He found them without a problem - no surprise, given how well-organized the double-wide garage was.He looked around for another tool he could use in place of a rake, but didn't find anything. Oh well, he had his hands.

Not a good choice, he learned a few minutes later when he discovered just how soggy and nasty these leaves were. He'd survived much worse in his life, though, so didn't let it deter him.

Neal appeared next to him a while later, saying, "Let me help finish this up. I've got some coffee in the car that we can share after." They dragged the leaves into the garage and Neal muttered, "I'll have to remember to come by and put these out Thursday."

"Thursday?" When Neal nodded, Bill said, "I'll do it. Where do they go?"

Neal pointed to the intersection of this cul-de-sac and the dead-end street through the neighborhood.

"Along the curb on this side of the street. You're sure you don't mind?"

He shrugged. "Nah. I probably live closer than you." Plus, maybe he could talk Nik into starting the weekend early. Now that he wasn't working, he noticed the chill of the early-fall morning. "You said something about coffee?"

"Yeah, come on." Neal led the way to the almost-new SUV parked next to Bill's car and hit a b.u.t.ton on his key ring to unlock all the doors. They climbed in and Neal picked up a thermos and a car mug from between the seats. "You'll have to drink out of this." He poured coffee into the top of the thermos and handed it to Bill, then filled his own mug.

"Thanks." Bill took a long warming gulp as he glanced around the plush interior of the car. "I guess you went along with your old man and took up engineering." He'd be what now? Twenty-three?

Neal barked a laugh. "Hardly. I went to art school - I paint." After a brief pause, his eyes rolled and he said, "Oh, you're looking at the car and thinking I've got money. Not a penny, and it's not my car."

Bill was lost. "It's not?"

He shook his head. "Nope. I see Nik hasn't told you - I'm the family disgrace. Not only did I waste my perfectly-good brain on art school, but to feed and clothe myself until my career takes off, I'm the kept man of an older woman." His tone of voice was breezy, like the whole thing was hilarious. The defensive undertone was one that Bill was intimately familiar with, however. The accept-me-or-screw-you att.i.tude he'd perfected as a kid.

There was no reason for Bill not to accept Neal's choice of lifestyle, so he said, "To each his own. You appear to be compensated pretty well."

Neal grinned and relaxed back into his seat. "Oh, this is just gravy. Marian's a great lady and she's got this dynamite house on top of a mountain. My studio's got a view of Mt St Helens and Mt Adams, and I'm meeting all the important people in the art world in the Northwest. Plus, it's only twenty-five minutes from Nik, in case she needs something." That stopped his exuberance dead.

"Does that happen often?" The coffee in his stomach burned like acid.

Neal shook his head and stared at the dashboard. "Not much, not since she got her fibro under control.

But I get nervous if she doesn't call every few days, and I'm always trying to think ahead and figure out what I can do to make things easier for her. Like the yard work, and stocking up on stuff so she doesn't have to drag so much home from the store."

"She's lucky to have you," he finally said. That was much more sensible than the first thing he thought ofsaying.

There was no way he was going to volunteer to take over Neal's watchdog duties.

Nik lay in bed, hoping she hadn't made a big mistake. Bill was pretty definitely here until tomorrow morning, and he really didn't seem like the you-go-your-way-and-I'll-go-mine kind of guy. He didn't think they were going to spend the whole day in bed, did he? Even just joined-at-the-hip like she and Allen had been wouldn't work for her.

But when she opened her eyes and looked around, he wasn't there. It looked like he'd taken some clothes out of his bag, too, so maybe she didn't need to worry. Maybe he'd gone off to do something and would be back later.

She'd take advantage of his absence by doing some simple stretching exercises before her shower. She knew from experience that first thing in the morning wasn't a good time for a serious exercise session, since she woke up so stiff. A little stretching now would improve her flexibility all day, though.

She felt surprisingly good this morning, probably due to some sound sleep toward morning. And that, she strongly suspected, was related to all the delicious things Bill had done to her body throughout the course of the night. She'd have to be careful not to admit that to Bill, though, or he'd think he should stay over every night.

