“First time you ever made those particular demands, Ember,” I said, softly. “And I’m not making any promises…”

Even in nothing but starlight, her copper hair gleamed… floating around her pale shoulders like a dark cloud. Wet tendrils trailed down her skin, drawing a line down her neck to the mounded curves of her breasts. Her nipples were hidden underwater… her mouth as wide, as seductive, as generous as I remembered. We were close… damned close. And the long, hot soak had only made the whiskey in my blood even more effective. I was way too close to forgetting just how much time we’d lost and dragging her into my arms...

“What the hell are you…?” she gasped, cut off by Reilly’s excited barking and splashing. He was five times the size he’d been last time I’d seen him, and had no idea he wasn’t a puppy anymore. He put his massive paws on my shoulders and licked my face, half drowning me in the process. Ember watched us both, disbelief in her eyes. She backed away, almost disappearing in the swirling mist.

“Get on up, Rye… that a boy… I’ll still be here when you get back.” I pushed him up onto the rocks that surrounded the pool and he took off, barking excitedly, happy for the moment to follow his nose into the woods. “Em…” I reached out, afraid for a second that I’d lost her again. My hands touched hot, wet flesh, exactly the way I remembered her that very first time. My body remembered too; how perfect she was, and how she’d been mine. How I should have had her round-bellied by now, with my baby. “God… Em…”

“What are you doing here?” Her voice was tense, but thank god, she didn’t back away from me. I left my hand on the curve of her hip, a hundred different desires running through that one, single connection point. My entire body was responding to her the way it always had. I was rock hard, driven by a force even I didn’t fully understand… something primal that told every cell in my body I needed to possess her. That she was my one true mate for life and belonged in my arms… in my bed… in my soul… The way I belonged inside her.

“I needed this place,” I answered her honestly. “It’s the closest I could come to you.” I took a step toward her, stopping only before my cock might nudge her. Em was a flight risk, I knew, and the last thing I wanted was to give her an excuse.

“You’ve been back to town before this?” she asked, hesitantly. “You could have called… I… I’ve… missed you…” she said softly. “You were my best friend, damn it… I didn’t… I thought…” Her dark eyes flared in frustration. A wave of white mist clouded the space between us.

“It seemed best to let it be,” I answered, focusing hard to keep my hand from roaming. “I lost my best friend that day too, you know. But you made it clear enough we didn’t have a future between us anymore.”

“And you knew exactly why,” she shot back, angry suddenly and temper flaring. “It nearly killed me when Randy decided to follow in Dad’s footsteps. I couldn’t bear to face the idea of losing him in a fire… the way we all lost Daddy.” She pulled back, out of reach. “And then you went and volunteered too.” I could hear her breathing, it was rough and unsteady with emotion. “We’d been engaged for what? A whole month? And you decided without me that you were going to risk never coming home again…” Her whole body tensed and it felt like the water between us was close to boiling. “You treated me like I was still a child, you wouldn’t talk to me about any of it. I should have come first,” she said. “And when we had a family, we all should have come first. You made a huge decision that affected us both… without me. Dammit, Jason. You have enough money you’d never have to work a day in your life, but you went out and signed up for the most dangerous fucking job in the world…”

Guilt and anger flared in my chest, in my gut. “You knew who I was, Ember. Hell, you still know me better than anyone else.” I let go of her and ran a hand through my wet hair. “I couldn’t live the same life my parents have. I couldn’t take and take and take from the land the way they do, without giving anything back. The need to make a difference in this world is as strong a desire in me as any other. You’ve felt it for yourself, Em… you know it… you know me. And that’s the man you promised to marry.”

“And the man I couldn’t bear to lose,” she said. “Not like that, not like Daddy. I watched my parents lose a little more of their marriage every time he left on an assignment. I watched Mom’s fear every time the phone rang. In reality, they lost each a long time before he was finally killed. I think the strain killed their love, a little at a time.”

“Then nothing’s changed,” I said.

“Not a damned thing,” she answered, tilting her chin up, eyes flashing. The ether swirled around her; she looked delicate and unconquerable all at once, like a water goddess in her element. “Not a damned thing,” she repeated slowly. And I could feel how right she was…

We were locked in a contest of wills, of love, of desire… of pure need and frustration. We could argue for days. There’d been times we had. But we’d always come back together. And the chemistry between us was just as combustible as ever. I couldn’t shake her hold on me. More than that, I didn’t want to. I reached out, roughly this time and thrust my fingers through her hair, pulling her to me. Words didn’t have the power to make her understand, to make her see… to make her feel. I pulled her to me, kissing her, not caring anymore that my erection was crushed against her belly. I held the curve of her neck in one hand, cupped her perfect ass in the other and made my point the only way I knew how; by showing her that we were made to fit together, in every way a man and a woman could. That she had more power over me than she could ever dream of, and that would never change. I kissed her until I felt her muscles relax, until she stopped resisting, until her anger shifted to passion. When she reached one long, smooth leg up and wrapped it around my waist, I knew I was home. For anger is just the other side of love,

And passion, the other side of fear…