“I don’t care about your secret life, Jess, not the way you mean it. I care about you.”

His smile was slow in coming. He was probably the biggest fool in the world, but damn it all, he believed her. He believed those large, beautiful eyes, even with the shadows in them. Deliberately he glanced at his watch. “We’d better eat if we’re going to. The temperature out here is dropping rapidly.”

Instead of drinking the warm liquid, Saber put the mug down and stretched out, snuggling under the cover, close to him. “I think I could take you in a fight.”

“Oh really?” Amusement crept into his voice, and his arm curved around the top of her head, fingers tangling in the silken strands of her hair. “You could take me?”

Her fist thumped his hip. “Don’t say it like that. Do you have to make everything sound sexual?”

“I’m feeling that way.” His hand stroked her temple. “You drive me crazy.”

He’d never just come right out and said it before. She wasn’t stupid. She certainly knew he was physically attracted to her, although after seeing Chaleen and knowing she and Saber were complete opposites, she wasn’t certain why.

She tapped her fingers on her knee and stared at the surrounding mountains. She had to give him something of herself. It wasn’t fair otherwise. He’d told her things, hurtful things that mattered, that were real, and just once, she wanted to give him something of herself.

Saber was silent and Jess remained so because of the little giveaway nervous tattoo of her fingers.

“I was trapped in a sort of hole in the ground once. It was completely black.” She watched his face carefully. She was giving him…too much. Enough to hang herself, yet there were abused children every single day. He would naturally think that of her, rather than something so bizarre and coincidental as that she was also a GhostWalker.

Jess went still inside. He could hear the catch in her voice as she revealed a traumatic event in her life. There was the faintest of tremors in her body. This was the real thing, not something made up to appease him. The suppressed emotion in her said it all and he felt rage-ice cold rage. He wasn’t certain he was prepared to hear this.

“I couldn’t see my own hand in front of my face. After a while I thought I was going crazy. I couldn’t even breathe.”

She didn’t look at him, but kept her gaze on the mountains. “There were bugs. Oh God, so many bugs. They crawled on me.” She brushed at her arms and face as if to remove them. He saw her throat convulse as she swallowed hard and knew she was unaware of the tears gathering in her eyes. “I didn’t think I could stand it. I lost track of time. A minute, an hour, days. I could hear myself screaming, but not out loud, only in my mind. I didn’t dare make a sound. I would have never gotten out.”

The silence stretched between them. He was afraid of speaking, afraid his voice would break. He couldn’t touch her, couldn’t move his hand those scant inches separating them. He was shaking with anger unlike anything he’d ever experienced, and if he didn’t stay in control, the results could be deadly.

Saber became aware of the ground undulating beneath her. The trees trembled and the water in the fountains shot up like geysers. A branch in a nearby tree cracked ominously. She leaned into him, laid her head against his shoulder, and put a calming hand on his thigh. Instantly his hand covered hers and he took a deep breath.

“It’s all right,” she soothed. “I’m all right.” He was furious on her behalf, close to a loss of control-no good thing for any GhostWalker. It should have reminded her that Jess was dangerous, in or out of a wheelchair, but all it did was make her happy.

“How old were you?” His voice was very quiet. He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her palm, trying to find a way to make it all better.

“I think I was about four the first time. We weren’t allowed to show fear and I was afraid of closed in and dark places. That sort of weakness just wasn’t allowed where I grew up.”

He didn’t have to ask who had done such a thing to her. Whitney, damn his soul to hell. Peter Whitney had taken this child and tortured her to make or break her.

“That’s why you like every light in the house on.”

Her hand clutched his shirt, fingers curling around the edge of the material, brushing his bare skin. She didn’t seem to notice so he left it there, covering her hand once again with his own and pressing her palm into his chest.

“I guess they never managed to scare the fear out of me,” Saber admitted. She touched his leg with the tip of her nails.

“Bastards.” He was careful not to ask who “they” were.

She had no idea why his reaction sent a heat wave crashing through her entire system. She took a breath and let it out, catching at his wrist to distract them both. She looked at his watch. “I need to get ready for work.”

“You have hours, take a nap.”

“Out here?” Did she dare when they might be under surveillance?

“Sure, listen to the water, you were just saying it was peaceful. You tell me something from your past and immediately get nervous and want to run.” He slid down, pillowing his head on a rolled-up blanket. “Come on, mystery lady, get over here where you belong.”

Saber hesitated only a moment, then snuggled close to his side. The feel of his body curved protectively around hers was fast becoming familiar, comfortable, as if this was where she belonged. She was tired and the fresh air and absolute beauty of their surroundings, along with Jess’s presence, made her intensely happy. She cradled her head in the hollow of his shoulder, one slender arm flung across his broad chest, and closed her eyes. “If you hear or see anything suspicious, or anyone else comes near us, promise you’ll wake me up.”

So she felt it too, then, Jess noted. He let his gaze drift around them, quartering the area to make certain no one was near. “I will. Go to sleep.”