When she finished her shower and went back into the bedroom to get dressed, Bill was there, half-undressed and obviously sweaty. He leered at her. "I hope you appreciate the restraint it took not to jump into the shower with you."

The idea made her pulse pound in places she hadn't known had a pulse. "You're not usually that restrained."

He shrugged lazily, but his eyes were glued to her face. "I wasn't sure if you'd be up to it." As though that might be too revealing, he hurried to add, "Besides, I didn't want us to run out of hot water in the middle.

That's no fun."

She kept her eyes locked with his. "That was thoughtful of you." She unwrapped the towel from around her torso and dropped it on the floor. "Maybe you can show me what you had in mind."

The rest of his clothes disappeared. "Now? I'm all dirty and sweaty."

As if she cared. "Now." She nodded and took one step toward him.

She didn't need to take any more.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

Bill was no stranger to multi-night sleep-overs, and he'd worked out a system for maximizing the opportunity to make love and minimizing the wasted time in between. He stuck around as long as things were s.e.xy and playful. The minute they started veering toward the emotional or the just plain boring, he remembered an errand he needed to run or something he really had to get done at work. That let him escape for a few hours of blessed freedom. He usually gave the woman a call once in a while to make her think that he was missing her. By the time he saw her again, the chemistry was strong enough to carry them through the next night without difficulties. But all that was based on him feeling caged and desperate. With Nik that didn't happen, for the simple reason that Nik insisted on spending part of the day alone. The third bedroom in her place was set up as an in-home gym, with a desk and filing cabinet added for paying bills. She retreated there before he was out of the shower on Sat.u.r.day morning, and spent another hour or more there in the afternoon.

He didn't waste his time while she was in there. In the morning, he bought the ingredients for the pasta primavera he'd planned for dinner, and in the afternoon, he went to the athletic club for a workout.

So maybe they'd spent enough time apart that there was no need for feeling caged. Or maybe it was Nik's att.i.tude about their relationship. She wasn't like so many of the women he knew, who kept trying to manufacture an emotional tie between them that just wasn't there.

He wasn't like a lot of guys who claim to love a woman simply because it's a convenient path to intimacy.

Almost every woman he went out with knew his reputation up-front. He was a great guy to have fun with and to have super s.e.x with, but that was it. He never got involved beyond the physical, and his interest never lasted long. Yet women couldn't accept that. Each was determined that she would be the exception. She would be the one Bill couldn't get enough of.

Not a chance! He had his reasons for being the way he was, and he liked his life just fine. Why tie himself to one woman for decades when he could have a different one every week or two?

Nik didn't have any illusions about where they were headed, and she seemed perfectly okay about it. In fact, he got the idea that she'd resist any attempt to turn their relationship into something longer-term. He was astonished at how much more relaxed and comfortable that made spending time with her.

That had to be the only reason Sunday morning came all too quickly for his tastes, and why he was eagerly antic.i.p.ating next weekend before he even kissed her goodbye.

What other reason could there be?

Nik took it easy on Sunday. She exercised mentally as well as physically, of course, but the rest of time, she relaxed. She read the Sunday paper, watched a little TV, and lost herself in a book by a favorite author that she'd been saving for weeks.

She didn't even cook. There were enough leftovers from last night's pasta primavera to feed her for a couple of nights, and she'd eat big salads the rest of the week. Maybe if she did that, she'd feel confident enough about her health to suggest going out to dinner on Sat.u.r.day.

a.s.suming Sat.u.r.day found Bill at her place again. He'd seemed perfectly content with her this weekend - and very much interested - but that could change at any moment. A new woman might catch his eye, or he might decide that her restrictions were too limiting.

She had to wonder, though. If Bill had been with another woman this weekend, would they have had s.e.x any more frequently? Or in any more varied positions? She supposed it was possible, though beyond the realm of her experience or imagination.

This whole line of thinking was pointless. Proving to herself that Bill wasn't missing anything by being with her wouldn't make him feel that way, and he was the one who'd eventually look elsewhere.

