"I'm still the same man I was, Caitlin."

He was right.

She had been too easily fooled by her mother.

She knew that now, but she had been so young and so very much in

love.

She had built her whole world around him and when she thought he'd

left, it had all come crashing down.

Caitlin turned, tucking her legs beneath her and sitting on them.

"I'm sorry. I should have realized that."

She was so close to him.

So very close.

His mouth felt as if he had been chewing on cotton.

"Maybe you'd better go back to bed, Caitlin."

Was he angry at her after all?

She'd just apologized.

And he hadn't been the only one to be hurt.

She had lost a large piece of her life, as well.

"Why?" I His eyes swept over her slowly, unconsciously caressing

her.

He could feel his very skin tightening." Because having you sit here

dressed in light blue tissue paper is really testing me.

She felt-the smile budding from her toes and rising to fill all of her, flowering in her eyes.

"How are you scoring?"

He couldn't resist.

He glided his knuckles along her arm.

As she took a breath and held it, her -breasts moved tantalizingly

beneath the wafer-thin matdrial, reminding him just how male he was.

And bow tempted.

"Close to zero, pretty soon."

If be thought he was frightening her away, he was wrong.

Very, very wrong.

Caitlin moved closer.

"Funny, I would have said a hundred."

Caitlin leaned into him, her breasts just touching his arm, sending

ripples of desire running through him like electricity jumping over

wires.

Very lightly she brushed her lips against his.

He gripped her shoulders, more to steady himself than to hold her back.

His eyes warned her.

"Cait, you're going to regret this."

She slowly moved her head from side to side, her ey never leaving

his.

"Wrong. What I regret are all the yea I've lost. All the years we've lost."

He had already told her that he thought it had worked o for the best.

And he meant it.

"You don't know what you' saying."

Her breath lingered on his mouth.

"Then shut me u Gray. You know how."

"Yeah, I know how."

He continued to hold her at arm' length, fully aware that he was

sinking quickly.

"But that won't change anything."

This was wrong, wrong for her.

Wrong for him to have taste of what he couldn't ultimately have.

The world hadn' changed any.

He was still who he was.

She refused to have him talk her out of it.

"Maybe for tonight, it will."

She appealed to him.

"I'm afraid, Gray.

need you to hold me.

It wasn't in him to refuse her.

"You're making this so hard, Cait."

And then he couldn't reason with her, couldn't reaso with himself.

The ability had completely left him, was away by the desire that he