"So you thought you'd have a peep show before retiring?" he asked, shaking droplets of water as he stood, glaring down at her in embarra.s.sment. "Usually, it takes at least a little coaxing to draw a woman to my bed."

"Not from what I saw when I first met you!" she countered. "That blonde looked pretty easy to me." She averted her gaze. "Look, I heard water running, and I... that is... it sounded like the sink, not the shower. I thought you might be shaving."

Jack grinned despite himself. "You zeroed in on that little blonde pretty good, huh?"

"Well, she wasn't wearing much," Marilyn offered, scooting back to prop herself against his pillows. "You going to stand there until you drip dry? I can come back later."

"I could always drop the towel and just crawl into bed," he said with a smirk.

"Yes, but then you'd get your sheets all wet and...well, you don't seem like the type who likes to sleep on the wet spot."

"What type am I?" he asked, grinning while spreading her legs with his hands and sliding between them to lay on top of her, propping himself on his elbows.

"That towel...is...uh...very damp," Marilyn said, clearing her throat and wetting her lips, obviously nervous.

"Then dry me off with it." Jack rolled off her and plopped beside her onto his stomach. "It's late, and I'm too tired to make the moves on you anyway."

Marilyn pulled the towel from around his waist and gently glided it over his body, pausing on his bare a.s.s to ma.s.sage the muscles of his taut b.u.t.t.

Jack smiled to himself. He could tell she was nervous, that she'd just barged in without thinking, which seemed to be par for the course for his irrepressible editor.

"I'm sorry, you know. For embarra.s.sing you," she said. "For getting you into this fix, I mean. I had no idea that you were a fraud."

"Say what?" Jack started to roll over, but Marilyn shoved him back onto his stomach. "Please! I haven't the time or inclination to see your private parts, and as you said... it's late." She continued ma.s.saging him, slapping him none too gently on the rump when he tried to sit up again.

"As I was saying, I'm sorry for causing you so much trouble."

Jack grinned. "Now that's more like it."

"You seem like a decent guy, and you don't deserve this. But... what's done is done, and now we have to make sure you're ready to... " She paused as Jack slowly rolled over to face her, and the towel she'd been holding dropped to reveal his enlarged p.e.n.i.s. "... to stand up... oh, wow!" She struggled to avert her gaze. "... to... to your... ah ...to your compet.i.tion during this cooking contest."

"Now who's embarra.s.sed, chere?" he asked smoothly, a hand lifting to trace the planes of her face.

Before she could utter another word, he pulled her into his arms, with nothing separating them save her clothes.

Marilyn could barely catch her breath. With one kiss, his lips, which had so fascinated her on his photograph, seemed to burn through to her soul, and she found herself melting against him as the fire went unchecked by either of them.

"I knew when I first heard your voice on the phone that you were gonna be the death of me," Jack told her between kisses as his hands moved quickly from her shoulders to the waistband of her Bermuda shorts.

"Uh... wait." She glanced over at the jeans he'd discarded before taking his shower.

"Oh." Jack smiled and reached into the nightstand's small drawer and pulled out a foil packet similar to the one he'd produced on the riverbank, then turned out the light, leaving the room in semi-darkness as the full moon outside slipped softly around them.

Just when he'd ripped the foil open with his teeth, her hands connected with his chest, shoving him precariously to the edge of his own bed.

"What the h.e.l.l?"

"I told you-I came over here to talk to you about something. I need to know whether or not this is okay with you."

"You were looking at my jeans! I thought you wanted me to get the..."

"No! I thought maybe you'd put on your pants so we could have a civilized conversation!"

Jack rose to his knees, turned the light back on and glared at her. "Talk? Right."

"I suggested earlier that I be the one to shadow you, and you never really responded. That's really why I came over here."

"Oh, I responded-you just didn't like what you heard."

"Okay, I made a mistake. I'm trying now to rectify it. This is important-you must have someone with you at all times when you're cooking-it's just one of the rules set up by Larabee."

"Yeah?" he asked, climbing back beside her. "Well, it's a stupid rule. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?"

Marilyn rolled off the bed and put her hands on her hips. "I have to abide by the rules too, you know. One of the contestants they had in an earlier contest cheated by having someone else mix up the ingredients for him when he lost a contact lens, and of course one of his compet.i.tors cried foul. So you could make this a lot easier on both of us, you know. It's just a cooking contest. Not like anyone is going to ask you to show your a.s.s."

