Chapter 3

Jackie Flynn leaned over the balcony railing and breathed in the morning air happily. She wasn’t, by nature, a morning person, but this island life agreed with her, and she was finding it no hardship to rise earlier than usual. She was beginning to understand why Michele loved mornings. She was already up and about, probably running on the beach since that was her habit. Even on vacation, Michele wasn’t the type to laze away her days.

Jackie leaned farther outward, peering to the left to try and catch a glimpse of the garden path to the beach, which was obscured by a wing of the building. She spotted Michele.

With a man.

A big blond man, Jackie noted with interest, and he was holding Michele’s hand in a way that was possessive rather than casual. She watched them emerge from the garden and walk past the pool, every step bringing them closer. Her smile faded, a niggling uneasiness growing inside her. From her position she could see Michele’s face well, but only the man’s profile as he talked earnestly with her.

There was something about him…

The conversation several floors below was finally finished, and the man half turned to watch Michele walk on alone. Jackie could see his face now, all too clearly. She jerked back away from the railing, feeling sick.

“Oh, my God,” she muttered.

Jackie was standing in the doorway to her room.

She looked pale, Michele thought, and her eyes held a queer, stunned expression. “Jackie? Are you all right?”

“I saw you.” Jackie swallowed hard. “I saw you with him.”

Michele slowly crossed the room to the table by the balcony doors and sat down in one of the chairs. Her friend’s extreme reaction didn’t surprise her, but it saddened her and made her think bitter thoughts. Twenty years of poison had made Jackie hate someone she didn’t even know, someone who had never lifted a hand against her, and that was a terrible testament to the power of brainwashing.

“Tell me I didn’t see that,” Jackie begged, coming into the room and sinking down on the corner of Michele’s bed. “Tell me it wasn’t Ian Stuart.”

“It was.”

“Michele…”

“I had car trouble the day after I got here,” Michele said steadily. “He stopped to help me.” Then a touch of painful mockery entered her voice. “The sky didn’t fall, Jackie. I wasn’t hit by a bolt of lightning. He didn’t turn into a Medusa or a gorgon or Jack the Ripper. He just offered me a ride back here, and that night we had dinner together.”

Jackie’s piquant face was marred by her anguished expression. “Michele, he’s a Stuart! He and his father have done their best to ruin your family for years—”

“No. Not Ian.”

“Oh, and I suppose he told you that?”

Had he? He’d said that he wouldn’t fight her brother, Michele remembered. That the feud would stop with him. But he hadn’t actually denied any involvement in the past. She felt pricking little doubts creeping nearer and fiercely pushed them away.

“Jackie, try to understand. I didn’t go looking for this; I didn’t know he’d be here on the island. And the last thing I want to do is hurt Dad and Jon.”

“But?” Jackie demanded sharply.

“Something happened that first night—”

“Did he hurt you?”

Michele shook her head, sighing. “No, nothing like that. It happened inside me, not because of anything he did. For the first time in my life, I—I felt like a woman. Everything came crashing in on me, so many emotions and needs and fears. It scared the hell out of me; I ran like a thief.”

Jackie was staring at her, frowning. “Actually ran? Where?”

“Out on the beach.”

“He followed you.”

“Yes. And he knew why I was running, what I was running from. When he kissed me—”

“I knew it!” Jackie exclaimed, her normally pleasant voice hard. “The bastard’s trying to seduce you!”

Michele felt a flash of sheer rage. “Is he?” she snapped back. “Then he missed a great opportunity that night, because I couldn’t say no. I asked him not to stop!”

Jackie drew back a little and they stared at each other, shock on one face and anger on the other. It wasn’t the first time they’d quarreled, but it was by far the most serious disagreement they had ever had.

“He’s up to something,” Jackie finally said, her tone unsteady. “He wants to hurt you, Michele.”

“Why are you so sure of that? Because he’s a Stuart? Does his name make him incapable of anything but hurt when it comes to me? Can it possibly be that he’s just a man who happens to find me attractive?”

“Is that how it is with you?” Jackie asked. “Do you find him—attractive—because he’s just a man? Do you feel that way in spite of his name, Michele? Or because of it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Forbidden fruit. It’s supposed to taste sweeter.”