Her job was to enjoy every minute she had with him, and to not let herself get so hung up on him that she couldn't stand to lose him. **

Bill was careful not to mention the leaves all week, not even when he called Nik on Monday night. He hadn't seen her all day, and after the way she'd reacted to spending time with him a week ago, he needed to make sure she was all right.

She said she was fine, and her voice sounded normal, so he believed her. He saw her Tuesday at a meeting, and she seemed perfectly okay then, too. He didn't see her again Wednesday at work, but decided not to call. She might get the idea that he spent all his time thinking about her.

It would have been natural to tell her about the leaves on Sat.u.r.day, right after he'd promised Neal to put them out on Thursday night. He hadn't done it, though, thinking she might tell him not to bother, that she'd put the leaves out herself. Somehow, he just knew that she wouldn't like him helping her.

Instead, he simply showed up on Thursday, about the time he expected her to be done with dinner. She was wearing that form-fitting leotard again, and was shocked to see him. "It's only Thursday!"

"I know," he said, with what he hoped was a winning smile. "That's why I'm here, actually. When I helped Neal with the leaves last weekend, he said they needed to be put out on Thursday, and I told him I'd do it."

The smile didn't do the trick. She blew her breath out and shook her head. "I put them out when I got home. And here I thought Neal was finally giving me some credit for being able to take care of myself.

Instead, he's got you nursemaiding me, too."

"That's not it!" he protested, although he couldn't say how reality was measurably different from her accusation. "He just said he'd come and do it tonight, and I said I lived closer."

"Of course, neither of you even considered suggesting that I do it." Her glare made it clear she was seriously annoyed. "They're my leaves, after all."

"But they're bulky, and they go way out there." He gestured blindly behind him.

"I know where they go," she said in a crisp voice that cut through him. "I put them there."

"But you're sick." He knew even before she reacted that he shouldn't have used that argument.

Her voice became even sharper. "I have a chronic disease, Bill. As I've already explained, I could give up living because of it, but I choose not to. I choose to live my life as normally as I possibly can, and that includes putting out my own dead leaves. Neal understands better than anyone else how this disease affects me, but he has a problem with being overprotective. I accept that because he's my brother, and in some ways, I'm overprotective of him. But you are not my brother, you are my lover. I will not tolerate you treating me like an invalid."

Before he could begin to imagine how to dig himself out of the hole he was in, she shut the door firmly in his face and snapped the deadbolt into place.

Nik might have overreacted a little the night before. Bill probably hadn't known how much she hated Neal doing things for her that she could do herself. She ought to explain why she felt that way.

She couldn't really do that at work, but she could be nice and let him know she wasn't still mad. So, when it came time for Seth's Friday afternoon staff meeting, she got there a few minutes early and tookthe seat next to where Bill had sat the last two weeks. This was only her third staff meeting, so she wasn't sure if he always sat there, but the chances of that were pretty good.

He came in with several other people, including Scott. She smiled at the group, and Scott and one of the other managers greeted her, but Bill didn't even seem to notice. He plunked into a seat on the same side of the table as her, but nearly all the way at the other end, and started talking to someone at his end of the table.

Well, she guessed that was clear enough. He was mad at her. He was probably also through with her, so she might as well get used to being alone again. She'd known it would happen sooner or later.

Maybe so, but reminding herself of that did nothing to take away the sting of rejection. She struggled to keep on top of the meeting agenda, and to give sensible answers when they discussed a.s.signing some of her support engineers temporarily to a pre-beta testing blitz. Bill gave a short update on the developers'

progress toward code freeze, and she spent much too much energy trying to decipher his tone of voice and much too little on the content of his report. She learned nothing from the former, and only prayed that she didn't miss anything important in the latter.

The meeting ran long enough that she only had time for a quick check of her email before leaving for the weekend. She almost stayed late to revise the phone duty schedule in light of the testing blitz that would start sometime next week. She needed to know exactly when it would start before she did that, though.

Besides, she was just postponing the inevitable - going home and having Bill not show up.

