"Sebastian-"

He cut her short with his lips, taking her mouth in an almost-bruising kiss. "We're okay," he said between kisses as he kicked the door closed behind him.

"You could have been-"

"So could you." At that, she broke away from him, her breathing rough and the tears finally spilling down her face.

"Sebastian, don't do this," she said, fists clenched at her sides and her body tight.

"Do what?" he challenged, walking toward her, his arms spread wide.

Melissa retreated until she could go no farther. "Save me. I don't need to be saved."

Sebastian stopped short of trapping her against the wall. He laid a hand over the middle of his chest and said, "So what if somewhere in this geek's heart there was a man who needed to be a hero? Is that so bad?"

Her tears had stopped, but her tone was hard enough to cut gla.s.s. "I should have handled it."

Sebastian smiled. "I suspect you could have kicked his a.s.s. But what you're upset about has nothing to do with that and everything to do with the head trip your parents laid on you."

"This isn't about them." She slipped through the opening he'd left for her, striding quickly through the door to her room.

Sebastian grabbed the door, keeping her from shutting it. "But it is, Melissa. You're afraid of being saved from yourself. Of admitting that maybe, just maybe, you're someone that I truly care about. That scares the s.h.i.t out of you."

Melissa battled with the door, but Sebastian's grip was too firm. The door was going nowhere. So she gave up the battle and stalked into her room. "Thank you, Dr. Laura. And what about you?"

Sebastian followed her in, closing the door just in case Ryder or Diana came home. He wanted privacy for this little discussion.

"Me? What about me?"

Facing him, Melissa tucked her arms across her chest and narrowed her eyes. "When I asked you that night if you needed to be saved, don't you think I saw what you thought?"

Shrugging, he had to admit she had likely read him right. "You probably did, only things have changed, amor."

She slashed a hand through the air to silence him. "And this miraculous thing-"

"Is that you made it possible for me to believe in me. To believe that someone as special as you could actually care about someone like me," he said earnestly, laying himself open to her.

His honesty was enough to defuse the situation. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them again, she laid a hand on the middle of his chest. In a tone that bordered on disbelieving, she said, "Someone like you? Don't you see what you are? How caring and loving and brave? I know you probably don't want to hear that last part-"

Covering her hand with his, he smiled and said, "Actually I do. Especially coming from you."

Melissa couldn't stop the grin that came to her face. He made it so hard to stay angry. So hard to stop wanting him in her life. But doubt lingered still. "Why?" This time, his smile was tender. He cradled her cheek, his palm rough against her skin. "Because you're the world to me, Melissa.

You've made me whole and without you..."

"This is just too difficult, Sebastian." Her voice was rough with the emotion she was holding back.

"Funny thing to hear from you. I've watched you deal with a sliced-up Ryder and a knife-wielding junkie who's OD'd."

She shook her head. "Easy to deal with because..." She stopped, afraid for a moment of revealing too much.

"Because what?" he asked. There was no avoiding him or the love that was so plainly obvious in his gaze.

"They don't reach me in here," she replied, motioning with her hand to the spot right above her heart. "Deep in here where the hurt is. Where I'm afraid of so many things."

"Of me?" he asked.

Surprisingly, she knew at that moment that it wasn't him she feared, but everything else around her. He had become her stability.

Her rock in a sea of the surreal madness that was her life since she'd learned she'd been called to be Ryder's companion.

"Never you," she replied.

He pulled her into his arms and held her tight. She wrapped her arms around him and held him just as fiercely.

When they finally broke apart, he tentatively met her lips with his, as if uncertain of this new place in their relationship.

She returned the kiss, but couldn't hold back. He meant too much to her and she wanted him to know it.

Opening her mouth, she became the aggressor, empowered by his belief in her. He responded, meeting every kiss and caress.

Undressing her with a haste that matched her own.

This time, it was she who backed him to the bed until he could go no farther, urged him onto its surface where she became his lover in ways she hadn't been before, emboldened by his pa.s.sion for her.

As she took him inside her, she watched his face. Marvelled at the love that shone there and the happiness. He was grinning that devilishly boyish grin when he wasn't busy elsewhere with that wonderful mouth. And she was grinning back when she wasn't urging him on with soft cries as she reached her climax.

She was shaking, almost weak, when he reversed their positions and paused for a moment, gazing down at her, totally serious. "I love you. Forever, Melissa."

Melissa cradled his face in her hands and lifted herself up to kiss him. After, she braced her forehead against his and said, "I love you, too, Sebastian. And I won't let anything get in the way of us."

His answer was a rough groan and the powerful surge of his body as he drove into her. She slipped her hands to his shoulders, gripped them as she answered the call of his body and of his heart.

When it was over, she lay cradled in his arms, secure for the first time in her life that she was totally loved for who she was.

That she was finally happy.

Chapter 28.

S he was in love. Deeply and truly in love.That could be the only possible explanation for why she was watching him sleep rather than getting in the shower and preparing for another day at the hospital.

He was sprawled indolently on top of the covers.

She'd discovered that from their many nights together. He was an on-top-of-the-covers kind of guy, when he wasn't busy beneath them with her.

Today he looked totally gorgeous as he lay there. The morning light etched the planes and hollows of his muscled body. His legs were long and perfectly formed. It wasn't fair that a man had such gorgeous legs.

She curled her fingers into fists, wanting to stroke her hand over him. Rouse him.

