"That we're single adults with high standards who got very, very lucky." He brushed a kiss over her eyebrows. "It's all right, Hannah. Mom and Dad aren't in the business of pa.s.sing judgment. If it really bothers you, though, I'll put you in Lawe's or Justin's room. I don't think they're corning back here soon."

The thought of sleeping without Archer's muscular warmth curling around her didn't appeal. She didn't know how much longer she had with him. Once they found the Black Trinity, they would go their separate ways. Then she would regret each minute she hadn't spent with him, exploring their mutual, unexpected pa.s.sion.

"I want to stay with you," she said. "It's just... old habits."

"Good habits. Contrary to modern urban myth, there's no such thing as safe s.e.x. For people like us, s.e.x comes two ways dangerous and more dangerous."

She didn't like the sound of that. "What do you mean?"

"There's no condom you can wear to protect your emotions." Very gently he kissed the frown lines between her eyes. "Go to bed, love."

"What about you?"

"You showered on the plane. I didn't."

"But..." Her voice faded when she looked at him. He no longer held himself as though he was ready to fight or flee on an instant's notice. He was tired. She could see it in his eyes, in the lines of his body. Despite that, he looked years younger. The wary, unwavering calculation was gone.

"But?" he asked.

She kissed him gently and put desire on hold. "Ask me in the morning."

When he understood, his body changed in the s.p.a.ce of a few heartbeats. He pulled her closer and opened her mouth with a twist of his head, sinking into her with a heady, slow luxury. A taste of brandy, a wisp of mint, and a swirl of something much hotter, more ancient.

Dangerous.

"You're tired," she said.

"Dead on my feet. Take me to bed."

"You don't have to."

"You'd rather I sleep on my feet?"

Her smile curved against his lips. "You know what I mean."

"Nope." His tongue dipped, tasted, savored. "What do you mean?"

"It can wait until morning."

"It?"

"s.e.x," she muttered, embarra.s.sed. She and Len had never talked about it. They had just done it.

"s.e.x can wait until h.e.l.l freezes over," Archer said calmly.

She gave him a startled look. The heat and laughter and confidence in his eyes made her feel as though she was being licked all over by tongues of fire.

"Making love, now, that's different," he said. "That can't wait a minute longer."

Her smile disappeared in a kiss that was both restrained and urgent. When it ended, she was naked on the bed and his tongue was sliding over her, lingering in all the tender places, the hidden places, the secret places where scent and mystery fused into heat. His hands caressed even as his mouth tasted, hovered, tasted again, before slowly, slowly sinking into her, unraveling her in a loving that was both tender and starkly intimate.

Her breath stopped and her heart speeded as her climax uncoiled in a luxuriant whip of pleasure that arched her whole body. Seeing her lover's dark hair against her skin as he turned and bit her with exquisite care sent another slow lash of ecstasy through her, another unraveling so beautiful that she couldn't breathe. Yet somehow she said his name.

He looked up, saw the hazy indigo of her eyes, and smoothed his cheek against the sultry flesh he could still taste on his tongue. When he felt the ripple begin again, the sweet slow clenching of her body, he could wait no longer.

His name came in fragments from her lips when he entered her with a single, prolonged movement of his hips. The ravishing whip uncurled again, taking her, giving her to him. He took the gift and gave himself in turn, moving slowly, kissing her tenderly. Despite the urgency building with every leisurely stroke, he savored each moment, memorizing the scent and taste of her shimmering and crying, burning beneath him.

And then he was burning with her, pulsing in light-shot darkness, spending himself until he had no more to give, no more air to breathe, no more body to feel, nothing but her arms holding him to tell him that he was still alive.

It was a long time before he found enough strength to roll aside. Even then he didn't leave her body. He simply gathered her closer and held her against him as he turned over. She made a murmurous sound, burrowed into his neck, and took a ragged breath as the silvery aftershocks of ecstasy rippled through her again.

"You were supposed to be tired," she said huskily.