Jess held her, caught somewhere between heaven and hell. Having already tasted the honeyed sweetness of her mouth, he craved more. His mind was at peace, holding her in his arms, but his body was crawling with need. Slow, he reminded himself, slow and gentle. Saber was worth every ache, every sleepless night. She needed protection whether she knew it or not, because if Whitney had put her in a hole in the ground and she had escaped, then he would be coming after her.

He didn’t want to think of the other possibility-that Whitney had sent her to spy on him, to report how close to the truth he was in his investigations. God help them both if she was betraying Whitney, yet that didn’t feel right to him. She was too close to bolting. A spy wouldn’t be running, she’d be trying to get closer to him.

Saber didn’t like snow, certainly not to drive in. First a series of bad storms, and the weather would be breaking sooner than usual. Once the snow fell Saber would be less inclined to take off and he would have all winter to tie her securely to him.

The words of his song echoed in his mind, a reality to him.

Oh, but those haunting eyes

They make me realize

The depths of my emotions stirring inside

Haunting eyes, haunting refrain, and all so true. Every time he looked into her violet-blue eyes his heart turned over. This was one woman he would never be over. Every day strengthened his feelings for her, his assurance of how completely he was committed to her.

Saber slept with the innocence of a child. Deeply, quietly, still in her sleep, where awake she was quicksilver. It was dark when she opened her eyes, and he knew the very instant by the way her body tensed, her swift intake of breath.

“You’re all right, baby.” He breathed it softly in her ear, firmly turning her in his arms. “I’ve got you. If you open your eyes you’ll know you’re perfectly safe.”

His hands were possessive, his breath warm against her skin, his husky, sexy voice swirling a fierce heat in the center of her body. Saber moved against him restlessly, an unconscious enticement.

“Am I?” She whispered the words, craving the feel of his mouth feeding on hers, needing him there in the darkness.

There was no hesitation. Jess needed her every bit as much. He caught her head firmly in the crook of his arm, fist beneath her chin, and brought his head down to hers. There was nothing of the sweet gentle persuasion he had coaxed her with before. He was too hungry for her. He took possession of her mouth without his usual self-imposed control. Male domination pure and simple. Hot, heated, demanding, an assault on mind and body, his tongue an invasion, mating wildly. It was a turbulent storm sweeping her into a primitive world of pure feeling.

A rush of damp heat, her br**sts swelling, aching, her skin ultrasensitive. Jess’s hand moved under her shirt, rested on her narrow rib cage, fingertips brushing the underside of her breast, sending a wave of fire darting like tongues across her skin.

Saber wrenched herself away with a little despairing cry, rolling away from him, from his fully aroused male body and hard threatening muscles. “Jesse, we can’t do this.” It was a heartbreaking moan. Hopeless, forlorn, tinged with desperation.

Jess laid perfectly still, staring up at the thousands of stars blanketing the sky, afraid if he moved he would shatter into a million fragments. His body raged for release, his head pounding savagely. He wanted her with every cell, every fiber of his being. Inside, warning bells were shrieking at him. He could not lose her through clumsy handling.

What the hell was wrong with him? He knew she was afraid. The furthest thing from her mind was any sort of commitment.

He struggled for control, forced a note of amusement into his voice. “Sure we can, honey.” He pulled himself into his chair with the ease of long practice. “It’s the perfect night for it. You’re a woman, I’m a man. Those little twinkling things overhead are stars. I believe it’s referred to as romance.”

Saber sat a few feet from him, arms across her chest. She was fighting just to breathe normally and there was Jesse, laughing at her inexperienced reaction. She had an uncharacteristic urge to slap his handsome face. Patsy was right. He was a cad. Her body was crying out for his, uncomfortably not her own, and he was calmly gathering everything up, ignoring her obvious distress. She sure as hell wasn’t perfect Chaleen whom he had perfect sex with.

Jess watched Saber rake an unsteady hand through her hair and bite at her full lower lip. In the moonlight she looked wildly erotic, impossibly sexy. He had to look away, his jeans so tight they hurt, his body actually trembling.

“I think talking about Chaleen darling and her perfect sex put ideas in your head,” Saber grumbled. “Either that or Patsy, with all her talk of bimbos.”

“You hardly qualify,” he said dryly.

Saber tested her legs, standing up to gather the picnic supplies into the basket. Her blue eyes flashed purple sparks at him. “Is that an insult, Jesse? Because if it is, you can take the big slide.”

He laughed softly, the sound inviting. “You have such a way with words. Here, I’ll carry that,” he said as she took the basket from his lap. It looked nearly as large as she was.

“Don’t start with the short jokes,” she cautioned. “I’m not in the mood.”

He followed her, keeping up easily with a single thrust of his powerful arms. “You mean like: Hey! I’m sitting down and I still have a couple of inches on you.”

She stopped so abruptly he ran right into her, catching her waist, laughing at her squeal of outrage as he pulled her down onto his lap. “What’s wrong, Saber, does it hit too close to home for comfort?”

Saber circled his neck with her arm. “Oh, shut up,” she snapped, but he could hear the answering laughter in her voice.

She couldn’t help but admire the easy way he maneuvered the chair over rough terrain with her added weight and the awkward load of blankets and picnic basket. They were both laughing when they reached the van. But by the time they were home, Jess was quiet, thoughtful, almost remote.