Spearing his fingers into her hair, he pressed the heel of his palm to her jaw. "It is good.

It wasn't a no."

"It wasn't a yes." When he grinned, she scowled. "Teach me to get involved with another negotiator. Glorified bean counter."

She shook her head, pushed away from the stoop, crossing her arms under her breasts, feeling the impending evening chill. Marcie had taken the kids around to the front, and she wondered now if her sister had picked up the tone and done it with calculated intent.

Having the chess pieces rearranged before she could even get a handle on the game was something she didn't like, and she didn't want him to think she'd accept being treated that way. "You know, you can't call in a babysitter every time you think there's something you'd rather be doing. That's not the way this works. I haven't had time to think this through. And tomorrow is a school day."

"Hey." As he rose, she backed up, not wanting him to touch her again. "I just wanted the first time between us to be special. Not hurried. You deserve that. And Marcie told me tomorrow is a teacher's workday. I did check on that first." He closed the distance between them in a quick step, caught her shoulders. "Cass, look at me."

At the command, she raised her angry, uncertain gaze. "I am not your drunk dad," he said. "If I'm falling for you, I'm falling for the whole package. I had a blast with the kids earlier."

"They're not always a blast."

"Really? I find that hard to believe." He gave her that little shake. "Give me some credit."

"You've only known me a day. You can't commit your whole life to this—"

"No, of course I can't. Stop it." He held her fast. "But I can say I'd like a chance. You can't deny yourself love, the possibility that I could be part of this family, for fear that I can't."

"These kids can't be jerked around anymore. I won't allow it just because you—"

"If you go with the 'just because you want to fuck me' line, I will smack your ass," he said, and the steel in his gaze told her he meant it. "If that's all I wanted, I never would have come home with you. Cass, I have a sister. A divorced sister with two kids who had to live with me nearly two years when he cleaned her out of everything, the bastard. I understand the issue, and I love those kids like my own. I took over as the male role model in their life during those two years, and they still look to me that way."

"They're doomed," she said after a long moment, struggling with it.

"Don't I know it." His touch eased. "You and I have moved fast, way fast. I know that.

But look at me. Look at my eyes, everything you know of me, that you know of people.

Use that intuition Steve pays you so much for. If we don't work out, which I have a very good feeling is not going to be a problem, I will be as careful of the kids' feelings as I would hope to be of yours. You don't have to be so goddamned tough about everything."

She wrenched away, crunching through ankle-deep dry leaves in the yard. "Don't you get it, Lucas? It's not about that. Most women aren't tough. We're tired, we're lonely, we're afraid of failing to live up to what's expected of us. While we're looking for the one person who will accept us for ourselves and love us anyway, we're already too walled up to show him who that is. You can't let down your shields. No one can."

"You can with someone who loves you."

"Yeah, and those people come with big neon signs on them that say, 'You can trust me, I will love you through thick and thin, you can count on it.'" She backed away some more, wishing Marcie hadn't taken the kids out of earshot, wishing Lucas hadn't taken off her corset, because words were just bubbling out of her, no filter, no restraint. He was making her need to say them, standing before her, all the possibilities she wanted so much. "There are things I've said in my head I can never say to anyone. Sometimes I'm so tired I don't want to get up ever again. Sometimes I need sex so badly I've brushed against a corner of the kitchen island and made myself come by accident, and had to cover it as a fit of coughing with the kids." She laughed bitterly. "I got them on track, I pay the bills, I've earned my education and reputation, and somehow I feel like all I've done with my outstanding accomplishments is build myself a great big public cage. And when that becomes too much . . . Ah, Christ."

She turned away, but couldn't deny his comfort when he slid his arms around her waist, held her against him, speaking into her ear. "When that becomes too much, you go to a glade in the Berkshires and give yourself twenty minutes of sanity. Everyone feels that way sometimes. But from where I'm standing, you still have a pretty damn good life, you know? You're fucking amazing, everything you've done. You're just missing someone to share it with, sweetheart. Not just to help, but to share it. We tend to make situations that come with big emotions into something complex, but they're usually not. Life sucks sometimes, and you need someone who can stand with you. Everyone needs that."

