"C'mon sleep here-the operative word being sleep-if you don't think Tiffany will mind."

"You think I give a rat's ass what she thinks?"

"Whatever, but you're safe with me."

"Gee, thanks." Logan threw off his jacket and lay beside her. "Our parents picked the perfect time to take off. Think they're having fun in Florida?" Mel turned to him and wiggled her brows. "Think they're having sex?"

"Jeez, way to give me nightmares. Give me another picture, fast."

Melody giggled. "Picture my father smiling, then. He does it all the time around your mother. It's pretty scary."

"My mother's the same," Logan admitted. "Until your father, I hadn't seen her smile in years."

"Hell, until your mother, I rarely saw my father. Now I see him all the time. Kind of weird, actually, but they're happy together, and Logan, I don't know if you've picked up on it, but they're hinting that they might get married." She touched his arm. "I think I'm happy for them."

Logan sighed. "I caught a marriage hint once, but I tried to ignore it." He chuckled. "I'm happy for them, too, I guess. Hard to believe your old man is actually good for my mother, but I'd like him better if he were nicer to you."

"Really?" Melody savored the unexpected wash of emotion Logan's concern engendered. "I asked your mother once what about my father attracted her."

"I'm not sure I want to hear this."

"She said he widened her world. I asked my father the same about your mother, and he said she made him focus on the important things, then he kissed my cheek." She touched it. "Here. That was the first time he'd kissed me in years."

Logan stroked the exact spot with the back of a knuckle, a touch Melody felt to her toes. "I like him better already."

She shifted a leg, brought a knee up to touch his. "Our parents balance each other, like Jessie said."

"I suppose," Logan said. "Jess and her balance."

"She's right about a lot of things. Life is short. Our parents have said the same. All of them want to make the best of the time they have left. We could take a lesson from them."

He didn't know about the others, but he knew exactly how to make the best of the time he and Melody had left-here, now, tonight... in this bed.

He wanted to take her into his arms and kiss her the way he'd kissed her in the cloak room, as if time had stopped and belonged entirely to them. He wanted to slip inside of her and stay for a while, take her on a meteoric rise to the stars and make her weep with pleasure.

Damn! Logan turned on his side and faced away from temptation, wishing his slacks weren't suddenly so tight. "Night, Mel."

She tried another position, then another, driving Logan nuts, reminding him of her provocative presence about every two seconds. And if she touched him, even by accident, with her hand, or her arm, or, God help him, with her breasts or her backside, one more time... "I take it you can't get comfortable?" he said, tongue in cheek, aching to suggest a position they were both likely to prefer.

"This dress is too tight to sleep in.""By all means, take it off.""Don't be fresh.""I'm only being practical. Take it off, and I'll give you my shirt." He sat up and started unbuttoning his shirt.

"Wait! I don't want you bare-chested beside me in bed."

"A turn-off, is it?"

"Get real."

Logan grinned. "Okay, then, I do have a spare shirt in a bathroom drawer, all fresh, starched, and folded." He rose to fetch it. "I want the one you're wearing," she said, padding after him in stocking feet. "It's softer."

"So you want me to be uncomfortable?"

"I want you to be a gentleman."

Logan stopped unbuttoning and held her gaze with his. "Are you certain that's what you want?"

Mel's topaz eyes widened, and her cheeks flushed. She turned her back on him. "Unzip me and keep your smart remarks to yourself. This is awkward enough."

"I still don't know why you wore a dress," he said as he unzipped it. "First dress I've seen you wearing."

"No. I've worn several on the show," she said, turning back and snatching the body-warm shirt from his hand while trying not to gawk at his naked torso. She smacked him in the chest with the starched, paper-banded shirt. "Go put this on, so I can change."

Logan did as told, then propped himself up in the sofa bed to wait. Melody returned, finally, bathed in moonlight, his white shirt stroking her, from her neck to the tops of her long shapely legs.

He imagined those legs wrapped tight around him and was forced to shift to his side to hide his resurrected arousal. "Can we get some sleep now?" he groused.

Melody finally switched off the light, no less noisy and obvious about trying to find a comfortable position than she had been the first time. "Night," she said, touching his arm. "Thanks for the shirt. Feels yummy."

Yummy. The word brought a renewed surge of discomfort. Yummy, the way she'd taste on his lips, the way she'd feel gloving him.

LOGAN dreamed that something heavy nestled snug against his lap, rode his erection and made him throb. He dreamed a warmth at his neck, a heaviness on his chest, Melody's hair feathering his cheek. Its scent-sin and salvation at one and the same time-enticed him to slip further into the arms of sleep. He dreamed that her hand rode his chest, her knee, his groin.

In sleep, he found her mouth, warm, open, inviting, seeking his kiss. He opened his own and devoured her pouting lips. She gave him an involuntary throat-squeak, a lusty moan, like a babe at the nipple, and a tongue that set him on fire. "Melody," he heard himself say. Greedy. Ravenous. No words could describe his edgy upward spiral, half starvation, half satiation, increasing hunger, soothing spirits, a relentless climb, breathless and unyielding.

They kissed in half-sleep, a dream but not, a ride toward eternity, a need to prolong, yet despite his best efforts, Logan woke. He did not know the exact minute awareness came to him, but it did. It came in winds and waves mightier than the elements that trapped them... blessed them. It came with a frisson of panic and a flood of joy. Acceptance. Gratitude. Responsibility.

"I want this," Logan whispered against Melody's ear, sharing the warmth of his breath, offering her his essence, raising her higher still, but not so high that she could miss the underlying question in his voice.

"I want it more than my next breath," he said. "No more pretending this is out of control." Concern laced his voice, worry perhaps, that she did not feel the same. She knew him well enough to know he'd just handed her the choice to make for them both.

