Sara suddenly felt very stupid. And maybe just a shade unjustified in her waspishness. But he had brought it all down on his own head.

"Oh: Sara bit her lip, choosing her words. " Sorry. " She took a deep breath as she turned toward him. " look, Nik,

I'm sorry if q came across like a wounded bear. "

He had to laugh. "

" If? "

What was the use? The man was hopeless. Sara threw up her hands. "I was going to apologize, but never mind. I'll see you in the morning."

She rounded the side of a black van. "Oh, d.a.m.n."

Nik had already begun walking away, but her oath had him turning back, though he had a feeling he'd probably regret it. "What?"

The black van had pulled in after she had parked her car.

The driver had used up more than his own share of s.p.a.ce.

The van's right side was all but blocking her access to the driver's side. Sara gestured at it impatiently, re channeling all her anger and frustration to the owner of the van.

"Just look at that. I hate people who park at an angle like that as if they own the road. There's hardly any room for me to get in."

To prove her point, Sara attempted to open the door wide enough to accommodate her small frame. There was barely enough s.p.a.ce. Annoyed, Sara moved back and managed to accidentally step on Nik's foot.

Surprised, she swung around. Her body brushed up against his. Again.

Electricity swirled through her like lightning down a rod. Unwanted, it was still difficult to ignore

"Sorry." The apology was scarcely more than a whisper as her voice backed up in her lungs. " " You seem to keep getting underfoot one way or another "

She was standing toe-to-toe with him with nowhere to go.

Escape was blocked on both sides by either her car or the van. Her door was still open, so backing away from him was out of the question.

That left only one way to move. Into his arms.

She looked up at Nik, her eyes large with wonder at the sensations telegraphing through her. Her lips formed a perfect circle. " " Oh .

Nik gazed down at her face, as surprised as she was by the mutual jolt.

He knew it was mutual by the look in her eyes. For one thing, she wasn't snapping at him. Just resisting.

He realized that he had been unsuccessfully dodging something right from the start. Her. It was time to discover if the s.e.xual tension humming between them was as powerful as it seemed.

Nik wove his fingers through her soft dark hair, framing her face with his palms. "Yeah. Oh."

There didn't seem to be any point in putting this off any longer. He felt the pull within his body, the pull that drew him toward her. Like floodwaters flowing toward the ocean, all his churning emotions had been heading toward this since he had seen her in his kitchen.

"Nik-"

Sara couldn't seem to manage to utter more of a protest than that. Her hands cupped over his, but rather than try to pull them away, she pressed them against his skin. As if to reinforce the contact Nik had initiated.

She had to be losing her mind.

"There you go again," he admonished softly. "Opening your mouth."

It felt as if there was honey in her veins, and she hadn't the strength to pull away from him. From the inevitable. She had no strength at all.

Like a lemming going off to the sea, she thought ruefully , she still had to find out where this was leading her.

Nik lowered his mouth to hers and made a huge discovery

He didn't know a d.a.m.n thing about kissing.

First kisses had always been tentative explorations in uncharted territories for him. They were, by turns, interesting , sweet and uncomplicated. What they weren't was explosive. They didn't cause an outpouring of a cornucopia of sensations,qtastes, feelings. They didn't involve a complete loss of his sense of direction. And they definitely didn't cause an inversion of the ground with the sky.

All bets were off. He wasn't in Kansas anymore. He was in Oz.

Nik slid his hands away from her face and slipped them around her back.

He pressed Sara to him, more to anchor himself to something than for the heavenly sensation the outline of her body created as it fit against his. That was only an added bonus.

Dear G.o.d, he'd sampled Harvey Wallbangers that had less of a kick than the taste of her mouth.

She was vulnerable, that was it. There was no other explanation for why she was hurtling through s.p.a.ce with the speed of a bullet being fired out of the chamber of a . 357 Magnum. From the first moment she saw him, she had thought that Nik was s.e.xy. But that was no reason to feel as if she was a plate of ice cream left out on the porch in the early afternoon.

Sara dug her fingers into his hair, desperately needing to feel something real. This wasn't real, it wasn't happening. It couldn't be happening. His kiss had created a world that was as close to a hallucination as she could imagine it to be.

What had he put into that hospital coffee?

He was glad now that she hadn't lisiened to him, that she hadn't closed her mouth. The tastes that rose up were sensually arousing as his tongue touched hers. He felt her body dip into his as she moaned.

The sound of her own moan caused a shock wave to vibrate through her body. Sara pulled back, afraid that she would completely lose her ident.i.ty in the next moment if she didn't.

She realized that she probably looked dazed and wild-eyed to Nik as she shakily drew air back into her lungs.

"Did we just have an earthquake?" she mumbled.

He was reluctant to let her go, but he did. "Felt like it to me."

Sara dragged her hand through her hair, trying to pull herself together. The depth of the pa.s.sion she'd felt a moment ago utterly unnerved her. Both his and hers. There had been a number of men in her life, but none whom she had ever allowed to matter.

And none had ever kissed her like this.

She'd never experienced anything like it. She'd never longed before, never yearoed before where every fiber of her body wanted it to continue, wanted to be taken. Her relationships were always completely superficial, like a drawing on a page. No strings, ever, to tie her down or reel her in. Instinctively she knew that if she ever became involved with a man, really involved, it would be asking for trouble.

Relationships hurt. She had learned that from her parents.

The only way to avoid pain was to avoid any sort of actual relationships. And yet here she was, standing hip-deep in trouble.

Sara groped for the feel of the car door behind her. Her fingers slid around the frame. " " I d better go "

"Sara-"