"And in the world as well. You've been in that world. I've taken you there. You remember last night, I can see it in you mind."

"Don't look in my mind." She jerked back, mortified because she believed he could. "Thoughts are private things."

"And yours are often so clear on your face I don't have to look any further. I won't look further if it upsets you."

"It does." She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. "You're a psychic?"

He blew out a huff of breath. "I've the power to see, if that's your meaning. To brew a spell, to call the thunder." He shrugged negligently, elegantly. "To shift shapes at my will."

Shape-shifter. Good God. She'd read of such things, of course she had. In novels, in books on myths and legends. It couldn't be real. And yet- could she deny what she'd seen with her own eyes? What she knew in her own heart?

"You came to me as the wolf." If she was mad, she thought, she might as well have mad answers.

"You weren't afraid of me then. Others would have been, but not you. You welcomed me in, put your arms around me, wept on my neck."

"I didn't know it was you. If I'd known-" She broke off as other memories crept back. "You watched me undress! You sat there while I was in the tub."

"It's a lovely body you have. Why should you be shamed that I've seen it? Only hours ago you asked me to touch you."

"That's entirely different."

Something that might have been reluctant amusement flickered in his eyes. "Ask me to touch you now, knowing, and it will be even more different."

She swallowed hard. "Why haven't you- touched me already?"

"You needed time to know me, and yourself. I've no right to take innocence, even when it's offered, when no knowledge goes with it."

"I'm not innocent. I've been with men before."

Now there was something dark shimmering in his eyes, something not quite tame. But his voice was even when he spoke. "They didn't touch your innocence, didn't change it. I will. If you lie with me, Rowan, it'll be as the first time. I'll give you pleasure that will make you burn-"

His voice had lowered. When he traced a finger down her throat she shivered, but didn't step back. Whoever-whatever-he was, he moved her. He called to her. "What will you feel?"

"Delight," he murmured, easing closer to brush his mouth over her cheek. "Demand. Desire. It's the passion you wanted that you didn't find in others. Urgency, you said. And desperation. I feel that for you, whether I will or no. That much power you have over me. Is it enough for you?"

"I don't know. No one's ever felt that for me."

"I do." He brought his hands over, slipped the first two buttons free on her simple cotton shirt. "Let me see you, Rowan. Here, in the light of day."

"Liam." It was insanity. How could it be real? Yet everything she felt was too intense, too immediate to be otherwise. Nothing, she realized with a dull sense of shock, had ever been more real to her. "I believe this." Her breath trembled free. "I want this."

He looked in her eyes, saw both the fear and the acceptance. "So do I."

The skim of his knuckles over her skin left a hot trail down her skin as he unbuttoned her blouse, slipped it off her shoulders. Her heart tumbled in her chest as he smiled. "You were in a hurry this morning," he murmured, noting she hadn't taken the time for a bra.

To please himself he traced a fingertip lightly down the subtle slope, over the tip, and watched her eyes go opaque. "You know I can't stop you," she said, watching him.

"Aye, you can." Through sheer will he kept his touch gentle. "With but a word. I hope you won't for it'll drive me mad not to have you now. Do you want me to touch you?"

"Yes." More than she wanted to breathe.

"You said once that it shouldn't be simple." With his eyes on hers, he unbuttoned her jeans. "It won't be." Skilled fingertips skimmed under denim to tease, to awaken. "Not for either of us."

It was like a dream, she thought. Just one more glorious dream. "Why do you want this?"

"Because you're in my mind, in my blood." That much was true, but he told himself he could block her out of his heart. Leaning forward, he caught her jaw gently between his teeth. "I'm in yours."

Why should she deny it? Why shouldn't she accept, even embrace these outrageous sensations, this heat in the belly and flutter in the pulse? He was what she wanted, with a giddy greed she'd felt for no other man.

So take, her mind murmured, and pay whatever price is asked.

Still her fingers shook slightly as she tugged his shirt over his head. Then, with a kind of wonder, she spread her hands over his chest.

Hard, warm. Strength just on the edge of danger held ruthlessly in check. She knew it, even as her curious fingers traced up, over broad shoulders, down the taut muscles of his arms. She heard the soft feline purr before she realized it had come from her own throat.

Her gaze shot up to his, and in her eyes was a mix of shock and delight. "I've done this before- in my dreams."

"With much the same results." He'd intended his tone to be dry, but there was an edge to it that stunned him. Gently, he ordered himself, she should be treated gently. "Will you move beyond dreams now, Rowan, and lie with me?"

For an answer she stepped to him, rising onto her toes so that her mouth met his. The beauty of that, just that, had his arms coming hard around her. "Hold tight," he murmured.

She felt the air shudder, heard a rustle of wind. There was a sensation of rising, spinning, then tumbling all in the space of a single heartbeat. Before fear could fully form, before the gasp of it could shudder from her mouth to his, she was lying beneath him, dipped deep into a bed soft as clouds.

Her eyes flew open. She could see the polished beams of a wood ceiling, the stream of sunlight. "But how-"

"I've magic for you, Rowan." His mouth moved to the vulnerable flesh of her throat. "All manner of magic."

They were in his bed, she realized. In the blink of an eye they'd moved from one room to another. And now his hands- oh, sweet Lord, how could the simple touch of flesh to flesh cause such feeling?

"Give me your thoughts." His voice was rough, his hands light as air. "Let me touch them, and show you."