"I don't," he said, as she sat on the side of his bed.

She ignored him. "When I was in high school a lot of my friends experimented with s.e.x. Some of them thought they were in love, others were just having fun."

"But not you," Nick said without emotion.

She ignored him. "It was a mistake for all of them, but it was a mistake I never got to make." She smiled crookedly. "Every time I even thought about getting serious about a boy, one of my brothers would pay him a visit. I don't know exactly what was said, but I was lucky to get a peck on the cheek after a date."

Nick almost smiled. The corners of his mouth twitched. "I can imagine."

"When I went to college I was ecstatic. Freedom! All my brothers were at least two hours away, and I would be my own woman." She shook her head. "But I wasn't going to have s.e.x simply for the sake of getting rid of my virginity, and so many of the men there were..." she sighed "... not exactly mature."

"Why are you telling me all this?" Nick asked, sounding annoyed. "So no one at college measured up to your standards. Sounds like your tough luck to me."

Again, she ignored him. "Eventually I did meet a guy I liked a lot. We dated a couple of times and I still liked him. Things were headed in the right direction, and wouldn't you know it? Clint showed up for a surprise visit. Scared the bejesus out of this poor guy, who left and never called me again."

"Coward," Nick muttered.

She'd had the same thought, at the time. "For four years, every time I got serious about a guy, one of my brothers would show up to scare him off. It was like they had some kind of radar," she said, reliving the frustration she'd felt during her college years. "As soon as I even thought about having s.e.x with a guy, one of them would show up." She'd hated her brothers then, and sometimes loved them again quickly when a potential lover showed his true colors.

"They protected you."

"They smothered me."

Shea shook her head. The light was almost gone. The room was gray; Nick's eyes were less distinct.

"I graduated, got my job at the station and found my ambition. By this time I knew I didn't want to sleep with a man I didn't care about, and I was too busy to get to know anyone enough to care. The men I met were shallow, and as ambitious as I was, and ... nothing ever clicked."

"And now here we are," Nick said dryly.

"And now here we are," she repeated. "I really, really care about you." The word love flitted through her mind, but she didn't say it aloud, knowing the mention of love would scare Nick away. "We don't have much time left. I can feel the minutes ticking past." She licked her lips. "If you were telling the truth last night, and the idea of sleeping with a virgin truly repulses you, tell me now and I'll leave you alone." She looked deep into his eyes. "But if you're just trying to protect me, I'd like to remind you that I don't need another brother."

She held her breath. Nick didn't respond right away, and with every heartbeat that pa.s.sed, her worst fears grew. He really didn't want her.

He reached out and cupped the back of her head, drawing her close. "Trust me when I tell you that I have never felt like your brother," he whispered. "I just don't want to hurt you."

"You won't."

"You deserve so much better."

She laid her hand on his face, feeling the roughness of his five o'clock shadow, running her thumb over his lower lip. Somehow she knew it was tonight or never. And the thought of losing Nick terrified her. She had never been terrified like this before, not even when he'd kidnapped her.

"What if I never feel this way again?" she whispered. "What if I listen to you and walk away and ... and give up? I don't want to give up on us. I don't think I can." She continued to touch him, her fingers on his neck and his chest and his face. "Make love to me, Nick."

He leaned forward and kissed her, and she felt the regret in his kiss. It broke her heart. "I don't know where I'll be in two days," he whispered against her lips. "Much less two months or two years from now. I'll touch you again, I'll let you touch me, but I can't take the chance of leaving you with a baby when-"

She smiled and kissed him quickly, then scooted off the bed. "You won't have to take that chance." She turned her back on him and hurried to her own room, dumped the contents of her purse onto the bed and grabbed the package she was looking for before rushing back to Nick's room. She stopped in the doorway and lifted the package of condoms between two fingers.

"A three pack," she said with a smile.

He wasn't as surprised as she'd thought he'd be. "Where did you get those?"

"At the grocery store." She walked to the side of the bed and dropped the condoms onto the bedside table. "I had a lot of time to think while I was walking," she said softly. "And most of all I thought about you."

He took her hand and pulled her down so she sat beside him. When he kissed her this time there was no regret, just a mirror of the pa.s.sion she felt, a hunger that swept her away.

Nick moved slowly, as if he savored every brush of his mouth against hers, every soft caress of his fingers. Already her body throbbed, her knees were weak.

When he laid his mouth over her wrist she was surprised by the intensity of the sensations that washed through her. His touch was so loving, so tender and arousing. Most of the light of day was gone, but enough remained for her to watch the play of his mouth against her wrist, against the crook of her elbow, until he kissed the side of her neck and she closed her eyes in sheer delight.

