Her heart thudded, her breathing quickening. "No."

Ronan's fingers soothed her, asked her to relinquish control. "Afraid?"

"No."

Everyone is afraid at one time or another.His thoughts came into her head.What do you fear the most other than hot, wild sex with me?

She inhaled, drawing in a calming breath. It was unbelievable the way he twisted and turned everything back to sex.

He drew her back against him, and she remembered the first time she'd met him and they stood in the cemetery like this.

"You think all I want is sex?" he asked.

"Isn't it?"

His lips brushed her earlobe. "No."

"Then what else do you want from me?"

"Your trust. We don't have much time to understand how to destroy the ancient one. But I do need you to believe in me without question if we're going to accomplish that."

"How can I trust you? I barely know you. It doesn't matter that your friends have faith in you...you're not having sex with them." A wild, ridiculous impulse urged her to say, "Or are you?"

She felt him stiffen, his rhythmic massage coming to a halt. Instead his fingers trailed down her arms, then back to the collar of her coat. Without hesitation he unbuttoned the garment. Not with the quick flash he'd performed before, but with the methodical motion of a normal man without extraordinary abilities.

"I think it's getting hot in here." His voice rasped in her left ear this time as he drew her coat off her shoulders and down her arms. He tossed it in a corner. "Do you have fantasies about menage a trois?"

As his fingers slid down to her waist and lifted her thick, marled-wool sweater, shock slithered into her. His warm hands cupped her waist.

"I'm totally heterosexual," she said. "And I'm not interested in sex with another woman."

"More than one man?"

Amazed at the direction of their conversation, her senses a whirl and her composure cracked, she sputtered the next answer. "I haven't...no I haven't done that."

"Haven't done it or haven't fantasized about it?"

"Neither."

"But you do fantasize."

"I've been too busy and too tired to fantasize lately."

"Too bad. We'll have to do something about that."

He gathered her thick, long hair with one hand and then kissed the back of her neck.

Yearning centered deep in her stomach and moist heat gathered between her legs. Her body didn't seem to care that she didn't trust him. He turned her around and gathered her into his arms again, his hands sliding down to cup her ass. Once again those fascinating eyes radiated potent energy, a shimmering fire that commanded at the same time it compelled.

Still cautious, she said, "How long can you keep this elevator stopped?"

"As long as I need to."

"Uh-huh."

He sighed. "I hear the mistrust in your voice. You want to know everything about me?

We've got all night to talk and plan and discover."

She turned toward him, momentarily breaking his hold. "Who says I'm going to be with you all night?"

His cocky mouth turned up a little, a sardonic grin that ran across his lips, then vanished.

"If you're truthful with yourself, you know we don't have time to waste. This isn't about long-term negotiations. It's about now. About what we feel and what we have to do to save this town." He pulled back and looked down on her. "You can spend a lifetime denying your feelings for someone."

"Sexual feelings aren't necessarily emotional," she said in last defense.

"They can be."

She hadn't expected him to say that. Not this man with enough testosterone to make most males look like all-time wimps. With curiosity and trepidation she took a step in a direction she never thought she would. "Are you saying you want to have sex with me because you have feelings for me? Because if all you want is some woman to screw, I'm not the one."

New emotion gathered in his eyes, one akin to frustration. It almost overthrew the continual saturation of need in his gaze. "My coupling with a woman is never just screwing."

"So you're saying you've got to be emotionally involved to make love to her?" She knew she sounded skeptical, but she couldn't deny his statement seemed flawed. "Why don't I believe you?"

"You don't believe me because most of the men you've known can fuck a woman without caring for her. It's difficult for me to make love to a woman I don't have feelings for. It's always been that way."

She laughed softly. "Right. You've never made love to a woman without having feelings for her?"

"I didn't say that. I said it's very difficult for me."

A long pause settled between them, and she could tell he wouldn't be the first to speak.

"Is there another motivation driving you, Ronan?"

Surprise and admiration skittered across his face. "You could say that. Let's say for now that the ancient one took something from me long ago. Something precious and irreplaceable. I want revenge."

Unreasonable jealousy did a cartwheel through Clarissa, stunning her into silence.

Disconcerted, she couldn't believe the feeling was real. Circumstances and confusion must be a part of her envy. Being this man's center of attention did funny things to a woman. She couldn't be thinking straight.

"Was this something precious a woman?" she asked.

"Again, very perceptive."

Remembering the blonde she'd seen him cradling in her visions, she spoke without thinking. "Are you the type of man who would kill for love?"

Ronan's face hardened, all trace of desire disappearing. "If you're thinking what I think-"

"Did you kill the blonde woman because the ancient one wanted her?"

The fire in his eyes turned an interesting shade of crimson, adding to the darkness of his iris.

"The ancient one murdered her." His voice went rusty, and for one glimmer she saw moisture in his eyes along with overwhelming hurt. "He murdered the woman I loved with all my heart."