He wasn't thinking of comfort.

Comfort would have meant not having Caitlin in the room at all.

"I'll manage" But I won't.

" She wouldn't be able to sleep, knowing he was sitting up in the chair

like some early-Christian penitent. Her eyes flashed as she looked up

at him." If you don't want to come near me, that's fine." She turned away from the bed, away from him." I'll take the damnchair.

" Grabbing a pillow from the bed, she threw it on the chair." I'm smaller.

"Cait-" Graham grabbed her by the shoulders as she pushed past him.

She jerked her head up and there were tears in her eyes when she looked

at him .

"What?"

Damn, he'd hurt her.

Again.

He didn't want to make her cry.

He just wanted to make this as easy as he could for both of them.

But when she looked up at him like that, her eyes shimmering with tears

that he was responsible for, something tore inside him.

Madness intruded, urging him on to do what he had no business doing.

Madness.

That was the only explanation there could be for how he had gone from

holding her at arm's length to holding her against him, to kissing her, molding her body until it was sealed to his.

And once he kissed her, there could be no turning back.

A multitude of emotions spilled out, melding, blending, until they were all one and the same to him.

And they were all her.

Hunger for her, for what he had sampled with her, burned away his reason, his common sense.

Hunger urged him on, like a devil whispering in his ear.

His hands passed over her body urgently.

The very feel of her body made him abnost lose his mind.

He wanted to rip away her clothes so that he could feel her-warm,

supple, inviting.

Graham hardly recognized himself.

Yes, it was madness.

And the madness had a name.

Caitlin.

Thank You.

It was the last truly coherent thought that Caitlin had as joy filled her, then spilled into oblivion as something g stronger, something fiercer seized her.

Her breathing ragged, she returned kiss for kiss, touch for touch, urgency for urgency.

She was as eager as he for the wondrous, cleansing rush that lovemaking brought.

It was as if she'd been holding her breath since last night, waiting for this moment, unsure that it would ever come.

Desperately glad when it did.

Knowing she would have died if it didn't.

If his hands were zealous in their quest, hers were more so.

If he was impatient to taste her, to touch her, she was more impatient to taste him, to touch him.

To feel him, to have him feel her.

She wanted desperately to become lost in that incredible inferno of needs and fulfillments, of satisfaction and insatiability.

Her fingers flew over his shirt, pushing buttons through their holes,

yanking away at the material until it finally left his torso free.

Her own blouse hung open, the clasp in the front of her bra undone so that the two cups just barely hugged her breasts.

His hands found her, covered her, making her moan as the rough calluses

on his palms rubbed against the sensitive skin.

Loving her.

Worshiping her.

He should have more strength than this.

But he didn't.

He knew he should be pulling away.

But he couldn't.

She made him as weak as a kitten, as supplicant as a petitioner begging

for forgiveness.

For a crust of bread For one sample of her mouth.

He felt like one of his mother's sand drawings, about to be blown away

in the wind if he couldn't have Caitlin, if he couldn't possess her just one more time. She came so willingly it sparked his guilt, but then the next moment guilt was burned away in the heat of his desire.

Graham knew what he had said to her, what he had meant.

This was an arrangement and she wasn't to be hurt by it.

But something within him would die if he couldn't have her now.

A,nticipation throbbed within her, drumming a lyrical rhythm that only

he could match.

She undid his trousers as he unhooked her skirt, their hands questing for secrets they were already beginning to learn. Clothing fell to the floor, discarded, joined by underwear lost in a flurry of expectation.

Each sought anxiously, fervently, for that elusive something they knew was missing. Naked, wanting, they wound around each other, cleaving, forming something neither thought the other was aware of.

A whole.

The bed creaked and groaned beneath their combined weight.

They hardly noticed.

The fire was consuming them.

Holding her hands beneath his spread palms, Graham dressed Caitlin in a

wreath of open-mouthed kisses that propelled her to a height that took