"Fine. I need an excuse to resand the wood.

Do you know how much snow's out there?"

"They kept plowing. It wasn't so much."

"It's twenty-two degrees out. And you're wearing these skimpy running pants." After tossing aside the second sneaker, he took her hand and led her up the stairs and through the bedroom she assumed was his to the bathroom, where he turned on the shower. While he waited for it to heat, he pulled off her turtleneck jersey, then her running pants. He muttered a pithy oath when he saw her legs, which were bright red from the cold. When steam had begun to fog the door of the shower, he opened it and shoved her inside, underwear and all.

The warmth was heavenly. Paige's muscles ached. Her skin stung, then tingled. She held her face to the spray, turned, and let it pour over her head. Parts of her body that had been numb began slowly to revive.

With the increased sensation, she pulled off her underwear, dropped it in a corner, and returned to the full force of the spray.

She was thinking that she might just stay in Noah's shower forever when the door opened and he joined her. His glasses were gone, and his clothes, but it seemed the best thing to happen to her that day.

Without a second thought, she wrapped her arms around his neck.

If there was a birthday gift to he had, this was it. She had been wanting him forever, it seemed, and the waiting only enhanced the pleasure she felt. She was tingling now from the inside, all the more so when he circled her hips and lifted her so that their mouths could meet.

Their kiss was as wet as the shower. Paige lost herself in it and in the kisses that followed, each one sweeter, deeper, more consumingand frustrating. For every kiss, every touch, she needed more. She strained closer, moving her hands through his hair and over his skin, craving the kind of possession for which her dreams had left her wanting Taking her weight on his thighs, he braced her against the shower wall, touched her breasts and swallowed her cries, and still it wasn't enough. She was feeling desperate, feeling that if she didn't have more, she might die. That was when she felt his entry.

The scraping glide, the fullness, the sense of every loose end of her life coming together, touched off a million tiny explosions inside her, and that was before he began to move. When he did, she could only catch her breath and hang on. Her body shook in a trail of orgasmic shocks, one dovetailing the next, never quite ending but going on and on and on.

She was gasping against his ear, trembling in the aftermath, when she realized that he was rock still and hard all over. She drew back, wiped the water from his face, and, with a hand on his cheek, met his eyes. They were as hard as his body, but hot and hungry.

I can't finish," he ground out, "until I put something on."

"No need," she whispered. She slid off him and took him between her hands, and while she gave everything she could to his mouth, she stroked him below. It didn't take long. He was as primed as she had beenfrom dreams? she wondered, but didn't ask That would have involved confessions and deeper discussions than those she was prepared to hold. Rather, when he came with a long, guttural cry, she held him until he could breathe again, then bathed him, then let him towel her off and lead her to his bed.

She was thinking how beautiful his body was, how well proportioned and manly, and that she wanted him again. But when he should have slid under the covers and taken her in his arms, he simply perched on the sheets, punched out a phone number, and looked at her while he waited for the other end to ring.

"Hey, Nonny, it's Noah. Paige is here." He listened. "She's fine.

I'm just warming her up." He listened more, then asked, "Any problem if she spends the night?" He listened a final time. "Sounds good.

We'll see you then."

Paige didn't move.

Looking at her all the while, he hung up the phone and said, "It's time we stop fooling ourselves. Something's going on between us, and I don't know as it's pure lust." His mouth curved. But I'm willing to explore the pure lust theory for a while."

He reached for her as he slid under the covers, and if she had objected to anything he had said or done, she would have promptly forgotten.

The coming together of their bodies was like nothing she had ever experienced. It was so strikingly new and special, so provocative, so incendiary, that to deny it would have been to deny her very existence.

The exploration was slower this time. It was a hand here, glancing over skin and through hair. It was a tongue there, tracing and taunting, dancing away when the arch of a body sought more. It was the visual study of a tactile response and the seductive effect of a word, a hum, a sigh, and the joint rise of breathing and need until only completion would do.

This time they climaxed together, then lay for a long time, reluctant to move. A sweet lethargy owned Paige's body. She felt warm and safe and incredibly at peace.

Noah stretched against her. He kissed her forb head and said in a crusty male voice, When I applied for this job, the trustees asked me about my morals They were concerned because I was single. Seeing how it's isolated up here. And the sweet young locals are always hungry for fresh meat. Wonder what the board would say if they could see me now n Paige grinned against his chest. "I'm not a sweet young local.

I'm a doctor. And this is the very first time I've come here."

"Why did you?"

She raised her eyes. "Nonny didn't tell you that?"

Tell me what?"

She settled in again, running her thumb over the hair that trailed down the center of his chest. It was darker than that on his head, the color of warm maple against his skin.

"It's my birthday. I figured I deserved a treat."

"Your birthday. No kidding?"

"No kidding."

"Did Nonny bake a cake?"

"No. Mara was always the one who did that.

Last year she made a monstrosity of a cake, brought it into the office, and set it up in the waiting room where everyone who walked in could take a piece." She fell quiet, thinking of Mara, feeling lonely to be growing older without her.

Noah's arms tightened. The comfort was welcome, but it didn't divert Paige's thoughts. After a time she said, She had a way of making everyone happy but herself. She was like the clown who was crying inside. So sad.

Something I don't ever want to be. So when I started feeling sorry for myself this afternoon because the snow had spoiled my plans, and Nonny was cross with me, and my parents hadn't calledI went out for a run.

And ended up here."

He ran his hands through her hair. It was a lulling esture When she hummed her pleasure, he kept at t. tithln minutes she was asleeD.

* * * Noah dozed, but not for long. He had no desire to sleep away as intense a pleasure as Paige Pfeiffer. For a time he just looked at her, studying her features as she slept, savoring the curl of her body against his, the swell of her breast, the sweep of her thigh.

In time he kissed her, because to be near her this way and not do it was painful.

She came slowly awake, saw him, and smiled.

"You're tired," he whispered.

"Not that tired," she whispered back.

"Hungry?"

"Starved."

"Can I make you a birthday dinner?"

Paige found the thought of that eminently pleasing. "Sure. If you want."

"I want," he said, but he made no move to leave the bed. Instead he came over her and kissed her eyes, her nose, her mouth. Then he kissed the tip of her chin, then under it, then her throat, then the pulsing spot at her neck. The pulsing picked up as he worked his way down her body, over her breasts, her ribs, her belly, until she was a writhing mass of nerve ends waiting to connect, and when they did, when his tongue brought her to a release as no man ever had, she was too scattered to realize it.