Michele felt a jolt, the ugly little doubts creeping nearer again. Then she shook her head and muttered, “Nothing’s that simple.”

“Isn’t it? Ian Stuart is the last man in the world you should get involved with. Your father would disown you in every sense of the word. So would Jon.”

“I know that.”

Jackie looked shocked again, and uneasy, as if she’d expected the reminder to cure her friend instantly of this madness. She stared for a moment, then said in a thin voice, “It would be a feather in his cap, wouldn’t it? He could destroy your family and enjoy himself doing it. Make you care about him until nothing else mattered, until you broke your father’s heart and—”

“That’s enough.” Michele tried to stifle her anger as she got to her feet and squared her shoulders. “You’re my closest friend, Jackie, and I know you want what’s best for me. So let me find out for myself what that is. Maybe it won’t be Ian, but I have to make up my own mind. I can’t hate him just because I’ve been told I should.”

Jackie was silent for a moment, then asked stiffly, “I guess you expect me to keep my mouth shut about this?”

“To Dad and Jon? I hope you will.” Michele slipped her feet into sandals and made sure her room key was still in the pocket of her skirt. “Maybe there won’t be anything to tell them, in the end. But if there is, it should come from me.”

Staring at the floor, Jackie said, “All right. I’ll keep quiet. Maybe you’ll come to your senses before they’re hurt by this.”

Michele went toward the door, then stopped and looked at her friend. “Ian’s invited us for breakfast. Do you want to come?”

“I’m not hungry.”

Not that she’d expected any other response. “We’ll be at a table on the terrace if you change your mind.” She was almost at the door when Jackie’s quiet voice stopped her.

“Michele?”

“Yes?”

“He can hurt you so badly. He can hurt you more than any other man ever could.”

There was nothing Michele could say to that, because it was the truth. Silently, she left the room and went to join Ian for breakfast.

“She didn’t take it well,” Ian noted a few minutes later.

Settled in her chair across from him in the morning sunshine, Michele conjured a faint smile. “Afraid not. I can’t even blame her for it, really. She’s a wonderful person, but she isn’t any more rational about you Stuarts than anyone in my family is.”

“I suppose she pointed out all the reasons you shouldn’t see me again?”

“Oh, yes.” Michele sighed. “All the reasons I’d thought about and a few I hadn’t.” Then she shook her head. “No, that isn’t true. Jackie didn’t say anything I hadn’t already said to myself. It just sounded…worse coming from her.”

Ian’s jaw tightened. “I can imagine.”

Michele glanced past him, then stiffened a bit. “You won’t have to. I guess she changed her mind.” Ian rose as Jackie moved toward them, and Michele added in a low voice, “I hope you have a thick skin.”

He certainly needed one, Ian decided during the next hour or so. Jackie didn’t hide her hostility one bit, and if she could get a barbed comment in, she didn’t hesitate. Ian didn’t mind for himself; it would take more than the venom of this antagonistic redhead to make him lose his own temper. But he minded for Michele, because he knew it bothered her. She didn’t say very much, hardly touched her breakfast, and more than once angry color rose in her cheeks.

The last thing Ian wanted to do was come between Michele and her friend; the cost of this relationship would likely be high enough without that loss. But he couldn’t bear to sit by and allow this hate-filled young woman to tear their relationship to pieces before it had a chance.

He signed the check, rose, then gently pulled Michele to her feet. “If you’ll excuse us?” he said pleasantly to Jackie.

She ignored him, looking at her friend instead. “Jon’ll probably call, Michele. Want me to tell him you’re slumming?”

Evenly, Michele replied, “I never knew you were cruel, Jackie. Until now. Tell him any damn thing you want to.” She turned away abruptly.

Ian saw Jackie’s face whiten, but whether with anger or shame he couldn’t say. He caught up with Michele in a few steps, and took her arm, guiding her back through the lobby and toward the front doors.

“Well, that little experiment was a mistake,” he said wryly. “She hates my guts. And it isn’t even her fight.”

