"What makes you think I've done something?"

"Because you won't look me in the eye."

"I'm avoiding you, yes. But only because I'm mad, not because I've committed what you would consider a transgression."

"That's been your routine in the past, Carole."

"Don't call mea" Avery caught herself just in time.

"Don't call you what?"

"Nothing." She hated having him address her as Carole."Don't call me a liar," she amended. Defiantly, she flung her head back. "And just so you'll know from me before you hear it from somebody else, Van Lovejoy was smoking a joint. He even offered it to me. I refused. Now, do I pass muster, Mr. Senator?"

Tate was furiously rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. "Don't wander off by yourself like that again."

"Don't put me on a short leash."

"I don't care what you do, dammit ," he growled, gripping her shoulders harder. "It's just not safe for you to be alone."

"Alone?" she repeated in a harsh, mirthless tone. "Alone? We're never alone."

"We're alone right now."

It occurred to them simultaneously that they were standing chest to chest. One was breathing with as much agitation as the other. Their blood was running hot and their tempers were high. Avery felt her nerves sizzle like fallen hot wires that snaked across a rain-slick street.

His arms went around her, met at the center of her back, and jerked her against him. Avery went limp with desire. Then, moving as one, their mouths came together in a ravenous kiss. She folded her arms around his neck and provocatively arched her body into his. His hands slid over her derriere and roughly drew her up high and hard against the front of his body.

Their breathing was loud. So was the rustle of their evening clothes. Their mouths twisted against each other; their tongues were too greedy to exercise finesse.

Tate walked her backward into the wall, which then served the original purpose of his hands by keeping her middle cemented to him. His fingers curved tightly around her head and held it in place while he gave her a hungry kiss.

The kiss was carnal. It had a dark soul. It touched off elemental sparks that were as exciting to Avery as the first tongues of flame were to primal man. It conveyed that much heat, that much promise.

She attacked the studs on his pleated shirt. One by one they landed soundlessly in the carpeting. She peeled the shirt wide and bared his chest. Her open mouth found the very center of it. He swore with pleasure and reached behind her for the fastenings on her dress.

They eluded his fumbling fingers. Fabric was ripped. Beads scattered. Sequins rained down. Neither was mindful of the damage. He worked the dress down her shoulders and planted a fervent kiss on the upper curve of her breast, then reached for the clasp of her strapless brassiere.

Avery panicked when it fell open.Hewould know!But his eyes were closed. His lips were his sensors, not his eyes. He kissed her breasts, stroking the tips with his tongue, drawing them into his mouth.

He needed her. She wanted him to need her. She couldn't give enough.

She tugged his cuffs over his hands without even unhooking his cuff links. He flapped his arms until he was entirely free of his shirt, then slipped his hands beneath the hem of her dress. They smoothed up her thighs, caught the elastic of her underwear, and worked it down. Then his palm was on her, his fingers inside her, and she was gasping hoarse, whimpering, wanting sounds.

"You're my wife," he said thickly. "You deserve a little better than to be banged against the wall."

He released her and stepped away. In seconds he was out of his shoes and socks, leaving his trousers in a heap on the carpet.

Avery shimmied out of her dress, kicked off her shoes, and quickly moved to the bed. The housekeeper had already turned it down. She brushed the chocolate mints off the pillow and slid between the sheets. The lacy black garter belt came off with a snap. Her stockings had barely cleared her toes when Tate reached for her.

She went willingly as he pulled her against his warm, hairy nakedness. Their mouths met for another deep, wet kiss. His sex was hard and smooth. It probed the softness of her belly, nestled in the vee of dark curls.

He cupped her breast, lifted it, ran this thumb lightly back and forth over her nipple, and applied his tongue to it. With no resistance from her, he separated her thighs. The cleft between them was soft and sensitive and creamy. Shegasped several short, choppy breaths as his fingers played over her.

Then he rolled her to her back and guided his rigid erection into the moist, oval opening. Her body received him coyly because he was very large and hard and she was very small and soft. Man and woman. As it should be. His power was reduced to weakness; her vulnerability was made strong.

She marveled at the absoluteness of his possession. It was invasive but sweet, unencumbered yet yearning. Her back and throat arched in total surrender. He went farther, touched deeper, reached higher than she believed possible.

Above her, he was straining to withhold his climax, to sustain the pleasure, but that was asking too much of his body, which had been imprisoned by self-imposed abstinence for so long.

He sank into her only a few times before he climaxed.

The room was so silent she could hear the ticking of his wristwatch where his hand lay beside her head on the pillow. She didn't dare look at him. Touching him wasn't even a remote possibility. She lay there and listened as his breathing returned to normal. Except for the rising and falling of his chest, he lay motionless.

It was over.

