"Oh, Serena," he murmured, kissing her with the same gentleness that puzzled her so. Responding to the longing within she returned the kiss in kind, expressing that irrational desire to protect and comfort through the warmth of her lips as they moved against his. But there was still so much to be said, and Serena was not up for rejection just yet. It was she who broke the tender embrace.

"Tom, we have to talk. You said so yourself." The words ran into each other with the speed of her racing heart. "This is the problem. It's so easy to become lost in ... in..."

"Desire?"

She looked down, nervously fingering a button of his shirt, barely aware of her action. "Yes. Desire."

"It's a beautiful thing, isn't it?"

The warmth of his body reached out to her fingertips, counteracting her desperate attempt at self-control. A frown tugged at her brows, marring the face he had earlier called serene.

"I'm-I'm not sure."

"Now, what's that supposed to mean?" He closed his large palms around her shoulders but held her at arm's reach, demanding an explanation.

"Just that," she insisted unhappily. "I'm not sure."

"Come on, Serena. You've been honest so far. Don't stop now. It's one of the things I admire about you. Why can't you admit to the pleasure you feel in my arms?"

Embarrassed, she tried to pull away, but his grip tightened. "I do admit to that pleasure. But desire, and its end..." She looked down again. "It's been a very long time...."

"Ahh," he crooned, drawing her against the solid wall of his chest and cradling her there. "So you are thinking of the future. That's a good sign."

"I don't know about that either," she moaned, fighting the havoc wreaked by the mingling scent of wine and man that permeated her senses and clouded her brain. "If anything I feel more guilty thinking about it now than I did then."

Tom grew still, let his chin fall to the crown of her head for a pensive moment, then released her. "You're right," he sighed. "We have to talk." Again he gestured toward the sofa. Again she sat. This time, however, he stood more warily before her. "OK, Serena, let's have it out. First of all, I'm going to tell you what's on my mind." With a brief pause, his gaze grew darker, if possible, even more intense. By intuition alone Serena read his thoughts. But he spoke clearly, boldly.

"I want you, Serena. It's as simple as that. I want you. I want to be with you, to get to know you. Right now I want to take you to bed and make love to you. There! Are you shocked?"

"I'm twenty-nine years old, Tom. Shocked? No. Frightened? Very."

"You've got nothing to fear from me, honey. I've told you as much before."

"It's not you, Tom." Her lips thinned in frustration. Sighing, she shook her head in disgust. "It's me. Things may happen between the two of us that I can't control. I'll want them while they're happening, but how do I live with myself afterward?"

Even now, she craved the protective solace of his arms. Yet he stood alone before her, legs planted firmly in a wide stance, hands on his ruggedly narrow hips. "Then we're back to the issue of guilt. And I know that the guilt would have little to do with the actual act of making love, would it?"

She shook her head, missing the bouncing shelter of the hair which usually fell so freely but which was still anchored firmly at the nape of her neck. "We're living in modern times-"

"And you've lived the life of a nun for the past ten years."

"What is this, Tom? Would you rather I slept my way through life, consorting with every man who crossed my path? It just so happens that that doesn't appeal to me!" Scowling, she burrowed deeper into the cushions. "Sex has to mean something. It's not something I'd do for desire alone."

"You thought you loved this-what was his name-Lowry?"

"I did, at the time."

"And do you love me?"

"Love has nothing to do with this."

"But you'd go to bed with me."

"No!" She jumped up, then stormed out of his reach. "I haven't said that either."

"You implied it."

"You twist everything I say!"

"But you want me?"

"I want you out of my life!"

"Let's try desire. You desire me?"

She whirled around, eyes flashing with anger. "Damn it, yes! I desire you-if we're down to playing word games. I'm human. I have natural cravings. I'm a woman! And yes, I desire you!" She spat out the word with scorn.

"You've made your point." He sighed in defeat, astonishing her with his blunt capitulation. She watched warily as he retrieved his wineglass, filled it again, and strode to the window to stare into the night.

Serena was more confused than ever. She'd told him the things he wanted to hear, yet he seemed more lost than before. Drawn by the same enigmatic force that confounded her, she found herself approaching the window, putting her hand on his arm.

"I'm sorry. That sounded so angry."

"You are angry, honey. That's the point." He glanced sidelong down at her.

"The point," she confessed, "is that when you look at me like that and call me 'honey' the anger I feel vanishes. It's that that terrifies me."

Tom turned slowly, cradling her face in his rough palms. "What if I said that I was just as frightened? Would you believe me?"

"You? Frightened?"

"Yes."

"Of what?"

"Involvement." His gaze traced electrifying circles around her face.

"With me?" With the strength of a reflex built up over years she stiffened. "Because of me? My family?"

"No! No! Serena, how can you say something like that?"

Her eyes glistened. "It happened once before, Tom. I can't forget it."

