He firmly brought her back.

"I-I'm-" He never let her complete the sentence. Entwining his legs with hers, his large hands cupping her head, lacing through her curls, he held her still for his voracious, heart-stopping kisses. She dissolved totally, melting into his embrace.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Tyber knew that a fever had him in its grip. Uncharacteristic or not, he had no intention of pulling free.

When he rolled the rosy turgid peak of her breast along the edge of his teeth, the choking sound issuing from low in her throat sizzled him.

When he drew the edge of her breast deep into his wet mouth and Zanita began to whimper, his body temperature soared.

Her little cries of passion made his rushing blood burn. His only coherent thought was-more.

Tyber's hands slid under her back, raising her to him, as he dropped his head between her full breasts to rub his face roughly against her skin, deeply inhaling her womanly scent. He was lost... lost.

Tyber's uninhibited sensuousness took Zanita's breath away.

He ignited her.

Zanita pressed her lips to his steaming throat, right over a throbbing vein. She could feel his pulse, his life force, beating strong beneath her mouth. Tyber turned his head to the side to give her better access; his ragged breath skittered across the top of her head as her mouth drew insistently on him. In response, his muscular arms fastened securely around her slim waist, an imprisoning web of masculine strength, as soft as silk, as strong as steel.

Each entangled the other. They clung together in passion like interwoven vines.

Zanita ran her kiss-swollen lips up the strong column of his throat, now craving him like her personal designer drug. She stopped to tug sharply on his earlobe, then ran the small point of her tongue around the rim of his ear, darting the tip just inside.

His quick intake of breath and slight tremor inflamed her.

Losing all reserve, her actions unconsciously mimicked his as she buried her face in his long, fragrant hair, breathing deeply of its clean masculine scent before writhing against him like a cat in heat.

Tyber went wild.

He rolled on top of her, pinning her beneath him. His mouth crashed down on hers, a searing brand of possession. His fingers laced with hers, pinning her to the cushion beneath them as he imprisoned her hands in a classic stance of male sexual domination. This enlightened Renaissance man had just shed his cloak of refinement; he became untamed, insatiable, and definitely ready for love.

He entered her in one sure stroke to the hilt.

They both cried out.

She wrapped her legs tightly around him. He wrapped his arms tightly around her. Then Tyber fused his mouth to hers and moved in her. And moved in her. And moved in her.

She felt the first tremors, not quite sure what was happening. She begged him to stop; Tyber ignored her.

He was relentless.

She began sobbing. She threatened him if he stopped. For the first time in her life, she lost her inhibitions; she screamed and hollered and had one hell of a time. When the exploding spasms rocked her, they were so intense, she took him with her right over the edge.

Tyber groaned from the depths of his soul and had the most powerful orgasm he had ever had in his life. Collapsing on top of her, he nestled his head in her shoulder, too shaken to move a muscle.

Zanita came down to earth, blinked her eyes at the moon, and grinned like the Cheshire cat against the sweat-slicked skin of Tyber's throat.

Good Lord... He had done it!

She had been well and truly befuddled.

After several minutes, Tyber raised his head, tossing back his mane of hair.

He had figured it out.

The knowledge that he wanted this woman now, again, tomorrow, became crystal clear to him. She had responded to him as she had to no other man, he was sure of that. His arms tightened around her as he bent forward to give her a sweet, lingering kiss.

His fingers massaged her scalp as he gazed thoughtfully into her eyes. "I'm the first one to make you feel that way."

"How did you know?" She seemed surprised at his level of perception.

Tyber raised a lordly eyebrow. "Well, let me think... I could say it's intuition or even my great psychic ability, but perhaps it was all the yelling-'Oh my God what's happening please don't stop you're killing me.' Yes, I definitely think-" She punched his shoulder.

He chuckled, planting a quick kiss on the tip of her chin.

"You're very proud of yourself, aren't you?"

"Mmm." His mouth trailed down to her collarbone where he lingered in possessive male afterplay.

"I'm thinking I really shouldn't have added to your arrogance level, Doc."

"The decision was, shall we say, taken out of your hands. Besides"-he nipped her chin-"I don't have an arrogance level."

"Ha! Oh, Tyber, don't do that..." She sucked in her breath as his open mouth drew strongly on her neck. She shivered.

He stopped to look at her. "Are you getting cold?"

Not hardly. But she nodded, discretion being the better part of valor. Now that she wasn't under the influence of her raging hormones, she was beginning to get slightly embarrassed. They were lying naked, outside in a lounge chair under the light of the full moon. True, the blanket covered them, but what if Blooey should decide to take a midnight stroll in the backyard?

More worrisome, she had never hopped into bed so fast with anyone in her life. She had known Steve for two years before taking the plunge, and Rick-even with that aberration, she had been dating him for several months. What was she to make of this? How was she supposed to behave? They weren't involved, yet she had been more intimate with Tyber than she had been with anyone in her life. He had seen her totally out of control.

She massaged the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. No, he had caused her to become totally out of control.

Tyber took command like a regular blood-and-guts general.

The man was dangerous. Positively lethal. Who knew what responses he could coax from her when she least expected it? She had absolutely no intentions of becoming involved again. At least not for the next millennium.

Tyber rolled off her, reaching down for his jeans. Suddenly shy, Zanita wrapped the blanket around her as she searched for her clothes. As soon as she had dressed, she tried to think of a graceful way to make a quick getaway. She needed some time to dwell on her wanton behavior. Looking and drooling was one thing. Touching and groping quite another.

"Look, Tyber, I'd better be going now. Thank you for inviting me, and good luck in your research-"

Tyber watched her knowingly as he pulled his jeans over his lean hips and zipped them up. She wasn't even looking at him when she spoke! He placed himself directly in front of her, removing that option.