“I’m sorry.” Michele’s voice was low, her head bent.

He didn’t reply until they were in his car and heading away from the hotel. “You don’t have any reason to be sorry. Jackie’s as much a victim of five hundred years as we are.”

Michele half turned on the seat to look at him. “But we aren’t reacting the same way. Why not? What makes you and me different?”

“Something stronger than both of us. Something that might even be stronger than the feud. That’s what we have to find out, Michele.”

The barbs Jackie had planted stung Michele’s flesh…and she wondered what influence they would ultimately have on her relationship with Ian. All through breakfast, she’d been conscious of the ache of longing inside her, and every jab from Jackie had only made her more aware of it.

Gazing steadily at Ian now, she felt the longing intensify, numbing her doubts and suspicions. She wanted his arms wrapped around her, his mouth on hers, his hard body pressed against her. She wanted to forget that they were anything but a man and woman. Her wishes were so simple, so clear, so untroubled by any doubt, fear, distrust.

“Where are we going?” she asked huskily.

Ian sent her a quick glance, and a muscle leaped in his jaw as his hands tightened on the wheel. “Dammit, don’t look at me like that,” he warned in a taut voice.

It should have embarrassed her that her feelings showed so plainly on her face, but somehow it didn’t. She was aware only of a tingling satisfaction that his response was so instant. “I can’t help it,” she murmured.

He drew a short breath, and the telltale muscle in his jaw flexed again as he stared straight ahead. “You’d better try, because it makes me want to drag you into the backseat like some horny teenager.”

Michele tried to look away from him, but she couldn’t. His blunt statement sent a stab of excitement through her, and the recklessness of that feeling pushed everything else out of her mind. She had to press her lips tightly together to keep herself from saying there was nothing she’d like more than to take him up on that rough promise.

Ian glanced at her again and instantly forced his attention back on the road. His brief look was enough to jerk the threads of his control painfully tight. He was going to plow the car into one of the palms lining the street if he wasn’t careful, or else just pull over in front of someone’s house and make love to her no matter who happened to stroll by. She was sitting there beside him in her prim white dress—except that it wasn’t prim at all. The bodice had some kind of fishnet panels down both her sides and another in front, between her breasts; golden flesh was clearly visible through the net all the way to her slender waist. She wasn’t wearing a bra; all he had to untie were the flimsy straps at her shoulders and smooth the sheer linen away to feel her naked breasts in his hands. The way she was looking at him only made matters worse. Her haunting gray eyes were soft and unfocused with the desire of a woman.

Ian cleared his throat harshly and held on to control with an iron grip. “Michele, for both our sakes, we have to be careful. If we become lovers before you trust me…”

Lovers. The word made a wave of heat wash over her. To be Ian’s lover, to lie in his arms, to feel his weight on her, to know his possession. That was what this was all about, she knew, what both of them had hesitated to name aloud. It was the connection that drew them together even though they were supposed to be on different sides of a war. Not rational or even sane, the compelling attraction existed, and they had to decide how best to deal with it.

She turned her head away finally, staring through the windshield, trying to gather her scattered wits. “Where are we going?” she repeated in a steadier voice.

“The waterfront park,” he answered, his voice still a little strained. “I thought we could walk for a while. Talk.”

“With lots of people around,” she murmured.

“Lord knows I’d rather be alone with you. But I think we should avoid that.”

Michele didn’t protest his decision, even though a part of her wanted to. Ian was right. It was too dangerous for them to be alone, too tempting. She remained silent until they were walking slowly along one of the paths of the waterfront park. The place was busy with tourists, mostly American, but nonetheless it was a quiet and peaceful place.

“You said I was too honest to have hidden motives,” she said, glancing up at him. “How can you be so sure? I mean, you must have listened to as many attacks on Logans as I have on Stuarts over the years.”

“Attacks on Logans, yes,” he admitted. “But always against your father and Jon. I don’t believe my father ever said a thing against you personally. The closest he ever came was when he raked me over the coals when you beat me in that Grand Prix event ten years ago. He said I ought to be ashamed of myself for letting a Logan brat on a green horse beat me.”

