As she tried to get her breath back, he lifted his head and shoulders, which, of course, contracted his abs into the gold standard of six-packs. "Why's your face so red?" he said.

"S-sunburn." She knew how vulnerable she was, and she should have thrown herself in the lake to cool off before she came back here.

"That's not sunburn." He swung his feet to the floor, and she noticed his hair was damp. "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing!" She began inching away. It meant taking the long route around, but she wasn't turning her back on him. "You took another shower."

"So?"

"You showered after you swam. What are you, some kind of clean freak?"

"Ron and I went for a run after dinner. Why do you care?"

Oh, God, that chest, that mouth… those green eyes that saw everything. Except her naked. They'd never seen that. "I'm… going to bed now."

"Was it something I said?"

"Don't be cute. Please."

"I'll do my best." He gave her a crooked smile. "But me being me…"

"Stop it!" She didn't intend to quit moving, but her feet went on some kind of labor strike.

"You need warm milk or something?"

"No, I definitely don't need anything hot."

"I said warm. I didn't say anything about hot." He set down his papers.

"I-I know that."

She might be standing still, but he wasn't, and he took in her damp, rumpled dress as he approached. "What's going on?"

She couldn't take her eyes off his mouth. It brought to mind all the mouths she'd seen on that small television screen so recently and exactly what they'd been doing. Damn Krystal and her movie. "I'm just tired," she managed.

"You don't look tired. Your lips are sort of puffy, like you've been chewing on them, and you're breathing hard. Frankly, you look turned on. Or is that my one-track mind taking over again?"

"Let it go, okay?" He had a small scar on one rib, probably a knife wound from a spurned girlfriend.

"What the hell did you women do tonight?"

"It wasn't my idea!" She sounded guilty, and her flush deepened.

"I'll find out. One of the guys will tell me, so you might as well fill me in now."

"I don't think the men will be talking about this. Or maybe they will. I don't know. I have no idea how much you men talk."

"Not as much as you women do, that's for damn sure." He inclined his head toward the kitchen. "Do you want something to drink? There's a bottle of wine in the refrigerator."

"Oh, yeah… Wine's exactly what I don't need right now."

"A mystery just waiting to be solved…" He'd clearly begun to enjoy himself.

"Leave it alone, will you?"

"Exactly what a nice guy would do." He leaned down and picked up his cell. "Janine'll tell me what happened. She seems like an up-front lady."

"She's at the B &B. She doesn't have a phone in her room."

"Right. I'll ask Krystal. I talked to Webster not half an hour ago."

Annabelle had a pretty good idea what Krystal and Webster were doing about now, and they wouldn't appreciate being interrupted. "It's midnight."

"Your powwow just broke up. She won't have gone to bed yet."

Don't bet on it.

He rubbed his thumb over the number pad. "I've always liked Krystal. She's straightforward." He pressed the first button.

Annabelle sucked in air. "We watched porn, okay?"

He grinned and tossed the phone down. "Now we're getting somewhere."

"Believe me, it wasn't my idea. And it's not funny. Besides, it wasn't really porn. It was erotica. For women."

"There's a difference?"

"That's exactly the kind of thing I'd expect a man to say. Do you think most of us get off watching a bunch of women with collagen lips and soccer-ball implants go at each other?"

"From your expression, I'm guessing not."

She needed something cold to drink, and she headed for the kitchen, still talking because she had a point to make. "Like seduction. Does your average porn film even think about showing a little seduction?"

He followed her. "To be fair, there's not usually much need. The women are pretty aggressive."

"Exactly. Well, I'm not." As soon as the words were out, she could have kicked herself. The last thing she'd wanted to do was bring the subject back to the personal.

He didn't pounce on her misstep, not the wily Python. He liked to play with his prey before he struck. "So did the film have a plot?"

"Rural New England, virginal artist, studly stranger, 'nuff said." She pulled open the refrigerator door and stared inside without seeing a thing.

"Only two people. That's disappointing."

"There were a couple of subplots."

"Ah."

She turned on him, her damp palm still curled around the refrigerator door handle. "You think this is funny, don't you?"

"Yeah, but I'm ashamed of myself."