"Oh, no you don't, Ms. Masterson. How many times do I have to tell you I won't let you run away? We just shared something, and I'm not just talking about the sex." He ran a hand through his hair as a vision of them entwined in a passionate embrace played in his mind. "Though it was incredible, wasn't it?"

Her chin came up defiantly. "I'm not running away. I'm leaving. There is a difference."

"No. You're not."

She sighed. "Tyber, I don't know what-this was." Her hand indicated the now vacant chaise with its rumpled blanket. "I don't know how I'm supposed to act in a situation like this-stop right where you are!" He had started to move closer to her. The last thing she needed right now was him befuddling her with his touch.

"Zanita..."

She would have to elaborate, so he would get the picture. For a genius, he could be awfully thick-headed. Surely he should have been able to figure out that a woman of her advanced years would have had enough encounters with his sex to swear off men entirely!

"I've had one and a half relationships in my life and-"

Tyber didn't hear the rest of her words; he was still stuck on the first part of her statement. "A half of a relationship? What the hell is that?"

She flushed. "I don't wish to discuss it."

He was looking at her as if she were some odd specimen he had just discovered under his microscope. Make that telescope, she amended. "And you can take that look off your face right now!"

"What look?" He still was viewing her strangely.

"You know what look! I am no different than anybody else-there is no need for you to peer at me like that."

He took a deep breath. "Zanita, you are so far removed from any other person I have ever met that the comparison defies description. Believe me, sweetheart, putting your name and the norm together is a contradiction in terms."

"And who are you to judge?" She tapped her foot, swinging her arm in an arc to encompass his bizarre home. "Need I say more?"

He narrowed his eyes. "So I'm eccentric."

"Eccentric!" She scoffed. "You, Tyberius Augustus Evans"-her index finger poked his chest-"are a kook!"

Tyber's mouth lifted at the corners. "A kook?" He placed his hands over his heart. "Zany, you wound me."

"That's Zani with an i."

A dimple popped into his cheek, and she was locked into a spontaneous embrace. "However can you tell?" he whispered laughingly while nuzzling her hair.

She looked up at him with a wounded expression. "It's the way you say it. I just know." His fingers idly toyed with the tiny curls at the base of her neck while he observed her earnest little face. He felt his heart jump.

"Zanita, I adore you." His lips pressed warmly against her forehead. "Stay with me tonight."

Stay with him? He adored her? She gazed at him in shock. Did that mean he wanted them to have a relationship or... Another horrible thought occurred to her.

"Tyber, you-did you use protection? You have to be so careful these days and-" Her hands covered her face. "Oh, God, what have I done?"

"Don't worry about it, baby; I took care of it."

Before she could think of an appropriate response to that, Tyber lifted her in his arms and carried her into the house. He didn't put her down until she was gently deposited in the center of his bed.

Which happened to be a giant oyster shell.

Zanita blinked up at him, nonplussed at his presumption. No other man of her acquaintance would have dreamed of acting so assertively. Then again, no other man of her acquaintance could have brought her so completely to satisfaction. Nonetheless, she was not about to let the man haul her around without her express consent. In triplicate.

She glared up at him. "Excuse me, I must have missed something. When did we leap back two centuries?" Tyber looked up at the ceiling as if he were seriously thinking about her question.

"Can't do that. At least according to Einstein. However, a wormhole-"

"Stop that doublespeak right now! You didn't even give me a chance to answer you!"

Tyber shrugged. "It was not a question."

"Tyber!"

He grinned down at her. "Technically speaking," he amended to sooth her ruffled feathers.

She threw him a pointed look and sat up. It appeared that she was in the middle of another one of Tyber's flights of fancy. Three walls were floor-to-ceiling aquariums. The fourth wall contained two doors which presumably led to a bathroom and dressing room.

"I'll admit the aquariums are relaxing, but an oyster shell bed?" Her eyes traveled above her, where the top half of the open shell loomed over her head. There were recessed colored lights embedded in it.

Tyber picked up a control box on a driftwood table beside the bed. He pressed a button and the lights dimmed romantically.

"What if you want to read in bed?" she asked sarcastically, still miffed at his overbearing behavior. Men! Boil them in oil! He pressed another button, and two bright reading lights came on, spotlighting her. "Now I feel like the Little Mermaid."

He snapped the reading lights off, leaving the soft pastel lights on. "You do look like a little pearl in there." She stuck her tongue out at him. He wagged his finger at her. "Obviously not a cultured pearl."

"People who live in glass aquariums shouldn't throw insults. You have a television in your bedroom. Talk about cultured..."

"Which reminds me, we missed The Curse Of The Mummy's Finger. I wonder how we could have forgotten?" He gave her a very male look.

"I wonder." She couldn't help it; her mouth curved in response. He was such an incredibly sexy man. And very sweet.

Despite his godawful arrogance.

To be fair, she supposed that just being Tyberius Augustus Evans came with an arrogance factor. There was no one quite like him. The world knew it. And he probably knew it. She really did want to stay with him a little longer. So what could one night hurt?

Tyber sat on the edge of the bed. "Does that alluring little smile mean you are going to spend the night with me?"

"Is that a question?" He picked up her hand and brought it to his lips.

"Yes, Zanita mine, that is a question. Please stay; I want you to. How's that for humility?"

"I don't know. Somehow the Uriah Heap routine doesn't suit you. And, yes; I'll stay, but just for this one night. I've given up men."

Tyber raised an eyebrow. "You mean as in, I've given up red meat?"

"Something like that."

"Dare I enquire why?" She tugged her hand away.

"No, you may not."

"I see. So tonight you're going off the wagon, so to speak? I don't know that I like being compared to a behavioral slump." He walked his fingers up her arm.

"Be serious, Tyber. There's no insult intended. Consider it more like an... aberration."