"I know," he whispered, caressing her cheeks with his thumbs. "I know." The tenderness of his tone sent shivers of arousal through her body. He was close and warm and understanding of her every emotion. "Oh, Serena," he gasped. "It's happening again. It's the same with me, Serena, something I can't seem to control." His lips lowered to brush against her forehead in agony. "I want you so."

Serena felt the tremor that shook him shudder through her own limbs. She closed her eyes as sanity receded, then opened them quickly to grasp common sense.

"We can't, Tom," she moaned softly. "This is wrong. It's not good for either of us." But her hands itched to touch him and she did, reaching out to circle his waist with her arms and move against his manhood with a tormented sigh. "Oh, Tom..." Her words echoed in the far depths of his mouth, his lips seizing hers with the same fierceness that inflamed her entire body. What had begun at the party that night-what had begun a month ago in the restaurant-seemed destined for completion. Serena wanted Tom more than anything she could have imagined. Her body ached for his vibrant pulse, for the possession that would bring her to fruition as a woman, complete and loved if only for the evening.

"What if we were to pretend," Tom began, breathing raggedly by her ear, "that we had no past? That we were two different people? That we were in love?"

Serena put her arms up over his sinewy shoulders and clung tightly, burying her face against the warm, beating pulse in his neck. "We're adults, Tom," she whispered, tasting the heady tang of him as she acted the devil's advocate. "We can't play games."

He stroked her back, pressing her closer as his fingers drew erotic designs on the clinging silk of her tunic top. "We have to do something. I've tried staying away for a month, a whole month, and look where it's left me. I feel more out of control than ever." His teeth settled on the lobe of her ear, nipping it, grating against the gleaming pearl of her earring. "You look beautiful tonight. I could have taken you there in that den of Andre's."

Serena measured the strength of his back with her palms splayed over its muscular breadth. "Oh, Tom," she sighed wistfully. "Why did you ever show up there tonight?"

His fine shiver of tension passed easily as an extension of passion. "Let's call it fate, Serena," he murmured, crushing her more fiercely to his taut frame. "It's the same thing that brought us eye to eye in the restaurant that first day."

"But I would never have stared if I hadn't recognized you." Even as she offered the feeble protest she knew it to be a dubious point. Tom himself had planted the seeds of doubt in her mind. Would she have sought him out regardless? Was there indeed an unfathomable attraction surpassing all else that brought them together?

"We'll never know for sure," he argued softly. "What if ... what if we'd never seen each other before that day? Would you be wanting me now?"

"Yes. Oh, yes." Her body rippled with swelling excitement at the seductive timbre of his voice. Her hands found their way to his waist, granting eager fingers the free exploration of his firm, hard body. She could only repeat his name, over and over again, as though hypnotized.

"Pretend?" he begged with an urgency that thrilled her as much as the iron-strong hands that worked their way almost timidly across her body to the side bow that held her tunic wrapped about her waist. A single tug released it and Serena knew she had reached the moment of decision. Even amid the thick sensual fog settling heavily over them she could still see her way clear to escape, if she wanted to.

"Serena, what do you want?" Without doubt he wavered at his own point of no return. She could feel it in the thrust of his body.

"Heaven help me, Tom. I want you!" she cried in the agony of responding for the sake of raw pleasure. "I'll pretend. I'll pretend. I need you, Tom." The last was without pretense.

His answering groan was an excruciating one. "Oh, Serena. Come here, love."

"I'm here. I'm yours." She gloried in the game, reaching in wonder to touch his face, exploring each manly feature with her fingertips. The depth of his eyes, his brows, the strong line of his nose and lean planes of his cheeks, the faint rasp of the beard that had been shaved hours before, the jaw that spoke of the character she was just beginning to know. With an imperceptible movement of his head he captured a wandering finger and sucked on it deeply. "Tom!" she gasped, quavering his name mindlessly.

"Pretend." He murmured the watchword again, drawing her into the safe harbor of his arms, pressing his lips to hers and parting them easily with the moistened tip of his tongue.

Serena melted like ice from a wintry mountaintop flowing surely to warm lower pastures. When he held her back to slip open her blouse the chill was a momentary thing. His hands, male-textured against the smoothness of her flesh, quickly replaced the discarded fabric, covering her with the searing heat of desire.

"Beautiful Serena," he breathed against her neck when his hands moved upward to cup the gentle fullness of her lace-covered breasts. She arched toward his palms instinctively, feeling the explosive need to be his at once.

But he was the master, prolonging every bit of his heaven and hers, as though they'd never make it there again. Slowly he reached to release the catch of her bra and peeled off the wisp of material to let spill the ivory wealth of her. She was naked from the waist up and at his mercy. His eyes devoured the twin swells before he loosed his questing fingers to her flesh.

"How can you be so cruel?" she whimpered at his tantalizing play, crying out when he took each nipple between thumb and forefinger and rubbed sweet pain round and about them.

"It's all in the game," he gritted back, the pain his own as well.

