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  Reaching out, he lightly traced one fingertip around both nipples, then braced his hands on each side of her and leaned down to suck each breast in turn, his mouth so gentle on her that she felt the heat more than the pressure.

  Her breath caught and her body arched upward, seeking more than he was giving her.

  Desperately she groped for his erection, wanting, needing to seize some of the power, to balance the scales. Her fingers closed around the thick shaft, and a split second later his iron grip was on her wrist, firmly moving her hand away from him. “No,” he said as calmly as if she’d offered him a slice of toast.

  “Yes,” she insisted recklessly, reaching for him again. “I want you in my mouth.” In her experience, no man could resist that offer.

  But the hard line of his lips curved in faint amusement as he caught her hand and anchored it to the bed with an unbreakable grip. “So you can make me come? You’re in a hurry to get rid of me.”

  Drea stared up at him, her emotions in such a roiling storm of lust and anger and ever-present fear that she trembled.

  He secured her other hand, too, holding her firm as he moved over her and took what he wanted.

  THE HOURS THAT followed were a blur of lust and sex and fatigue, but a few moments were crystal clear. After her third climax she tried to squirm away from him, exhausted and overstimulated and unable to bear any more. “Leave me alone,” she said fretfully, slapping at his hands as he drew her back to him, and he laughed.

  He actually laughed.

  She stared up at the curve of his mouth, the flash of white teeth, by now expecting the way her stomach muscles clenched and the bottom fell away and she went rushing back down into the dark pit of longing that he’d uncovered. No other man had ever paid so much attention to her needs over his own, had lingered over her body, as he did, with slow touches and hot kisses. Orgasms, for her, had been what she faked with a man and provided herself when she was alone, and that had been partly her own choice because she couldn’t concentrate on providing the maximum pleasure for the guy if she was distracted by her own reactions.

  He had done to her what she usually did, taken over her role, focused on her and provided so much pleasure she felt slightly drunk with satiation. He’d held back, stopping several times when he was on the verge of coming, and the strain was finally showing. His hair was damp with sweat, his face set in a hard, intensely focused expression; his eyes glittered with an intent so hot her skin should have scorched as he looked at her.

  Until he laughed, and for a snapshot in time she saw him relaxed and momentarily—very momentarily—unguarded.

  He hadn’t kissed her on the mouth. He’d kissed practically every other place on her body, but not her mouth, and suddenly she wanted that more than she wanted anything else he’d done to her. Impulsively she reached out and touched his face, her fingers lying lightly along the hard line of his jaw, feeling the faint roughness of whiskers and the heat of his skin. His dark brows lifted slightly in question, as if her touch puzzled him. Drea surrendered to the want, lifting herself and clinging her mouth to his.

  For another of those frozen moments she felt him go as motionless as stone, as if he had to force himself not to pull away, and inside her chest something squeezed as she waited for him to reject her kiss.

  But he didn’t, and tentatively she tilted her head to deepen the contact. His lips were soft and warm; the heated scent of him filled her, called to her, jerked her from satiation to need. He hadn’t opened his mouth for her and she craved that, but was almost afraid to ask for more. She dared the smallest touch of her tongue to those soft lips.

  Abruptly he was kissing her in return, wresting control from her and pressing her back onto the mattress, his heavy body covering her. He kissed her as if some primal beast in him had slipped its leash and he wanted to devour her, his mouth hungry and hotly demanding, his tongue dancing with hers and forcing more response. She clung to him, arms and legs twined around him, and gave herself up to the storm she’d raised.

  At another moment, lying exhausted and half-asleep, she realized she didn’t know his name. That lack of knowledge hurt her, somewhere deep inside where she let no one touch. The way he’d kissed her emboldened her, let her reach out to rest her hand on his chest as he lay sprawled beside her. His heartbeat thudded fast and strong under her fingers and she flattened her hand over it as if she could link herself to that beat of life. “What’s your name?” she asked, her voice soft and drowsy.

  After a moment of silence, as if he weighed her reasons for asking, he said calmly, dismissively, “You don’t need to know.”

  In silence she removed her hand from his chest and curled on her side. She wanted to jump astride him and tease him, nag him, pry the information out of him, but one of the rules she’d developed over the years was not to nag, to always make herself agreeable, and the action, or lack of it, was so deeply ingrained she couldn’t persist. Still, his lack of trust chilled her. She might feel as if some weird link had been forged between them, but he evidently didn’t feel the same way. He was a killer, pure and simple, and he stayed at the top of his profession by trusting no one.

  Some time later he lifted his head to look at the clock, and Drea did the same. Almost four hours had passed.

  “Now,” he said, his tone going rough and deep as he moved over her, pushing her knees apart and settling on her, in her. His muscles tightened, and a stifled groan rumbled in his throat, his chest. He shuddered, as if being able to release his self-control was a pleasure so intense it bordered on pain.

  She caught her breath at the power of his invasion. She was swollen and more than a little sore from everything he’d done to her, yet she didn’t want this to end. “We still have an hour left,” she heard herself say, and cringed inside at the small note of pleading in her voice.

  A cynical expression hardened his gaze. “Salinas won’t honor the full five hours,” he replied as he began thrusting long and deep. It was as if a dam had been breached, and the power that had been restrained suddenly rushed forward. All she could do was cling to him and try to weather the storm, offer him the same generous use of her body that he had given her—and be surprised, yet again, by a response she hadn’t thought herself capable of. He stiffened and began coming, groans tearing from his throat as he surged against her in powerful rhythm. She locked her legs around his and arched upward, her own raw sounds of pleasure piercing the air as her climax chased his.

  When their bodies quieted, he extricated himself and immediately moved away. “Is it all right if I use your shower?” he asked, walking toward the bathroom.

  Drea searched for her voice and whispered, “Sure,” a useless permission because he’d already closed the door behind him.

  She lay amid the tangled sheets, knowing she needed to get up but unable to put thought into action. Her body was heavy and limp, her eyelids dragging downward with fatigue. Disjointed thoughts formed and disappeared. Everything had changed, and she wasn’t yet sure exactly how. Certainly her time with Rafael was over, or almost over, and she needed to think about that, about what she should do. She knew what she wanted to do, and the idea was so new, so foreign to her, that she could scarcely take it in.

  He came out of the bathroom within ten minutes, his hair wet, his skin smelling of her soap. Silently he began dressing, his expression calm and remote, as if he were lost in thought. She watched him, drinking in every inch of him, waiting for him to look at her. What they had shared for the past several hours had been so intense she almost couldn’t remember what her life had been like before, a line of demarcation so plainly drawn it was as if everything before was in shades of gray and everything after was in Technicolor.

  She waited, and still he was silent. She waited, certain that when he finished dressing he’d look at her and say…what? She didn’t know what she wanted him to say, only that pain was swelling in her chest again, a pain that threatened to suffocate her. She couldn’t stay with Rafael any longer. She