Muldoon pushed his seat back as far as it would go, which was far enougha"thank you, Mr. Forda"as he unfastened her jeans.

He had to stop kissing her to pull them off her legs, which was dangerous because that meant she could talk.

"Oh, my G.o.d," she gasped, even as she helped him by kicking off her sneakers. "You actually want to ... Anyone walking past can see us!"

"No, they can't," he said.

She wasn't wearing any underpants, which would have been a really excellent discovery if he'd been taking his time. As it was, it only served to distract him.

"I happen to know that we're not invisible. At least I'm nota"

"No one's walking past," he told her, cupping her with his hand, quickly trying to calculate how, in their limited amount of s.p.a.ce, he could kiss her there.

No, there was really only one way two people their size could make love in the front seat of a truck like this one.

He pulled her on top of him, so that she was straddling him.

"Mikea""

"No one's walking past."

"Easy for you to be blasa"I'm the one who's naked and you're not!"

"I noticed." He grinned at her as he dug a condom out of his wallet. He'd put it there just a few days ago, in a burst of hope. "I'm finding that to be quite an incredible turn on. Shades of slave girl and cruel master."

That completely cracked her up. "I think you just like the idea of getting caught," she said, but she pulled her T-shirt over her head and her bra off her arms so that she really was completely naked and waiting for him.

It almost seemed a shame to unfasten his pants. But he did it without hesitating, quickly covering himself with the condom. "Who's going to catch us, slave girl? It's after four A.M."

"It's after four?" Her voice rose in dismay.

He grabbed her hips and pulled her toward him and...

"G.o.d!"

He was inside of her, and she was laughing. He hoped it was because this felt as mind-blowingly wonderful to her as it did to him. He was in heaven with her b.r.e.a.s.t.s in his face and her body straining to get even closer to his.

"Suddenly four A.M. doesn't seem so awful anymore," she gasped, and he had to laugh, too. "In fact, it's my new favorite time of day. Oh, G.o.d, if you don't slow down, I'm going to come right away!"

He didn't. "Tell me," he demanded. "Tell me when. I'm going to come with you."

What he was doing to her was apparently really right. She was making a lot of wordless noise, deep, s.e.xy sounds of intense pleasure, and it was pushing him hard against the edge of his own release.

Was she coming? He wasn't completely sure.

"Tell me," he ordered.

"I'm... yes!" she said. "Yes!"

He let go.

The crash of pleasure was so intense that he shook, that bright colors actually cart wheeled before his eyes.

And she was feeling that pleasure, too. Right at that exact same moment. Knowing that made it ten times better, and he started to laugh.

It was either that or cry.

Joan collapsed against him, and he held her close.

"Oh, man." He could feel her heart pounding, racing in time with his. "Oh, baby. That was amazing. Fast, but amazing."

She sighed, a bone-deep sigh of contentment that made his throat ache.

Please, G.o.d, let her realize that this was not just another mistake, that what they'd found together could truly make her happy.

She sighed again. "Can you really do that?" she asked. "Come on command?"

"It's just a control thing," he said. "You fight it, and you fight it, and then you stop fighting it. And bang."

"Bang?" she repeated, lifting her head to look down at him.

"Yeah." He smiled back at her. "That's pretty much how it happens."

She touched his face, the amus.e.m.e.nt in her eyes changing to something tender, something that had a hint of sadness. "What on earth am I going to do with you?"

He tried to make it into a joke. "Something really kinky I hope."

She opened her mouth, as if she were going to speak, but headlights swept across them.

A car was pulling into the parking lot.

Joan leapt down onto the floor on the pa.s.senger's side of the cab, scrambling for her clothes.

"They parked on the other end," he told her. "It's safe to come back."

But she didn't. She quickly pulled on her clothes before sitting back in her seat. "G.o.d," she said, as he refastened his own belt buckle. "I haven't had s.e.x in a motor vehicle since college. That was... something of a novelty."

He didn't want to be a novelty. But he tried to keep things light. "Stick with me, babe. It'll be high cla.s.s all the way. Tomorrow I'll take you out and we can get rocking' in my boat."

"Tomorrow we're both going to be a little busy," she said.

"Not tomorrow night." He started the truck with a roar and pulled out of the hospital lot. "Can I see you tomorrow night?"

Joan glanced out of the window, as if gauging how fast they were moving and if it were possible for her to jump out of the truck and get away from him without injuring herself.

Not a good sign.

She gave him a smile that was forced, and his heart sank even further. "I don't know what I'm going to be up to, with Brooke, with Donnya"G.o.d, now that Tony's visiting..."