"Then I'm playing too." Deliberately Serena tugged loose the knot of his tie, released each button of his shirt and pushed the fine fabric from his shoulders to join her silk tunic on the floor. Leaning forward, she put her lips to his chest and kissed her way across its matted plain. The path she left was moist and heady. She thrilled to the success of her revenge, evident in the intermittent groans he gave.

And Serena pretended. On Tom's prescription she pretended that there had never been a scandal sixteen years ago. She pretended that she'd seen Tom that day in the restaurant for the first time in her life, that there was nothing, nothing to keep them apart. She offered herself up to the fantasy of womanhood, believing Tom's words as he finished undressing her. "So lovely..."

The sofa was their bed, though neither thought to unfold it or seek the sheets that would be inside. The plushness of velour was a regal mattress, the narrowness every bit wide enough for one body atop another.

She lay where he had eased her back, naked, watching as he quickly matched her in that state. Bare-chested, his body had been intimidating in its virile pull. Now, totally nude, it instilled a mindless frenzy that tremored continually through her. She reached for him when he approached, then cried aloud when he came down to her. His flesh was hot against hers, sending a now-familiar fire raging to each of her nerve endings in turn.

Her hands grasped the smoother flesh of his hips and urged him closer. But he was not to be rushed in the illusion of love. His gaze smoldered as he lingered, savoring the touch of his lines on hers. With a leisure that heightened her cravings even more he took her hands, kissing them both, holding them to his lips as he looked with slow thoroughness over her body.

"Tell me again," she pleaded with a shudder at the last shadow of doubt.

"Pretend. Pretend. We're two people with no past. Only each other. Now." He paused. "I love you." Softly: "I love you." With more conviction.

Her heart stopped, then burst with need. "And I love you," she whispered. Again. And again.

Having said the words that made it all possible, the fantasy was nearly complete. A hoarse and primitive sound reverberated from Tom's throat to be muffled against her breasts as he lowered his head. His mouth found the crest it sought, surrounding and sucking the rosy peak, sending an urgent message to the heart of Serena's femininity.

"Don't keep me waiting, Tom," she moaned, writhing beneath him. "I need you. Please ... now..." In an instinctive surge toward ecstasy she arched her hips against the boldness of his. "Now!" she cried a final time before he seized her lips and his body covered her.

His muscled thigh parted her legs and Serena gasped loudly as he filled her both physically and spiritually. She was part of him and he of her; the joy of that knowledge lavished sensual satisfaction through her entire being.

Tom kissed her as he set the pace, slow at first, then with driven speed as he, too, fell victim to the ancient and primal force that brought them together. Serena answered his heat with the fervor of a woman possessed, meeting his passion equally, relinquishing herself totally to the soaring unreality. Her hands measured the strain of his muscles, then lost all awareness when her own senses blinded her to everything but his body-on her, in her.

Together they built, then peaked, then toppled, drenched in each other's sweat, limbs intertwined. Fighting the return to reality Tom stayed inside her, clasping her body to his only until his ardor returned. Then, in a miraculous repeat, they loved once again.

It was a long, long time before Serena's breathing steadied and her quivering body stilled. She lay against Tom, her head on his damp chest, her leg thrown intimately over and between his. Neither said a word for fear of shattering the illusion that had brought such pleasure, such utter fulfillment.

Tom spoke at last, but only after he had brought his free arm around to lock tight the circle in which he held her. "I knew it would be like that, Serena. I knew it from the first." Eyes shut against the cushioning hair of his chest, she savored his words through the lingering haze of her passion. "It's the fire inside you, love. The same fire that pits us against one another has the power to let you love me the way you did." She felt the warmth of his breath as he tucked his chin in to look down at her. "I've never seen such passion, Serena. It's innocent at the same time as it's worldly and wild. How can that be?"

"I don't know." She smiled, shifting more snugly against him. Even the slow return of reality could do nothing to dampen the contentment she felt by his side. "You seem to bring out the basest instincts in me!"

He chuckled. "You can say that again."

"No need," she murmured, brushing her lips against a taut male nipple, then smiling at his response.

"Come here," he growled, surprising her when he pulled her over him and went to work at the back of her neck. "I should have done this earlier. Your hair is too lovely to tie back, even if it did look gorgeous tonight." Within seconds he'd freed her auburn tresses and spread them gently over her shoulders. "There," he breathed in deep satisfaction. "That's better." He surveyed his handiwork for a moment longer before easing her down beside him again.

"How do you feel?" he asked, pausing. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"

Serena smiled. "That's a dumb question. Did I seem like I was hurting?"

"I'm not sure. At one point there I thought I felt nails digging into my back."

"You're wicked."

"I'm serious." Again he paused, this time quite meaningfully. "Are you all right?"

Her soft-whispered "yes" was poignant.

"Are you sorry?"

"No."

"Do you feel guilty?"

"Not now."

"But you will?"

"Probably."