Michele couldn’t help but smile. “I was determined to win that day—but not because you were a Stuart.”

Rather dryly, Ian said, “I know. You were mad as hell at being dumped at my feet.”

Startled, she said, “Yes, but how did you know that?”

He walked a few more steps in silence, then drew her hand through the crook of his arm. “It was in your eyes. Not hate, but something fierce and obstinate. As I remember, you had a few nasty things to say about my ancestors when I offered you a hand up, but that seemed more or less automatic.”

She looked at her hand resting easily on his arm, with his hand lightly covering it. The offering of help she had furiously scorned at sixteen she had accepted the other day. And she wondered suddenly if anything would have been different had she accepted the first time.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

Michele sighed. “What else?”

“It’s never far away, is it?”

“It’s not something either of us can forget. Ian, you said you wouldn’t fight Jon. But have you? In the past, I mean?”

In a deliberate tone, Ian said, “I’ve never done anything against your father, your brother, or their company, Michele. I’ve never used an unfair business tactic to gain an advantage over them. Never.”

“I had to ask,” she said quietly.

“I know.” His hand tightened over hers. “Let’s make a bargain. No more talk about the feud, or our families for a while. We’re two people getting to know each other, and that’s all that matters now.”

“I’ll try.”

“Good enough,” he murmured.

They spent the entire day exploring the island. With all the caution of people walking a tightrope, they steered a careful course between the attraction they felt and the conflict of who they were. In getting to know each other, they discovered a surprising amount of common ground as well as a peculiar bond of understanding.

The latter, Michele thought, was certainly due to who they were. It was ironic, but the very threat to their relationship was also what enabled them to so quickly gain a sense of each other. They shared a unique background, a history linking their families for five centuries, and no matter how negative that link was, it was a powerful bond.

Michele was thinking of that as she unlocked her door that evening. She and Ian had eaten lunch and dinner away from the hotel, not returning until late, and she wondered what Jackie had made of their extended absence.

The worst, no doubt.

The connecting door was closed on Jackie’s side. Michele sighed but made no attempt to open it. Given her friend’s present state of mind, there was really very little for them to say to each other. She went to take a shower, emerging a few minutes later dressed for bed in a sleep shirt.

“Michele?” Jackie was standing in the doorway to her room, wearing short pajamas and looking as if she’d been crying. “Can—can we talk? I have some iced tea in here.”

Silently, Michele followed her friend into the other room, sitting down by the balcony doors and accepting a cold glass. “Did Jon call?” she asked.

“No.”

Conscious of a niggling worry, Michele frowned at her glass. It wasn’t that Jon called every single day, it was just that during his last few calls he’d been unusually silent about what was going on with the company—and the feud. He knew his sister had never approved of the “eye-for-an-eye” concept, and though he was quick to report some foul deed of the Stuarts, he was generally silent about what he and their father did in retaliation.

That was what had Michele concerned. Though Ian had denied any involvement in the troubles between their families, he had said nothing about his father, and Jon had seemed certain that a Stuart had been behind the company’s recent problems—though that was, of course, his inevitable reaction to difficulties with the business. She couldn’t help but feel uneasy about what might be happening in Atlanta, especially since she and Ian were trying to build a bridge instead of a fence.

“I’m sorry,” Jackie blurted as she sank down on the bed and drew her legs up. “Sorry for the things I said, the way I acted this morning.”

Michele was more than a little surprised. “That’s quite a change of heart,” she noted slowly. “Quite a sudden change of heart.”

Jackie looked miserable. “I’ve been thinking about it all day. I’m your friend, Michele. I should be on your side no matter what. Lord knows nobody else is going to be.”

“How can you be on my side? You hate Ian.”

“No matter how I feel about him, I know how hard this has to be on you. I could see it on your face the other night. And you were right, it’s your decision. It has to be. You aren’t a child or an idiot. If your feelings for Ian are strong enough to overcome the fact that he’s a Stuart, then—well, who am I to tell you it’s wrong?”

Michele nodded, still surprised. “I’m glad you’ve changed your mind.”

With a rather uncertain smile, Jackie said, “Hey, I know how tough a relationship can be with the normal number of strikes against it. You don’t need me pointing out the obvious.”

