CHAPTER FOUR
“YOU DON’T KNOW ME YET,” Cash told her quietly. “But I hope you know that I’d do anything I could for you and Rory. All you have to do is call and ask.”
She studied him worriedly. “It wouldn’t be fair to involve you,” she began.
“I have no family,” he said flatly. “Nobody, in all the world.”
“But you do,” she protested. “I mean, you told me that you have brothers and that your father’s still alive…”
His face hardened. “Except for Garon, my oldest brother, I haven’t seen my other brothers or my father in years,” he replied. “My father and I don’t speak.”
“And you and your brothers?” she pressed.
His eyes were dark and troubled. “Only Garon,” he repeated. “He came to see me a few weeks ago. He did say that the others wanted to bury the hatchet.”
“So you’re on speaking terms, at least.”
“You could call it that.”
Her thin brows came together. “You don’t forgive people, do you?”
He wouldn’t look at her. He wouldn’t answer her, either. He turned his attention to the skeleton they were standing in front of.
“She must have been a very special person, your mother,” she ventured.
“She was quiet and gentle, shy with strangers. She loved to quilt, crochet and knit.” He sounded as if the words were being torn from him. “She wasn’t beautiful, or exciting. My father met the junior league model at a cattle show, where they were filming a fashion revue at the same time. He went crazy for her. My mother couldn’t compete. He was cruel to her, because she was in his way. She found out that she had cancer, and she didn’t tell anybody. She just gave up.” His eyes closed. “I stayed with her in the hospital. I wouldn’t even go to school, and my father stopped trying to make me. I was holding her hand when she died. I was nine years old.”
She didn’t even think about other people around them. She turned and put her arms around him, pressing close. “Go ahead,” she whispered at his throat. “Tell me.”
He hated this weakness. He hated it! But his arms closed around her slender body. The offer of comfort was irresistible. He’d held it inside for so long…
He sighed at her ear, his breath harsh and warm. “He had his mistress at the funeral, at my mother’s funeral,” he said coldly. “She hated me, and I hated her. She’d conned two of my three brothers, and they were crazy about her and furious with me because I wouldn’t let her near me. I saw right through her. I knew she was only after Dad’s property and his wealth. So to get even, she threw out all my mother’s things and told my father that I’d called her terrible names and that I’d make my father get rid of her.”
He drew in a long breath. “The result was predictable, I guess, but I never saw it coming. He sent me away to military school and refused to even let me come home at the holidays until I apologized for being rude to her.” He laughed coldly, his arms hurting around her slender body, but she never protested. “Before I left, I told him that I’d hate him until my dying day. And that I’d never set foot in his house again.”
“He must have seen through her eventually,” she prompted.
His arms loosened, just a little. “When I was twelve,” he replied, “he caught her in bed with one of his friends and kicked her out. She sued him for everything he had. That was when she told him that she’d lied about me, to get me out of the way. She laughed about it. She lost the lawsuit, but she’d cost him his oldest son. She rubbed it in, to get even.”
“How did you know?”
“He wrote me a letter. I refused to answer his phone calls. He said he was sorry, that he wanted me to come home. That he missed me.”
“But you wouldn’t go,” she guessed, almost to her self.
“No. I wouldn’t. I told him I’d never forgive him for what he did to my mother and not to contact me again. I told him if he wouldn’t pay to let me stay in the school, I’d work for my keep, but I wasn’t going back to live with him.” He closed his eyes, remembering the pain and grief and fury he’d felt that day. “So I stayed in military school, made good grades, got promotions. When I graduated, they said he was in the audience, but I never saw him.
“I went right into the army afterward, from one special ops assignment to another. Occasionally I did jobs in concert with other governments. When I got out of the army, I went freelance. I had nothing to live for and nothing to lose, and I got rich.” He stiffened. “I didn’t need anybody in the old days. I was hard as nails. Funny, nobody tells you that there are things you can’t live with, until you’ve already done them.”
Her soft hand reached up to his lean, scarred cheek, and traced it tenderly. “You’re still there,” she said quietly, and her eyes had an eerie paleness as they met his reluctant ones. “You’re trapped in your own past. You can’t get out, because you can’t let go of the pain and the hatred and the bitterness.”
“Can you?” he shot right back. “Can you forgive your attacker?”
