When she turned away, he took her hand, stopping her.

"Cassandra. Look at me. Please, just...look at me."

She glanced over her shoulder. "Why? So you can-"

"I'm so sorry about the way I left things with you." The anguish in his voice stilled her. And as if he recognized her change in mood, he reached out and stroked her cheek with his knuckles. "That night...It wasn't that I didn't want to...you know. I did. God, I really did."

"Alex-"

"It just felt unfair to you."

Unfair to her...?

Oh, right.

Cass closed her eyes. "So you were thinking of her the whole time, is that it? And that's why you wanted me. I must look like her, huh?"

His eyes traced over her face, her hair, her body. "You are no substitute."

Ah, yes. Because Miracle was perfection, Cass thought.

Okay, she really had to get out of here. Her self-esteem was getting cut to ribbons. Next on the hit parade would be bursting into tears in front of him. And wouldn't that be a terrific way to start her birthday?

"Let me go," she whispered, pulling at his grip.

He only tugged her closer.

"That night, all I saw was your hair on my pillow. Your skin in the dim light. Your beautiful, beautiful body. All I heard were the gasping sounds you made deep in your throat. Do you know what it did to me to hear you moan like that?" His voice became a low growl as he leaned down and spoke into her ear. "I want to go back there, Cassandra. Back to where I was with you. I want to taste you. I want your mouth under mine. I want to kiss your secrets. It's all about you."

Cass swayed, clinging to his arm. She didn't understand him, but she didn't doubt him. He was a lot of things, but never a liar.

And she wanted the same thing he did.

Oh...hell, it was happening again. Her rational thoughts were getting sucked under by her body's instinct to bring him inside.

What a perfect recipe for disaster, she thought. More sex with a man who had proven capable of hurting her over and over again.

Was she insane?

She looked at his lips. "Prove that I'm really the one you want tonight. Kiss me."

He stared at her long and hard. Then he murmured something that sounded like I'm such a bastard.

Before she could ask what he meant, his lips came down lightly on hers. They were soft as suede, brushing, stroking, so very gentle. And they trembled. In fact his whole body trembled, making her feel both precious and powerful.

He kissed her delicately for the longest time, sipping and teasing. When his tongue finally licked for permission to enter her mouth, she opened for him.

As he slid inside, he groaned. So did she.

He tasted like scotch and man and need. She smelled his aftershave, felt the hard muscles of his chest against her breasts, his flat belly tight on her own, his thighs.

His hard arousal, thick and straining.

Yes, she thought, sliding her hands around to his hips and bringing him closer. Oh, yes.

Dimly she heard the fireworks go off. Alex lifted his head.

"Cassandra..." He was breathing heavily and she had a feeling he was going to break off the embrace. But then he closed his eyes and wrapped his arms all the way around her until his forearms were on her back. He tilted her off center and kissed the holy heaven out of her.

His mouth was hard on hers. No more gentle searching, no soft caressing. A man's passion unleashed, a male's primal need given free rein. She absorbed him, welcoming the rush, the demand of him- Spike's voice carried into the room. "Hey, Lex, where-whoa. Ah...sorry."

As she and Alex broke apart, Cass felt a rush of blood hit her face. The blush got worse as Spike quickly started backing out of the room and shutting the double doors.

"Wait up, buddy. I need a ride home," Alex said.

The man gave him a long look. Kind of like someone would if their friend was thinking of jumping off a bridge: You crazy idiot.

"Now?" Spike asked.

Alex stepped back. "Yeah."

"Do you have to go?" Cass whispered as the sound of oohs and aahs joined all the popping and cracking coming from outdoors.

"It's better if I do." He lifted his hand to her face and brushed her lips once with his thumb. Then he limped out of the room.

Chapter Twelve.

As Spike pulled up to the workshop, Alex reached for the door handle. "Thanks, man. Eventually I'll be able to drive again."

"You know I'm cool with being your taxi." Spike looked across the seats. "Ah, listen, Lex, it's none of my business-"

"You're right."

"But I'm a nosy bastard."

"Just my luck."

"What's doing between you and Cass? I mean, she's righteous beautiful and a really good person, so I get all that. But if you want her and she wants you, why don't you just muscle O'Banyon out of the picture? He's a tank under all those pinstripes, but you could serve him up."

"You know it's more complicated than that."

When Spike fell silent, Alex glanced over.

The man's yellow eyes were narrow as he stared out of the front windshield. In the glow from the dashboard, his face was grim, his saw-toothed, jet-black hair like a cap of thorns on his head.

"You okay, Spike?"

"Brace yourself. I'm about to go sissy on you."

Alex had to smile. "Just as long as you don't try and hold my hand."

