Adrian heard how much the admission pained her, and the knowledge filled him with fury for the man who had left her so vulnerable. But he gave no sign of his inner rage. His hands simply continued to move, gentle at their task. "I don"t know why, sweeting. But I do know this. I could no more let you go than I could cease to breathe. For you"re in my blood now, Gray Mackenzie, part of my very soul. And you"re not leaving here until you accept that."

She shoved unsteadily at his fingers. "I don"t want this, do you hear? I never wanted it!"

"It"s too late for that. Too late for running. Too late for wishing things were different. What"s done is done. And the sight of your sweet, shocked passion was the most beautiful thing I ever hope to see." His voice hardened, as fierce and angry as Gray had ever heard it. "So don"t bloody try to twist it into something dirty and contemptible-for that it never could be."

Gray wanted to scream, wanted to shout that he was wrong. But the barely leashed hunger in his eyes held her silent, made her dream it might be so, just for a second or two.

And damn him, he noticed-noticed the exact instant she hesitated. At that very second his patient nursing turned to raw, premeditated seduction.

His fingers slid into her hair. His thigh wedged against her hip.

"No, damn you! I won"t..." But her voice was husky.

"You want it, Gray. Let me give it to you. Dear God, this one thing at least I can give you."

She fought it. Oh, God, how hard she fought it. But he was part of the night, part of her dreams, part of the soft scent of mint and verbena.

Part ofher.

And it had all begun with that damned, beautiful dress he"d left entwined with a perfect blood-red rose.

It was unfair, totally unfair! Everything conspired against her, even her own traitorous body.

"Don"t touch me."

His hands curved gently, anchoring her neck.

"Don"t bloody touch me."

He eased closer, his need an unbearable seduction.

"I"m going back now. Don"t try to stop me."

He didn"t believe her bluff for a second. "Why can"t you admit it, sweeting? Admit you"re already half in love with this place. I saw it in that sketch you did today. And if you love my abbey, then you"re halfway to loving me."

"Do you have answers foreverything? " A reckless instinct drove Gray to attack. Anything to avoid facing the truth of what he said.

And the pain of decision.

"And you, sweet harridan, doyou have nothing but questions?"

A distant peal drifted over the hills, faint and crystalline. The sound was ethereal, otherworldly.

Achingly sad.

Adrian sighed. "I"ve one answer, at least." Before she could pull away, his head slanted down.

His lips skimmed over hers. Slowly his hands moved lower, molding her rigid shoulders.

"Gray. Gray..." His mouth played over her, hot and light. "Sweet Gray. Soft Gray. Beautiful, stubborn Gray."

The first touch sent sparks shooting through her. Suddenly she was finding it hard to breathe.

Adrian raised his head, his expression unreadable. "You wear my rose. It dims before your beauty." His hands tightened. Gray could have sworn they were trembling.

And that slight sign of vulnerability shook her as nothing else had. She felt the hard walls around her heart heave, shudder and finally crack.

Heat.She had never felt, never imagined such heat.

Such yearning, blind and sweet...

Without knowing quite how or why, she was lifting her face to his, flowing into the wine-dark beauty of his kiss.

"Dear God, Gray-" He caught her close, his breath ragged at her cheek. "Let me touch you.

It"s...you can"t understand, but this is the only bloody thing I have left to give you."

At his words, at the slow glide of his hands across her chest, Gray shuddered. Dark images spiraled through her, images that she sensed were something more.Memories, they were, welling up from some long-forgotten part of her.

Just as the parade of ghostly figures she"d seen by the moat had been memories, not daydreams.

Suddenly Gray knew she wanted this man in any way she could have him. She wanted him fast and mindless, reckless and blinding.

She wanted him slow and hard and endlessly patient...

She even wanted him angry and unrepentant. Slaking the heat of a body too long denied. For that, too, was part of him, just as it was part of her. A part of her she"d tried too long to ignore.

Like her drawing, the only question was where she was going to start.

Her eyes began to glisten, to shimmer in the moonlight. It was madness. It was rankest folly.

But somehow Gray didn"t care. She cast logic to the farthest winds.

Her lips met the hard angle of his jaw, and she felt him shudder, heard him groan.

Danger. Bliss. Endless wanting...

"See what you do to me. Do I act like a man repelled, uninterested? Dear God, were I anymore attracted, I"d..."

Gray smiled softly, staring at the moonbeams dancing over his face and neck.

And then she touched him. His chest was hot beneath her fingers. She could feel the racing pulse at his neck, as wild as her own.

And in that instant Gray knew for certain that nothing else mattered, not the fear, not the regret.

He gave her a crooked and utterly devastating smile. "Well? So bad as that? It"s been a while for me, but-"

"Rather-too right, I think." Her fingers slid to his shirt. The last two buttons sprang free.

Adrian"s breath caught. "Gray. Sweeting. You really don"t have to-"

Thoughtfully Gray continued. She spread the soft dark fabric and eased it from his shoulders, while moonlight spilled across them.

Her eyes darkened, locked on the broad, muscled torso revealed beneath his shirt. A wild churning invaded her blood and sent her pulse tripping double-time.

