He laughed under his breath, carrying Kati into his study. He slammed the door behind him and put her down so that he could lock it.

She retreated to the fireplace, where a fire was crackling merrily, and glanced down at the bearskin rug. She quickly moved away, and Egan watched her as he took off his hat and coat, his eyes sparkling with amus.e.m.e.nt.

"It wasn't that bad, was it?" he asked, nodding toward the rug. "I thought you enjoyed what I did to you on that."

"Don't you have work to do?" she asked, moving behind his desk.

"Afraid of me, Kati?" he asked softly, moving toward her.

He looked devastating. All lean grace and muscle. His dark hair was mussed, and his eyes were sensual.

"Egan, let me go to New York," she said unsteadily, backing up until the wall stopped her.

He moved toward her relentlessly, until she was trapped between the hard wall and his taut body. He put his hands deliberately beside her head, the way he had in the kitchen that morning, and she trembled with the hunger to feel that hard body crushing down on hers.

"Now we talk," he said softly, watching the emotions play on her face. "You told me you loved me. How? Is it just a physical thing, or is it more?"

Her lips parted on a rush of breath and her body ached for him. He poised there, taunting her; and, involuntarily, she moved against the wall.

"Tell me," he whispered, "and I'll do what you want me to do."

She swallowed, so weak with love that she couldn't even protest that arrogance. "I love you in every way there is," she told him. "Every single way."

"I've got a nasty temper," he reminded her quietly. "I like my own way. And I've lived alone for a long time. It won't be easy. There are going to be times when you'll wish I hadn't carried you off that plane."

Her body felt like jelly as she looked up at him. "I love you," she whispered. "I love you!"

He eased down over her, letting her feel the full, devastating effect the words had on him, and he smiled at the mingled hunger and embarra.s.sment in her face.

"I'll want a son," he murmured, watching the effect of that soft statement. "Maybe three or four of them."

She smiled slowly, wonderingly. "I'd like that, too," she said, trembling as she realized what he was saying.

"No big wedding, though," he added under his breath as his body began to move slowly, sensuously, against hers. "Just the minister and some of the boys and Ada."

"Yes," she whispered, lifting her mouth, pleading for his.

"And if a word of what I'm about to do to you gets into print," he threatened with his mouth poised just above hers, "I'll chase you to Jackson with the truck."

"Yes, darling," she whispered back, standing on tiptoe to reach his open mouth with hers. "Egan, what are you going to do to me?"

"Come here and I'll tell you," he murmured on a soft laugh.

She felt his fingers taking away the sweater and opening the blouse, but she was too busy unb.u.t.toning his shirt to care. Seconds later, hard, hair-roughened muscle pressed against soft, bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s; and she moaned, lifting her arms around his neck as she moved hungrily under him.

"Not here," he groaned. He lifted her and carried her to the rug, easing her down onto it.

"You can't imagine," she managed shakily as he lifted himself over her trembling body, "how many books I've read this scene in."

"You can't imagine," he countered, "how different this is going to be from reading." His hands slid under her, lifting her to the hard pressure of his hips, and he watched her with glittering silver eyes as she cried out. "You see?" he whispered unsteadily. "Kati, I'm drowning in you. Drowning in the feel of you, the taste of you."

He bent, and she gave him her mouth totally, moving instinctively under the weight of his taut body, loving the heaviness and hunger that was crushing her in pleasure.

"Like this," he whispered, guiding, and she felt him in a new and shocking way, and her eyes flew open incredulously.

His face, above hers, was hard with desire, his eyes glittering with triumph as he saw her pleasure in her eyes. "Now," he breathed, and his hands went under her thighs. "Now, just do what I tell you."

She felt his mouth on hers through a fog of incredible hunger, and somewhere in the middle of it, she began to cry. It was the sweetest maelstrom in the world. She felt the rough silk of his skin under her hands, and she touched him in ways she'd never dreamed of touching a man. Her legs tangled with his while he taught her sensations that shocked and burned and stung with pleasure.

"Please, Egan," she whispered into his ear, gasping as he lifted her hips closer. "Please, please!"

"I want you just as much," he whispered back. "But we're not going all the way."

"Egan!" she groaned.

"Trust me, Kati," he whispered. "Give me your mouth, and lie still."

She did, and somewhere in the back of her mind she felt as if she were dying as his body stilled on hers and his mouth began to lose its obsession with hers. He stroked her and whispered to her, and she cried helplessly as the urgency began to recede, to calm into a pleasant exhaustion.

