She’d never been to Silver’s before-never heard of it, and probably never would have, if Cord hadn’t dragged her here. The place was stuffed with young professional people, even this late on a Thursday night. Most looked as if they’d come directly from their jobs, judging from the business suits on the men and the heels on the women, and typical of Washington, the buzz was all about the day’s political events.

For an after-work hangout, the place struck Sophie as unusually appealing. The long bar gleamed under firelight and antique brass lanterns. Round ma hog any tables were packed in tight, but a few revelers had left their seats, pushed off suit coats and kicked off heels, abandoned their drinks and hit the corner dance floor. The music emanated from a new-fashioned jukebox-not the 50s era, art-deco type of box, but a brass-and-glass player with high-end speakers. Instead of quarters, the machine demanded bucks, and someone had emptied their pockets of singles to play a run of slow, bluesey love songs.

Those on the dance floor had abandoned politics, power and DC gossip. Tummies rubbed tummies. Arms hooked around necks. Cheeks rested against shoulders. Everybody wasn’t addicted to stress, Sophie mused. Every once in a while, people actually remembered what life was really about.

Like falling in love.

Her mind wasn’t remotely on the rest of the crowd, yet somehow she’d helplessly, hopelessly picked up the prevailing mood. Her arms, for instance, were roped under Cord’s neck. Her cheek was definitely snuggled in the crook of his shoulder. Her tummy didn’t happen to be rubbing against his tummy, because of the difference in their heights, but her tummy was unquestionably rubbing against his pelvis. Her breasts hummed awareness at the evocative contact; her pulse thrummed to the evocative beat of the song. If her eyes weren’t smoky with shock, she thought they should be.

The shock wasn’t finding herself in a place like this. The shock was that Cord had taken her here-apparently to dance. When he couldn’t dance. At all.

He could make a girl fall in love, though.

Since Sophie didn’t do reckless, didn’t want to do reckless, had never remotely even felt reckless since she was five, she figured this had to be Cord’s fault. She didn’t rub her tummy against a guy’s you-know-what. She didn’t look up at him, nakedly communicating longing and desire. She didn’t tease, with the graze of a breast, the tickle of a fingertip, the promise conveyed in the snuggle of body parts. She sure as Sam Hill didn’t put up with a guy stepping all over her feet.

So there was only one conclusion she could possibly reach-that Cord had forced her, completely against her will, to feel this way.

“Are you thirsty?” she murmured. “We ordered drinks and then never even waited until they got to the table.”

“Very thirsty. But not for drinks.” He looked at her…as if he were a starving lion, and she was the only thing he hungered for. As if she were standing naked and he couldn’t take his eyes off her. As if there wasn’t a thought in his head but wanting her.

See, she told herself. It wasn’t her fault little shivers kept chasing up her spine. It was all his.

“You don’t think,” she asked carefully, “that we should head home?”

“Hell, no. There’s nothing waiting for us back there but more serious problems. More grenades without pins. We’re not going home. Maybe ever.”

“Um, Cord.” She rubbed a finger on the nape of his neck. With her arms swooped protectively around him, she’d created a private cocoon between her face and his. Her eyes and his. She wasn’t sure which one of them needed more protecting, but for darn sure, the expression on his face was stark with stubbornness. “They’re going to close the place pretty soon.”

“But not yet. It’s not closing yet.”

“Don’t you have classes tomorrow?”

“Yup. An eight o’clock class, in fact. Don’t care,” he said; and then, as if all this talking had exhausted him, ducked down just those few more inches so his mouth could touch hers. Claim hers. Woo hers.

Her eyes closed. Plain old lust, she was positive she could have fought-or at least kept her head. But this cherishing, this tenderness, this wooing, was almost more than she could bear.

“I’m wondering,” he murmured against her temple, “why I didn’t realize how beautiful you were when I first met you.”

“Because you were sober then?”

“I’m sober now. Which is why I have to be honest, and admit that at first I was fooled-by the bulky clothes and clumsy act and the glasses.”

“I am clumsy. And I wear glasses.”

“You wear very silly glasses,” he said as he corrected her. “And you’re not wearing them now. When I’m around you, you seem to forget to wear them more and more. Which tells me-”

“That I only need them for close reading?”

“Nope. It tells me that you don’t feel you have to hide around me as much as you did before. And speaking of hiding, what kind of underwear are you wearing today?”

