in the morning air.

Dawn broke in the east, bringing the hills into soft silhouettes against the first light. Higher, higher still, the last stars were going out like candles.