He half-expected to see nothing, just the swaying of tree limbs, the shadows in the twilight. But thereshe stood, leaning against the porch railing of his childhood home.

"h.e.l.lo," he managed, realizing he sounded as stunned as he felt.

They stared at each other for a moment, until she pushed away from the railing.

"So do you want to invite me in?"

This seemed to be the patented phrasing for her pickups.So do you want to... Fill in the blank. Of course he knew the real question she was asking. Just as he'd known last night, too.

"Are you having problems with your home?" he asked, stalling, also using the same approach of last night. He couldn't let her inside, even though his body was more than willing to invite her in. h.e.l.l, one part of his body was already pointing the way.

d.a.m.n, this was not good. Not good at all. But she did look so, so tempting. As tempting as he remembered. Although she looked different somehow, too. Then he realized the leather pants and jacket were gone, replaced by a long skirt, tiered with different-colored materials. She wore a faded jean jacket. The style was more chicly hippie than tough biker tonight. Even her hair appeared longer and thicker, framing her delicate features. He liked the look. A lot. Of course, he'd liked the other look, too.

She smiled widely. "No, my home is fine. I just want to see yours."

He nodded, then, almost against his will, he found himself stepping toward her. Once he reached her, he wedged past her and climbed onto the porch. Her scent enveloped him as he pa.s.sed, spicy and delicious. The smell ignited him, making his body react. He pushed the front door open, then stood back to allow her to enter.

What the h.e.l.l was he doing?

She didn't hurry, so obviously she couldn't see the war waging inside him. The part of him that was repeating,send her away as the other part blithely ignored it, urging her inside. Or maybe she did see, and she already knew which side would win.

She sauntered by him, her body not making contact with his, either. It didn't matter-his body reacted. Even more.

"So," he said, as he followed her into the living room, trying to stare at her narrow back, and not the sweet sway of her hips and bottom, "how did you find me?"

"Oh, I just sniffed you out," she said, tossing a smile over her shoulder.

He nearly groaned. G.o.d, this woman was s.e.xy.

She paused in the living room, turning to face him, her pale eyes roaming down his body.

He shifted, praying that she didn't see the outline of his erection through his worn jeans. Good thing his shirt was untucked. Although her eyes did linger for a moment in that general vicinity.

He cleared his throat. "I was just making dinner. Would you like to join me?"

Her gaze came up to meet his eyes. "Sure."

Even though he knew he must look like a rattled teenage boy, he strode from the room as if he was

afraid she'd attack. Or worse, that he wanted her to.

He busied himself with checking on the stew, wrestling with the lid of the old kettle, which hadn't had a handle for as long as he could remember. He glanced at the woman. She smiled slightly, watching his struggle. He had the feeling that the small grin was about both his struggle with the lid and with her being there. "My granddad really needs new cookware," he said, for no other reason than to fill the excited air between them. She leaned against the kitchen table, idly fingering the back of one of the ladder-back chairs. "Do you live with your granddad?" Jensen nodded, his gaze locked on the gentle caresses of her long, elegant fingers over the smooth wood. "Is he home?" He shook his head. "Gone. Bingo." The woman smiled-a wide, hungry, very predatory smile. Blood rushed through him at the sight, centering in one part of his body. A part that was already stealing its own fair share. "Then we're all alone?" "Yeah." At least he'd managed that one word without sounding like an overeager, yet scared s.h.i.tless, teenager. Her smile widened-she had an amazing smile. A smile he couldn't look away from. That is, until her hands slid down over her thighs, catching the loose fabric of her skirt.

Slowly she knotted the material, each bunching of the skirt drawing it higher and higher until her calves were exposed. Then her knees. Then the smooth, creamy skin of her thighs. Finally she stopped, the material billowing just high enough to glimpse the pouty curve of her s.e.x and small thatch of tight curls hiding the moisture beneath.

His breathing stopped. His body hardened, ripcord tight. He stared, unable to look away from her sweet body.

"I thought... " Her words trailed off, and that finally brought him out of his dazed amazement-and trance.

When he met her eyes, he saw just a glimpse of apprehension there. Uncertainty. Somehow that, combined with the utter brazenness of hiking her skirt up, made his blood ignite. He wanted this woman. G.o.d, he did.

"I thought maybe we could have a repeat of last night."