"I know you have things to do," he said quietly, "but sooner or later you will be done for the night. I don't care if it's really latea""

She closed her eyes. "I know this is going to sound awful, but please, let's not do this right now."

Muldoon shut his mouth, and they drove the rest of the way back to Joan's hotel in silence.

Muldoon parked in the lot, over by the side entrance, instead of dropping her at the front of the hotel.

"Thank you," Joan said, hating herself for having been cruel to hima"again. But if she was terrified before, now she was in a complete panic. What was she going to do? "And, Mike, I'm really sorrya"

"I want you again," he told her, his voice low. "Already. Can you believe that?" He looked over at her, and his expression was as serious as she'd ever seen it.

It was as if she were suddenly sitting in this truck with that man who'd run down a mountain with a broken kneecap instead of her good ol' buddy Mike.

"At the risk of being crude ..." He took her hand and placed it over the zipper of his shorts.

Joan s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand back. He wasn't exaggerating. "Wow. I guess that's one of the perks of having a younger boyfriend."

"Is that how you think of me?" He didn't so much as crack a smile. "As your boyfriend?"

s.h.i.t. "I shouldn't have said that. It was a lousy attempt to make a joke."

"Okay, so then I'm not your boyfriend. I'm just someone you had s.e.x with twenty minutes ago... ?"

Joan sighed. "Mike. We're both exhausteda""

"I'm just looking for a little clarification," he said. "Don't misunderstanda"I'm not accusing you of anything, honest. I'm just trying to figure out how to proceed from here. See, the pathetic thing is I had this plan to keep s.e.x out of our relationship entirely, to show you there's more between us than this physical attraction thing. That worked real well, huh?"

"Yeah." She had to laugh at that, but her heart was in her throat. He had a plan...

"I don't know what to do now, because making love to you tonight was so incredible, I'm not sure I can go back to that friend place without going completely insane. I want you endlessly, Joan."

She looked up at him. G.o.d, that was such a romantic thing to say.

And he looked the part of the romantic hero, with the soft light from the hotel parking lot casting shadows on his beautiful face.

"I don't know what I'm doing," she admitted. "I can't seem to keep my hands off of you, and I love spending time with you, I really do..."

"Then spend tune with me," he said. "Spend lots of time with me. Starting right now. Let's go back to your room."

"And have s.e.x? Again?"

"No," he said, absolutely. "I want us to make love."

Okay, that was another really romantic thing to say. He was wearing her down, and he knew it.

He touched her lightly, pushing her hair back from her face with just one finger. "Invite me to your room."

Madness. It was total madness. The idea of any kind of relationship with this man scared her to death. There were so many reasons why she should get out of this truck and run like h.e.l.l.

"There's not enough time to get any real sleep before we both need to be up and in the shower," he persisted. "Think of what we could do with this next hour."

Oh, she was thinking about that, all right.

Cheerful Muldoon was always hard to resist, but this decisive, determined Muldoon was impossible to turn down. He just sat there, watching her, waiting for her to speak.

Joan cleared her throat. "Please," she said. "Will you come up to my room?"

He kissed her. Oh, baby, the man could kiss.

"I'll come up on one condition," he said, as if she were the one talking him into going upstairs. "It's a little kinkya"you might not want to do this."

Was he serious? G.o.d, he was.

"You have to promise to do whatever I want," he said. "We make love exactly the way I want to. You know, from my script."

His script... He'd told her that, in his experience, most women's s.e.xual fantasies followed a script.

"You have a script?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said. She could tell from his slow smile that he knew she was completely intrigued. "It's kind of new. It's something I've kind of figured out over the past few days. And since you're the star in it, I thought... I might as well ask."

She was the star of his fantasy script. "Wow. Is it just you and me or there any special guest stars?"

He laughed. "No barnyard animals, if that's what you mean."

"Do I, like, have lines?"

"A few," he said. "But they're pretty easy. You mostly say yes. You can improvise and embellish it if you want."

"This is a little weird," Joan admitted.

"If you get the least bit uncomfortable, we can stop. At any time, okay?" He was smiling at her as if he knew she wasn't going to say no.

Maybe she was a little bit kinky. She was the star of his fantasy script. "What's the first thing you're going to ask me to do?"

"Take off your clothes."

Muldoon watched as Joan followed his first order. T-shirt, sneakers, bra, and jeans. She actually folded her jeans before turning back to him, standing up straight, chin held high as she let him look at her.

"What next?" she asked. It was pretty warm in her hotel room, which meant... she was getting into this.

Good.

"Kiss me," he said.

She started toward him, but then stopped. "Where?" She was trying not to smile, but the edges of her lips kept twitching.

"You can start with my mouth," he told her.