“I don’t think I should answer that question.”

“I think you should. I think it’s a very important question. All we’ve been talking about for days are questions that aren’t going to change the world. Questions that are disturbing and unsettling and ugly. Let’s try to start this whole thing from the beginning, you and me. Let’s just stick to the important questions. Like what kind of underwear you’re wearing at this very minute.”

“Yellow.”

“Yellow?”

“Daffodil-yellow. White lace edges. I can’t remember where or how it happened. But somehow en route, I got a little embarrassingly addicted to useless, pretty underwear.”

“Don’t even think about giving it up. This is probably the best addiction I’ve ever heard of. I think you should go with it. Forever.”

“Um…” All right, her good sense and common sense had completely deteriorated, and she’d answered the underwear question. But one of them had to get a grip. Their tummies weren’t just rubbing together. Their pelvises were locked tight. He was harder than petrified wood, and yeah, his erection was sealed against her, no one could see or know…but she knew. Fever shot through her bloodstream, making all that blood rush until she felt light-headed and dizzy.

“How come you don’t tell me about your work?” he asked, out of the complete blue, as if they’d actually been having a serious conversation.

“Because I’ve never had a chance?”

“See? That’s exactly the point I’ve been trying to make. All this crap with my brother has screwed up everything. We’re not getting the chance to talk about what matters. What you do. Why you do it. Your yellow underwear. Your addictions.”

“Cord?”

“What?”

“The music stopped playing. The bartender’s wiping glasses. There are only two other people in the place.”

“Hell, I don’t see why it matters if there’s music, when a person can’t dance anyway,” he remarked.

“Whew. I wasn’t sure if you realized.” Not that she wouldn’t dance with him again, Sophie mused. But the next time, she’d wear steel-toed shoes.

“You know what I do realize?”

“That we’re going to get kicked out of this bar?”

“That you’ve never seen my place. It’s a house. Rented, which isn’t my choice, but I didn’t buy when I first moved here. I wasn’t sure how long I was going to stay. It’s in Arlington, toward Falls Church. A drive, but I had to have some country, some trees, some green. And that’s the thing. We can go there, to a place where we can both feel…clean. Away from the dirt around my brother’s life. A place that’s safe. A place where I can see that yellow underwear.”

“I’d like to see it, Cord. But…I can’t believe you’d feel…safe…leaving your brother’s place completely deserted for the night.”

“I wouldn’t. But I keep trying to tell myself it doesn’t matter. Someone breaks in, finds more answers, more stuff-why should this be any skin off my nose? I’ve been cleaning up my brother’s messes since I was born. This one’s making me sicker by the day. And I hate it. That you’re close to it. At risk because of it.”

“That’s not your fault.”

“Maybe not my fault. But it sure as hell feels like my responsibility.”

“But that’s only because you’re stuck being one of those alpha guys, Cord. I totally understand that you can’t help it. The only one who’s really responsible for the mess is the mess maker. And that’s Jon.”

This hour, these last hours, he’d been so playful and crazy and fun. Seductive. Dangerous in the most seductive and luring of ways. But now he pressed his forehead into hers, said quietly, “Soph. I want you to leave town. Get away from this. You said you had two sisters. You could go visit one of them, at least for a couple weeks. Until this is…safe.”

He waited, but when she didn’t immediately answer, he jumped back in. “All right. You’re not saying yes-much less ‘yes, Cord, you’re so right, I’m going to call my sisters this very minute.’ So, at least promise me you’ll think about it.”

“I promise I’ll think about it,” she said, but the way she looked at him…he knew she didn’t mean it.

Eventually, he forked over a pile of bills at the bar, found her jacket and raced with her to the car. The night had turned sweet black, a frisky breeze shivering the leaves; traffic had thinned out this late.

He glanced at her. “We’re going…?”

“To my place. Not yours. And definitely not your brother’s.”

He nodded. “And as far as what you meant by that ‘we’…?”

Sophie leaned back against the neck rest, studying his profile. She said with a bluntness she didn’t remotely feel, “I don’t know where this is going, Cord. I don’t know what you want, what I want for sure, where either of us will end up after Jon’s business is over with. But what I do know is that I don’t do one-night stands. Ever. So you’re coming to my place for the night. And that’s that. Don’t even try arguing with me.”