"My turn," she whispered, lifting his wrist to her mouth, flicking her tongue over the pulse there. She trailed small kisses up his inner arm, then flicked her tongue over the tender skin at the inside of his elbow. He groaned, low and soft, when she moved her mouth to his neck and sucked gently on the salty skin there.

She was lost in sensation, and when Nick grabbed the hem of her tank top she lifted her arms to a.s.sist him in removing it quickly. With a smooth move, he rolled her onto her back, smiled down at her and bent his head to take a nipple into his mouth. One and then the other. And then again.

The rest of the world faded away. Shea no longer thought, she simply felt: the coolness of the sheet beneath her back, the warmth of Nick's mouth and his hands, the thrum of her blood and the gentle, throbbing ache in the center of her being. The softness of his skin beneath her hands, the hardness of the muscles beneath. She closed her eyes and surrendered to sensation.

He unfastened and unzipped her shorts, and she lifted her hips as he yanked them, and the underwear beneath, down and away. She was now naked beneath him, her legs slightly spread, her heart about to burst through her chest.

She slipped her fingers beneath the waistband of his boxers and slowly pushed them down. When she could reach no farther she slipped her foot between Nick's legs and pushed the boxers down and off.

Unable to be still, she shifted against him, bringing his body closer, touching him everywhere. Flesh on flesh was more arousing than she'd imagined, more beautiful than anything she'd ever known. And as they kissed, their bodies adjusted. A smooth sway here, a rhythmic lift there, until they were perfectly balanced and aligned.

Nick touched her, where she throbbed for him, and reached for a condom at the same time. When he stroked her intimately she lifted her hips and moaned low in her throat. When he covered himself she reached down to help, to feel the hard length of him in her hands.

Shea cradled Nick between her legs, wrapped her arms around his neck and arched her back to bring him closer. Surely her heart would explode if he didn't become a part of her, in body as well as in spirit.

He guided himself into her, slowly, gently, and her body stretched to accept him, as if she were unfolding to take him inside her. He rocked, so gently she trembled to her toes, and a whole new sensation invaded her body. A need so great it eclipsed everything else. He made love to her, with every thrust, every sigh, the rhythm increasing with each stroke.

She wrapped her legs around him, held him tight, and with one last, hard thrust he pushed her over the edge. She shattered, climaxed with a throaty cry and a thrust of her own. As the intense culmination of their joining rocked her and took her breath away, she felt Nick give over to his own release. Pounding into her, moaning her name, shuddering in her arms.

The light was gone and they lay, entwined and short of breath, in the dark. Nick rested his head on her shoulder, stretched his long, hard body over hers. Oh, she liked this. She liked this almost as much as what had just happened to them.

Surely this was what love felt like. She would die before she'd let Nick go. She would be lost without him.

"When we were on the mountain," she whispered, "would you really have shot me if I'd kept running?"

"I don't know," he breathed into her shoulder, answering without hesitation.

Shea threaded her fingers through the hair at the back of Nick's head, lazily trailing them down to his neck.

"Would you be horrified if I told you that ... that I think this must be what love feels like?"

"Yes," he answered, just as quickly.

But he didn't move away, didn't let her go. And he didn't bother to tell her that what she felt couldn't possibly be love.

Chapter 11.

N ick rolled over, opened his eyes slowly and reached out to brush the hair from Shea's face. I think this must be what love feels like.

Maybe she was right, but he wasn't ready to accept such a possibility. Not yet. As soon as she got back to her reality, back to the television station and her friends and a normal life, she'd know better. She'd know this was just a casual fling in an intense situation, s.e.x to ease the tension. Their own heat wave that would burn itself out as soon as the predicament was resolved.

If what they had felt like more it was because they both needed, and wanted, it to feel like more. It wouldn't last.

Her eyes drifted open and she smiled at him. "Good morning," she whispered.

"Good morning."

"You're not usually up so early." She scooted across the short s.p.a.ce between them to brush her bare body against his. His response was immediate.

"I'm not usually sleeping with a beautiful, naked woman beside me."

Shea closed her eyes against the sunlight that broke through white curtains and lit her face, but she didn't go back to sleep. Her hands explored, a palm lazily trailing down his chest, fingers at his neck. She sighed, as if what she felt was deeply satisfying.

Last night there had been very little light, and then none. By morning's sunshine he could see, with heartbreaking clarity, how fragile she looked against him, how delicate and precious she was.

And every inch a woman. Creamy smooth and curved in all the right places; a face so perfectly pretty he could find no flaw. The eyes were enchanting, the lashes long and ideally curved, the lips ... her lips drove him to distraction.