"Nope. Just my ignorance. And I may be a fraud, as you say, but I'm a proud one, and I don't relish the thought of having Robert Neal or Marie Sanders going back to the publisher with a 'Guess what?' story!"

"Well, I don't want to go back home and face the unemployment office saying the same thing!" she retorted. "I don't have a pension from the Armed Forces to fall back on -I don't have an understanding family who will be there for me if you can't swallow your pride. All I have is standing before you right now, and it isn't much to brag about!"

He watched her face and felt like an absolute s.h.i.t for continuing the farce. Her lovely face was troubled, frown lines creasing the corners of her eyes, her brows knitted with worry.

Jack leaned on an elbow and beckoned her with his free hand. "C'mere, chere. Let's talk about it." He patted the bed. "I won't bite. Not unless you want me to."

The startled look on her face melted into one of relief. "Really? You can talk about this without getting angry or belligerent?"

"Try me."

He covered himself with the sheet and blanket and gave her ample room to sit across from him.

"It's like this," he said. "We both screwed up. I should've stopped any rumors years ago that even hinted that I was a good cook. And you should never have entered me in that contest without talking to me first."

When she opened her mouth, he lifted a finger and shushed her, continuing, "I didn' t cause your problem any more than you caused mine. Can we just call a truce on that much of it?"

She waited until he removed his finger from her lips and nodded, but he could tell she was reluctant to agree.

"Blame's not gonna get us anywhere, chere. What we need now is a good solution."

"I'm open to suggestions," she said.

Jack noted her slightly flared nostrils and flushed cheeks. For a moment, neither of them said anything. Then he reached to lift a strand of hair that had fallen into her face, and when he moved to tuck it behind her ear, he found himself cupping the back of her head and pulling her toward him for the kiss he'd been wanting to lay on her ever since he'd caught her staring at him from the doorway of the bathroom.

"I don't want to fight with you," she said breathlessly, when he lifted his lips. "I didn't come here for that."

"Remind me. Why did you come here?" he asked seductively, nibbling her bottom lip and drawing her into another kiss.

"This isn't getting us anywhere," she said, panting.

"Maybe we're not supposed to go anywhere tonight... but right here," was all he replied.

"You...have no modesty whatsoever."

"Me?" He laughed. "Look who's talking, after that little number you pulled on the river, actin' all upset then sliding those pretty legs around me and..."

She blushed. "Don't remind me how easy I was for you. And you're arrogant...and...and...and you're trying to schmooze me with charm. Don't charm me right now. I really want to be angry with you, and I can't... oh, Jackson... don't!"

His body arched as he pulled her beneath him and silenced her with a hard kiss.

"I won't ask anything of you that you're not willing to give." He tried to keep his voice calm, but a rough edge crept in as her gaze heated him.

"You're just so beautiful," he said softly. "And I did not sleep with that blonde you saw me with earlier."

"Really?"

"Really. I didn't even invite her over."

"Just like me, huh? You didn't invite me either."

He studied her face. Was that the problem? She didn't want to appear too easy? The look in her eyes broke whatever restraints had been holding him back from the abyss he felt open beneath him.

"I just want to make love to you," he said softly, his gaze slowly covering her, resting first on her heaving chest, then her trembling arms, and back up to her full lips that parted as he stared at them. "I'm asking you now. Stay with me...please."

Marilyn moved her hands over his shoulders and down his arms and stopped his fingers from opening the foil packet that he had picked up from the pillowcase. "Oh, shut up. Allow me."

"Whatever you say, chere," he said, his voice sliding over her like hot brandy as he lay back against the pillows. But his breathing became labored as he realized she had no intentions of merely sliding the condom over his Johnson without making sure he was both delirious and demanding to feel more.

"I love the smell of a freshly showered male." Marilyn's hands slid over his bare b.u.t.tocks, cupping him and bringing him closer to her mouth as her tongue tasted his skin.

"Marilyn?" he asked in surprise as her tongue darted in and around the crevices and contours of his rigid body.

