"Now," he said. "You just told me it's a precondition."

She should kick him out, but she wanted him too much, and she was predestined to make bad choices when it came to men, which was why her female friendships had always been so important. She shot him a dirty look, the closest she could get to a face-saving gesture, and stomped toward the kitchen, where she banged the door behind her. As she grabbed her cell, she told herself she'd take it as a sign if Lucy didn't answer.

But Lucy answered. "Meg? What's up?"

She sank down on the linoleum and pressed her spine to the refrigerator door. "Hey, Luce. I hope I didn't wake you up." She unstuck a Cheerio she'd dropped that morning, or possibly last week, and crumbled it between her fingers. "So how's it going?"

"It's one in the morning. How do you think it's going?"

"Really? It's only midnight here, but since I have no idea no idea where you are, it's a little tough to allow for time differences." where you are, it's a little tough to allow for time differences."

Meg regretted her testiness as Lucy sighed. "It won't be much longer. I'll ... tell you as soon as I can. Right now everything's a little... confusing. Is something wrong? You sound worried."

"Something's wrong, all right." There was no easy way to say this. "What would you think about-" She pulled her knees tighter against her chest and took a deep breath. "What would you think about me hooking up with Ted?"

There was a long silence. "Hooking up? As in-?"

"Yes."

"With Ted?"

"Your former fiance."

"I know who he is. You and Ted are a ... couple?"

"No!" Meg dropped her knees to the floor. "No, not a couple. Never. This is just about s.e.x. And forget it. I'm not exactly thinking clearly right now. I should never have called. G.o.d, what was I thinking? This is a total betrayal of our friendship. I shouldn't have-"

"No! No, I'm glad you called." Lucy actually sounded excited. "Oh, Meg, this is perfect. Every woman should have Ted Beaudine make love to her."

"I don't know about that, but-" She pulled her knees back up. "Really? You wouldn't mind?"

"Are you kidding?" Lucy sounded almost giddy. "Do you know how guilty I still feel? If he sleeps with you ... You're my best friend. He'd be sleeping with my best friend! It'll be like getting absolution from the pope!"

"You don't have to sound so broken up about it."

The door opened. Meg quickly lowered her knees as Ted ambled in. "Tell Lucy h.e.l.lo from me," he said.

"I'm not your messenger boy," she retorted.

"Is he there right now?" Lucy asked.

"That would be a yes," Meg replied.

"Tell him h.e.l.lo from me, then." Lucy's voice grew small again, full of guilt. "And that I'm sorry."

Meg cupped her hand over the phone and gazed up at him. "She said she's having the time of her life, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g every man she meets, and dumping you was the best move she ever made."

"I heard that," Lucy said. "And he'll know you're lying. He knows things like that."

Ted rested the heel of his hand against a top cabinet and slanted her his superior look. "Liar."

She glowered at him. "Go away. You are totally creeping me out."

Lucy sucked in her breath. "Did you just tell Ted Beaudine that he was creeping you out?"

"I might have."

Lucy let out a long exhalation. "Wow ..." She sounded a little dazed. "I sure didn't see this coming."

Meg frowned. "See what coming? What are you talking about?"

"Nothing. Love you. And enjoy!" She hung up.

Meg snapped her phone closed. "I think we can safely a.s.sume Lucy's recovered from her guilt."

"Does that mean she gave us her blessing?"

"Me. She gave me her blessing."

He adopted a faraway look. "I sure do miss that woman. Smart. Funny. Sweet. She never gave me a moment's trouble."

"Gosh, I'm sorry about that. I knew it was boring between you two, but not that bad."

He smiled and stretched out his hand. She let him pull her to her feet, but he didn't stop there. In one smooth motion, he drew her against him and began kissing the breath right out of her. Because of their height, their bodies were a surprisingly comfortable fit, but that was the only comfortable thing about this l.u.s.ty, bone-shattering kiss.

He smelled so good, tasted so good, felt so good. The heat of his skin, the feel of st.u.r.dy muscle and hard tendon. It had been so long.

He didn't grab her a.s.s or shove his hand under her shirt where he would quickly have discovered lots of bare skin bisected only by that fragile ivory thong. Instead, he concentrated on her mouth, her face, her hair-stroking and exploring, sliding his fingers through her curls, finding her earlobes with his thumbs. It was as if he'd memorized a diagram of all the non.o.bvious erogenous zones on her body. It was heady and thrilling and oh so arousing.

Their mouths parted. He pressed his forehead to hers and spoke softly. "I'd like to go to my place, but I'm not risking having you change your mind on the way, so it'll have to be here." A nibble at her bottom lip. "Doubt it'll be the first time two people have got it on in that choir loft, although I thought my days of getting sweaty on a futon had ended when I graduated from college."

