“I thought…it mattered to you,” she said gently.

He shook his head. “I’ve been trying to tell you for a very long time that there’s only one thing that matters to me.” His look said, You, Anne. She closed her eyes, feeling his fingers ever so gently thread through the loose coil at the nape of her neck as his mouth came down on hers. His lips tasted so sweet, so warm and smooth. She heard his indrawn breath against her mouth as her long silken tresses cascaded into his hands. The light-headed feeling that surged through her was partly real and partly a lush feminine fantasy taking on life. Jake seemed to catch fire when her hair was unbound.

The caution of years slipped from her. Her hands swept over his hard forearms and shoulders, memorizing them. Bittersweet emotions reverberated in her soul. She’d come with him…to find answers she already knew. A place she couldn’t live in, a lifestyle she just couldn’t accept…and feelings that just wouldn’t die. Her fingers shifted to the front of his shirt. One by one, the buttons loosened. Her lips touched down, each time; first on his throat, then in the curling mat of hair on his chest, then over his heartbeat…

“Anne,” Jake murmured.

She paid no attention. Jake was new each time; that was part of it. Never mind that they’d known each other ultimately before; he was still new to her, all over again. Every single time, she was surprised at the breadth of shoulder, at the haphazard spray of hair on his chest, at muscles that never showed beneath his clothes, at ribs that led down to a ridiculously lean waist; she had wider hips than he did, though she was slim. His flesh turned warm under her fingertips; that always surprised her.

He captured her wandering hands, forced them around his neck, and his lips sealed hers with fierce, delicious pressure. She nearly drowned before he let her up for air. “You’re in a hell of a lot of trouble, Anne,” he informed her huskily.

Now that she’d known from the day they’d met. A faint smile touched her lips as she lifted her face. How could it possibly be so hot on an autumn day? Sunlight washed over Jake’s jagged, familiar features, for a moment mesmerizing her. He was working the buttons at the back of her blouse, one by one. Silently, she reached up to unfasten the tiny clasp of the silver necklace, and folded the precious gift carefully into the pocket of his chamois shirt. She took extra care as she pushed the shirt from his shoulders. In a moment, her blouse joined his shirt on the grass, and the sun-stroked warmth on her bare shoulders.

She was vaguely aware that they were standing in an open meadow. She even tried to mention the fact, but Jake’s lips sealed hers to silence. His sweet, silken tongue claimed the intimacy of her mouth, all the sensitive dark corners. The taste-Jake’s taste-was a drug, different from any other drug. She rose up on tiptoe, as his fingers unclasped her bra, roughly removed it, and so very gently, so very possessively, claimed one swelling orb in his hand. Her sanity slipped another notch. Her breathing changed; one heartbeat became two, then three. Oddly confused, she buried her lips in his shoulder, and felt a slow, hot shudder possess his body.

“Anne,” he warned hoarsely.

So, Jake, too, was suddenly aware they were outside-not a convenient place at all, not at all what either of them had intended. Yet a sudden thread of desperation laced through her bloodstream. Never to touch him again? Never to know him again? Anne, being Anne, knew this was the precise time to buy a plane ticket for home. So obviously it must be someone else unbuckling Jake’s well-worn belt, pulling it through the loops on his jeans…

His hands made a game of slowly chasing her skirt down over her silk-clad hips, then slowly pushing the half-slip down, then her stockings and panties, and then there was nothing to chase but flesh, and he played that game, too. By the time they were both naked, years seemed to have passed, years of playing those languid, lazy games. Anne’s knees felt weak; it was so much easier to sink down.

The long, tall grass yielded beneath her weight, making a strange bed; a silky blouse for a pillow, crinkling jeans under her back, sun-warmed earth and grass beneath her calves. Sunlight flashed in front of her eyes, and the flickering gold leaves of the trees. Jake’s face, grainy and tan, was just above her, his eyes savoring the fevered brilliance in hers, the slight trembling of her mouth, the glow of sun and desire that seemed to heat her skin. “I could look at you forever,” he murmured.

But he seemed to have sweeter tortures in mind. Slowly, he rained light kisses along her ribs and navel and the inside of her arm, the underside of her chin, settling finally on the hollow between her breasts. The creamy globes were swollen, aching, waiting, and her whole body trembled when his tongue lapped first at one nipple, then the other.