Except he did show up. He walked into her garage right after she parked there, carrying the same leather duffel from last weekend. His att.i.tude was different, though.

Dangerous. That was it in one word. Controlled, yet hot. His piercingly-blue eyes were predatory, and he even walked differently. Like this was his garage, and she was his woman, and he could do any d.a.m.n thing he wanted.

She froze halfway out of the car. Was this what Bill was like when he was p.i.s.sed? She'd have to remember never to make him angry again.

a.s.suming she survived this time. She didn't think he was the violent type - correction, she'd never seen signs of it before. Now? Well, now, she wasn't so sure.

He dropped his bag on the garage floor, and the noise rang out like a shot. Even though she knew what it was, her heart kicked into high gear.

He covered the eight or ten feet separating them in three giant steps, then towered over her as she sat on the seat of the car. "Nikolia," he said, taking her arm firmly but not painfully and pulling her to her feet.

"Here, let me." He pressed the b.u.t.ton on the garage door opener she clutched in her right hand, and the garage door lumbered closed.

The garage seemed dark and claustrophobic now, lit only with one dim bulb. She thought of opening the door again, but he must have realized she'd do that. He slipped it out of her hand and tossed it onto her car seat, then moved her enough to close the car door. He stepped even closer and pressed her back against the car. "Nikolia, I can't tell you how happy I am that you don't want me to treat you like an invalid."

He was happy about that? Then why was he acting so strangely? Before she could ask, he stole her breath with a kiss that felt deeper and more intimate than anything they'd done in bed. It apparently lasted a good five minutes, since the light connected to the garage door opener turned off before it was over. Now, she couldn't see anything, not even Bill's face, and she knew it was only an inch away. His voice was husky when he continued. "Let me tell you about my plans for tonight, Nikolia. First, we'll go inside and I'll make love to you until you're screaming for release. After that, we'll go out for a late - probably quite late - supper at a little bistro I know, and maybe stop off at a club to dance a bit. Then, I'll bring you back here -" She could hear the antic.i.p.ation in his voice. "As far as what happens then, well, suffice it to say that tonight you won't be doing any sleeping."

He punctuated the recital of his plans with another kiss, this one just as lethal as the first one. But this time she had something else on her mind. Something that no mind-numbing kiss could erase.

She struggled against the kiss, using her hands to push him away. He stopped immediately. "What's wrong, Nikolia?"

"Your plans! I thought you understood I can't do those things!"

"What things?" he asked, way too innocently.

"Any of it! The late supper, for one - the dancing, either. And I certainly can't stay up all night."

"Why not?" His voice and his whole demeanor were wrong. "You're not an invalid, after all."

CHAPTER NINE.

All of a sudden, Bill realized there was more involved here than turning the tables on Nik. He'd thought it would be amusing to take her at her word and act like some overbearing macho type from a movie at the same time. He hadn't expected she'd take him seriously.

And now, he was afraid she might start crying. She'd sounded so distressed when she said she couldn't go dancing - dancing, for heaven's sake! As if he had any interest in wasting time on the dance floor when he could have her naked body next to his.

He could be pretty heartless about women's tears, knowing they were simply tools of manipulation. But if Nik cried now, she wouldn't be trying to manipulate him. She'd be crying because he'd pushed too hard on subjects he knew upset her.

He couldn't let her think he didn't understand. "Nikolia, I'm sorry," he murmured, running his finger down the curve of her cheekbone. "I was only teasing. I wanted you to realize you can't have it both ways, but I didn't mean to hurt you."

She didn't move during the next few seconds, but it felt like she did - like she was suddenly several feet away instead of practically touching him. "Oh. I get it now. You didn't hurt me, though." Then, she did move, slipping along the side of the car and walking away. It was still pitch black and she said, "I'm going inside. If you want to wait there, I'll turn the light on in a minute."

Well, he didn't want to wait here, not when she was leaving, so he moved toward where the door to the house must be. It was easy going until he got to the front of her car and ran into an empty recycling tub and tripped over the edge of the large mat she kept by the door. She turned the light on just in time to catch the swearwords he was mouthing. Great!