nothing to feel guilty for, he~d bet on that.

She was too sweet, too decent.

No, something else had to have happened to her.

An experience of such trauma that stress would induce a re enactment of

it at night.

He wanted to ask her about it, but knew he didn't have the right.

Her hand reached for his and squeezed it tightly.

He stared at her, able to make out her features in the shadows.

He understood what it was like .

to wake up shaking and alone in a sweat-soaked bed.

He'd accepted it stoically as a part of his life.

He hated to think of it as a part of hers.

Without conscious thought his mouth lowered.

He wasn't a master at comfort, hadn't had enough gentleness in his life

in the last fifteen years to remember how to convey it.

But he knew she needed something from him.

He ignored the voice inside him that said she needed more than he could

afford to give.

His lips pressed against hers and his tongue outlined the silky moist seam of her lips.

Again and again he traced delicately before bestowing a parting kiss at

the corner of her mouth.

When he would have drawn away, he became aware of the small, delicate hand that had risen to lie against his bare chest.

It traveled upward with exquisite slowness, over his corded shoulder,

around his neck to tangle in the longer hair at his nape.

Then it exerted its own inexorable pressure to bring his mouth back to hers.

Mac hesitated for an instant, but she leaned forward, and he couldn't

swear that he didn't meet her halfway in a kiss that was more than the

first had been, much more.

This time her lips parted slightly for him in an invitation he didn't want to resist.

His tongue swept in boldly, staking a claim that he would have deniedwith conscious thought: Her mouth twisted under his, meeting his demandwith one of her own.

Her other hand joined the first, and she pressed his head closer.

Mac obliged, giving her the kind of pressure that he was craving himself.

He leaned over her, obeying the pressure of her hands to lie full

length next to her.

She shifted to face him, and he became aware of the silkiness of her nightgown and of the small b.r.e.a.s.t.s pressed against his chest.

He broke the kiss then, his l~reath coming roughly.

It was time to get out of here, time to run like h.e.l.l.

He couldn't do this to her, and he sure didn't need any further

complications in his own life.

He reached in back of him and grasped one of her hands, peeling it away from his neck and pressing it to the mattress.

On the way his wrist touched her breast, and the contact sent an

immediate electrical impulse to his groin.

He groaned, and she shifted again, either by accident or design.

But the next movement his hand made wasn't to push against the mattress

to leave.

Instead he captured one silk-covered breast, fingers exploring urgently.

It was fuller than he'd expected, filling his palm precisely, as if

fitted for his touch.

He rubbed his thumb over her nipple and she gasped, moving helplessly.

He didn't try to think anymore.

Thinking would have stopped this madness and he was no longer sure he

wanted it to end.

He made it a point to avoid women like her, forever women, pure of heart.

A man like him didn't deserve such purity in a woman, didn't look for

it.

But tonight he was incapable of turning away from it.

He hooked a finger in the narrow strap of her nightgown and dragged it

down her arm.

Then, with great antic.i.p.ation, he pulled it away from her to bare her breast.

His breath hissed out as he viewed the small mound, the nipple tightly

drawn, taunting him.

He lowered his head again and took her into his mouth.

A broken cry came from Raine as she felt the hot, warm suction.

Her nipple was hnbearably sensitive as he sucked at it and lashed it

with his tongue.

When he pulled his head back, the cooler night air stung.

Leaving his hand to comfort it, he turned his attention to its twin.

She murmured brokenly, clasping his head to her.

So this was what it was like, she thought wonderingly, dizzily.

This spiraling pleasure that bordered on pain, a delicious antic.i.p.ation of.

something.