Eventually she rolled to her side, facing away from him. She tucked the pillow beneath her cheek and drew her knees against her chest. She was hurting, but she couldn't specify how or where or why.

Several minutes elapsed. When she first felt the stroking movement of his hand on her waist, she thought it was because she had wished it so badly that her imagination had made her feel it.

His hand settled in the curve of her waist and applied enough pressure to bring her over to her back again. She gazed up into his face, her eyes large and inquisitive and brimming with misgiving.

"I've always been fair," he whispered.

He drew his knuckles across her cheek, then over her lips. They'd been scraped by his beard stubble. At histender touch, Avery swallowed emotionally. Her lips parted, but she couldn't speak aloud what she felt in her heart.

Tate lowered his head and kissed her softly. He paused, then kissed her again with the same delicacy. His cheeks were very hot against hers. Acting on instinct and overwhelming need, she reached up and touched the bandage at his hairline. Affectionately, her fingers sifted through his tousled hair. She traced the cleft in his chin with her fingernail.

God, she loved this man.

His lips settled against hers with purpose. His tongue slipped between her lips. Gently, erotically, he worked it in and out, making love to her mouth. She made a small, wanton sound. He responded by drawing her closer to him, close enough for his softened penis to nestle in the humid warmth between her thighs.

He kept kissing her mouth, her neck, her shoulders, while he fondled her breasts. His stroking fingers made the nipples stiff for his mouth. Hotly, wetly, he sucked them with tempered greed, until she was moving beneath him restlessly. He kissed her stomach, her undulating abdomen, the sensitive space between her pelvic bones.

Avery, lost to the touch of his mouth on her skin, threaded her fingers through his hair and held on tight.

Between her thighs, she was absurdly slippery, but his fingers dipped into her without intimidation. He discovered that tiny, distended nubbin of flesh between the pouting lips. He pressed it, feathered it, gently rolled it between his fingers.

She spoke his name on a serrated sigh. Her body quickened. Small shudders began to ripple through her. Reflexively she drew her knees up.

"I'm hard again."

His voice was tinged with wonder. Unintentionally he had spoken aloud the realization that had him mystified. He hadn't expected to need her again so soon, nor to ever need her as violently as he did now.

His entrance was surer than before, yet he took more time. When he was fully buried inside her, he turned his face into her neck and gently pulled her skin between his teeth. Avery's body responded instantly. Her inner muscles flexed, tightly squeezing him. With a low sound, he mindlessly began rocking his hips forward and backward.

She clung to him. Each rhythmic stroke propelled her closer to the light glimmering at the end of a dark tunnel. Her eyelids fluttered. She raced, harder and faster.

The light exploded around her brilliantly and she was consumed.

Tate released a long, low moan. His whole body tensed. He came and came and came, scalding and fierce, until he was completely empty.

He said nothing when he disengaged his body from hers. He turned away, giving her his back and drawing the sheet over his sweat-beaded shoulders.

Avery faced the opposite wall, trying to keep her crying silent. Physically it had been the finest sex imaginable, far surpassing anything she had ever experienced from the few lovers she'd had. There had been pitifully few. Relationships required time, and she'd sacrificed most of hers to the pursuit of her career. The obvious difference with this time was the love she had for her partner.

But for Tate it had started and ended as a biological release. Anger had been his turn-on, not love or even affection. He'd given her a climax, but that had been an obligation considerately fulfilled and nothing more.

The foreplay had been technically excellent but impersonal. They hadn't luxuriated in their repletion, though she'd longed to explore his naked body, familiarize her eyes and hands and mouth with every nuance of it. No endearments had been whispered. No vows of love had been pledged. He hadn't once spoken her name.

He didn't even know it.

THIRTY-TWO.

"Tate, I need a minute of your time."

Avery barreled through the previously closed door, interrupting the conference being held in the large den at the ranch house.

Jack, who had been speaking when she made her peremptory entrance, was left standing in the midst of them with his hand frozen in a gesture and his mouth hanging open.

"What is it?" Tate asked, looking particularly ill-tempered.

Eddy was frowning with annoyance; Jack was cursing beneath his breath. Nelson's displeasure was just as clear, but he made an attempt at civility. "Is it an emergency? Mandy?"

"No, Nelson. Mandy's at nursery school."

"Is it something Zee can help you with?"

"I'm afraid not. I need to speak privately to Tate."

"We're in the middle of something here, Carole," he said testily. "Is it important?"

"If it weren't important, I wouldn't have interrupted you."

"I'd rather you wait until we get finished or handle the crisis yourself."

She felt her cheeks grow warm with indignation. Since their return home several days earlier, he had gone out of his way to avoid her. It had come as a vast disappointment but only a mild surprise that he hadn't moved back into the yellow bedroom she occupied. Instead, he'd resumed sleeping alone in the adjoining study.