She let out a soft breath. “Not yet,” she confessed. “But I’ve tried. And at least I’ve learned to put it in the back of my mind. For a long time, I hated the whole world and then Rory came to live with me. And I realized that I had to put him first and stop dwelling on the past. I can’t let go of it completely, but it’s not as much a burden as it was when I was younger.”
He traced her eyebrows with a lean forefinger. “I’ve never spoken of this to anyone. Ever.”
“I’m a clam,” she replied gently. “At work, I’m everyone’s confidant.”
“Same here,” he confessed with a light smile. “I tell them that governments would topple if I told what I know. Maybe they would, too.”
“My secrets aren’t that important. Feel better?” she asked, smiling up at him.
He sighed. “In fact, I do,” he said, surprised. He chuckled. “Maybe you’re a witch,” he mused, “putting spells on me.”
“I had an uncle who said our family came from Druids in ancient Ireland. Of course, he also said we had relatives who were priests and one who was a horse thief.” She laughed. “He hated my mother and tried to get custody of me when I was ten. He died of a heart at tack that same year.”
“Tough break.”
“My life has been one long tough break,” she replied. “Sort of like yours. We’ve both been through the wars and survived.”
“You don’t have my memories,” he said quietly.
“You might think of bad memories like boils,” she commented, not totally facetiously. “They get worse until you lance them.”
“Not mine, honey.”
Her eyebrows lifted. She was fascinated by the endearment, uttered in that soft, deep tone. She colored a little. Odd, because she hated that word when it was tossed around by a parade of would-be lovers who used it like a weapon against her femininity.
He lifted a single eyebrow and looked roguish. “You like that, do you?” he drawled. “And you know that I don’t use endearments as a rule, too, don’t you?”
She nodded. “I know a lot of things about you that I shouldn’t.”
His chin lifted and he looked down his long, straight nose at her. “I only thought you were dangerous in Jacobsville. Now I know you are.”
She grinned. “Glad you noticed.”
He laughed and let her go. “Come on. We’re going to qualify as an exhibit if we stand here much longer.” He held out his hand.
She cocked her head. “Is that the only body part you’re offering me?” she asked, and then colored wildly when she realized what she’d just said.
He burst out laughing, linking her fingers with his. “Don’t be pushy,” he chided. “We haven’t even had a torrid petting session yet.”
She cleared her throat. “Don’t get your hopes up. I have a prudish nature.”
“It won’t last long around me.”
“I call that conceit.”
“You won’t when you see me in action,” he teased, and his fingers contracted. His voice dropped as he leaned closer. “I know twelve really good positions, and I’m as slow as the blues in bed. If I weren’t so modest, I could even give you references. I am a sensual experience that you’d never forget.”
“And so modest,” she teased.
“A man with my skills can do without modesty,” he murmured wickedly.
She wouldn’t admit it, but the prospect made her utterly breathless. He saw that in her face. The smile grew broader.
THEY HAD LUNCH in a Japanese restaurant, where Tippy and Rory were fascinated to hear Cash converse fluently with the waiter. He was competent with chopsticks, too.
“I didn’t know you spoke Japanese,” Tippy ex claimed. “Have you been to Japan?”
“Several times,” he replied, lifting a piece of chicken to his mouth with the chopsticks. “I love it there.”
“Do you speak any other languages, Cash?” Rory wanted to know.
“About six, I think,” he replied lazily. He smiled at the boy’s fascination. “If you ever want to get into intelligence work, languages will get you further than a law degree.”
“No, you don’t,” Tippy told Rory when he started to open his mouth. “You’re going to get a nice job as a computer technician and get married and have a family.”
Rory glared at her. “I’ll get married when you do.”
Cash chuckled.
“Better yet,” Rory added, “I’ll get married when he does,” and he pointed to Cash.
“I wouldn’t take that bet,” Cash advised Tippy.
“Neither would I,” she had to admit.
He glanced at her curiously, but he didn’t smile. In fact, he was feeling sensations he’d never experienced in his life, and getting a vicious case of cold feet. This woman made him want things, need things, that he feared more than bullets. He ached to take her to bed, and it was becoming obvious that she would let him. It was a prospect that made his head swim. He could al most picture having that perfect body under his on crisp sheets, feeling her long legs curling around him, her full lips clinging to his mouth. She knew nothing about consensual sex, she’d said, but he could teach her. He had plenty of experience, plenty of skill, and he could introduce her to a veritable feast of physical pleasure. In fact, he was dying to do just that. Could she see it? Did she know?
