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  Raising her eyes to Dare’s face, Andrea took an instinctive step backward. There was murder in Dare’s face, Andrea took an instinctive step backward. There was murder in those icy blue eyes.

  As she stepped back, Dare stepped in, easing through the opening and closing the door soundly behind him.

  “Tell me, Burke,” he growled down at her, “do your troops sleep on the job? Or are they doing dope?”

  Andrea blinked rapidly and drew herself up to her full five foot six. “Sir! I can’t let you say—”

  “I’ll say anything I damn well please!”

  Andrea stood her ground, chin thrust forward, arms folded across her breasts.

  “I almost died this morning,” Dare said, advancing on her. “I almost augered in at Mach 1 because somebody fiddled with my hydraulics. That upsets me, Burke. That upsets the living hell out of me.”

  Andrea froze, horrified by the image evoked by his words: Dare’s plane nosing into the ground at the speed of sound.

  As he spoke, he cast his parka aside and took another step toward her.

  “And all the time I was fighting the damn stick and pedals and trying to keep from being splattered all over the state of North Dakota, I could only think about one thing. This!”

  Grabbing her with hands like steel, he hauled her up against him, forced her head back, and seized her mouth in a punishing, ruthless kiss.

  Andrea fought him, twisting and turning like a wildcat, but he held her effortlessly. Moving with her struggles, he made her feel as if she were wrapped in an invisible net, never once hurting her, but giving her no escape from his ravaging mouth.

  Suddenly Dare lifted his head and looked down at her with burning eyes. “What if I’d died?” he asked.

  Andrea went utterly still, her swollen lips parted, her green eyes huge. What if he’d died? she asked herself.

  Dare saw her lower lip quiver, and then she melted against him where she belonged, closing her arms around his waist in a fierce hug. She cared, he thought, shutting his eyes with relief. Whether she would admit it or not, she cared. At twenty thousand feet, when only brute strength had given him any control at all over his plane, in those interminable minutes when he’d been sure he was about to die, he’d wondered about that. He’d wondered if he would ever find out, and it had seemed incredibly important to know.

  Wrapping his arms around her now, he held her as close as he could, as tightly as he could, without hurting her, and wished he could pull her right inside him. “Kiss me, Andrea,” he said hoarsely. “Kiss me. Please.”

  She lifted her face and sought his mouth blindly, seeking the warmth, the passion, the essence, of this man. One of her hands crept upward to cradle his rough cheek, to slide into his hair and then hold on for dear life. Without reservation she gave him the kiss he wanted.

  “I need you, Andrea,” Dare said raggedly when he let her catch her breath. “We’ve got to talk. About this. About what happened. About everything.” His blue eyes were intense as he tilted her head up. “We can’t do any of that here.”

  With difficulty, Andrea concentrated on what he was saying. At the moment the only thing that seemed important was that a half-dozen steps would carry them to her bedroom. “No,” she agreed, dimly aware that before long everybody in the BOQ would know Dare was here.

  “Call Dolan,” Dare said. “Tell him he’s in charge for the rest of the weekend. Meet me at the Gasthaus in Devil’s Lake.”

  Andrea blinked, coming to her senses. “I can’t just—”

  “You can,” he interrupted her. “You can damn well do anything you please. When are you going to believe that?”

  “But your hydraulics! We need to—”

  “We’ll talk about that later. Right now there’s not a damn thing you can do about that.”

  Releasing her, Dare stepped back. “I’m going to Devil’s Lake,” he said. “I’ll give you until one o’clock to meet me. It’s up to you, Andrea. It always is. But I won’t ask again.”

  Without another word, he left.

  Nothing was up to her, thought Andrea miserably. Nothing had been up to her since Dare had crashed into her life. Closing her eyes, she clenched her hands into fists and tried to tell herself that she wouldn’t do as he’d asked.

  She didn’t believe it herself. For an entire week now she’d been lying awake, full of yearnings no amount of argument could quash. In little less than a month she would be leaving for Minot, and in all likelihood she wouldn’t see Dare again for years, if ever. Why not have a fling during these few weeks? Why not give in just this once in her life? Chances were she would never again have such an opportunity.

  Chances were she would never again meet a man like Dare. Squeezing her eyelids tighter, she drew a breath that sounded like a sob. What was happening to her? Just a few short months ago, everything had been so simple and clear-cut. Now she didn’t know where she was going, or why she was doing what she did. She didn’t even feel like herself. Why was it when she closed her eyes all she could see was Dare? Where had this wrenching need for him come from, and why was she so helpless against it? Why, when she thought of how close he’d come to dying, did her heart stop?

  And how the devil was she going to get on with her life and her career when all she wanted to do was punch out and go along for the ride with Dare?

  Drawing another deep breath, Andrea stiffened her spine and opened her eyes. She couldn’t let him do this to her. She couldn’t let any man do this to her. She had a life and a career of her own, and she was going to keep it that way.

  No, she wouldn’t go to Devil’s Lake. He would get the message then and leave her alone. And the longer she stayed away from him, the dimmer her unwanted feelings would grow.

  She squared her shoulders. She would go over to Squadron HQ and see what she could find out about Dare’s near miss. It looked like she’d been right about the motive behind what was happening, but it gave her no satisfaction.

  The Gasthaus Restaurant in Devil’s Lake was a large, Swiss-style chalet with a gleaming wood interior and numerous nooks and crannies for guests to disappear into. Dare had chosen it because it afforded privacy to dining couples but had no guest rooms to imply anything more intimate. He hoped Andrea would agree to stay overnight with him, but he didn’t want her to think he expected it. He was discovering that dealing with an emancipated female could be every bit as touchy as dealing with the unliberated types of his youth.

  As one o’clock crept closer, his state of tension grew almost intolerable. He hadn’t handled his encounter with Andrea very well, he knew. Maybe he’d blown it completely. After his near miss, he’d been so full of adrenaline that he’d acted without thinking. No woman would like being grabbed and kissed the way he’d kissed Andrea, and certainly not on the tail end of such a ridiculous accusation. Worse, he’d practically ordered her to meet him here, which was guaranteed to rouse a woman’s perversity. Andrea, he’d discovered, could be perverse with the best of them.

  So he watched the minute hand on his watch crawl toward one with a steadily sinking heart. She wasn’t coming. She could have been here over an hour ago if she’d really wanted to come. Yep, he’d blown it. The same experience that had made him realize just how much she meant to him had also driven him to ruin his chances. So it went. Only right now he was in no mood to feel philosophical about it. Staring into his beer stein, he decided to give her fifteen more minutes and then go home and get royally drunk.

  “There’s no future in this, sir.”

  Dare’s breath locked in his suddenly tight throat. Slowly, hardly daring to believe his ears, he looked up and found Andrea standing by the booth. Her cheeks were pink from the cold, and her hair was ruffled from the wind. Her eyes—her eyes were hazy with both sorrow and yearning. Dare thought he’d never seen a more beautiful sight.

  “I know. Sit down, Andrea.”

  But she didn’t obey immediately. “I almost didn’t come.”

  “I know.” His heart beat in a