filling her.

"Macauley?"

she whispered, and reached out to touch the smooth expanse of back

exposed to her.

He moved away from her touch, and she dropped her hand.

More eloquent than any words, that flinch had heralded what was going

to happen next.

"Go back to sleep, Raine."

His voice was flat.

"Why are you leaving?"

He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, seeing her face in his mind, glad that she couldn't see his.

Why did she have to push this, make it harder?

Then on the heels of that question came another.

Why the h.e.l.l should she make this easy for him, for herself?

If he'd learned one thing about this woman it was that she didn't shirk un pleasantries

She insisted on the truth, all of it, not sparing herself or anyone else.

The truth.

Didn't he at least owe her that much?

After every oath he'd violated, after what he'd taken from her, here, last night, he at least owed her the truth, no matter how brutal.

"Last night was a mistake."

His words hung bleakly in the air.

He turned to face her.

She was sitting up in bed, her arms wrapped around her knees, reminding

him with sudden clarity of how he'd found her last night.

She tried to inject her voice with a hint of humor.

"I don't have a great deal of experience with these things, Macauley,

but I'm fairly cer~tain that Fm supposed to be offended at being called a mistake."

He winced at her words.

"Not you, Raine."

Never her.

"I made the mistake. I was a fool to stay last night and a b.a.s.t.a.r.d to make love to you."

"You'll excuse me if I disagree."

The words were soft.

He stared at her, wishing that he had the words to say to her, wishinghe'd never touched her last night and at the same time wanting to touchher again.

"You Should be mad as h.e.l.l, Raine."

His voice was harsh.

"My job here is to protect you, not to seduce you. I lost my

objectivity last night, and that's the worst kind of error someone in my position could make. I swore I'd never let that happen ...."

Again, he'd almost said, and barely bit back the word.

No one knew better than he did what happened when a man let his guard down.

That was what caused a man to make mistakes.

He didn't see what was right in front of him until it was too late.

Much too late.

"Don't turn this into a tragedy," Macauley. " Her words were sharp,

but so was her disappointment, and she was helpless to keep it from showing in her voice.

"It doesn't have to be. It could be..."

More.

So much more.

She had just enough pr{de to keep herself from crying out the words.

"You'll never know how much I regret this, Raine,"

he said, his tone raw, before he turned and walked from the room.

He headed for the bathroom and turned on the shower.

Stripping, he stepped under the spray and adjusted the temperature until it was icy cold.

He was ironically aware that if he'd taken a cold shower about five

hours ago, he wouldn't be feeling like h.e.l.l now.

Standing under the stinging spray, he cursed Simon Michaels for coming to him in the first place.

But he knew where the blame really lay.

He was the one who'd made the choice last night to stay, when he'd known d.a.m.n well it was the last thing he should do.

And he was going to be the one to deal with the guilt for the same

action.

He almost welcomed the guilt.

At least he'd lived with that emotion long enough for it to be a

familiar companion.

Sometimes he thought he'd felt it for so long that he'd miss it if it was gone.

Sometimes.

But he wasn't sure he wanted to' know of the new boundaries guilt could take when he thought of the look in Raine's eyes when he'd left her.

Taking advantage of her youth and innocence was somehow too sordid for

even him to deal with.

She would have been so much better off if he'd left her alone, so he could walk away when this was over without having altered her life.

Now he knew there was no way that could happen.

She was too young, too inexperienced and too d.a.m.n vulnerable.