For just the briefest moment, sanity held, and Jensen hesitated. They couldn't do this again. He couldn't. He couldn't have another day like today. The guilt, the regret, the longing for more.

Longing for more-that was what got him. The other two emotions hadn't tempered that one-not in the least. He still wanted this woman-as much as his next breath.

"Do you want me?" she asked, and again he thought he heard uncertainty in her voice.

He stared at her for a moment. Was she kidding? What man could turn down this invitation, offering herself to him as she was.

A man whose love of his life died in his arms, his lucid brain informed him.

But still, he took a step toward her. Then another and another, until he was standing directly in front of her, looking into her pale, pale eyes. Rather than down at her still-raised skirt, which brushed his thighs. He could feel it through the denim of his jeans.

Like last night, fingers traced the curve of lips, of cheeks, of jawline. Except tonight, it was his turn to explore her, tracing her features. Just as she'd done to him.

She remained perfectly still under his exploration, but her eyes seemed to touch him back. Pale moonlight caressed his skin.

"Why me?" he finally asked. This woman could have any man she wanted-why had she picked him? Why had she tracked him down? Why had she wanted him again? Had she spent the whole day remembering, just as he had?

"I... " She touched the tip of her tongue to the center of her lush top lip as she struggled for the words. "I don't know."

The words were hardly satisfying, but they were enough. It was fair that she, too, didn't understand this all-encompa.s.sing need between them.

He caught her chin between his fingers and captured her mouth. Just as the night before, the meeting of their lips erupted into a blazing, wild fire.

l.u.s.tjust wasn't a strong enough word to describe what coursed through him. It was as if, from the moment he saw her, he had to possess her. He had to drive himself into her tight body repeatedly until there was no doubt as to why she'd come back to him.

He wanted to make her his-in the most elemental way possible.

His hands left her face, moving to her waist. He lifted her onto the scratched oak of the table. Then he positioned himself between her spread thighs. She gasped as his pelvis ground into hers.

He paused. "Did I hurt you?"

She shook her head. "No, you feel good."

He smiled at that, immediately thinking of things he'd like to do that would make her feel much, much better.

But again he caressed her face, tracing the delicate point of her chin, then the fullness of her lips.

"You know," he said, moving in closer so their mouths were nearly touching. "I'd begun to believe that last night was nothing more than a figment of my imagination."

"Is it real now?" she asked.

"Yes. Between you being here now, and the torn panties in the front seat of my truck, I do believe it is."

She pulled back and blinked up at him. He could see she hadn't expected that response. Then she laughed, the sound full and rich and making more desire curl through him. He smiled, too. Then he kissed her again, catching the warm, rich sound into his mouth, into his body.

The laugh immediately transformed into a moan, a sound no less appealing and even more arousing.

Knowing it showed zero-to-no finesse, he couldn't stop his fingers from drifting to the part of her body she had so daringly and deliciously offered to him.

The damp curls tickled his fingertips. Fiery heat burned them. Instantly, he was overwhelmed by the scent he'd experienced back in the bar. A scent that made his head spin, his body tighten with barely restrained need, his mouth water.

He pushed her backward on the table. He barely registered the flutter of newspaper scattering to the floor. He was too focused on the sight of her bared to the waist, the scent of her enveloping him, luring him to her.

A scent he wanted to taste on her skin. He leaned forward, kissing her, taking small tastes with little flicks of his tongue. She did taste every bit as good as she smelled, as she looked. And he wanted to taste more of her.

His mouth left her lips, moving to her jaw, to her throat. Encountering the barrier of her T-shirt and her jean jacket, he moved farther down, positioning himself between her thighs.

He pressed a kiss to her bare knee, trailing open-mouth kisses up her inner thigh. As he edged closer to the place he most wanted to taste, he felt her tense, her legs not moving, but the muscles under her smooth skin growing tight.

He lifted his head, really enjoying the position they were in. Him practically kneeling between her spread thighs, she lounging back amongst the remaining sections of newspaper, looking down her body at him with intense moonstone eyes.

"Are you okay?" he asked, purposely leaning closer so his lips were lined up with the moist curls between her thighs. G.o.d, she smelled delicious. Like hot spices, like pure s.e.x.

Again, he noted that her muscles tightened, barely contracting, not noticeable to the eye, but there nonetheless.

"I'm... " She nodded.

