When she looked up at him, she found him staring at her. Her eyes didn't waver from his. With unhurried ease, he bent forward and kissed her again, only this time his kiss was slow and tender, as slow and tender as the one before had been untamed and harsh.

"I want to taste you." The heat in his eyes and in his words caused her to shiver. His hands expertly parted her blouse, and when he discovered she wasn't wearing a bra, his eyes narrowed into blue slits.

His hands cupped her breasts and lifted them until they'd formed perfect rounds in his palms. Her nipples had tightened even before he began stroking them with his thumbs. Catherine went still, afraid even to breathe, her eyes half-closed as she dealt with the intense pleasure his hands brought her. His mouth followed, and she rolled her head back and moaned even before his mouth closed over her nipple. With her eyes slammed shut, she arched her back. The impact was so keen, so intense, she longed to cry out.

All too soon his mouth returned to hers and she opened to him, greedily accepting what he was offering. Her hands slid along the curve of his back and up to the thickness of his mussed hair.

Royce's kisses were sweet and warm. Sweet and gentle; too gentle. He broke away completely and rubbed his face against the side of her jaw with a moist foray of nibbling kisses, working his way down her neckline.

"I want to make love to you," he whispered, then quickly amended. "I need to make love to you, but damn it all, Catherine, I refuse to do it in the front seat of a car."

With eyes still closed and her heart thundering like a Nebraska storm, she grinned. "Any bed will do."

"You're making this difficult."

"Has it ever been easy for us?"

"No," he growled, his hands continuing to caress her breasts. "You make me feel seventeen all over again."

"It's the car, trust me."

"Maybe." He shifted his weight and groaned, the sound rich and masculine. "I just hope the seamstress who sewed these pants took her job seriously."

Involuntarily, Catherine's gaze dropped to the bulge in his loins. Against her better judgment she trailed her knuckles over it, feeling the heat even through the thickness of his jeans.

The temptation was so powerful that she had to force herself to look away. She sighed, her shoulders lifted several inches with the effort.

Wrapping his arms around her, Royce pulled her toward him, until her back was cushioned by his chest. He leaned forward and slowly rotated his cheek over hers, nuzzling her ear with his nose. "Tell me about your mother."

Catherine grinned, content for the first time since the mail had arrived. "You'd like her. She's wonderfully witty and intelligent. To look at her, you'd never guess she's in her early fifties, almost everyone assumes she's at least ten years younger. The best part is that she's strikingly attractive and doesn't realize it. For the past fifteen years she's lived in San Francisco, and works at the corporate headquarters for this huge importing business. That's where she met Norman. He's a widower, and I swear he fell in love with Mom the minute they met. He's waited ten years for this day, and as much as I love my father, I can't begrudge Mom and Norman any happiness."

"It sounds like mother and daughter are a good deal alike." Royce murmured.

Catherine had to think on that a moment. "Yes, I suppose that's true...I just never thought much about it." Catherine hesitated, then added, "She loved my father."

"Loves," he corrected gently.

"Loves," Catherine agreed softly.

"You're close?"

"Always. She's incredible. If you meet her and still think we're alike, then it would be the greatest compliment anyone could ever give me."

"I think you're incredible," he whispered, playfully nuzzling her neck. His arms were tightly wrapped around her middle, and she felt as though she were in the most secure place in all the world— in

Royce's loving arms.

Content, Catherine smiled, folded her arms over his and closed her eyes. "What are we going to do, Royce?"

She felt the harsh sigh work its way across his chest. It was a question she was sure he'd asked himself a hundred times. One that had hounded them both for weeks, and they were no closer now to a solution than they had been before.

"I wish I knew." It went without saying that if they continued in this vein they were both going to be booted out of the Navy. "I never thought I'd be jealous of my own daughter."

"Of Kelly?" Catherine didn't understand.

"Yes, of Kelly." His grip around her middle tightened. "She, at least, can spend the night with you."

Catherine grinned and nestled back in his arms.

"How do you think I felt learning that you sleep in a little slip of lace that's all see-through on top?"

"She told you that?" Catherine asked, twisting around.

"Yes! Is it true?"

"Yes."

Royce groaned. "You could have lied...I wish you had lied."

"Did she also tell you I sleep on ivory-colored satin sheets?"

"No, she was merciful enough to skip over that part," he growled in her ear. "Oh, sweet heaven, it feels so good to hold you in my arms. I could get drunk on you."

Catherine was equally content, although she was likely to suffer in the morning. The console was digging into her hip, but it was a small price to pay for the pleasure of being in Royce's arms.

"You're going to be all right now?"

She nodded. "I don't know what came over me. Obviously I have a lot of unresolved feelings for my father."