"You and I," he whispered, "are going to burn up when we make love for the first time. I've never felt in my life what I feel when you put your hands on me."

She smoothed his dark hair with fingers that still trembled, and nuzzled against the hair over his hard chest. "Will it be enough?"

His lips brushed over her closed eyelids. "Look at me, little virgin," he whispered. "I want to watch your eyes when I say it."

Her heavy eyelids lifted and she saw his eyes burn like sunlight.

"I love you, Kati," he whispered softly. "I loved you the night you came walking home with my cousin, and I was so eaten up with jealousy that I ate you alive. I've loved you every day since and fought it with everything in me."

Her lips parted but she couldn't speak. Oh, G.o.d, it was like having every dream of love she'd ever dreamed come true all at once!

"I thought you were having a fling," he said tightly. "Until the night we lay here together and you told me the truth. And I wanted to go through the floor, because I'd misread the whole situation, and I'd said things to you that still make me uneasy." He brushed the hair away from her cheeks and let his gaze drift down to her soft bareness. His jaw clenched and he dragged his eyes back up to hers, while his fingers stroked over skin no man had touched before. "Then you said you didn't want ties, and I realized that I did. I wanted my ring on your finger, for all time. But you were leaving. And I couldn't find the right words." He sighed heavily. "I was trying to, when you told me you loved me."

"I thought I'd embarra.s.sed you," she said softly.

"You'd given me the moon, Kati," he replied, watching her. "The moon, the sun, the stars-I was speechless, just savoring the feel of it, the sound. And then Al called, and you got away. I'd have gone down on my knees to you...!"

"Egan," she breathed, drawing him close with possessive arms, clinging pa.s.sionately to him. "Egan, it tore me apart to go! But I was afraid you'd pity me."

"I pitied myself for being so d.a.m.ned stupid-for ever letting you out of my sight. It will be the last time, too. As soon as I get a license, we're getting married. Tomorrow, if possible."

"But, I don't have a dress!"

"Get married in blue jeans, for all I care," he told her. "I just want to give you my name. My heart. My life."

Her eyes closed on a wave of pleasure. Tears welled up in them, at the magnificence of loving and being loved in return. She shuddered.

"Cold?" he whispered, concerned. "I'd forgotten how little we have on."

She did blush then, as he handed her her blouse and bra and watched her struggle to rearrange her jeans.

"Don't stare," she pleaded.

"I can't help it. You're so lovely," he said with a grin. He propped himself on an elbow, devastating without his shirt. "I guess we'll have to have at least one daughter to look like you." He caught her hand when she finished b.u.t.toning b.u.t.tons and clasped it warmly to his hard, furry chest. "Can you live here with me and not miss the excitement of the city?"

"My darling," she said softly, "I carry my excitement around in my imagination, and I can work on the roof if I have to. There's a post office in Jackson. I have you to keep me warm and love me. What else do I need?"

He smiled slowly. "A good supply of s.e.xy nightgowns," he murmured.

"Now, in that last book I wrote," she whispered, easing down beside him, "the heroine had this very modest white gown..."

"Which the hero ripped off on page fifty-six," he chuckled softly. "Yes, I know, but I like that scene in the bathtub. So, suppose tomorrow night you and I try it out?"

"I thought you were afraid of my research turning up in books," she laughed.

"Not since I've been reading them," he replied. "Anyway, they're giving me some good ideas."

She lifted her arms around his neck and pulled him down. "Suppose we just work on this bearskin-rug scene a little more?" she whispered at his lips. "I don't think I've got it the way I want it just yet."

"After we're married," he whispered back, his voice husky with emotion as he stared into her eyes, "we'll lie here together and go all the way. I'll let you feel this rug under you while I lie over you and-"

"Egan," she groaned, trembling, hiding her face.

He laughed softly as he pressed her back into it. "I can see that having a virgin for a wife is going to be educational," he mused.

"It's sort of the other way around right now, though," she reminded him. "You're the one doing the teaching."

"So I am." He rubbed his nose against hers. "And I'll tell you a secret, city girl. It's a h.e.l.l of a lot more fun than fighting."

She smiled. Indeed it was, she thought as his lips nuzzled against hers. She caressed his back lovingly, and she wondered if Ada was going to be surprised when they called her. Somehow, she didn't think so. She reached up and pulled Egan's head down to hers. Outside, the snow began to fall softly, again.

end.