As if all choice had not been snatched from her grasp the day she opened her door to him, she thought. "I want it, too," she said, arching against him, fitting her every curve to his every hollow.

"Now tell me you're awake."

She smiled. "I'm awake."

They lay on their sides, facing each other, embracing, as close as two can be without becoming one. "I want you inside of me, Logan. No pretense, no evasion... no interruptions. No promises," she wisely added. "No expectations for the future."

Logan nodded. "No promises, no future," he acknowledged to her relief. "We've known it from the beginning, haven't we." Not a question but a statement.

His echo of her thoughts firmed Melody's resolve to grasp this rare pulsing moment in time. No fear of rejection... she'd short-circuited every expectation. Free, she felt. Uninhibited, for the first time ever. Ready to welcome the man she had lusted after from the first.

"I have only one worry." Logan regarded her, moonlight gilding his blue eyes to green. "Tell me again that you're not talking in your sleep."

Melody buried her face in his starched shirtfront. "I'm awake," she said after a minute. "Tell me you're as sure about this as I am."

He surged, almost involuntarily, against her. "Never more so of anything... obviously."

"It's not the, er... 'Big Guy' talking, is it?"

"Him? Oh, he's never been more alive, whimpering, weeping in anticipation, aching to sing in full-throated glory." Logan chuckled, as he hardened even more, "but my other brain is doing the talking right now. My word on it."

"Alive, yes," Melody said. "Me, too. Like that storm raging around us, gathering energy and momentum. Let's finish what we started too many times to count."

"God, yes," he said. "Now, when the world can't get to us. Take my hands," he whispered on a kiss that lingered as he rose to hover over her.

He held himself apart as they kissed and kissed, fingers entwined.

With no one to interrupt, they could take the kiss as far as they wanted. Farther than the kitchen, the elevator, the cloak room, as far as consummation. Logan stiffened and held himself away from her, nothing but hands and lips touching. Not yet.

"Let me touch you," Melody said.

"No," Logan said on a smile. "I want to make it last, Mizzz Impatience."

"You're going to kill me. I'll make the news. 'Salem's own Kitchen Witch dies of lust. In a spectacular bid for an orgasm-'"

"Shut up!"

Logan kissed her, as hungry, she thought with satisfaction, and as possessive and wildly frantic as she.

Chapter Twenty-Two.

"I'M dying, too," he said. "We'll make it last until we can't bear it. I have protection in the bathroom, then we'll fly away together. No broom necessary."

"Protection! Good. Oh, but hell, we'll have to stop for that."

"It'll slow us down, Mel, make us wait. That's good. It prolongs the pleasure."

"As a multiorgasmic creature, I'll have you know that I plan on seconds, thirds... maybe more-"

"Oh God." Logan surged again, as if he'd lost control. Melody arched as well, to meet and tease him.

Logan ravaged her mouth, nuzzled and licked her neck, swooped and let their bodies touch, then he swore and rolled away and off the bed.

Melody gasped and sat up. "What's wrong?"

"Too many clothes." He began to tear at his buttons. "Take the shirt off. No, wait. I want to take it off you myself."

He knelt beside her on the bed, his erection tenting his shirttails.

Melody smiled, undid his buttons while he undid hers. She planned to take possession of that erection the minute she freed it into her greedy little hands. But Logan got to her breasts first, his mouth distracting her, nuzzling her. He teased beside and around her nipples, making them erect, making them ache for the pull and abrasion of his tongue.

"You're torturing me," she cried, nearly weeping with need.

"You've been torturing me for months."

"Hey, you're not the only one."

"Since when?" he asked.

"Tall ships day, my kitchen."

"The first time you opened your door."

"That day," she said. "Yes."

He tongued her nipple, but she wanted to feel the pull of him suckling. She arched and all but put her nipple in his mouth. He chuckled and denied her, kissed her to her navel.

Melody squeaked in frustration. "I wanted to spread something warm over you that first day. Me."

He sat back. "What?"

She reached for his shirt and pulled him back to her. "I lived the fantasy that night in your living room chair, remember?"

"Remember? The sound of you coming in my hand keeps me awake nights. I dream about it, wake up hard, like now."

"Let me see how hard."

He slapped her hand away. "Not yet."

"You have my breasts. It's only fair that I should have something to play with."

"Not yet. Keep talking like that, though, and I'll come before you get a chance."

Melody threw her head back and gave a mock howl of frustration.

"Shh! You'll have Tony up here for sure." Logan chuckled as he freed her from his shirt and threw off his own. He went for protection.

"Bring the box!" Melody called after him. Screw making it last, he'd given her no choice but to take matters into her own hands.

Yes, she wanted instant gratification, damn it. She'd waited a long time to get Logan into bed. Shame on her if she couldn't beat him at his blasted "let's make it last" game.

She'd take him captive, shirtless and hair mussed, pupils dilated with lust, and hard as the proverbial rock.

Melody grinned as she watched him return.

When Logan knelt over her and made to nuzzle her breasts, she slugged him hard in the shoulder.

He reared back, puzzled, speechless.

"Damn it," she said, raising herself on her elbows, arching so as to point her breasts his way and keep him focused. "We've been hot for each other, jumped each other, got interrupted every time, and you want to make it last? Are you nuts? I want hot, fast, fly-me-to-the-stars sex, Kilgarven, and I want it now!"

Logan wanted to laugh, scream in frustration, shout in triumph, and for the first time ever, he wanted to make love. Ignoring the heart-skip the insane thought brought, he focused on the task at hand. "You wicked, impatient witch, you. Hard and fast, you say? Okay, you asked for it." He started to rip off her panties, found her bikinis as royally sexy, and blue, as her dress, and had to keep himself from swooping in for a taste.