"I was. Next time you get to do all the work."

She smiled against his neck. "You'll have to tell me how. In great detail."

The thought of it made his heartbeat quicken. He laughed softly. He had never been like this with any woman. The sensual revelation was as surprising to him as anything that had ever happened in his life. He nuzzled her ear, bit delicately, and said, "If this keeps up, you're going to be pregnant for sure."

More than half asleep, she snuggled against him and said the first thing that came to her mind. "I hope so."

Relief and something very close to joy swept through him. He held her even closer, wondering if many people were ever lucky enough to know they held the world in their arms. "Good. I'll make the arrangements tomorrow. We'll be married as soon as "

"Married." Hannah struggled upright and stared down at Archer as though he had grown two heads. "Who said anything about marriage?"

"We did. When we agreed to make a baby."

"No." She pushed away from him and sat on the edge of the bed. "I didn't say anything like that."

"If you're pregnant "

"I'll sell my half of Pearl Cove," she cut in, "buy a house, and make my living color-matching pearls for the other farmers. It would be a good, stable job, and it would give me plenty of time to raise my child."

"Your child?" Archer's question was as cold as the chill he felt inside and out, everywhere that he had been warm from her. "What about me?"

Angry, frightened, feeling cornered by life and wanting to lash out in all directions, she combed trembling fingers through her hair. She didn't want to talk about this, any of it. She just wanted to go on as they had, suffused in pa.s.sion, not asking about tomorrow because they both knew there wasn't any tomorrow.

Not for them.

"d.a.m.n it, Archer. What are you complaining about? s.e.x with no strings attached? Most men would be dancing a jig." s.e.x with no strings attached.

He closed his eyes and tried to accept the fact that the woman he could have loved all the way to his soul felt nothing more than l.u.s.t for him. "I'm not most men."

"I know. That's why I can't marry you." Rage chased in the wake of pain, caught it, raced neck and neck in a headlong run toward destruction. Archer let the pain sear through him, but he fought the anger savagely. At a level too deep for words, he knew if he slipped the leash on rage, he would regret it even more than he regretted leaving Hannah to Len's mercy ten years ago.

"Why can't you marry me?" he asked evenly. "Explain it to me, Hannah."

She looked at him. Her breath caught at the drawn lines of his face, as though he had his hand in fire and was fighting not to show pain. Yet it was there. Agony. Stark and real.

Something terrifyingly like his agony sliced through her to her soul.

Then he opened his eyes. They were the color of steel. They belonged to a man who knew no mercy.

"Look in the mirror," she whispered. "You'll see why."

"Tell me."

"You're like Len!" Her breath broke on a sob. "d.a.m.n you, you're like Len! Great smile, great body, and underneath it all, as cold a b.a.s.t.a.r.d as ever walked the earth. That kind of ruthlessness makes love impossible. It makes everything impossible, even the most simple affection." She took a tearing breath. Tears blocked her view of Archer, but it didn't matter because all she could see was the past. "I was pregnant once. When I miscarried, I wanted to die. I almost got my wish. Later, much later, I went down on my knees and thanked G.o.d that I didn't have a child to raise in Len's cold shadow. I'll never expose my child to that kind of ruthlessness. Never."

Once, years ago, Archer had been beaten to the point that it was agony to breathe, to move, even to blink his eyes. He felt that way now. "I would never hurt any child, much less my own."

She just shook her head. "You don't understand. You can't. Like Len. He didn't get up each morning and decide to be the way he was. He just... was."

Silence stretched, stretched, thinned. Snapped.

"Let's see if I understand," Archer said, his voice low and flat. "Marriage is out because you don't trust me and you don't like me, but you don't mind having s.e.x with me."

She gave a broken laugh and wiped her eyes. "I trust you. That's why I called you. I know you won't kill me."

"You trust me with your body, but not your emotions, your future, and your children, is that it?"