He kissed her, gently at first, a little harder when she parted her lips and silently demanded more. Her hand trailed down from his chest to boldly touch his erection, to stroke with gentle, curious fingers until he almost forgot about the condoms on the bedside table. Almost.

No woman had ever captured him this way, made him feel so much a part of her that she crept inside him long before he pushed inside her. He had never needed anyone this way, with his body and something deeper. Something so deep inside he had never reached it before.

There was magic in the way Shea touched him. He had known a lot of women, he had even considered asking one to be his wife, but he had never felt magic before. He hadn't known he was capable of feeling magic. Casual fling my a.s.s.

He made love to her again, eyes open to watch their bodies come together, to watch the amazing joining of his hard rough body to her smooth, delicate one. To savor the smile and the contentment on her face. To savor, even more, the moment when her smile faded and she was overcome with a pa.s.sion so wild, so fierce, that it swept her away and she carried him along.

They came together, hard and fast, with a deep kiss and a shared moan. This must be what love feels like.

Impossible. No matter how good this felt, no matter that she had worked her way inside him, he would have to let her go. The sooner the better.

Satisfied, she wrapped her arms around him and closed her eyes again. When he rolled over, she followed, smiling, resting her head against his shoulder, threading one leg around his.

Letting her go was going to be pure h.e.l.l.

* * * When Shea woke again it was almost ten. She glanced at the bedside clock, and then at a sleeping Nick. She was a little sore, her knees were still weak ... and she was so glad she'd waited for him. He was her first lover. Her last? Her only?

His bare body was long, hard, dusted with a sprinkling of dark hair. It was amazing to her how different they were physically, how perfectly they fit together. Her body trembled at the memory of just how perfect it had been.

"Rise and shine," she whispered, leaning over to kiss Nick awake. "We have work to do today."

His arms snaked around her and he held her fast. "We do?"

"We have a murder to solve."

His eyes came open. How could such an icy blue be so warm? Somehow he managed. "We can't do anything more from here."

"I know," she breathed.

"We're going to have to go back to Huntsville."

"Today?" she asked, eyes wide.

Nick smiled at her. Oh, when he smiled he was beautiful. Young and carefree and happy. She wanted to see him smile more often.

"Maybe tomorrow." He kissed her, barely slipping the tip of his tongue in her mouth.

Sore or not, she wanted him again. And he, she could see quite clearly, wanted her.

The crunch of gravel yanked her from her tender thoughts. Nick heard the same noise, and he left the bed quickly to stand to the side of the window and look down. "It's a black Oldsmobile sedan."

Shea cursed, biting out a word that made Nick turn his head and raise his eyebrows. "Dean has a black Oldsmobile sedan," she explained as she looked down on the car that was coming to a stop outside the kitchen door.

She tossed Nick's jeans in his direction and stepped into her cutoff shorts as she ran to her bedroom to grab her purse off the bed, quickly gathering the contents she'd scattered there the night before and tossing them inside. She grabbed up the purse and her notebook, and ran back into Nick's room. She handed him her stuff and grabbed for her tank top, yanking it over her head.

"We can hide in the old servants' stairway. The boys didn't spend as much time here as I did. I don't think they even know it's there."

"Shea," Nick began in a ridiculously calm voice. "Maybe it's for the best. I can't hide forever."

"You don't understand," she said, reaching for the one remaining condom and stuffing it into her pocket, gathering up everything in the room that reminded her of Nick. His shirts, his underwear, his socks. Her arms were full when she led him to the hallway closet. "They'll kill you."

Nick, who was right behind her with her purse and notebook, raised his eyebrows again. "You mean they'll turn me in."

"No, I mean they'll kill you."

She opened the closet door, shoved aside the coats and dresses hanging there and revealed the hidden door. It opened on a dank, musty stairwell. She dropped Nick's things, grabbed his wrist and pulled him in after her, and rearranged the coats and dresses before closing the door.

They were lost in complete darkness, so she held on to Nick's hand as she carefully sat and urged him to lower himself to sit beside her.

"The key's not still under the pot," Nick whispered. "Maybe they won't be able to get in."

"Ha!" she whispered. "Boone never let anything like a locked door get in his way."

Nick sat beside her, very still, his fingers threaded through hers. Their belongings, hopefully anything that might be used to identify them, were scattered along the stairway.

Sure enough, it wasn't long before she heard the sound of booted footsteps in the kitchen.

"Shea Lyn!" Dean shouted.

Shea cringed. No one called her Shea Lyn anymore!

"Get your b.u.t.t down here right this minute!"

She didn't move. She heard the boys spread out, each of them taking a room or two as they searched for her.