She tried to get her breath back as he caught her wrist and drew her out into the church. "Stop." Her heels skidded on the old pine floor. "We're not taking another step toward that futon until we have The Conversation."

He wasn't dumb. He groaned, but he stopped walking. "I'm disease free. There's been n.o.body since Lucy, and since that was four fricking months ago, you'll have to understand if I'm a little impatient."

"n.o.body since Lucy? Really?"

"What part of four fricking months don't you get?" He regarded her stubbornly, as if he expected a fight. "And I don't go anywhere without a condom. You can make whatever you want out of that. It's just the way it is."

"You being Ted Beaudine and all."

"Like I said."

"Four months, huh? It hasn't been nearly that long for me." A lie. Her disastrous affair with Daniel, the Aussie river-rafting guide, had ended eight months ago. She'd never indulged in one-night stands, something she attributed to the conversations her mother had initiated about s.e.x. Unfortunately, those conversations hadn't kept her from making some bad choices. More than one of her friends had said Meg deliberately chose men she knew would never commit because she wasn't ready to be a grown-up herself.

"I also am disease free," she said loftily, "and I'm on the pill. Don't let that stop you, however, from using one of those condoms you undoubtedly purchase by the gross. Since this is Texas, land of the barely concealed weapon, if I got pregnant, I would locate one of those weapons and blow your brains out. Fair warning."

"Good. We're clear." He caught her wrist and dragged her up the winding choir loft steps, not that he had to do much dragging.

"I also don't do one-night stands," she said when they reached the top. "So consider this the beginning of a short-term s.e.xual commitment."

"Even better." He whipped off his T-shirt.

"And you can't let me get fired from the club."

He stopped. "Hold on. I want to get you fired."

"I know," she said, "but you want uncomplicated s.e.x more."

"Good point." He dropped the T-shirt.

Before she knew it, they were on the lumpy futon and he was kissing her again. His hands curled around the bare cheeks of her bottom, and a thumb slid into the top of the silky floss that rode in her crack. "I pretty much enjoy it all when it comes to s.e.x." His erection pressed hard against her leg. "You be sure to let me know if I do anything that scares you."

The blood supply that normally fed her brain had surged to other parts of her body, so she had no idea whether he was putting her on or not. "You worry about yourself" was the best she could do.

He played with the floss for a long, heated moment, then withdrew his thumb to drag it over her dragon tattoo. Although she loved the fantasy of having a man slowly undress her, she'd never known one of them who did it really well, and she wasn't giving Ted a chance to be the first. Sitting up on the narrow s.p.a.ce beside him, she leaned back on her heels and pulled her T-shirt over her head.

In the age of silicone-enhanced b.r.e.a.s.t.s, hers weren't particularly memorable, but Ted was too much of a gentleman to criticize. He paid attention, but he didn't make any clumsy grabs. Instead, he curled his fingers around her rib cage, pulled himself up using only his spectacular abs, and bestowed a slow trail of kisses across her midriff.

Her skin pebbled. It was time to get serious. She was naked except for her thong, but he still wore his khaki shorts along with whatever was or wasn't underneath. She tugged the fastener to find out.

"Not yet," he whispered, pulling her down next to him. "Let's get you warmed up first."

Warmed up? She was ready to ignite!

He rolled to his side and offered her body his complete attention. His gaze lingered on the hollow at the base of her throat. The curve of her breast. The pucker of her nipple. The patch of ivory lace below her belly. But he didn't touch any of it. Any of her.

She arched her back, inviting him to get to it before she went up in flames. He dipped his head toward her breast. She closed her eyes in antic.i.p.ation only to feel his teeth nip at her shoulder. Had the man never studied basic female anatomy?

It went on like that for a while. He investigated the sensitive spot at the inside of her elbow, the pulse point at her wrist, and the bottom curve of her breast. But only the bottom curve. By the time he touched the soft skin of her inner thigh, she was quivering with desire and fed up with his torture. But when she rolled over to take control, he shifted his weight, deepened his kisses, and somehow she was once again at his mercy. How could a man who'd gone four months without s.e.x be so restrained? It was as if he weren't human. As if he'd used his genius inventor skills to create some kind of s.e.xual avatar.

With the world's largest erection.

The exquisite torture went on, his caresses never quite reaching where she so desperately needed them to be. She tried not to moan, but the sounds slipped out. This was his revenge. He was going to foreplay her to death.

She didn't realize she'd reached for herself until he caught her hand. "I'm afraid I can't allow that."

"Allow it?" With l.u.s.t-fueled strength, she twisted out from under him, threw one leg across his hips, and yanked at the snap on his shorts. "Put up or shut up."

He trapped her wrists. "These stay on until I take them off."

"Why? Are you afraid I'll laugh?"