"Don't get so philosophical. Your mother is letting go of an important part of your lives together. It's only natural for you to feel a certain amount of regret."

There was a lot more than regret in that raging storm of tears that overtook her, but Royce didn't know that. Catherine had yet to fully comprehend the blitz of feelings herself. Her emotions were hopelessly tangled. But it didn't matter, she could face anything or anyone as long as Royce was by her side, as long as the man she loved would hold her tight.

The orders Royce received to conduct an under way inspection aboard the USS Venture, a small service craft used by the base, seemed like a godsend. Royce needed time away from Bangor, and from Catherine. The time away was essential to his peace of mind. Three days aboard the Venture would help him gain some perspective on what was happening between them.

A hundred times he'd told himself to stay away from her. They were playing with a lit stick of dynamite. The fact they were both doing it with their eyes wide open frustrated him even more.

Royce had done everything he knew to get her out of his mind. He'd ignored her, pretended she didn't exist. When it came to dealing with her at the office, he made her a faceless name and tried to react to her that way. He'd had women under his command before without there ever being so much as a hint of a problem.

The difficulty was it didn't work. Royce couldn't ignore Catherine any more than he could jump over the moon. It was a physical impossibility. He couldn't look at her, even in the most impersonal way, and not hunger for the taste of her. It went without saying that a single taste would never satisfy him, and

he knew it. He had to feel her, had to run his hands down the soft curving slopes of her body and experience for himself her ready response to his touch.

Some mornings he walked into the office and with one glance at her he'd been forced to knot his hands at his sides just to keep from reaching for her. The ache would start then and last all day and sometimes long into the night. Was it any wonder his men had come up with a few choice names for him while he was in his present state of mind?

The physical frustration was killing him, and as far as Royce could tell it was going to get a hell of a lot worse before it got better.

Just when Royce was foolish enough to believe he had everything under control, she'd called him, weeping in the middle of the night. If he hadn't been so starved for her, he might have been able to handle the situation differently. But the moment he'd heard her weep, the urge to take her in his arms and comfort her had been overwhelming. Already it was happening. What he swore never would. He arranged for them to meet in some out-of-the-way place where no one was likely to see them.

Royce justified the meeting, remembering how she'd been there for him when Kelly was in the hospital. Helping her deal with the fact her mother was going to remarry was returning the kindness, nothing more.

To further vindicate his actions, he'd convinced himself that he'd have done the same thing for anyone under his command. That might be true, but he doubted that he'd meet them at the end of a long dirt road. Nor would he hold and kiss them the way he did Catherine.

From that night forward, matters had only gotten worse. Royce could feel his control slipping even more than before. Twice he found himself looking for excuses to call her into his office just so he could hear the sound of her voice. It was coming to the point that she was able to maintain protocol much better than he was. A bad sign. A very bad sign.

Kelly wasn't helping matters any. If having to deal with Catherine at the office wasn't bad enough, Kelly talked about her constantly. The kid was crazy about Catherine and had been from the moment they'd met. At first Royce was convinced it was the fingernails, but gradually, in a slow and painful process, he'd come to realize how badly Kelly needed a mother figure. Why she chose Catherine and not Missy's mom or any of the mothers of her friends, Royce had yet to understand. Instead she'd chosen the one woman who was driving Royce slowly out of his mind.

This assignment aboard the Venture was exactly what he needed. Time away.

Royce was packing his bag when Kelly wandered into the bedroom. She plopped herself down on the edge of the mattress and sighed as though she were being abandoned.

"How long are you going to be gone?" Royce had told her no less than four times, but she continued to ask anyway. "Three days."

Kelly had wanted to spend the time with Catherine, but it made more sense for her to stay with Missy's family since the two girls were in the same class at school. Kelly hadn't been overly thrilled, but she hadn't argued. At least not any more than she usually did.

"When you get back, can we go for pizza?"

"Sure," Royce agreed, glancing up long enough to smile at her. He didn't know why she asked, they always went out to eat when he arrived home from an assignment. It had become tradition.

The phone rang, and Kelly leaped off the bed as though she'd received an electric shock. Even though Royce was less than three feet away, she screamed at the top of her voice, "I'll get it."

Inserting his little finger in his ear, Royce cleared the passageway and resumed packing.

Kelly appeared a minute or so later. "It's for you," she said, sounding disappointed. "It sounds like Captain Garland."

Royce nodded. "Tell him I'll be right there."

Royce finished tucking his socks into the comer of the bag and then went down the hallway. Kelly handed him the phone and leaned against the wall and waited until he'd finished.

The conversation with his commanding officer didn't last more than a couple of minutes. But each one of those minutes might as well have been a lifetime as far as Royce was concerned. What was it that was said about the best laid plans? He didn't know. Hell he didn't know much of anything anymore.