"I imagine you've had a lot of practice."

"Some things you want to get just right."

His voice was so warm, his arm so strong, his body so firm. "When you wake up in the middle of the night in bed with a woman, and she wants to seduce you, do you mind?"

"Hardly ever."

"Well, if you wouldn't mind…" She shifted, slid her body over his, found his lips with her lips, his tongue with her tongue.

"I'll let you know as soon as I start to mind."

Her laugh was low and warm. Gratitude moved through her, for what he'd done for her, what he'd come to be to her. She wanted so badly to show him.

It was dark. She could be anything she wanted to be in the dark.

"Maybe I won't stop if you do."

"Threats?" He was every bit as surprised, and aroused, by the teasing purr of her voice as he was by the deliberate, circling trail of her fingertips down his body. "You don't scare me."

"I can." She began to follow the trail with her mouth. "I will."

"Give it your best shot. Jesus." His eyes all but crossed. "Bull's-eye."

She laughed again and lapped at him like a cat. When his body quivered, and his breathing grew thick and ragged, she scraped her nails slowly up his sides and down again.

What a wonder the male form was, she thought, dreamily exploring it. Hard, smooth, the planes and angles so perfectly fashioned to mate with woman. With her.

Silky here, then rough. Firm, then yielding. She could make him want and ache just as he made her want and ache. She could give, she could take just as he did and all the wonderful and wicked things people did in the dark, she could do.

He'd go mad if she continued. He'd die if she stopped. Her mouth was hot and restless, and everywhere. Those elegant fingers had the blood raging through his veins. As their flesh grew damp, her body slipped and slid over his, a pale silhouette in the dark.

She was any woman. The only woman. He craved her like life.

Dreamlike, she rose up over him, shrugging out of her robe, arching her back, shaking her hair back. What soared through her now was freedom. Power. Lust. Her eyes gleamed, catlike against the dark, bewitching him.

She lowered herself, taking him inside her slowly, dimly aware of what effort it cost him to allow her to set the pace. Her breath caught, released on a moaning sigh of pleasure.

Caught again, released again when his hands captured her br**sts, squeezed, possessed.

She rocked, small movements, torturously slow, arousing herself with the power. And kept her eyes on his. He shuddered beneath her, his muscles bunched, his body tight between her thighs. Strong, she thought, he was so strong. Strong enough to let her take him as she chose.

She skimmed her hands over his chest, then lowered. Her hair curtained their faces as her mouth closed hard over his. A tangle of tongues and teeth and breath.

The orgasm rolled through her like a wave, growing, building, then sweeping her up and over. She reared back with it, body bowing, and rode it out.

Then she rode him.

He gripped her hips, his fingers digging in as she surged over him. All reckless speed and clashing light now, all heat and greed. His mind emptied, his lungs screamed, and his body climbed desperately toward release.

When he found it, it was brutal and brilliant.

She seemed to melt over him, her body as soft and hot and fluid as a pool of liquid wax. Her heart thudded hard against the frantic beat of his own. He couldn't speak, couldn't find the air to push the words free. But the ones that shimmered on his tongue were three that he'd been careful never to say to a woman.

Triumph still glowed inside her. She stretched, lazy and satisfied as a cat, then curled herself against him. "That," she said sleepily, "was exactly right."

"What?"

She chuckled softly and ended on a yawn. "I may not have scared you, but I fried your brain."

"No question." A sex-scrambled brain. Men who started thinking about love, much less bringing the word up when they were hot and naked and wrapped around a woman, just got themselves in trouble.

"First time I ever liked waking up at three A.M." Already half asleep, she pillowed her head on his shoulder. She shifted. "Cold," she muttered.

He reached down and tugged up the tangled sheets and blankets. She nipped an edge with her fingers, pulled them up to her chin.

For the second time in one night, Phillip lay awake, staring at the ceiling while she slept deep and still beside him.

Chapter Eighteen

it was barely light when Phillip crawled out of bed. He didn't bother to moan. What good would it do? Just because he'd barely slept, his mind was fogged with fatigue and worry, and he had an entire day of backbreaking manual labor ahead of him was no reason to complain.

The fact that there was no coffee was a damn good reason to complain.

Sybill stirred as he started to dress. "You have to go to the boatyard?"

"Yeah." He rolled his tongue over his teeth as he jerked up his slacks. Christ, he didn't even have a toothbrush with him.

"Do you want me to order up some breakfast? Coffee?"

Coffee. The word alone was like a siren's song in his blood.

But he grabbed his shirt. If she ordered coffee, he would have to talk to her. He didn't think it was a smart move to have a conversation when he was in such a foul mood. And why was he in a foul mood? he asked himself. Because he hadn't slept and she'd managed to sneak through his legendary defenses while he wasn't looking and make him fall in love with her.

"I'll get some at home." His voice was clipped and edgy. "I have to go back and change anyway." Which was why he was up so damn early.

The sheets rustled as she sat up. He watched her out of the corner of his eye and reached for his socks. She looked tousled and tumbled and temptingly soft.

Yeah, she was sneaky all right. Hitting him over the head like that with her vulnerability, sobbing in his arms that way and looking so damned hurt and defenseless. Then waking up in the middle of the night and turning into some sort of a sex-fantasy goddess.

Now she was offering him coffee. She had a hell of a nerve.

"I appreciate you staying last night. It helped."

"I'm here to serve," he said shortly.

"I…" She gnawed on her bottom lip, alerted and confused by his tone.

"It was a difficult day for both of us. I suppose I'd have been wiser to stay away. I was already a little off balance after Gloria's call, and then--"