Already half-mad for him, she dragged at his shirt. "Hurry," she demanded. "I've wanted you to hurry since the first time you touched me."

"Let me catch up." Equally frantic, he crushed his mouth to hers, sinking in.

Breathless, she yanked at the snap of his jeans. "This is insane."

She struggled to find him, drinking hungrily from his mouth as they rolled across the bed.

He couldn't catch his breath, or even a slippery hold on control.

"It's about to be," he muttered. Tugging her robe open, he found the thin swatch of matching silk beneath. A moan ripped through him as he closed his mouth over her cream-covered breast.

Silk and heat and fragrant flesh. Everything she was filled him, taunted him, tormented him. Woman, all woman. Beauty and grace and pa.s.sion. Temptation and torment and triumph. All of it, all of her, obsessed him.

They thrashed over the slick satin spread, groping for more.

Here was fire, the bright, dangerous flash of it. It seared through him, burned, scarred, while her hands and mouth raced over him, igniting hundreds of new flames. He didn't fight it back. For once he wanted to be consumed. With an oath, he tore at the silk and dined greedily on her flesh.

His hands were rough and hard. And wonderful. She'd never felt more alive, or more desperate. She craved him, knew that she had, on some deep level, right from the beginning.

But now she had him, could feel the press of that hard, muscled body against her, could taste the violent urgency of his need whenever their mouths met, could hear his response to her touch, to her taste, in every hurried breath.

If it was elemental, so be it. She felt l.u.s.ty and wanton and absolutely free. Her teeth dug into his shoulder as he whipped her ruthlessly over the first crest. She cried out his name, all but screamed it, arching upward, taut as a bow.

He arrowed into her, hard, deep.

She was blind and deaf from the pleasure of it, oblivious of her own sobbing breaths as they mated in a frenzied rhythm. Her body plunged against his, tireless, driven by a need that seemed insatiable.

Then body and need erupted.

The light was on. Funny he hadn't even noticed that, when normally he was accustomed to picking up every small detail. The lamp's glow was soft, picking up the cool sherbet tones of her bedroom.

Ryan lay still, his head on her breast, and waited for his system to level. Beneath his ear, her heart continued to thunder. Her flesh was damp, her body limp. Every few moments a tremor shook her.

He didn't smile in triumph, as he might have done, but simply stared in wonder.

He'd wanted to conquer her. He couldn't-wouldn't-deny it.

He'd craved the sensation of having her body buck and shudder under his from the first moment he saw her.

But he hadn't expected the tornado of need that had swept through them both, that had them clawing at each other like animals.

He knew he'd been rough. He wasn't a particularly gentle man, so that didn't bother him. But he'd never lost control so completely with any woman. Nor had he ever wanted one so intensely only moments after he'd had her.

"That should have done it," he muttered. "Hmmm?" She felt weak as water. Achy and sweet. "It should have gotten it out of my system. Gottenyou out. At least started getting you out."

"Oh." She found the energy to open her eyes. The light, dim as it was, had her wincing. Slowly, her mind began to clear; quickly, her skin began to heat. She remembered the way she'd torn at his clothes, wrestled him into bed without a single coherent thought except having him.

She let out a breath, drew another in.

"You're right," she decided. "It should have. What's wrong with us?"

With a laugh, he lifted his head, looking at her flushed face, her tousled hair. "d.a.m.ned if I know. Are you okay?"

Now she smiled. The h.e.l.l with logic. "d.a.m.ned if I know. What just happened here's a bit out of the usual realm for me."

"Good." He lowered his head, skimmed his tongue lightly over her breast. "I want you again, Natalie."

She quivered once. "Good."

When the alarm went off, Natalie groaned, rolled over to shut it off, and b.u.mped solidly into Ry. He grunted, slapped at the buzzer with one hand and brought her to rest on top of him with the other.

"What's the noise for?" he asked, and ran an interested hand down her spine to the hip.

"To wake me up."

He opened one eye. Yeah, he thought, he should have known it.

She looked just as good in the morning as she did every other time of the day. "Why?"

"It goes like this." Still groggy, she pushed her hair out of her face. "The alarm goes off, I get up, shower, dress, drink copious cups of coffee, and go to work."

"I've had some experience with the process. Anybody tell you today's Sat.u.r.day?"

"I know what day it is," she said. At least she did now. "I have work."

"No, you don't, you just think you do." He cradled her head against his shoulder, casting one bleary eye at the clock. It was 7:00 a.m. He calculated they'd had three hours' sleep, at the outside. "Go back to sleep."

"I can't."

He let out a long-suffering sigh. "All right, all right. But you should have warned me you were insatiable." More than willing to oblige, he rolled her over again and began to nibble on her shoulder.

"I didn't mean that." She laughed, trying to wiggle free. "I have paperwork, calls to make." His hand was sneaking up to stroke her breast. Fire kindled instantly in the pit of her stomach. "Cut it out."

"Uh-uh. You woke me up, now you pay."

She couldn't help it, simply couldn't, and she began to stretch under his hands. "We're lucky we didn't kill each other last night.

Are you sure you want to take another chance?''

"Men like me face danger every day." He covered her grinning mouth with his.

She was more than three hours behind schedule when she stepped out of the shower. So, she'd work late, Natalie decided, and after wrapping a towel around her hair she began to cream her legs. A good executive understood the merits of flextime.

Yawning, she wiped steam from the bathroom mirror and took a good look at her face. She should be exhausted, she realized. She certainly should look exhausted after the wild night she and Ry had shared.

But she wasn't. And she didn't. She looked... soft, she thought.

Satisfied.

And why not? she thought, dragging the towel from her hair.

When a woman took thirty-two years to experience just what a bout of hot, sweaty s.e.x could do for the mind and body, she ought to look satisfied.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, she'd ever experienced, came close to what she'd felt, what she'd done, what she'd discovered, during the night with Ry.

So if she smiled like a fool while she combed out her wet hair, why not? If she felt like singing as she wrapped her tingling body in her robe, it was understandable.