"Noted and appreciated," she replied, just as softly.

He pressed her onto the mattress. She remembered how goal driven he was and realized that Girls Night at the Movies might have raised her expectations for lingering foreplay too high. Sure enough, in much too short a time he rolled above her, his mouth at her breast. She sank her fingers into his hair. "You're going to rush me, aren't you?"

"No doubt about it." He slipped his hand to her belly, already zeroing in on command central.

"I want more kissing."

"No problem." He took her nipple between his lips.

She sucked in her breath. "On the mouth."

He teased the tiny, turgid nub, his breath growing shallow. "Let's negotiate."

She dug her fingers into his back, which was already damp from whatever small amount of restraint he might be practicing. Her thighs automatically parted. "I should have expected this."

He trailed his thumb over the thatch of curly hair at the base of her stomach and played in the fiery threads. "I'll go too fast for you. That's a given, and I apologize in advance." She gave a soft gasp of pleasure when he touched warm, wet flesh. "But it's been a long time for me, and what might, in reality, only take minutes-"

"If that." Her toes curled.

"-will seem like years to me." His voice grew ragged. "So here's what I'm going to suggest." She gripped his hips as he played with her. "Let's accept the fact that I can't satisfy you the first time. That takes the pressure off both of us."

She bent her knees and said, in a strangled gasp, "Off you, anyway."

"But once I've released that first burst of… steam…"- he sucked in his breath, his words coming fast and choppy- "I'll have all the time in the world"-her head thrashed as his wily fingers teased her in the most intimate way-"to do the job right." He nudged her thighs wider. "And you, Tinker Bell…" She took his weight. "You'll have a night you'll never forget."

He entered her with a groan, and even though she was slick and oh-so-ready, it wasn't an easy fit. She drew up her knees and arched her back. He closed his mouth over hers, took her hips in his palms, and tilted her to the angle they both wanted.

Feverish, demented images shimmered behind her eyelids. The long, thick body of a python pushing into her, uncoiling… stretching… going deeper… deeper still. His back grew rigid beneath her palms. The sweet attack… The plunge. Again and again. And then the final climb. He began to shudder. She swallowed his low, guttural moan. Light shimmered behind her eyes. She took his weight, threw back her head, and gave herself up.

Long minutes passed. He brushed his lips against her temple, then rolled to his side, barely staying on the narrow mattress. She slid over to give him room. They readjusted. He drew her against his damp skin and began playing with her hair. She was dazed, surfeited, determined not to think. Not yet.

"It… it didn't happen for me," she said.

He propped himself up on one elbow and gazed into her lying eyes. "I hate to say this, but I told you so."

"You were right, as usual."

Crinkles formed at the corners of his eyes, and he pressed a quick kiss to her lips. "Let this be a lesson." He pulled himself up. "I'm going to need a few minutes."

"I'll do some word scrambles in my head."

"Good idea." As she listened to the night sounds that surrounded their nest in the woods, he disappeared inside. He returned a few minutes later with a beer, sat on the side of the mattress, and held the bottle out for her. She took a swig and gave it back. He set the bottle on the floor, then lay down and pulled her to his shoulder, where he began playing with a lock of her hair again. The tender intimacy made her want to cry, so she rolled on top of him and began her own sensuous exploration.

Before long, his breath quickened. "I guess…" he said in a strangled voice, "it's not going to take me quite as long to recover as I thought."

She brushed her lips over his abdomen. "I suppose you can't be right about everything."

And that was the last thing either of them said for a very long time.

Finally, he fell asleep, and she could slip away to her bedroom. As she curled into her pillow, she could no longer repress the reality of what she'd done. He'd attacked lovemaking -with the same workaholic zeal he did everything else, and, in the process, she'd fallen a little more in love with him.

Tears trickled from the corners of her eyes, but she didn't wipe them away. Instead, she let them fall while she readjusted, re-created, reframed. By the time she drifted off to sleep, she knew exactly what she had to do.

Heath heard Annabelle go into her bedroom, but he didn't stir. Now that the hunger in his body had been satisfied, the despicability of what he'd done hit him hard. She cared about him. A whole world of emotions he didn't want to acknowledge had been looking back at him from those honey sweet eyes tonight. Now he felt like the biggest jerk in the world.