She wanted to smell him. His hair was nearly dry, his skin freshly showered. She wanted to press her face against his chest and inhale, to burrow in, maybe find an errant tuft of silky hair and let it tickle her nose. She nearly whimpered. "Please go away."

He cocked his head. "I'm sorry. Did you say something?"

She grabbed the first cold thing she touched and pushed the door shut. "You know the way I feel about this. About… us."

"You were pretty clear last night."

"I'm right, too."

"I know you are."

"So why did you argue with me?"

"Jerk syndrome. I can't help it. I'm a guy." His lips curved in a lazy smile. "And you're not."

Enough bolts of sexual electricity charged the air to light up the planet. He stood between her and the bedroom, and if she passed too close, she'd be tempted to lick, so she headed for the porch and nearly stumbled over the mattress he'd dragged out there last night. He'd tidied the sheets, stacked the pillows, and folded the blanket in half, doing a better job of it than she'd done with the double bed.

He ambled out. "Do you want a sandwich with that?"

She couldn't figure out what he was talking about until she followed his gaze to her hand and saw ajar of French's mustard there instead of a can of Coke. She'd stared at it. "Mustard happens to be a natural sleep aid."

"Never heard that."

"You don't know everything do you?"

"Apparently not." A few beats of silence ticked by. "Do you eat it or apply it?"

"I'm going to bed."

"Because if you apply it… I could probably help with that."

Her redhead's temper ignited, and she slammed the jar down on the farmhouse table. "Why don't I just hand you my panties and be done with it?"

"That'll work." His teeth glinted like a shark's. "So if I kiss you right now, will you turn into a big sissy again?"

Her anger faded, leaving trepidation in its wake. "I don't know."

"I've got a good-size ego-you know that. But the way you rejected me last night still bordered on the traumatic." He slipped a thumb into the top of his shorts, causing the elastic waistband to dip in a deep, mouth-watering V. "Now I'm wondering, what if I've lost my touch? What do I do then?" He moved his thumb closer to the blade of his hip bone, revealing even more skin. "You can see why I'm a little concerned."

As she gazed at the wedge of taut abdomen, she had to fight the urge to roll the cold mustard jar over her forehead. "Uh… I wouldn't lose too much sleep over it." Summoning her last ounce of willpower, she began to slide past him, and she might have made it if he hadn't reached out and touched her arm. It was the merest brush of his finger-a simple parting gesture-but he'd found bare skin, and that was enough to make her stop in her tracks.

He went as still as she. As he gazed down at her, his green eyes were an invitation to disaster overlaid with faint apology. "Damn it," he whispered. "Sometimes I'm too much of a smart-ass for my own good."

He pulled her against him, feasted on her mouth, ran his hands down the contours of her back. And she let him, just as she had last night, ignoring the fact that this was the Super Bowl of bad ideas, ignoring all the reasons why she shouldn't live every moment of this one night and deal with the consequences tomorrow.

"No patience." His dusky murmur fell like a caress over her cheek as he lowered the zipper on her dress in one effortless motion.

"This is going to ruin everything," she whispered against his mouth, needing to say the words even though she didn't do one thing to stop him.

"Let's do it anyway," he said in a husky rasp. "We'll sort it out afterward."

Exactly what she wanted to hear. She lost herself in their kiss-limp, spellbound, stupid… a little bit in love.

Moments later, her dress lay in a puddle around her feet along with her bra, a pair of panties, and everything he'd been wearing-one pair of black athletic shorts. They were on the porch, but it was dark, the trees thick, and who cared? He gazed down at her breasts, not touching them, simply looking. With one hand he cupped her shoulder. With the other, he ran the tips of his fingers down her spine and dabbled with her coccyx. She shivered and pressed her cheek to his chest, then turned her lips against his skin only to have him spring back and catch his breath in a long hiss.

"Do not move."

He broke away and dashed toward the kitchen, giving her an all-too-brief glimpse of a spectacularly tight male butt. It flashed through her mind that he might be retrieving his cell so he could multitask, but he turned off the overhead fixture in the kitchen, leaving only the stove light on, then disappeared into the living area and shut off more lights. Moments later he reappeared. The dim golden light from the kitchen played along his long-muscled body as he came toward her. He was fully erect. When he reached her side, he held up a trio of condoms and said softly, "Consider these a token of my affection."