Zack fully expected to be shot to death within days, or even hours, after he left the safety of this house. Now, he wished to God he'd have been caught before he ever got into the car with her. Until he went to prison, he'd never have considered involving an innocent human being in his problems, let alone pointing a gun at her or getting her pregnant. In prison, he'd obviously become a sick sociopath without conscience, scruples, or morals.

Shooting, he now realized, was too good for the monster he had become.

He was so involved with his own thoughts that it took all that time before it finally penetrated his brain that the woman he was holding in his arms was crying, and the dampness on his chest wasn't his sweat, but her tears. Speechless with remorse, Zack loosened his hold on her and let her lie back on the carpet, but she kept her hand curved round his shoulder in a death grip and her wet face pressed against his chest.

Leaning up on his elbow, helplessly trying to soothe her by brushing wayward strands of shiny hair off her wet cheek, he swallowed to clear the knot of remorse in his throat. "Julie," he whispered gruffly, "if I could undo all the things I've done to you, I would. Until tonight, the things I've done were at least done out of desperate necessity… But this—" He paused to swallow again and awkwardly brushed a curl off her temple. With her face still turned into his chest, he couldn't judge her reaction, other than the fact that she seemed to have gone perfectly still from the moment he began to speak. "But what I just did to you," he continued, "was completely inexcusable. There are explanations for it, but not excuses. You can't be so naive that you don't realize that five years is a long time for a man to go without…" Zack broke off abruptly, belatedly realizing that he was adding insult to injury by making it seem as if any woman would have suited him in his state of sexual deprivation. "That's not why I did this tonight. It was part of the reason. The main part of the reason was that I've wanted you ever since…" Self-disgust welled up like bile in his throat and he couldn't continue.

After a prolonged moment of silence, the woman in his arms finally spoke. "Go on," she said softly.

He tipped his chin down, trying to see her shadowy features, his brows drawing together in a puzzled frown. "Go on?" he repeated.

She nodded, her soft face brushing against his skin. "Yes. You were just getting to the good part."

"The good part?" he repeated blankly.

She looked up at him and, although her eyes were still damp with tears, there was a winsome smile on her face that made Zack's heart slam against his ribs. "You got off to a very bad start," she whispered, "by saying you were sorry we did this. And you made it much worse by saying that I'm naive and then making it sound as if any woman would have suited you just fine after five years' abstinence—"

He gazed at her while relief began to pour through his body like a balm. He knew that he was getting off much too easily, but he seized his unexpected reprieve with the grateful desperation of a drowning man grabbing at a life preserver. "Did I say that?"

"Pretty much."

He grinned helplessly at her infectious smile. "How ungallant of me."

"Very," she agreed with sham indignation.

A minute ago, she'd had him in the grip of black despair, five minutes ago she'd sent him into sexual paradise, now she made him feel like laughing. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Zack was aware that no woman had ever had this effect on him before, but he didn't want to examine the explanation for it. For now, he was content to bask in the present and ignore what little future he had left. "Under the circumstances," he whispered, smiling as he brushed his knuckles over her cheek, "what should I have done and said?"

"Well, as you know, I haven't much experience in moments like these—"

"No experience whatsoever, in fact," he reminded her, suddenly and crazily pleased by that.

"But I have read hundreds of love scenes in novels."

"This isn't a novel."

"True, but there are distinct similarities."

"Name one," he teased, distracted by the sheer joy of her. To his astonishment, she sobered, but there was a look of wonder in her eyes as they gazed deeply into his. "For one thing," she whispered, "the woman often feels the way I felt when you were inside of me."

"And how did you feel?" he asked because he couldn't stop himself.

"I felt wanted," she said with a tiny break in her voice. "And needed. Desperately needed. And very, very special. I felt—complete."

Zack's heart constricted with an emotion so intense that it made him ache. "Then why were you crying?"

"Because," she whispered, "sometimes beauty does that to me."

Zack gazed into her glowing eyes, and he saw the kind of gentle beauty and unquenchable spirit that could almost make a man feel like crying. "Has anyone ever told you," he whispered, "that you have the smile of Michelangelo's Madonna?"

Julie opened her mouth to protest, but he forestalled her answer by giving her a hard, swift kiss. "Don't you think," she belatedly and breathlessly replied as he rolled her onto her back, "that remark is a little sacrilegious, when you consider what we just did a few minutes ago?"

He muffled a laugh against her throat. "No, but it probably is when you consider what we're about to do now."

She tipped her head down. "What's that?"

His shoulders began to shake with helpless mirth at the sheer joy of her, even while his mouth began its slow descent. "I'll show you."

Julie caught her breath and arched her hips beneath the sensual onslaught of his seeking hands and mouth.

The laughter faded from Zack's mind, replaced by something much deeper.

Chapter 32

Propped up against a mound of feather pillows in the master bedroom's huge bed, Julie gazed at the dishes on the low table in front of the fireplace across the room. They'd eaten a late breakfast there, and then Zack had taken her back to bed and made love to her. He'd kept her awake most of the night, making love to her with a mixture of demanding urgency and exquisite tenderness that Julie found wildly exciting and tormentingly sweet. Each time he finished, he pulled her into his arms and held her close while they dozed. Now it was past noon, and she was sitting beside him, curved against his body, his arm around her shoulders, his hand lazily caressing her arm. Unfortunately, in daylight, she was finding it far more difficult to cling to the illusion that this was a little cottage where she was safe and warm in bed beside a wonderfully ordinary man who also happened to be her devoted lover. In broad daylight, she was unhappily aware that the man who made love to her with such violent tenderness and need, who groaned with passion in her arms and made her cry out and feel as if she were the only woman who'd ever done this with him, had also made love to countless movie stars and sexy socialites. That had been his world—a luxurious, frenetic world populated by rich, beautiful, talented people with the right connections.