Their lovemaking hadn't drawn them closer. Rather, it had widened the gap between them. The morning following it, they'd barely made eye contact. Words had been few.

The mood had been subdued, as though something nefarious had transpired and neither party involved wanted to own up to it. She had taken her cue from Tate and pretended that nothing had happened in that wide bed, but the effort to remain impassive had made her cantankerous.

He had acknowledged it only once, as they waited for the bellman to come for their luggage. "We didn't use anything last night," he had said in a low, strained voice as he gazed out over the Dallas skyline.

"I don't have AIDS," she had snapped waspishly, wanting to prick his seemingly impenetrable aloofness. She succeeded.

He came around quickly. "I know. They would have discovered it while you were in the hospital."

"Is that why you felt it was okay to touch me? Because I was disease-free?"

"What I want to know," he ground out, "is if you could get pregnant."

Glumly, she shook her head. "Wrong time of the month. You're safe on all accounts."

That had been the extent of the conversation about their lovemaking, although that term elevated the act into something it hadn't actually been, at least for Tate. She felt like a one-night standaan unpaid prostitute. Any warm, female body would have suited him. For the time being, he was sated. He wouldn't need her for a while.

She resented being so disposable. Used onceawell, twice, actuallyathen thrown away. Perhaps Carole's unfaithfulness had been justified. Avery was beginning to wonder if Tate got off just as easily on the heady thought of becoming a senator as he did on sex. He certainly spent more time in pursuit of that than he did cultivating a loving relationship with his wife, she thought peevishly.

"All right," she said now, "I'll handle it."

She pulled the den door closed with a hard slam. Less than a minute later she was slamming another door in the houseathis one to Fancy's bedroom. The girl was sitting on her bed, painting her toenails fire-engine red. A cigarette was burning in the nightstand ashtray. Condensation was collecting on the cold drink can beside the ashtray. Stereo headphones were bridging her head. Her jaws were working a piece of Juicy Fruit to the rhythm of the music.

She couldn't possibly have heard the slamming door over the acid rock being blasted into her ears, but she must have felt the vibration of the impact because she glanced up and saw Avery glaring down at her, holding a gum wrapper in her hand.

Fancy replaced the brush in the bottle of nail polish and draped the headphones around her neck. "What the hell are you doing in my room?"

"I came to retrieve my belongings."

Giving Fancy no more warning than that, Avery marched to the closet and slid open a louvered panel.

"Just a freaking minute!" Fancy exclaimed. She tossed the headphones down onto the bed and came charging off it.

"This is mine," Avery said, yanking a blouse off a hanger. "And this skirt. And this." She removed a belt from a hook. Finding nothing more in the closet, she crossed to Fancy's dressing table, which was littered with candy wrappers, chewing gum foil, perfume bottles, and enough cosmetics to stock a drugstore.

Avery raised the lid of a lacquered jewelry box and began riffling through earrings, bracelets, necklaces, and rings. She found the silver earrings she had reported missing in Houston, a bracelet, and the watch.

It was an inexpensive wristwatchacostume jewelry, reallya but Tate had bought it for her. It hadn't been a bona fide gift. They had been browsing through a department store during a break in the campaign trip. She had seen the watch, remarked on its attractive green alligator band, and Tate had passed the star struck salesgirl his credit card.

Avery treasured it because he had bought it forher,not for Carole. She had noticed its disappearance from her jewelry box that morning. That had prompted her to storm the meeting in search of Tate. Since he had declined to advise her on how to deal with Fancy's kleptomania, she had taken matters into her own hands.

"You're a lousy thief, Fancy."

"I don't know how your stuff got into my room," she said loftily.

"You're an even lousier liar." "Mona probablya"

" Fancyl"Avery shouted. "You've been sneaking into my room and taking things for weeks. I know it. Don't insult my intelligence by denying it. You leave unmistakable clues behind."

Fancy looked down at the incriminating gum wrapper now lying on the bed. "Are you going to tattle to Uncle Tate?"

"Is that what you want me to do?"

"Hell, no." She flopped back down on the bed and began vigorously shaking the bottle of nail polish. "Do whatever the hell you want to. Just do it someplace else besides my room."

Avery was on her way out when she reconsidered. Turning back, she approached the bed and sat down. Taking the silver earrings, she pressed them into Fancy's hand and folded her fingers around them.

"Why don't you keep these? I would have loaned them to you if you had just asked."

Fancy flung the earrings as far as she could throw them. "I don't want your goddamn charity." Her beautiful blue eyes turned ugly with dislike. "Who the hell are you to offer me your sorry leftovers? I don't want the earrings or anything else you've got."