Michele sipped her tea, then said quietly, “You aren’t giving us a snowball’s chance in hell, are you?”

As quietly, Jackie said, “I can’t lie to you, friend. I can’t see a happy ending for this. We’re thousands of miles from home, and maybe you can see Ian differently here. But back in Atlanta, he’s a Stuart and you’re a Logan. In Atlanta you’re on opposite sides of a war. And sooner or later, you have to go back to your real world.”

“Maybe we can go back together.”

Jackie stared for a long moment, then leaned back on the bed. Her lips twitched in a sudden, rueful smile. “Well, if that happens, I want to watch. It ought to have about the same effect as Sherman’s march through Atlanta.”

In spite of her change of heart, Jackie turned down Ian’s occasional invitations during the next two days. She was civil enough when she found herself in his presence but took care to avoid him. Michele accepted Jackie’s limited support, then firmly closed her mind to all the problems that lay ahead. She also accepted Ian’s determination to avoid the temptations of being alone together, and though it cost her sleepless nights she was even grateful for his resolution.

They explored the island, swam in the hotel’s pool and walked on the beach—always with other people around. They shared meals and thoughts and opinions. They became familiar with each other’s expressions and moods. Their closeness grew, and with it an ever-heightening sense of where their relationship was leading.

She had realized only in her early twenties that she had been ridiculously overprotected when it came to men. Since she’d been something of a tomboy, it hadn’t disturbed her that her father had refused to allow her to date until her eighteenth birthday, or that her brother had found fault with every boy who’d expressed an interest in her. And she hadn’t protested the situation simply because she hadn’t been much interested in the dating scene.

It was only when she finished college and found a job that the reins had begun to feel uncomfortably tight. She continued to live at home because it was home, but also to avoid a fight with both her father and brother, and there definitely would have been a fight. Living under her father’s roof, Michele felt she owed him the respect of conducting herself according to his rules. Perhaps because he felt the lack of a strong feminine influence in his daughter’s life, Charles Logan had always been fierce about conventions—and his were decidedly old-fashioned.

The Logans were a family shaped by a Southern heritage, and Charles wasn’t the only father of such a family who still harbored visions of Southern belles and gentility despite the realities of life in the final quarter of the twentieth century. He would have been shocked and deeply mortified if Michele had chosen to live openly with a man outside marriage. Though his remarks on the subject had been clumsily delivered during her early adolescence, his meaning had been clear; nice girls were virgins on their wedding nights.

And Michele Logan was a nice girl.

“You’re very quiet.”

They had spread beach towels on the sand just outside the garden and in the shade, away from the path of traffic to and from the beach. There were other hotel guests on the beach, but they were some distance away—visible, but not intrusive.

Michele set her book aside and rolled over onto her stomach. She gazed toward the ocean rather than at Ian, wishing she had the nerve to dive into his arms and abandon everything else. Her doubts were growing rather than disappearing. She felt a sense of desperation, a painful feeling that she was going to lose something infinitely precious if she didn’t act—and act quickly.

“Can I trust you?” she asked abruptly.

“I hope so.”

She sat up and looked at him. They were both wearing bathing suits; he also wore a light windbreaker, and she a sheer linen caftan over her two-piece suit.

“After these past few days…I just don’t know.” Michele shook her head. “Does trust come in a blinding flash? Am I supposed to wake up one morning and say, ‘Yes, today I trust Ian’? Or look at you and somehow know?”

“Michele—”

She felt tense, quivering on the edge of a chasm. “It isn’t going to happen, Ian. You can’t overcome twenty years in a week. That’s all we have left, a week. Not even that, because your client is due here day after tomorrow. And I go home in seven days.”

“What are you saying?” His voice was rough.

Michele struggled to find the words. “What happens when I go home? I’m no more certain of anything than I was the first day. I don’t know if I can trust you. I don’t even know if I trust myself to—to understand what I’m feeling. All I do know is that what we don’t find here, we won’t find in Atlanta.”