Her eyes were full of delight in his company. She might be second cousin to a virgin, but she certainly had the intelligence to see desire in a man’s face, as well as in his body. Of course she knew. He felt trapped.
He forced himself not to look at her while he tried to decide what to do next. Coming to New York, he told himself angrily, had been a bad idea. He needed to get out, while there was still time.
HIS CHANGE OF ATTITUDE was all too evident to Tippy, who was suddenly very sensitive to nuances of expression in his hard, lean face.
She withdrew as well. She was polite and cheerful, but the same distance that was in Cash now was also in her.
They went back up to her apartment, where a boy about Rory’s age was standing at the door, ringing the bell impatiently. He turned at the approach of the others.
“Hey, Rory! Mom says she’ll take us to see that new fantasy flick, and you can spend the night!” He glanced at Tippy and Cash and grimaced. “I guess you won’t want to, though, since you’ve got company…”
“Oh, Cash isn’t company, Don, he’s family,” Rory said without hesitation, completely unaware of the expression on Cash’s face. “I’d love to go! Can I, sis?”
Don Hartley and his family lived next door, and they knew about Tippy’s troubles with her mother. They’d never let Rory out of their sight.
She hesitated. “Well…” she began.
“I’ll bet Cash is dying to take you out somewhere fancy, just the two of you,” Rory prompted. “And you won’t even have to bribe me!”
Cash burst out laughing. “We could go to the ballet,” he said. “I, uh, have tickets. I didn’t know if you’d want to go…”
“I love ballet,” she said huskily. “I wanted to study it when I was a child, but…I never had the opportunity.” She looked back at Don. “Okay, he can go. Just until breakfast, though. I won’t get to have him around for very long, because we start shooting again the day after New Year’s.”
“You’re joking!” Cash exclaimed.
“I’m not. The producer told us that his director has to start shooting a new film in Europe in March, so he’s in a hurry to get this one in the can.” She sighed.
“You’ll get bruised even more,” Rory groaned.
She shrugged. “What can I say?” she asked, and then grinned. “I’m a star!”
RORY PACKED an overnight bag and went next door. Cash returned to his hotel to change into a suit, while Tippy went grasping through her entire wardrobe looking for just the right dress. She’d only found it when Cash was at the door again.
She caught her breath at the sight of him in evening clothes, with a spotless white shirt and black tie, finely creased trousers and shoes so polished that they reflected the ceiling. His hair was loose at his neck, slightly wavy and jet-black. He looked devastatingly handsome.
“You’re going in a housecoat, then?” he asked, nod ding.
She pulled it closer. “I was looking for the right dress.”
He checked his watch. “You’ve got five minutes to find it,” he pointed out. “I have reservations at the Bull and Bear for six o’clock.”
Her jaw fell. “That’s one of the most exclusive restaurants in the city…”
“At the Waldorf-Astoria,” he added for her. “I know. The ballet starts at eight. I’m ready. If you’re not going in that—” he indicated the ankle-length blue housecoat “—you’d better get cracking.”
She left a vapor trail getting into her bedroom.
She wore an off-the-shoulder white velvet dress with a black bow, and topped it with a black velvet coat with a white lining. She left her hair long and used the faintest trace of makeup. She put on diamond earrings and a diamond necklace and bracelet. Without looking again in the mirror, she went out to join Cash.
He was browsing through her bookshelf when he heard the door open. He turned, and his face froze.
She felt suddenly insecure. “Should I wear some thing else?” she asked nervously.
He just looked at her, his dark eyes narrow and quiet. “I saw a painting in a gallery once,” he murmured, moving toward her slowly. “Of a fairy dancing in the moon light, laughing. You look like her.”
“Was she wearing a velvet coat, then?” she asked facetiously.
“I’m not joking.” He framed her face in his big hands. “I thought she was the most seductive creature I’d ever seen until right now.” His eyes fell to her soft mouth. “You take my breath away…!”
His hard lips settled on her mouth, slowly, gently, so that he didn’t frighten her. He drew her against him lazily, not forcefully, and his lips toyed with hers until he felt her tense body relax, until he felt her lips slacken. She took a jerky breath and slowly settled close against his hard chest. Her hands slid up to the nape of his strong neck. He could feel their coldness against his skin.