His thick hair was rumpled from where she must have dug her fingers into it, his bottom lip a little swollen from where she might possibly have bitten it, his expression vaguely regretful. "I didn't want to have to do this yet, but you're leaving me no choice." He flipped her beneath him, pinioning her with his body, fastened his mouth on her nipple, and delivered the perfect suction, just this side of pain. At the same time, he slipped a finger under the thin strip of lace between her legs and then inside her. She groaned, pulled her heels high on the bed, and shattered.

As she lay helpless in the aftermath, his lips brushed her earlobe. "I thought you'd have a little more self-control. But I guess you did your best." She was dimly aware of a tug at her lace chast.i.ty belt, then the slide of his body down over hers. He caught her legs and parted them wide. His beard stubble brushed the inside of her thighs. And then his mouth covered her.

A second cataclysmic explosion claimed her, but even then he didn't enter her. Instead, he tortured, comforted, tortured again. By the time her third o.r.g.a.s.m hit, she'd become his s.e.xual rag doll.

He was finally naked, and when he entered her, he did it slowly, giving her time to accept him, finding the perfect angle, nothing clumsy, no groping, no accidental finger scratch or elbow jab. He delivered a steady angled stroke followed by a hard thrust, flawlessly orchestrated, designed to deliver maximum pleasure. She'd never experienced anything like it. It was as if her pleasure was all that counted. Even as he came, he supported his weight so she didn't have to bear all of it.

She slept. They woke, made love again, and then once more. Sometime during the night, he drew the sheet over her, brushed her lips with a kiss, and left.

She didn't fall back to sleep right away. Instead, she thought about what Lucy had said. Every woman should have Ted Beaudine make love to her. Every woman should have Ted Beaudine make love to her.

Meg couldn't argue with that. She'd never been loved so thoroughly, so unselfishly. It was as if he'd memorized all the s.e.x manuals ever written-something, she realized, he was perfectly capable of having done. No wonder he was a legend. He knew exactly how to drive a woman to her maximum s.e.xual pleasure.

So why was she so disappointed?

Chapter Twelve.

The club was closed the next day because of the holiday, so Meg did her laundry, then headed out to the cemetery to attack weeds with a couple of rusty tools she'd found near what was left of the storage shed. As she cleared some of the oldest headstones, she tried not to obsess too much about Ted, and when her cell rang, she didn't even take his call, although she couldn't resist listening to his message. An invitation to dinner Friday night at the Roustabout. Since Sunny and Spence would undoubtedly be part of their dining party, she didn't return the call.

She should have known it wouldn't be that easy to discourage him. Around three, he pulled up in his powder blue truck. Considering the way the town's females primped for him, she was happy with her dirt-streaked arms, bare legs, and the tight-fitting Longhorns T-shirt she'd rescued from the trash bin in the ladies' locker room, then modified by chopping off its sleeves and neckband. All in all, she looked just the way she wanted to.

As he stepped out of the cab, a couple of indigo buntings perched in the box elders burst into joyous song. She shook her head in disbelief. He wore a baseball cap and another in his seemingly endless wardrobe of broken-in shorts-these were tan chinos-along with an equally broken-in green T-shirt sporting a faded Hawaiian print. How did he manage to make whatever haphazard piece of c.r.a.p he'd tossed on that morning look like high fashion?

The memory of last night intruded, all those embarra.s.sing moans and humiliating demands. To compensate, she came out swinging. "If you're not planning to take off your clothes, you're dead to me."

"You California women are too d.a.m.ned aggressive." He gestured toward the cemetery. "I send a maintenance crew out here once a month to clean up. You don't have to do that."

"I like being outside."

"For a spoiled Hollywood brat, you have some unusual ways of entertaining yourself."

"It beats hauling your clubs around." She pulled off her baseball cap and swiped at her sweaty forehead with the back of a grimy arm. Her messy curls fell in her eyes and stuck to the back of her neck. She needed a haircut, but she didn't want to part with the money. "I'm not going to the Roustabout with you on Friday. Too many Skipjacks." She slammed her cap back on. "Besides, the less time we spend together in public, the better."

"I never said they'd be there."

"You didn't say they wouldn't, either, and I've had more than enough of them both." She was hot, cranky, and determined to be disagreeable. "Be honest, Ted. This whole thing with the golf resort ... Do you really want to let the Skipjacks ruin another natural area just so more idiots can knock around a stupid white ball? You already have the country club. Isn't that enough? I know about the benefits to the local economy, but don't you think somebody, like maybe the mayor, should think about the long-term impact?"

"You're getting to be a real pain in the a.s.s."

"As opposed to being an a.s.s-kisser?"

She'd genuinely angered him, and he stalked back to his truck. But instead of tearing off in a huff, he jerked open the pa.s.senger door. "Get in."

"I'm not exactly dressed for an outing."

"The only person you'll see is me, which is a good thing, because you look like h.e.l.l and I'm guessing you smell worse."

She was glad he'd noticed. "Is your truck air-conditioned?"