He chuckled a low, soft rumble against her ear. "It would be more than making love. It would be...mating."

"Mating," she whispered.

"Sweet, tender mating." His tongue lingered on her earlobe. "Or hard, hot, fast mating."

Wild shivers overtook her. "Yes to both."

Clarissa forgot the darkness around them, the strange fear she'd experienced and the trauma of falling down the hole. Instead she snuggled into Ronan's incredible, intoxicating embrace and accepted his wanton words, his mental lovemaking.

He brushed the curling fringe away from her forehead and his lips toured her skin. "Do you want to know how I'd feel inside you?"

It sounded so forbidden. "Please tell me."

He murmured against her temple, "You'll be so hot, so warm and dripping with sexual need that I'll slip inside easily."

To her immediate surprise and delight, she could feel a hard cock pressing between her legs. She knew it wasn't happening now, but the images, the feelings inside her head were there nonetheless. As the imaginary cock eased inside, spreading her walls, she groaned with the desire, the heavenly sensation.

"That's it," he said softly. "Take me inside." Mentally pushing, he progressed, parting her sex with steady pressure. "More, Clarissa. Open to me."

She shuddered and writhed as the sweet feeling continued as she opened wide to his intrusion. He pressed as high as he could go.

"When I'm deep, your warm pussy will grip me."

"Oh, yes. I can feel it now."

"You'll feel my heart beat in my cock, you'll shiver against my hardness. I'll feel every ripple of your hot walls."

More feelings darted into her system, as forceful as a blizzard, as incredible as anything she'd thought in her wildest dreams. She could feel him pressing deeper between her thighs, his hungry cock inserted fully into her hot passage.

Her head feel back, offering him her throat. "What will you do then?"

"I'll fuck you. Moving inside you with deep pumps of my cock."

His graphic description fired her libido higher than she could have imagined, and the sensation of his hardness sliding into her and then drawing slowly out made her quiver in his arms. "Oh. Oh, myGod."

As she made the breathy sounds, his lips touched the hollow of her throat. "You'll feel me parting your sex time and again. Deep and slow."

When she issued another soft, "Oh, myGod," he continued his assault on her crumbling defenses.

"Your heart is beating faster as your channel drips with your need. With each thrust you draw me tight against you as your pleasure grows."

At his words she felt the heat climbing from her groin all the way up her chest into her face, everything inside her responding to his words of seduction. Somewhere, in the part of her brain that could still reason, she wondered if his words were designed to lure, to make her weak. She wanted to struggle against him, but found she couldn't.

"No," she managed to push through the fog in her thought processes.

Immediately the sensations of him fucking her stopped.

It was if she'd never felt him inside her.

A warm laugh came from Ronan's chest as he nuzzled her cheek. "You try my control, but I would never force myself upon you."

She didn't know what to say, and with effort she opened her eyes. He stared down at her; the fire remained high in his remarkable gaze. Then the fire winked out, as if he forced it to disappear. "What did...? How did...?"

At her confused rambling he brushed his fingers over her forehead. "We came together mentally."

Sarcastic humor rose to forefront. "In other words, we just had a real mind fuck."

He chuckled, and the sound almost made her forget she stood in a dark hole with a man bent on seducing her. "Sure, and you could say we had quickie, but we didn't finish."

Finish. Now that would have been interesting. She shook her head, amazed beyond belief. "I must be insane standing here with you."

"Why? Because you allowed desire to overrule your fear of this place and of me?"

"Yes. I should be afraid of this place, just as you said. I've felt strange things here."

"You have the sixth sense to see beyond what many others do."

She nodded, at least assured he wouldn't ridicule her for the talent. "Sometimes. I saw you on more than one occasion in what might be another life."

He drew in a deep breath. "You see me as I am. Nothing more, nothing less."

"But you're not like most people. You can do things. Your power, your amazing agility-it defies sanity. You haven't explained the strange light in your eyes. This is all crazy."

His grip on her loosened. "There's nothing sane in Pine Forest anymore. Not I, not you.

For you're crawling around in graveyards looking for ghosts. There are many worse things here to be found. Much worse."

His tone, almost harsh, made her ease from his arms. His hands clutched into fists at his side, but she didn't see anger in his eyes, only passion. This man wanted her, no doubt about it, but she felt him retreating from her, too.

When he took a deep breath, his trembling appeared to stop. "You're putting yourself at risk being in Pine Forest."

"No kidding. I walked right into this crypt and straight down a hole I had no way of knowing was there." She looked around. "I'm stuck here with a man who drives me nuts and who speaks in riddles. And apparently he has telepathy as well. Do you?"

"That's not what I meant."

Okay, so she'd intentionally misinterpreted his meaning. With the serial killer loose any woman could be in danger. Yet she knew the first danger came from Ronan.

I won't lie to you, Clarissa. Yes, I have telepathy. Very strong telepathy.

"All right. So we've established that you can read my mind and send thoughts to me."

He narrowed his eyes. "You take that knowledge calmly."

She shrugged and the sore muscles in her body protested. "Because I believe in the supernatural. Why do you think I take photographs of haunted places?"

His gaze calmed, the fire retreating to a slow, intermittent burn. Fascinated, she couldn't seem to resist looking into his eyes. And that frightened her in the most elemental way possible, deep down where lust and desire couldn't cloud her senses.

She backed away a bit, and he held his hand out. "Don't. Don't go far."

To her surprise his voice sounded a little scared. "What are you afraid of?"

His desperate look disappeared under a hard veneer, the heat retreating from his eyes like a banked fire. "I fear nothing."