"Look, I know that what happened with your partner is eating you alive. And I think it's more than just about him being gone. Did you try and save him, Alex? Did you try and save him and lose him in the end?"

Alex recoiled.

"Yeah," Spike said softly. "That's it, isn't it. You lost him out on that boat, didn't you?"

"How do you..."

Spike's eyes flipped across the seat. They seemed to glimmer, becoming otherworldly in their golden intensity.

"We've all got demons, man. Some we work through. Some are ghosts we foxtrot into the grave with. But here's the thing. Time's short. Life's shorter. A blink of an eye and you've missed what you wanted, what you needed." Spike looked back out into the night. "Death's damn cold and it lasts forever once it shakes your hand. So take the warmth now, my man. Take it where you find it. Forgive yourself just enough to let some in, okay?"

Alex stared at his buddy and frowned. "What the hell happened to you?"

Spike's dark smile brought chills. "Ah, but we're talking about your curse, not mine. Now if you don't mind, I've got a party to get back to. There are a number of women dying to take advantage of my charms, and I'm in the mood to be used."

Alex got out of the car. Before he shut the door, he leaned down. "I just realized something. I don't know all that much about you. Where are you from, anyway?"

Spike moved the gearshift back and forth in Neutral. His sun-colored eyes flashed. "Oz."

Alex chuckled. "Which one are you? The lion, the scarecrow?"

Spike winked and put the car in gear. "The wizard."

Alex shut the door and watched the Honda take off down the drive, wondering what was in his friend's past.

Then he took a couple of deep breaths, sucking the cold night into his lungs.

Leaving Cassandra had been the right thing to do. It wasn't just that O'Banyon was up and the last thing she needed was to get caught between two jealous men. It was mostly because if he'd stayed much longer, he would have taken her back to the shop with him and woken up next to her in the morning. And he would have...finished.

Which was a bad idea, all the way around. Just because he'd outed his need for her, didn't mean the essential dynamic between them had changed.

So it was just as well that O'Banyon was with her over the weekend.

Well, provided Alex didn't think about the two of them together.

Cursing himself, he went into the shop and fired up the potbellied stove, stoking it for the night. He undressed and hit the mattress. As the temperature rose, he shoved the covers from his upper body and flopped onto his back.

Staring at the ceiling, he thought of Spike's words.

What if he could forgive himself a little? Just enough to have Cassandra once. Only once. The aftermath would be a tossing sea of guilt, but the taking...the taking would be wondrous.

God, he was a bastard, he thought. To even think such a thing.

He turned his head and looked at the desk where his father's plans were laid out.

His father never would have found himself in this situation. Ted Moorehouse had had honor. Honor in the life he'd led and in how he cared for the people who mattered.

Alex was ashamed to admit it, but he had pitied his father. Had been so focused on the brighter horizon he hadn't understood how someone could live such a small life.

Now he would settle for being half the man his father had been.

Alex closed his eyes and went back into the past. He saw barbecues on the front lawn with his father at the grill and him shucking corn on the back step. He remembered ice fishing on the lake in March when they'd shared hot chocolate and rubbed their hands over a little propane heater. He returned to the times he and his father had climbed the mountain behind the house in the spring and gotten mud in their boots.

Funny, he couldn't recall much about the last five finish lines he'd crossed. He'd gone past so many that the particulars of each one were a blur now.

The memories of his father, though, were as vivid as the experiences had been. He could bring up the smells of smoke and molasses off the grill, the taste of the cocoa, the mucky, creepy feeling of having mud slide around the inside of his boot like a molten sock.

And those things had happened twenty years ago.

God, he had lost so much, and the losing had started before his father and mother had died. It had started when he'd left his family behind.

Alex took a deep breath and tried to let go, but his regrets had set up shop and were staying put. They were like an ant farm in his chest, little paths of teeming remorse, always moving, always shifting, never, ever getting free.

He had to smile, thinking this was a hell of a way to break in the New Year. All around the world people were partying and blowing shooters and pitching confetti. Meanwhile, he was in bed with one hell of a dominatrix: Mistress Conscience.

Sometime later Alex came awake to the feel of something on his chest: a soft stroke over his naked skin.

He shot up and grabbed hold of- "Cassandra? What are you doing here?" He released her wrist as he realized how very naked he was. He pulled the blankets up farther on his chest.

Oh, she was lovely. She had changed into casual clothes, and her hair was loose around her shoulders, a thick curtain of copper red.

When she knelt down by the side of the bed, he propped himself up on his arms.

"Is there something wrong?" he asked.

"Did you know?" she whispered into the darkness.

"Know what?"

There was a long pause. "That I wanted you. When Reese was alive. Was that why you didn't like me?"

Shocked, he studied her fine, delicate profile, lingering on her lips.

Good God...

"Did you?" he said roughly. "Did you want me?"