He lifted his head scant inches so that he could look into her beautiful pale green eyes. She was frightened. But she wasn’t fighting to get away. If anything, those eyes were glittery with desire.
“I won’t hurt you,” he promised quietly.
“I’m not afraid of you,” she said breathlessly.
“Are you sure?” he taunted at her mouth. He bit at it in quick, ardent little kisses that had an explosive effect on both of them. He caught her hips suddenly, riveted them to the powerful thrust of his body. She gasped, shivering at the sudden rush of hot pleasure that seethed in her veins at the intimate contact.
“Yes, you know what that is, don’t you, baby?” he ground out against her mouth. His hands tightened and his mouth hardened on her lips. “Do you want to feel it inside you?” he whispered at her ear.
“Cash!” She struggled helplessly, really frightened when she couldn’t get away.
He realized it, finally, and loosened his grip. “Sorry,” he bit off.
She didn’t move. Her eyes searched his. “Me, too. I forget…men…lose control,” she whispered.
“I don’t,” he replied curtly. “Not ever. Not until just now.”
She stared at him with wide, fascinated eyes. The stark confession should have frightened her. It had the opposite effect. He didn’t realize that it made him seem more vulnerable to her. It exorcised her fear in one long sigh.
“It’s all right,” she whispered, and managed a soft smile. “I’m not frightened anymore.”
His fingers teased around her softly rounded chin. They moved to her mouth and toyed with her soft lips. He explored her, his fingers like an artist’s brush, touching and tracing…tormenting.
Her body rippled as his arm drew it closer. But her lips lifted and her eyes closed, in blatant invitation.
“You taste like cotton candy, Tippy,” he breathed as his mouth settled gently over her parted lips. “I could eat you alive…”
She felt the hardness of his lips brushing at hers, teasing and lifting, searching. She followed them blindly, hanging against him like a dove, living from second to second in his loose embrace. He wasn’t threatening. He wasn’t frightening. She loved the touch of his body against hers, the clean, crisp scent of his after shave. She loved the way he held her, with tenderness but also with strength and confidence.
Odd little tremors began to work through her legs, up her spine. She moved closer to Cash, uncertain. Her hands behind his neck began to link. Her body lifted, involuntarily, into closer contact. She would have died to have him.
He felt those responses and lifted his mouth from hers to search her confused eyes. “You want me. I know it, but I won’t take advantage. You’re safe,” he breathed. “It’s all right to let go. I won’t hurt you. I won’t force you. All right?”
She was still uncertain, but she nodded faintly and closed her eyes, waiting.
Her trust in him made his knees weak. He knew instinctively how hard this was for her, to give up control of her body to a man, after what she’d suffered in her youth. He clamped down hard on his own rising desire. He wanted to be tender with her. He wanted her to feel such pleasure that she’d never be able to look at another man as long as she lived…!
His mouth brushed hers softly, and then insistently. He let her responses guide him, drawing back slightly when she stiffened, pressing his advantage when she pushed closer to him. Seconds rushed by in a heated pulse of pleasure that grew and grew.
She moaned softly when his mouth grew hungry on her lips, and her body lifted up against his with real need. He felt the desire funnel up in her, felt her own hunger kindle from contact with his.
Yes, he thought feverishly, she wanted him. Even if she didn’t know it yet. He reached around her and lifted her completely off the floor in his embrace, and his mouth became passionate on her soft lips.
She shivered at the need in him that she could feel like a living pulse. His mouth was fierce in its possession of her lips, his body began to tauten. She heard him groan huskily into her mouth as his arms tightened roughly at her back.
She should have been frightened. He might never lose control with another woman, but he was quickly losing it with her. She was flattered at the need she sensed in him. She recalled dazedly what he’d told her once, about it having been a long time between women. He was hungry and she was apparently willing. What if he didn’t want to stop? What if he couldn’t stop?
He felt her enthusiasm wane and he drew away from her at once, letting her slip back to her feet. He lifted his head, watching her, his face wiped clean of expression. Only his glittery dark eyes were alive in it.
She swallowed hard. “Just checking,” she managed weakly.
“To see if I really could stop?” he mused with a smile. She nodded, embarrassed.
He traced her swollen mouth. “You’re not what I expected.”
“Neither are you.” She hid her face against him for a moment, remembering the blatant question he’d asked her earlier. Even in memory, it aroused her. She thought of feeling him deep inside her body. She shivered with exquisite pleasure. But just as she started to say some thing equally blatant to him, he drew back.