He wondered at her sudden hesitation. Shyness certainly didn't correlate with the woman who'd just bared herself to him. The woman who came here with this exact intent.

And it was going to happen. Most definitely. Just like last night, it was impossible to stop it. Even as small sc.r.a.ps of his mind told him he shouldn't. For his own sanity.

What was sanity? Who needed it?

He shifted forward a little more, his lips just grazing her. The tickle of her curls, the searing moisture, the scent. d.a.m.n.

This time, she sat up. Her knees pushed against his shoulders.

He moved back, looking up at her. Her pale eyes held easily readable uncertainty now. Her full lips pulled down at the corners.

"You don't have to do that. I'm ready for you."

He blinked at her words. Businesslike and informative. Not at all what he was feeling. He was on fire; he was out of his mind to get his tongue on her.

"I'm glad you're ready. But I'm not."

She frowned at that, her gaze flicking down toward his crotch, which she couldn't see from her angle on the tabletop.

He chuckled ruefully. "Okay, I'm ready. But I'm not ready to stop touching you."

He slid his palms up her thighs, nudging her back into a reclining position. He moved back toward the apex of her thighs.

"Or to stop tasting you," he murmured as he ran his tongue up the pink fold of her s.e.x.

Elizabeth cried out as Jensen's tongue parted her, tasted her. She had to brace her arms to keep from falling back on the table and writhing under his amazing mouth. What was he doing?

She wasn't so naive that she hadn't heard of a male pleasuring a female with his tongue and lips. But she'd never experienced it. It wasn't something she'd wanted from... anyone other than this man.

He swirled his tongue, focusing his attention on her c.l.i.toris, his tongue hot and raspy against her. Then the velvety brush of his lips, then followed by the occasional fleeting hard edge of his teeth. Then that amazing tongue again.

"Jensen," she murmured, knowing his name sounded like a religious word on her lips. But she'd never known. Never believed that she could want this so badly. That she could enjoy the want so much.

Then his lips closed around the straining bud, the center of all her sensations. He pulled on her, suckling the hypersensitive flesh to the point of near pain.

She moaned, bucking her hips. He licked her, more swirling, more long rasps.

She collapsed back against the table, unable to hold herself any longer. And still he continued, each sweep of his tongue more intense than the last. Until she could barely catch her breath-she could barely even remember to breathe. Then he suckled her again.

Lights, brilliant starbursts of color, exploded behind her closed eyelids. Through her body. Wave after wave of lights, of pure sensation, of ecstasy.

Then Jensen was levered over her, entering her in one thrust. Her body clenched him, as if seizing onto him in desperation. In an attempt to keep some hold on her sanity. But the thickness of him, the stretch of her body to accommodate his size, only heightened the other sensations radiating through her. A kaleidoscope of release.

She cried out again, her voice sounding hoa.r.s.e, as if she'd been crying out over and over. Maybe she had. She couldn't recall. She couldn't remember anything beyond Jensen, and his body moving inside hers. Powerful strokes, rocking her toward something that was life-changing.

You should be scared,she thought, even as she anch.o.r.ed her legs around his hips, pulling him deeper inside her.

You should stop.She'd have laughed at the ludicrous impossibility of that thought if she'd been able, but only another gasp, another moan, another strangled repeat of his name escaped her lips.

She opened her eyes to find Jensen watching her, his eyes hooded but his expression intense, as if he was memorizing her every reaction. And that look, that intensity, was the trigger that threw her over the edge again, headlong into the abyss of release.

"Jensen," she breathed, then locked him tight to her, keeping him buried fully inside her as she shuddered around him. And he pulsed in response, his body tensing as his wet heat filled her.

Chapter 7.

Slowly reality seeped in, the lovely blur of her release fading, focus returning from the edges toward the middle, until she realized she was flat on her back, staring up at a ceiling light. Copper with scrolling flowers, the metal tinged brown with age.

Jensen's weight pinned her to the wooden table, the sensation pleasing rather than confining. His head was nestled between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and when she tilted her head to the right, she could see his features-his eyes were closed, his lips parted, his breathing gradually slowing to an even rhythm.

He was a beautiful, beautiful man. Far more beautiful than any mortal man she could remember seeing. For a moment, her heart soared at the idea that this man was hers.

Then reality hit again-this time, not the mellow fade-in. This time, a stark, unforgiving truth.