Yet with him…it was easy.

So, so, so easy.

He took over.

She should have known he would. Heaven knew, Cord wasn’t a passive kind of guy. He may have been startled by that first kiss, particularly coming from her…but he turned on faster than whiplash.

Suddenly he wasn’t just accepting her embrace, but doing the kissing, taking a whole lot of initiative. Long, sure hands stroked from her neck, down her spine, down to the swell of her fanny. He lifted her up, spun her, lips sealed, tongues finding each other like whispers in the night.

Her back thunked against a wall…not a hard thunk, but enough to make her exquisitely aware that Cord was losing control at rocket speeds. His keys definitely turned on her ignition. Her body instinctively arched against his. The heat of him enticed her heat; her breasts swelled for the rowdy desire now pulsing off him in waves.

“I don’t know what’s going on here,” he whispered thickly against her throat, “but I know where it’s going if you don’t say stop damned quick.”

“I don’t want to stop. I want you.”

Sophie knew she hadn’t said that. Another woman in the room did. A stranger, a completely immoral, amoral stranger.

The same stranger pushed at his sweater, took his mouth as avidly, as hungrily, as he took hers. Beneath the wool was hair-roughened skin, the ripple of muscle and sinew, nothing soft. He was going to kill her, she figured. He was too big, at least for a woman her size, a woman who hadn’t exactly done this…much less in recent history.

Almost in recordable history. And here she was, still yanking off the sweater, demanding bare flesh, needing to touch him. Everywhere. Anywhere. When he started chaining kisses down her throat, she nipped at his shoulder. Just little bites.

He tasted damn good.

“Jesus, where did all this come from?” he muttered. “I thought you were shy.”

“I was.” For years and years and years, she was. With other men, she was.

She reached around, felt his adorable, irresistible tight butt. Sheesh, how could he have those huge broad shoulders and no butt? She squeezed…which may have been a mistake, because one minute she was pressed up against the wall, and the next she was on the floor, her sweater being shoved over her head, his hands on his zipper before she could suggest…

Well…

“Condoms.”

“As if I’d risk you,” he said. “They’re in my back pocket.”

For a whole second she turned back into the real Sophie Campbell again and panicked. “Always prepared, huh? You have a lot of women suddenly spring themselves on you?”

“No, Sophie. And if they did, I wouldn’t jump into a ‘yes.’ I’m saying yes to you. Just you.”

Well, hell… She lost the careful, cautious, predictable Sophie and became that other woman again. She asked him other questions, but they were carnal questions, laced with teasing, spiced with enticement. Secrets. About what she was afraid was going to happen. About what she feared wouldn’t.

He answered her with whisper, with touch. At the same time, he was peeling off the rest of her clothes, one garment at a time. Once the sweater was gone, he stroked his soft tongue down her throat, to the swell of her breasts, to the rim of a pink-and-black bra.

“Not what I expected,” he murmured. “But then nothing I’m finding is what I expected about you, Sophie Campbell.”

The black lace bra disappeared, replaced by his mouth, testing and tasting and exploring the territory revealed. Her nipples tightened until they hurt. The room…wasn’t dark enough. Not for this. Not for the exotic road of his tongue, down to her navel, down, as his hands chased her slacks off, as if the silky heat of his tongue could cover where she was being uncovered.

She started shivering then, but not from cold. The look in his eyes was intent, intense, cherishing. She had an old fantasy about a lover who stole into her room in the night, who weaved a spell, seduced her, forced her to do brazen, abandoned things. It was her favorite fantasy.

This was better.

He was better. Better than a dream. Better than any lover she’d ever conjured up. He inspired her to feel…need. Desire, like an avalanche. Her own power and sensuality, as if she were meeting up with her own Armageddon. Or his.

He peeled her off the wall, scooped her up. “Say no,” he whispered.

“Yes.”

A kiss, swift, sure. God knew where he was walking with her. He didn’t seem to know, either. The hall was dark. He never switched on a light, stumbled once-she thought they’d both crash and tumble. Instead, his knees connected with something, and then she bounced on the bed…and he bounced on her.

“Say no,” he advised her, urged her, one more time.

“Yes.” She twisted, until she was on top, bare. The mattress was hard, big as a room, the textures of down and chill-cool percale under her knees. But his body was warm, when she swooped down with hands and lips. His body, truth to tell, threatened to burn.