He bent and kissed the tip of her nose. “We’d better go. We’re going to throw everything off schedule.”
She looked up at him, hesitating. She felt hot all over, strained, hungry. Her eyes were full of unsatisfied need. “If I asked you…”
“Yes?” he prompted.
She swallowed and forced herself to speak. “If I asked you to make love to me…”
He pressed his thumb against her swollen mouth. His eyes flared. “I want to! You can’t imagine how much. But I don’t start things I can’t finish.”
“But I could finish this,” she said with painful emphasis.
“I could, with you!”
His body actually shuddered. He put her away from him. He didn’t dare accept that invitation. He should be shot for what he’d already done and said tonight.
“Well, you’re not going to. Not tonight. I offered you dinner and the ballet,” he said brusquely, moving to the door. “Only that!” He glanced at her. “Are you coming?”
She felt ashamed that she’d made such a rash offer, and to Cash Grier of all people. She was furious at him for making her feel that way. He’d started it, after all. Throwing his perfect body at her like that and then slapping her down when she got aroused! Were all men like that?
“Dinner and the ballet,” she agreed curtly, wrapping her coat around her tightly and buttoning it up to her chin. “And don’t worry, I won’t try to seduce you in the front seat of the car!”
He glared down at her. “Thanks. I was really worried.”
She swept by him in a fury.
They ate without knowing what, and Tippy felt guilty, because it was delicious. They went from the elegant restaurant to the ballet, where she sat beside Cash and never saw what was happening on stage except for noting the beautiful colors and how they reflected on the dancers. She was angry. She was elated. She was eaten up with physical desire that she’d never felt before in her life. She was blinded by her hunger for him. She wanted to jump on him and tear his clothes off where he was sitting. Outraged and mortified by her own helpless urges, she ignored him throughout the performance.
As if he understood completely what she was feeling, he didn’t say a word or even touch her until the bal let was over and they were filing out of the theater. He took her arm to help her across the street to the parking garage, but she was like steel to the touch.
He unlocked the door and she got inside, reaching idly for her seat belt. He glanced at her as he started the engine and pulled out of the parking space. He felt remorseful about refusing what she’d offered him. But he was honest. He had nothing to give. Nothing at all. It would have been unfair to take advantage of something she couldn’t help. He was flattered that she could feel such attraction for him, but he didn’t trust it. He didn’t trust her. He was still stunned that he’d spilled his darkest secrets to a woman who was, after all, little more than a stranger. Except that she didn’t feel like a stranger. She felt…familiar. Too familiar.
He whipped the car out into traffic with muted violence.
She noticed. She turned her evening bag over in her lap and looked out the window at the crowded streets with their floods of neon lights and glimmering messages on billboards.
“Don’t get conceited, Grier,” she said sharply. “I’m sure there are at least five or six other men on the planet who could make me feel like ravishing them on the sidewalk.”
He made a rough sound in his throat.
She didn’t look to see if it was laughter or something else. “Besides, I can always take a cold shower and go in for team sports…”
The car jerked under his hands as he tried to cope with what he was feeling. “Will you give it a rest?” he asked after a minute. “We both know you’d start screaming the minute I laid hands on you with intent.”
She started. “Is that what you think?”
“I’ve been in law enforcement and the military most of my life,” he said, slowing in traffic for a turn. “I know more about rape victims than you do.”
She didn’t say anything else, but she was watching him, waiting.
He glanced at her as he made the turn. “You may have the best intentions in the world, but it’s not going to be that easy for you to be with a man—even a man you think you want. One of the roughest rape cases I ever testified in was a similar circumstance. A young girl who’d been raped tried to make it with her new boy friend. But she couldn’t go through with it and he couldn’t stop.”
“What happened?”
“She started screaming about the time her parents came home. They had the boy arrested. She tried to recall the charges, but it was too late. He did get probation—it was a first offense—but he never spoke to her again. She really loved him. She just couldn’t have sex with him.”
She folded her arms together over her coat and shivered.
“You get the picture?” he asked tersely.
She nodded. Her eyes went back to the passing storefronts.
His lips flattened together. “I couldn’t live with it if I lost control and forced you, okay?” he admitted finally.
Her caught breath was audible. “But I offered,” she said huskily.