She'd told him that this was a disaster in the making, but he'd built his life around crashing through roadblocks, so he'd ignored the obvious and charged ahead. Even though he'd known she was right, he wanted her, so he'd taken, and the consequences be damned. Now that it was too late, he absorbed exactly how big a disaster this was for her, professionally and personally. Her emotions were engaged-he'd seen it in her face-and that meant she couldn't ever go back to the business of being his matchmaker.

He rolled over and punched his pillow. What the hell had he been thinking? He hadn't been thinking, that was the whole problem. He'd only been reacting, and in the process of getting what he wanted, he'd blown her dreams right out of the water. Now he had to make it up to her.

He began drawing up a plan in his head. He'd talk up her business and find some decent clients to throw her way. He'd use his PR people and media contacts to get her press. It was a good story-a second-generation matchmaker brings her grandmother's old-fashioned business into the twenty-first century. Annabelle should have come up with it herself, but she didn't think big enough.

One thing he couldn't do was let her keep introducing him to other women. That would break her heart. Selfishly, he didn't like the idea of her not working for him anymore. He liked having her around. She made things easier for him… something he'd repaid by screwing her over, literally and figuratively.

Like father. Like son.

The despair that settled over him felt old and familiar, like the sound of a rusty trailer door slamming in the night.

He didn't remember falling asleep, but he must have because it was daylight when the earth moved. He eased one eye open, saw a face he wasn't ready to face, and turned his head into the pillow. Another small earthquake rattled the mattress. He peeled open his lids and blinked as a blade of sunlight hit him between the eyes.

"Wake up, you gorgeous gift to womankind," a voice chirped.

She sat on the porch floor next to him, a coffee mug cradled in her hand, one bare leg extended so she could nudge the mattress with her foot. She wore bright yellow shorts and a purple T-shirt printed with a grotesque cartoon troll and a caption that said we're people, too. Her hair curled in a crazy fracas around her imp's face, her lips were rosy, and her eyes a lot clearer than his. She sure as hell didn't look devastated. Shit. She thought last night had changed things. He felt sick. "Later," he managed.

"Can't wait. We're meeting everyone for breakfast in the gazebo, and I have to talk to you." She picked up a second mug from the floor and held it out. "Something to ease the pain of reentry."

He needed to be alert for this, but he felt like the bottom of a dirty ashtray, and all he wanted was to avoid this discussion by rolling over and going back to sleep. But he owed her better than that, so he propped himself on one elbow, took the coffee, and tried to will the cobwebs from his brain.

Her eyes followed the sheet as it slipped to his waist, and he wanted her all over again. He moved his arm to conceal the evidence. How was he going to break the news that she was a friend, not a candidate for a long-term relationship, without tearing her apart?

"First," she said, "last night meant more to me than you can imagine."

Exactly what he didn't want to hear. She looked so damned sweet. It took a real shithead to hurt someone like this. If only Annabelle were the woman he'd always dreamed about- sophisticated, elegant, with impeccable taste and a family that traced its roots back to a nineteenth-century robber baron. He needed someone worldly enough to survive life's bumps, a woman who saw life as he did-a competition to be won, not a perpetual invitation to come out and play.

"At the same time…" Her voice shifted to a lower, more serious note. "We can't ever do that again. It was a serious breach of professional conduct on my part, although not quite the problem I'd imagined." A smile he could only describe as impish broke through. "Now I can recommend you with complete enthusiasm." The smile faded. "No, the bigger problem is how manipulative I was."

Coffee slopped over the edge of the mug. What the hell was this?

She dashed into the kitchen for a paper towel and handed it over so he could mop up. "Back to business," she said. "You have to understand I'm truly grateful for what you did. The whole thing with Rob really messed with my head. Ever since we broke up, well… I've been running from sex. The brutal truth is, I've been pretty screwed up about it." She dabbed at some drips he'd missed. "Thanks to you, I'm past that."

He took a cautious sip and waited, no longer sure where any of this was heading. She touched his arm in a gesture that felt annoyingly maternal. "I feel healthy again, and I owe that to you. Well, and to Krystal's movie. But, Heath…" The tiny scatter of freckles on her forehead met as she frowned. "I can't stand this feeling that I-I sort of used you."