Taking a shuddery breath, she controlled the urge. She didn't have time. Work awaited her.

But despite that admonishment, she finished her perusal of Sebastian in slumber. The goatee had finished growing in and the dark brown hair framed full lips he knew how to use to pleasure her. He had one arm tucked behind his head. The other was flung beside him as if reaching for her. Perfect, except for one glaring thing-the white of the bandage wrapped around his left forearm.

That forced her to move, but not toward the bathroom for her shower.

She sat on the edge of the bed. Laying her hand on his chest, she savored the strong beat of his heart beneath sleep-warmed skin.

His muscles twitched as that slight touch woke him.

His grin was sleepy as he stretched. "Buenos dias."

"Hmm," she replied as she stroked the muscles of his chest. "Muy bueno."

Casually, almost as if unintentionally, she moved her hand down while keeping her gaze on his face. There was a perceptible hitch in his breath as she encircled him.

"And getting better," he said, his voice a low rumble.

"I have to shower."

He slipped his hand beneath the edge of her gown, unerringly found her breast and ran his thumb along the stiffening peak. "I can help with the shower."

The enticing vision of him sprawled on the sheets was blasted away by the image of him wet and slick in her hands. "I could use the help."

She slipped off her robe as she walked to the bathroom. Sebastian eagerly trailed behind her. As she adjusted the temperature of the water, he pressed against her back and ran his hands along her shoulders and down to grasp her hips.

Melissa swatted at him playfully. "Not yet. The water temp is so all-important."

"I love it when you get commanding." He playfully rubbed himself against her.

"Stop," she said, but with a laugh as she pushed him away.

Sebastian nipped at her earlobe. "That wasn't what you said last night."

She finally turned to face him, hands on her hips. "We're wasting precious time here. Let me get the water right so we can get in the shower." He copied her stance, hands on his hips, his erection magnificent to behold. "Why didn't you just say so?"

The look on his face was full of amus.e.m.e.nt and pa.s.sion. An odd mix, but then again, making love with Sebastian was fun and pleasurable and satisfying and unpredictable.

With a wag of one finger, she returned to the faucets. When she finished adjusting the water, she stepped into the spray of the dual showerheads.

Sebastian loved the sight of her. The water slipped over her body, the heat of it raising a rosy flush against her skin. Droplets clung to the rigid peaks of her nipples and the dark blond nest of curls between her legs.

They were both breathing roughly from wanting each other. He didn't waste another second.

Stepping into the shower, he licked the droplets from her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, then followed the trail of the water down her body to the juncture of her legs, where he dipped his tongue inside for a taste.

"Sebastian, I can't wait." She grabbed his shoulders.

He couldn't wait, either. "Turn around, amor."

Melissa did as he asked, facing the back wall of the shower. The heat of the water from the jets on either wall warmed both sides of her body. The heat of his body bathed her back as he pressed himself against her.

She held her breath at his exquisitely slow penetration of her from behind, which filled her v.a.g.i.n.a with his hardness. It was almost too much to bear, the way he stretched her. Almost too much, but not quite. Maybe not enough, she thought, biting her lip and shifting her hips slightly so that his penetration went even deeper.

He braced his left forearm, the one with the bandage, on the shower wall above her head to support them and trailed the other hand to her breast. Tenderly, he fingered her nipple while slowly withdrawing then slipping back in. The water sluiced over them and between their legs, almost as if in a caress. She moaned. He whispered against her ear, "Te gusta?"

Melissa knew enough Spanish to understand his simple question. "I like. A lot." As he moved in her again, her breath caught in her chest. She held it and closed her eyes, ran her hands back to grasp his b.u.t.tocks as he drew in and out of her, slowly at first, then increasing his tempo as their pa.s.sion grew.

His breath was rough against the side of her face as he strove for their completion. He kissed her neck, whispered Spanish words of love, the tone of his voice husky. Arousing. She turned her face, kissed him back. Her own breath was choppy, more unsteady by the moment as his movements drew her to the edge.

When he slipped one hand between her legs and ran his finger over the swollen nub buried in her damp curls, she lost it. As she cried out her completion against his mouth, his own hoa.r.s.e shout echoed in the humid air of the shower stall.

"We've got him. We've got a partial," Diana said after reading off the results of the fingerprint match from the M.E.'s office.

"So what do we do now?" Ryder asked as he, Melissa and Sebastian gathered around the speakerphone in his office.

"This is Daly's collar so we need to stay in the background. I'm meeting him at the hospital first."

Sebastian considered his sister's news and how that changed their plans for that morning. "And then what, hermanita? If he's not there-"

"His brownstone. The most important thing is that you not let your guard down." "You can count on that." Sebastian looked at Melissa. "You need to go, right?"

Melissa glanced at her watch. "Definitely. I'm going to be late as it is."

"Are you sure this is what we should do?" Ryder asked.

"What's wrong?" Diana replied.

"The sun. It's early morning now, but by midday I don't know how much help I can be," he said, frustration evident in his voice.

"Meet us at the hospital. We can decide what to do there."

"Done." He hung up.

Sebastian looked at Ryder. "We'll be okay. Just follow when you can."

Ryder nodded, but Sebastian could almost feel the vampire's anxiety pouring off him.

But as Melissa slipped her hand in his and gave him an almost beatific smile, it was impossible to keep thinking about the bad things that awaited them.