Ian took a deep breath, aware that they had reached some kind of turning point. Michele had weighed it all in her mind, he knew, had wrestled with it in silence even while she’d walked beside him and smiled up at him and talked of other things. She had struggled against a lifetime of conditioning and had ended up, now, certain of nothing except her uncertainties.

And it was an impasse; Ian didn’t know what he could do to win her trust. Frustration gnawed at him, because he wanted Michele to the point of madness and she was held tauntingly out of his reach by a feud neither of them wanted any part of. He had pushed himself to the screaming limits of restraint when he wanted nothing more than to lock both of them in his room and shut out the world, and the waiting had him tied in knots.

“Ian?” She was gazing at him and felt a flutter as if something caged deep inside her sought escape. She’d never seen him look like this, his lean, handsome face hardening, his eyes containing a glitter that was hot and bright with a promise she instinctively understood. For an instant she was conscious of panic, but then heat rushed in to overwhelm her doubts and fears.

He leaned toward her, and Michele found herself being eased back onto the blanket. She felt the hardness of his thigh against hers, the strength of his arm under her. His head lowered, his mouth brushing hers very lightly, and his breath was warm.

“Maybe we haven’t been looking in the right place,” he muttered huskily.

Michele gazed up into those vivid eyes, smothered by the pounding of her heart, his first touch sending a dam-burst of sensations flooding through her body. The strength of her own feelings made her hands shake as they lifted to touch his face. “Maybe we haven’t,” she agreed in a whisper.

Ian made a low, rough sound and buried his face between her breasts. She caught her breath raggedly, her fingers sliding into his thick hair as she felt his mouth moving on her. The sheer material of her caftan was a frail barrier, but even that was too much, and he impatiently sought the warm flesh beneath. The first three big buttons down the front of the garment yielded, and he nuzzled between the lapels to find the curves of her breasts.

Michele’s skimpy bathing suit was the final barrier, but Ian didn’t try to remove it. His mouth slid along the cup of her bra, his tongue darting out to taste her silky skin. He felt her shudder, felt her fingers tighten in his hair as a smothered moan escaped her, and that soft, uncontrolled sound sent a jolt of frantic need through him.

“Yes?” he demanded thickly against her.

She moaned again, and her voice was so low it was hardly more than a whisper. “Yes…yes.”

Ian raised his head and then kissed her deeply, molding his mouth to hers hungrily. Her response was instant, heated, her body arching against him wildly. He forced himself to remember where they were, and it was like fighting his way through a red-hot haze of necessity. Muttering a curse, he caught her hands and got to his feet, pulling her up.

“Ian?” Her voice was unsteady, bewildered.

“We’re going up to my room,” he said roughly. “Now.”

Michele didn’t protest. She couldn’t have. She held on to Ian’s hand like a lifeline, and even if her father and brother had been standing in the lobby, she wouldn’t have paused or even hesitated. The need inside her was so strong it was like something with a life of its own, filling her until it could hardly be contained, until the pressure of it was almost unbearable. Was unbearable.

She didn’t care what this cost her, what she lost because of it. Whatever price was demanded of her, she’d pay it.

In the elevator alone, Ian pulled her into his arms. “I’m not going to give you a chance to change your mind,” he murmured, staring down at her with blazing eyes.

The fierce jolt of pleasure when Michele was pressed against his hard body made her catch her breath and close her eyes. Her arms slid up around his neck, and she stood on tiptoe to fit herself more intimately against him. “I don’t want to change my mind,” she whispered, all her emotions and senses fixed on him and nothing else.

Ian made a rough sound and lifted her into his arms as the elevator doors opened. He carried her down the hallway to his room. The maid was just coming out, and he brushed past the startled woman with an impatient “Excuse us,” kicking the door shut behind them.

A nervous giggle died in Michele’s throat when he slowly lowered her to her feet beside the bed that lay in a bright spill of sunlight streaming in the balcony door. Her arms lowered, her hands trailing down between the edges of his partially unzipped windbreaker. His chest was hard, covered with a mat of thick golden hair that felt wonderfully sensual against her palms. She curled her fingers to probe the solid muscles beneath springy hair, aching to touch him all over. In the back of her mind was the vague thought that she really should tell him she’d never been with a man before, but the confession couldn’t escape the tightness of her throat. She wanted this, wanted him, and nothing else seemed to matter.