They roller-coastered together, playing tease, hide-and-seek, double dare. The room had no more light than charcoal dust-but his eyes picked up light, picked up her. Her laughter belled in the darkness, throaty, brazen… and his gruff chuckle turned into a roar when she accidentally tickled him.

She’d never heard him laugh before… not really laugh, not belly laugh. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d let loose with abandoned laughter before, either. At that moment, though, she just wasn’t Sophie. She was that wild girl that had been lost so long ago, never really gone, but just waiting for someone to turn the key on the rusty lock.

Cord had the key.

Cord was the key. Laughter died, the last time he knelt over her. She touched his face, invited with the shine of her eyes, and then arched her back helplessly when she felt his slow, deep intrusion. He filled her up, she wrapped her legs tight around him, and there it was, the gallop off into the sunset, on a ride as primal as heartbeats, as hope, as love.

“Yes,” he whispered, just as he felt her last climb, her last spin of a climax. He was only a blink behind.


She wasn’t aware of falling asleep, but the next time she opened her eyes, someone had transported her from Oz to reality. Defibrillators couldn’t compete with this kind of jolt. She seemed to be snoozing on the cushy carpet in Jon’s hall-how impossible was that? She also seemed to be naked as a jaybird-another shock. And most impossible of all, Cord was awake, lying just as naked as she was, balanced up on an elbow. Studying her.

The ambient light from some other room barely dented the dark hall. Still, there was enough for her to see Cord’s expression. The look in his eyes made Sophie want to glance behind her, certain there must be another woman in the room somewhere-the one he was studying with that tender, mystified, intense gaze.

“I fell asleep?”

“Just for the last few minutes. I don’t doubt you needed a nap to recover. Soph?”

“Hmm?” For just a moment, she forgot to be appalled and shocked at herself. He was so luscious naked. Not soft. Not pretty. But all those long, sinewy muscles and angles, all that rough hair, all that…whew. Her eyes shot back up to his. He’d caught where she was staring. His smile was full of male ego.

Still, he seemed determined to say a few serious things. He touched her cheek. “Do you have a clue what this was all about?”

“Well, I think it’s called making love. It’s been a while since I read the book my adopted mother gave me in fifth grade, but really, I’m pretty sure-”

A kiss shut her up, but he lifted his head immediately. Or almost immediately. “If you knew we were going to end up making love…I sure as hell didn’t. I knew I was attracted. I knew the kick of hormones was damn hard to ignore. But I wouldn’t have pounced, Soph, because I figured the last couple weeks were seriously traumatic for you. I don’t like the idea of taking advantage of your vulnerability.”

“You’re not vulnerable?”

“Guys aren’t vulnerable, didn’t you know? Besides, for us, sex cures everything.”

“Who knew?” she teased. But then she stopped kidding around and gave him a straight answer. “I didn’t plan this. I didn’t know or dream it was going to happen. And if you don’t want it to happen again, it won’t.”

“Then it sure as hell will, because you won’t find me saying no to a repeat of this, any time, day or night. Sophie…”

She didn’t know what he intended to say, but her heart rate instinctively started slamming. If he didn’t want to be with her in a more serious way, that would be unsettling and hurtful. But if he did want to be with her, that had some unexpected and scary implications, too.

Trying not to look as if she were suddenly in a blister of a hurry, she stood up and forced a quick laugh. “I see Caviar from the top of the couch, looking at us.”

“A voyeur cat?”

The mild diversion broke the intensity. A little awkwardly, she started reaching for her clothes-although she seemed to have forgotten where a few key items had landed. Still, she found her pants, found her bra, managed to cover herself.

“Um, Soph, if you were thinking about going back to your apartment tonight…it’s not happening.”

“I have a really early-”

“Yeah, I know that excuse. I usually have a ‘really early’ thing, too. Sometimes it’s even true. But you’re not going next door tonight, not after that break-in. My brother, God love him, has the best mattress I’ve ever been near-so heaven knows why we ended up on the floor. But I guarantee that a nice warm bath in his shamelessly sybaritic bathroom will make you sleepy. Particularly if you drink a glass of wine while you’re soaking. And then we’ll fold you into that big, fabulous bed.”