Her hands went absolutely still, poised just above his waist.

Not a sound, not the slightest motion came from Adrian"s rigid body.

Slowly Gray looked up. In his dark eyes, she saw something she"d never expected to see.

Honor. Perfect candor.

The look said he wouldn"t push her, even now. It was all up to her.

And suddenly, as Gray stared into his eyes, she saw other images, felt a bewildering flood of sound and color and emotion.

Ofmemory.

Memories of a steel-clad warrior who sat a pawing charger, pennants flying as he raced against the wind into battle. Memories of a wheeling falcon that screamed, then shot low to perch on a mail-covered arm.

And then Gray herself, long hair unbound as she waited and watched for a warrior long from home, fighting at Richard"s side for ideals as inchoate and shifting as the desert sands where he watched his comrades fall, one by one.

Week after week she had waited, month after month. Until seasons changed and months stretched into years.

And still, he had not come.

True, she thought blindly, her eyes blurred with tears. All of it true. The sensations were too tangible, too intenselyreal to be an illusion.

And somehow in his raw, sensitized state Adrian read the same images, images he had never seen before.

Images that were memories for him, as well.

He went utterly still. "Good, sweet God Almighty. It-it cannot be." The realization left him reeling. "You-you were there. We-" A groan rocked through him.

Gray touched his chest gently, understanding exactly what he was feeling. "All that sadness...now I think I understand. All those long years..." She brushed furtively at her cheeks, looking back down dark, twisting corridors of time to another woman who"d lain against the soft green grass, shedding tears for the man who was beside her now.

"Eight hundred years..." Adrian"s voice was raw. "It"s too long, far too long to grieve, sweeting." He touched her cheek, cursing when he felt the telltale moisture touch his fingers.

"What a fool I was. And all from pride, I can see that now. It"s always been my damnable pride that"s led me astray. But you, my sweet-how could I have letyou bear the price of it?"

Adrian caught her cheeks and raised her face to him. "When I came back-they said you"d drowned by the pool." His gaze was fierce, as if he were awaiting a killing blow. "It was a lie, wasn"t it?"

Gray shivered in his arms as bleak memories poured over her. And suddenly she was powerless to hold back the tears, to hold back the years.

She could only nod silently, while tears ran silver down her cheeks.

Adrian"s fingers dug into her shoulders. With a groan he crushed her close, so close that Gray could feel the anger rack him.

"Lies...all lies. Dear God, what was it? They didn"t-sweet Lord, I couldn"t bear it if they hurt you-"

Gray swallowed. "No, not that. It-it was poison, I think. I remember the first pains, the convulsions. And after that, nothing, just darkness. They must have made up that other story about the drowning to protect themselves."

Adrian"s head slanted down until his forehead rested against the top of her head. "I always wondered...it never made sense to me..."

Gray felt the shudder that rocked him then, felt the hot salty rain of tears that fell against her hair and slid onto her neck. "Don"t, Adrian," she whispered. "Please-don"t."

"Don"t?Dear God, youdied because of me! I might just as well have signed the death warrant myself! I should have known what would happen if I left you here, unprotected."

Her hands sank into his hair, holding him close. "It...it doesn"t matter. Not now. All that matters is that we"re here again. That we"re together."

"Itdoes matter! I betrayed you! And when I finally did return, I was stupid enough to believe you"d forgotten. I even began to think it might have happened just as they"d told me. That you"d lost your reason, snapped-"

"Hush." Gray silenced him with a fierce kiss. She felt him tense, felt him strain against her.

"It"s-it"s over, Adrian. Done and gone for eight centuries now. Just...just love me. Give me your joy and...yes, your pride. The way it should have been all those years ago."

She moved her open lips over his, hungry, searching.

Remembering...

Dear God, she remembered all of it now. All the pain and joy of those few sweet months they"d had together.

And the force of those memories nearly snapped her heart in two.

"Love me, Adrian," she whispered. "Now.Let me feel what it should have been then. I"ve waited so long..."

He cut her off with a raw groan, arching her back against him as his mouth spread hers to receive his hot invasion.

Suddenly pain and sadness were gone. All that was left was the joy and the hot sweetness of homecoming.

Now neither minded that it had come eight centuries too late.

Gray slowly combed her fingers through the long black hair at Adrian"s shoulder. "It"s-it"s all still here, isn"t it? You and I...all we felt. Dear God, it never ends, does it? It only changes.

Only grows..."

Adrian"s eyes glittered. "And trust? What of that, my heart? Have the ages dimmed your trust?

Have my pride and stupidity lost me the only thing I truly need?" His voice fell to a hoarse whisper. "I can see how very much I hurt you then."

Gray touched his cheek gently. "Whatever you did, I"ve long since forgiven you for."

Adrian"s breath slid free in a hiss. "Gray-sweeting, how long I"ve waited, wanted..." His voice caught, low and raw. "I swear, it will be magic. One night full of sweet, silver magic."

Her head fell back as his lips worked dizzying patterns along her neck, her shoulder, her collarbone. She shivered, opening to his touch, flowering like the perfect petals of the centifolia rose he swept against her skin.

Like the love-mark she carried on her cheek.