The blunt words made her flinch, yet she didn't argue. "I like you. I didn't want to, but I do. And the the s.e.x is good." She shivered. "Very, very good. Can't that be enough?"

It had been enough for Archer in the past, with other women. It wasn't nearly enough now.

"s.e.x and protection, that's all you want from me?" he asked, driven to be certain.

Again his blunt words sc.r.a.ped over her emotions, touching raw spots she didn't even know she had. "Yes." Her voice was bleak. "That's all."

Archer looked at Hannah's bruised eyes and trembling lips, at her chin tilted up and her shoulders squared. He remembered the girl who had stood on a street corner in Rio de Janeiro with empty pockets and a raw determination to survive. With a distant sense of surprise he realized that he had fallen in love with Hannah then: her courage and her fear, her despair and her hope, the life that burned so incandescently within her, giving her a beauty no other woman had ever equaled in his eyes.

Nothing had changed in ten years.

Nothing would change.

He would never have the woman he loved.

The mattress. .h.i.tched suddenly as Archer got up and began dressing. "If you're pregnant, I will support you and my child."

"No, I-"

"The child will know his or her cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents," he continued relentlessly, zipping up his pants with a quick jerk. "Most of all, the child will know me." He b.u.t.toned his shirt with quick flicks of his fingers. "If that upsets you, I regret it, but it's not negotiable. If you wanted a child without complications, you should have gone to a sperm bank."

"But I-"

"See that intercom?" he cut in, pointing to a lighted panel on the wall by the bed.

She nodded.

"If you want protection or s.e.x, punch number six."

Seventeen.

Ian Chang shut off his car engine and got out while the red dust was still boiling up toward the gunmetal sky. As he strode over the walkway to the verandah, he ran through all the points his father wanted him to cover with Hannah McGarry who was buying what, who was selling what, and the gradations of threat to apply at each point in the negotiation.

Sam Chang wanted Pearl Cove, even if it meant partnership with Donald Donovan's Number One Son.

Unfortunately Hannah had refused to answer her phone or return messages left on her answering machine, which meant that Ian Chang had been forced to make the boring drive from Broome just to talk to her. Irritated, he knocked hard enough to rattle the verandah door on its hinges. The thunderous sound startled a flock of c.o.c.katoos. They took off in a swirling, darting, shrieking cloud of white.

It was the only response Chang's knock got.

"Hannah, it's Ian," he said loudly. "Let me in."

No one answered. It was the same for the back door. Nothing but silence and the muted echo of his fist thumping on the door. Cursing in a sizzling mix of Cantonese and English, Chang lit a cigarette and headed for the scattering of cottages where the workers lived.

Coco waited on the front porch of the third cottage, leaning languidly against the wall. She had been leaning there since she saw Chang's car roar up to the McGarry house. She could have saved him the trip down to the cottages, just as she could have saved him the trip to Pearl Cove by returning the messages she had listened to in the middle of the night, when no one would notice her inside the McGarry house.

But Coco wasn't in a mood to save anyone trouble. She was in a mood to cause it. Especially with Ian Chang, who had forgotten their date a few nights ago. She wasn't used to a man forgetting her. Just as she wasn't used to a man looking past her to Len McGarry's pale, s.e.xless wife. The memory still stung.

"Is Hannah diving again?" Chang demanded in English without so much as a greeting.

"No."

"Is she in what's left of the sheds?"

"No."

"Then where the h.e.l.l is she?" He drew in smoke and sent it out again in a rush of silver.

Coco shrugged, but her black eyes gleamed with cold amus.e.m.e.nt. She liked seeing Chang upset. "She gone."

"What do you mean, she's gone?"

The angry demand in his voice was like wine to Coco. She had his full attention now. "Just that. Gone. Fffft."

"Where?" he snarled. "Did Christian get her?"

Laughter that was both soft and hard curled out of Coco. "No, it is Donovan."

Uneasiness cooled Chang's anger. He took another pull on the cigarette, swallowed smoke, and let his temper damp down. "She's with Donovan?"