Within seconds, she'd taken him from a state of arousal to one of Armageddon. When he could stand it no longer, he flipped her over on her back and began undressing her, pausing to kiss or lick her skin as the b.u.t.tons covering it came unfastened. His eager hands practically ripped off her shorts in his energetic exploration of her body.

Marilyn giggled as he delved into her warm wet heat with the same fervor she'd extended to him, and before her clothes were completely off, with just her bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s in his hands and her fingers in his hair, his tongue speared the soft, slick center, sending a jolt of electricity throughout her that reverberated through his hands.

He glanced upward for a moment. She had covered her mouth with the back of her hand. "You go ahead and scream if you like." He lowered his head again, and his tongue plunged further and further into her with relentless pa.s.sion.

What started as an energetic s.e.xual romp took another turn when she realized in a fog of s.e.xual release that his tongue had been replaced by his fingers as he slid slowly forward, his lips blazing a trail upwards to her stomach, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, her throat.

A small moan escaped her lips as in the moonlight she saw his body rise above hers, obliterating any thought other than that she desperately wanted to feel him inside her. And then he teased her with his hardness, parting the folds of her skin where his fingers had been, sliding partially in and then pulling out... in a little further and then out. Marilyn reached down and positioned his c.o.c.k solidly within her, thrusting her body to meet his.

"Easy, chere," Jack said softly, moving slowly now but rhythmically. "We got all night to do this."

To which Marilyn rose to a half-sitting position with him still inside her and said breathlessly, "You take all night for this one, Jackson, and you'll never live to see tomorrow!"

Jack started laughing, and when Marilyn could catch her breath she laughed with him, feeling the rumble from his chest vibrate throughout her own body. Then the two of them resumed at an even more frenzied pace, with Marilyn half-laughing, half-crying and Jack growling in her ear as he rode her, "You gonna come for dis ole river rat, chere? Hmm? C'mon...let me feel you tighten up down there...let me feel how much you want me!"

He cupped the back of her head and cradled her against one arm while smoothing back her hair with his other hand. Then he kissed her, his lips and tongue sucking a prolonged response from her as he drove them faster and faster toward their destination.

Moments later, after much moaning and groaning and aching with an almost animalistic need for release, they collapsed into one another's embrace and fell back against their pillows, still laughing.

"I did not mean...you know...to call you that," she panted.

"What? A river rat?" Jake asked, sliding an arm beneath her and drawing her closer beside him. "I'm not offended. It's true."

"Well, not really. I mean you called yourself the devil, which I suppose is worse, isn 't it? And you said there'd be h.e.l.l to pay for what I've done."

"This feel like h.e.l.l to you?" he asked, dropping a kiss on her forehead.

"Burn, baby, burn," she mumbled, snuggling against him.

"Dat's mah girl."

"Jack?"

"Mmhmm?"

"Do you mind if I'm the one...you know? The one who stays with you during the contest?"

She felt his arm tense beneath her. "You mean to keep me honest?"

"Well, yes."

"You mean you'll let me make love to you, but you won't trust me not to cheat during the contest?" He slid his arm from beneath her head and sat up facing the window.

"Not that I don't trust you," she said. "I told you-all three of you will have someone shadowing you. Even Robert and Marie."

"Bet you don't have someone livin' with them, if that's what you mean."

"No. I wouldn't have to live with you. I just meant that I'd be with you during contest hours. It would be a chance for us to get to know one another better."

Jack stood and looked out the window, giving Marilyn a glimpse of his bare back and b.u.t.t.

"You want to spend your nights here, that's one thing. You want to follow me around like a watchdog during the contest, that's another."

Marilyn sighed, climbed out of bed and gathered her clothing. "I should've known you'd take it like this."

"Like what?"

"Like this! I told you it's procedure, it's regulation, it's just...well, it's just what it is! Rules are rules! Where are my panties?"

"Your rules. Not mine," he said, fishing the item she'd requested from beneath a pillow. "I didn't even want to enter the d.a.m.n contest."

"So we're back to that, are we? Well, then. You could've explained before I flew down here why you couldn't enter."

Jack turned to stare at her as she jerked on her clothing and tried to right it. "I don't like living by anybody else's rules but my own. I don't like having to explain myself to anybody either!"

Marilyn groaned and fumbled with the b.u.t.ton on her shorts. "This was a mistake. I'

m sorry."