Through a tear-streaked face, she looked up and found his gaze full of a miraculous tenderness. "I haven't cried in forever, and here it is, twice with you in one day. That can't be a good thing."

"On the contrary, I think it's a very positive sign. Hell, Cass." Turning her, he put his forehead against hers, molded his hands to her back, letting her feel the strength of his touch through his shirt. "I don't know what love is, any more than the next person. But I know when I look at you, every part of me is hoping like hell this is it. So risk it, okay?

You've risked so much to get where you are, you're starting in a position of strength here." Lifting his head, he quirked a brow. "After all, I am a major catch. And I'm completely gone over you."

"And so modest." She sniffled.

"Well, first rule of negotiation, sweetheart. Start with the strongest points. Don't want to scare you off with my bug fetish or the bodies in my basement freezer."

"Bug fetish?"

"Typical woman. Her eyes go all big over the bugs, rather than my side career as a serial killer."

"How big? Are we talking spiders? Spiders are not bugs."

Laughing, he pulled her to his mouth and silenced her in a way that forced bugs out of her head.

She pulled back. "The kids."

"Gone." At her stunned look, he had the grace to look sheepish. "I'd already talked to Marcie. She took them in front when I knew the limo would be there."

"And you just assumed—"

"Yeah, I did." He looked down at her. "You know they'll be safe with us, right?"

"That's not the point. I handle my life. Their lives—"

"No question, no argument. But tonight is just for you. You won't give yourself that. I did. You and I both know you're using them as a shield."

When he closed his hands on her shoulders, bent his knees to force her to look into his face, she closed her eyes. "Lucas, I can't. I get sucked in. For so long, I wanted something like what you appear to be, so much . . ."

You're the Holy Grail floating over the yawning Abyss. With desperation, she thought it must be the Knights of the Boardroom reference making her think in King Arthur analogies. "Those kids can't afford a leap of faith. I'm what they have, and in order to be there for them, I can't risk any cracks. You're a potential earthquake."

"I think I'm flattered. But why am I an earthquake?" Somehow, while her eyes were closed, he'd backed her up against the stoop. As he posed the question in her ear, his arm circled her. Gently, so gently, with his other hand between them, he began to unbutton the shirt, tease her skin.

"Because I need you too much. Something like you. You'll leave. You all leave. Your cocks and minds get bored."

He paused. Cass realized she'd meant to say "want," but they both knew a slip of the tongue like that was rarely a mistake. She couldn't take it back, couldn't cover it.

"Stop thinking. Just for five minutes, shut it off. Look at me." His expression now was one that made something flutter in her lower belly. He nodded. "Very few men would know that the avenue to your heart is, in fact, through your body, Cass. Through your submission. So the irony of it is, by taking your body exactly where it needs to go, I'm going to convince you that my heart and soul are never going to be bored with you."

She caught at the shirt as he slipped the last button. There were no close neighbors, but that wasn't why she clutched it. He put his hands over hers, began to pry her fingers away.

"I can't." Her whisper was broken. "I can't say no to you, but I can't do this."

"You're not your parents, Cass. Either one of them. You're you. And you can do it." He coaxed one set of fingers to release, then the other. Holding her wrists in one hand, he spread the two sides of the shirt open, revealing the flat line of her stomach, the crescent shapes of her breasts. "Beautiful," he murmured. "Mine. Stand still."

Turning her, he took the coat off her shoulders and then the shirt, laid them on the stoop.

The skirt came next, slowly sliding over her hips, followed by the panties and stockings, so she now stood naked before him while he was still fully clothed. When she shivered, he put the coat back over her bare shoulders.

"Should we go—"

"Not yet," he said. Then he sank down before her, hands holding her hips as he studied the column of her throat, the shape of her breasts, the line of her rib cage and abdomen.

Her hips, the roundness of her buttocks, the vee of her sex, a soft pelt of hair, smooth and trim. He studied that the longest, and aside from the self-consciousness, the slight sense of embarrassment, it aroused her almost to the point of pain, the way he examined her.

Her hands clutched his shoulders, then slid forward, seeking the line of his jaw. Catching her fingers, he sucked on them hard, strong, before pulling free, staring up at her. "Mine,"