She stroked his length in turn. Slowly. Her fingernails lightly scored his skin; then her gentle hands kneaded the flesh of his shoulders, his back, lower. Her fingertips could reach the backs of his thighs if she arched her whole body just so, if she moved her lips just so, if she flattened her breasts against his chest, nipple to nipple…

Jake sucked in breath he never seemed to let out again, his mouth hovering over hers. “Anne.” His kiss was hard and almost rough, and then there was another, and another. “If by some remote chance you’re harboring a hope that we’re going to make it to the motor home…”

A terrible idea. She eased one leg between his in answer, sealing him closer. The sun made her eyes ache, and she closed them. Urgency seemed suddenly to claim them both. Their mattress of jeans and silk was gone; they were rolling over and over in the grass, grass that smelled so sweet, that tickled them as it crackled and yielded under their weight. She seemed to be a part of the earth, giving and warm, rich and fertile. Somewhere nearby was the gurgling stream, and the sun kept beating down…

He took her, a sharp, welcome intrusion into the most private part of Anne. She wrapped her legs around him, her fevered green eyes intense on his. The power of her own feelings frightened her; her need and love for this man were open, and she was suddenly aware of the impermanence of their love, the illusiveness of their future. Then his lips captured hers, locking out the bitter and leaving only the sweet.

She’d made love with him before; it had been glorious, yet never like this, like a strong wind that would have its way, all the wild, fierce rush of a storm, all the gentleness of a breeze. Jake was so tender, teasing her higher, and all around her were the crushed grasses and the smells of autumn and sun and earth. The sensations seemed magnified, sweet and primitive, special. Then they were gone, and there was only Jake. The world could have been spinning in circles, but she knew only Jake. Desire ripped through her like a sharp, desperate pain, a rhythm gone too far to stop, a ruby-red promise of something she so frantically needed and could never have named or asked for…

The sun exploded in front of her eyes.


***

She held on to Jake, shuddering, gradually aware that he was kissing her forehead and her cheek and her throat, tender, soothing kisses. His palm stroked her hair over and over. “Shift just a little, honey,” he murmured.

She couldn’t seem to obey; she was far too content as she lay with her cheek in the hollow of his shoulder. With a smile, he reached over her and dragged his chamois shirt closer, tugging it under her to make a soft nest for her on the crushed grass. “Better?” he murmured.

“I have no idea,” she murmured back.

He smiled again. So very busy he was, stretched out next to her, taking one strand of her hair at a time and lifting it to his shoulders. It took a very long time, yet eventually the entire rest of the world was sealed out by a silvery blond curtain. “I would have waited, Anne,” he said quietly. “I would have waited as long as you wanted me to.”

Her lashes whispered down on her cheeks. He’d wanted to wait, to show her they had more than sex. She’d hurt him, she knew, when she’d said that. She’d never meant to hurt him. She opened her eyes, needing to tell him exactly what her dark prince had meant to her over the years…but not quite able to. They’d filled such a unique, such an oh-so-special niche for each other for so very long that even the word love seemed inadequate. What they had was infinitely precious to Anne, as fragile as it was real…but that was not all he was looking for. And she couldn’t hurt him again, not now. Her hand stroked his cheek, her palm soft against the afternoon beard that was already starting to roughen his skin. Her limbs felt like butter, yet her heart had already picked up an uneven beat. Despair…out of nowhere.

“You’ve certainly changed over the years,” he said casually. “At eighteen you all but asked me to make love to you, wiggling your hips around in a miniskirt…”

“I beg your pardon.” Her eyes flickered wide.

He nodded sadly. “But you’ve become inhibited, Anne. Particularly since you passed thirty. I mean, look at this…” He plucked a blade of grass from her hair, waving it in front of her nose.

She snatched the offending wisp of grass, her lips fighting the tug of a smile.

“I’m really not sure there’s any hope for you,” he said thoughtfully. He found another piece of grass and decorated the crevice between her breasts with it. Then another. “You’re a sad case. You have no interest in sex, no desire. Honey, it’s going to take a lot of work to get you back in shape…”

Her fingers curled in the hair on his chest and pulled. “So you weren’t satisfied, Mr. Rivard? You dragged me out here in the middle of nowhere to get grass stains on my bare back-”