“Michele…” He surrounded her upturned face in his hands and kissed her, his mouth warm and hard. She shivered as she felt the gliding touch of his tongue teasing the sensitive inner flesh of her lips, and opened her mouth wider under his in a mute plea for a deeper caress. Instantly he responded, his mouth slanting across hers, his tongue stroking hungrily against hers.

Dizziness washed over Michele in a hot wave. Desperate to touch him, she pulled at the windbreaker, hardly feeling the steel teeth of the zipper bite into her hands as she jerked the edges apart. He shrugged out of the garment and tossed it aside, then got rid of her caftan by simply yanking it open and pushing it off her shoulders. Without even thinking about it, she stepped out of her sandals and the pool of material at her feet, kicking them aside.

Gasping as his lips left hers, Michele felt his hands on her, moving over her back, unfastening the flimsy string ties of her top. She bit back a moan as the scrap of material was pulled off her and her naked breasts rubbed against his chest as she pressed herself closer. The fire inside her was burning out of control, her need so urgent she had to clench her teeth to hold back the wild, primitive cries she could feel rising in her throat.

Ian held her hard against him, his mouth buried in the warm flesh of her throat. She was so alive in his arms, so utterly responsive that he had no more control than a teenager. He wanted her with a burning fever that was worse than hunger, worse than thirst. Groaning harshly, he slid one hand down until it clamped below the swell of her bottom, then lifted her against him so that his face was buried between her breasts.

He could feel her heart thudding wildly, feel the sting of her nails digging into his shoulders. He explored the valley between her breasts, then slid his mouth hotly over a swelling curve and captured a tight nipple. She jerked, a whimpering sound escaping her as he sucked strongly.

Michele couldn’t believe what she was feeling. His mouth on her breast sent pleasure stabbing along her nerve endings, and deep in her belly an awful ache throbbed emptily. She clung to him, almost sobbing at the shocks battering her senses.

“Ian…” Her voice was thin, shaking, her eyes closed tightly. “Ian, please…”

He shifted his hold on her slightly and bent forward to lay her on the bed, then straightened briefly to get rid of his shoes and trunks. Before Michele was fully aware of his absence, he was with her again. She felt his hands on her hips and lifted them instinctively as he stripped off what remained of her bathing suit and threw it aside.

Michele opened her eyes slowly, realizing that she was naked only when she saw him looking at her. A fleeting shyness vanished before it could take hold, because he was looking at her with such hunger it almost stopped her heart. She wouldn’t have believed she could lie naked on a bed in a pool of bright sunlight while a man looked at her and feel only sharp excitement, but that was what she was feeling.

“Michele,” he said tautly, kissing her deeply again and again before trailing his lips over her warm throat. His hand stroked her breasts, her quivering belly, then slid lower to gently probe the dark curls between her tense thighs.

She felt him touch her, and an explosion of pleasure forced a gasp from her throat. Tension wound inside her with an almost brutal intensity, her control over her own body totally gone as it responded blindly, instinctively to the ancient mating drives. Her legs opened for him and she clutched at his shoulders desperately as his caress sent shockwaves of heat through her.

“Make it stop,” she whispered raggedly, almost afraid of these wild feelings. “Ian, please…”

He drew a shuddering breath, fighting for a last remnant of control as he spread her legs wider and slipped between them. She was ready for him, her body warm and moist, her smoky eyes darkened and sleepy with desire. His own need was so wildly urgent he thought he’d explode, but he held himself back fiercely for the searing pleasure of entering her slowly.

It had never occurred to him that she might be a virgin; he’d seen men looking at her since she was sixteen, and given her sensual response to him, it seemed obvious that desire was something she had felt before. Even when her body resisted his slow entrance, the truth didn’t hit him at once.

“Easy,” he murmured, feeling a new tension tremble in her and seeing her eyes widen. He kissed her, holding her mouth with his hungrily as he bore down. He felt as well as heard the soft sound she made, and that was when he understood.