He glared at her. “What would that mean if I left you with more scars than you’ve already got?”
Her anger evaporated and she studied him quietly. “I’ve never felt like this with anyone since it happened,” she confessed. “I was very attracted to Cullen, but he found women repulsive. Even so, it wasn’t like this. I’m on fire,” she said with a nervous little laugh. “I ache all over. It’s almost like pain. All I can think of is how it would feel to be with you in a bed all night.”
His hands tightened on the steering wheel until they turned white, while he tried to convince himself that this was a disaster waiting to happen.
“But if you’re not interested, you’re not interested. I guess you’re worried about that marriage thing. I don’t have any plans to propose to you, no matter how good you are in bed, if that would change your mind,” she promised.
He laughed in spite of himself. “You don’t understand.”
“You’re impotent?” she murmured dryly.
He glared at her. “I am not impotent.”
“You’re saving yourself for someone you haven’t told me about?” she persisted.
“Hell!”
“I’m only trying to explain to you that I want your cooperation in a science project,” she continued, unabashed.
“A what?”
“A science project. Anatomy.” She grinned.
He was losing ground. This wasn’t good. He had to keep his head, because it was a sure bet that she was losing her own.
“I won’t even ask you to leave the lights on.”
He frowned. “Why would I want them out?”
“Well, a man of your age,” she murmured, glancing at her polished nails. “I mean, you might have inhibitions about your body.” She peered at him through her lashes.
He felt himself go taut. He wondered if she even realized how arousing this sort of conversation was.
“I have a great body, thanks.”
“In that case, we can leave the lights on.”
He gave an exasperated sigh as he turned onto her street and pulled up in front of her apartment, with the engine still running. He scowled at her in the glare of the streetlights.
“You want to do it right here, with the engine running?” she exclaimed in a hushed tone, looking around.
“I do not!” he bit off.
“Then, shouldn’t we go upstairs?” she prompted. “I haven’t checked door to door, of course, but I’m sure my neighbors are easily shocked.”
He met her level stare and tried to weigh the consequences logically. But his mind wasn’t cooperating. His body was making it impossible to think at all. Just the sight of her in that white gown, with her bodice plunging and hinting at the beautiful curves underneath made him ache. It had been a long time. Too long. He was ripe for a reckless night in bed. But not with an abused woman who was barely one step removed from virginity.
“Last chance,” she said breathlessly, her nails biting into her evening bag as she fought inherent shyness to make the outrageous offer.
He sighed angrily. “Listen…”
She held up a hand. “You’re just bristling with excuses,” she gleaned. “I’m sorry, but it’s no use. You don’t want to. Okay. I understand. Thanks for dinner and the ballet. I know it didn’t look like it, but I really did enjoy them.”
She opened the door and got out, smiling forcefully. “Are you going to be around tomorrow? It’s Christmas Eve.”
He frowned. “I don’t know.”
“If you are, I’m having turkey and dressing and all the trimmings,” she said.
He was confused and upset. He’d never been in a situation where he was so torn between two alternatives. He’d never wanted a woman so badly, either. But he thought her outlook was overly optimistic. She’d never really dealt with her past.
“Have you even had therapy?” he asked abruptly.
“You think I need therapy because I offered you sex?” she exclaimed.
“Hell!” he burst out. “Can’t you be serious for a minute?”
“I’ve spent my whole adult life being serious, and it’s getting me nowhere.”
“You need counseling,” he insisted.
She glared at him. “I don’t need counseling. All I need is…well, never mind what I need. You’re not interested.”
“You haven’t faced your past,” he said flatly.
“Oh, yes, I have. Despite what you think, I can live with my past. Can you?”
She turned and started up the steps. She was angry, but her body was still throbbing like a wound. She couldn’t quite control that, or her unsatisfied desire. He thought she couldn’t function as a woman. She knew she could, with him, at least. But if he wouldn’t believe her, there was little hope in showing him.
She paused as she unlocked her front door to look back at him. He was still sitting in the car, scowling, with both windows up and the moon roof closed. The car was still running, too.
She waved and went inside. It was the hardest thing she’d done in years. She knew she might never see him again. The funny thing was that she’d been telling the truth. Her body was throbbing with desire. She wanted him so much that she was almost shaking with it. Any other man would have had her in the bedroom before she could get the whole invitation out. And she had to run across a man who was too concerned with her hang-ups to accept a blatant offering!