"You're still new at this." He put more distance between them and ran the flat of his hand absentminedly over his chest, as if he were smoothing his T-shirt. "Let's go inside."

She wanted to slug him and scream at him and burst into tears all at once. Why had she expected him to understand? She couldn't contain her hurt. "I'm not a virgin! And there's nothing you could do that'd be too raunchy for me, do you understand? Nothing that's too kinky! You've screwed this up, Bonner, and now you aren't ever going to touch me." Her anger boiled, then spilled over. "As a matter of fact, you can go to hell!"

She whirled around and shot down the slippery wooden steps to the lawn. It was wildly overgrown. Shrubbery hung over the flagstone path and grass tangled around her ankles as she fled.

"Rachel!"

She'd left her shoes in the laundry room, but she didn't care. She'd climb Heartache Mountain barefoot before she'd let another man treat her like she was some kind of sexually neutered icon.

Her hands knotted into fists at her side, and she realized she didn't want to run away at all. What she really wanted to do was go right back there and tell him what an insensitive, unfeeling, imperceptive ass he was!

She spun around and stalked toward the deck, only to see him doing his own war dance right toward her. As he approached, his teeth were clenched. "Don't you think you're overreacting just a little bit?"

She wanted to shout something really obscene at him, but she wasn't too effective with obscenity yet. A few more weeks in his company, though, and she could probably turn pro. "Stuff yourself."

In three long strides, he had her. He grabbed the front of her dress and began pulling open the top buttons. He looked annoyed, irritated, but not actually angry.

He peeled the dress apart. "You want kinky? I'll tell you about kinky. Do you know there are men in this world who get their kicks by bringing a woman right to the point of orgasm, and then, at the exact moment she comes, strangling her to death!"

He jerked the dress down, baring her to the waist as he trapped her arms in the fabric. Then he bent his head and bit her on the inner slope of one breast.

"Ow! That hurt!"

"Good. Any more trouble out of you, and I'll do it again."

His lips nuzzled her wet nipple, and her anger fled.

"Now where was I?" he asked.

She shuddered at the huskiness in his voice, the warmth of his breath on her cool skin. "Oh, Gabe… What if you screw this up again?"

"Then I guess you'll just have to keep after me till I get it right."

"I guess." She sighed and rested her cheek against his chest.

"In the meantime, you might be thinking about exactly how wide you can spread those legs because I intend to spend a long time between them."

She moaned. Maybe he'd gotten it right after all.

11

Just as she was starting to relax and think this might work out after all, he drew back again. "I know you're going to tear into me for this, but it strikes me that, for somebody who wants to be a wanton woman, you should look out for yourself better."

"What do you mean?"

"You've asked me a dozen questions since this got started, but not one of them had anything to do with whether or not I might have a condom on me."

He was right. She hadn't given a thought to birth control, probably because she'd never used it. It had taken her so long to get pregnant with Edward that she'd been afraid she was infertile.

"Do you have one? Stupid. Of course you don't. Why would you?" She jerked the dress back over her breasts and regarded him glumly. "Sex is so easy for some women. Why is it so hard for me?"

His knuckles brushed her cheekbone and he smiled. "Actually, I do."

"You do?"

He slipped his hand inside the collar of her dress and cupped her neck. "This past week the air between us has been hot enough to boil water, so I bought some on Monday. And don't think everybody in town knows about it. I drove over to Brevard, so we could keep this between ourselves." He paused. "I wouldn't hurt you for the world, sweetheart."

The endearment felt like warm syrup poured right over her heart. His voice grew soft and gruff. "Now are you ready to settle down so we can enjoy this, or do we have to keep talking for another hundred years."

The unsteadiness inside her vanished. "I'm ready." She smiled. "Let's go inside."

He regarded her thoughtfully. "I don't think so. If you were a nice lady, I'd take you in the house. But a wanton woman like you doesn't need a bed." He slipped the dress back down over her shoulders and cupped her breasts.

The next thing she knew, they were kneeling in the wet grass and her dress had fallen down around her hips. Through the haze of her desire, she realized they hadn't kissed. She wanted to see what it would be like to engage in one of those dirty soul kisses with him. She leaned back far enough to gaze at his obstinate mouth, then tilted her head toward it and closed her eyes.

Her lips brushed his, but a strand of her hair was in the way. She reached up to push it aside, only to feel herself tumbling backward.

He sprawled next to her, slipped his hand under her full skirt, and ran his palm up the inside of her leg. A lock of wet, dark hair curled over his forehead. His white T-shirt had gone transparent from the rain, and she could see his flesh beneath. His fingers brushed over the silky crotch of her panties.

"You feel so good," he said.

She lay nearly naked in the high, wet grass, and she should have been cold, but she was on fire. She couldn't speak as he tortured her through the nylon, almost, but not quite, touching where she most wanted to be touched. He set one leg across her knee, holding it open, as if there were any need.

"Too many clothes," she managed, clutching a handful of wet cotton T-shirt in her fist.

"My thoughts exactly."

Even as they rose to their knees, he continued to cup her, rub her, so her legs remained parted and her breathing grew shallow and rapid. She jerked his T-shirt from his jeans and dragged the wet fabric up over his chest.

He pushed his finger beneath the leg opening of her panties and slipped it inside her.

She gasped and sagged against him.

"Don't move," he whispered.

He withdrew, circled, entered. Withdrew again. That torturous circling. Another entry.

"Oh, no…" she moaned.

He caught her earlobe between his lips and held her still like a great male animal keeping his mate in place while he took his pleasure.

She groped for the snap on his jeans, fumbled with the zipper, slipped her hand inside and caught him in her fist.

Now he was the one who gasped.

"Don't…" he moaned. He withdrew his finger and moved it forward. He rubbed.

"Don't…" she moaned, as she stroked him.

They shuddered together, each on the brink of a precipice neither was ready to tumble over.

He took his hand away.

She took her hand away.

They rose together, and he let her finish removing his clothes. They made a bed from her dress, his jeans and T-shirt. He threw her tiny yellow panties on top, then stepped back to gaze at her as she stood before him, the rain running in rivulets over her shoulders and past the sprinkle of freckles on her chest. It slid over her breasts and down her belly.

While he gazed at her, she looked her fill at him. His chest was muscular from hard work, his abdomen flat where it wasn't rippled with muscle. Rain matted the dark hair at his groin, making his erection even more prominent. She could no longer resist touching it.

"Take your time." He drew in his breath, and his voice rose slightly in pitch. "I'll give you all of five seconds."

He gave her longer, although not much, and then she found herself once again falling backward as he tumbled her onto the ragtag bed they'd made in the wet Carolina grass.

He spread her legs, and she knew that he was going to do something blissfully raunchy. She squeezed her eyes shut as he raised her knees. "Oh, Bonner… Please don't disappoint me."

"It's a good thing," he whispered against her inner thigh, "that I'm a man who does his best work under pressure."

"Ohhh…"

She hadn't expected that he would dawdle so much, taking his time as he parted her, studied her, touched here and there with the tip of his callused finger, brushed with his lips, his tongue… When she felt the first gentle suction, she began to sob.

He understood, and he didn't stop. She shattered within seconds.

As she recovered, she felt her eyes fill with tears. "Thanks, Bonner," she whispered.

"My pleasure."

He reached for the wallet that had fallen out of his jeans, but she caught his arm. "Not yet, okay?"

He groaned, but fell back. She liked that he was willing to let her take the lead, and now she was the one who dawdled, touched, and explored, satisfying years of curiosity.

With no warning, she found herself on her back while he grabbed his wallet and spoke in a strangled whisper. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I know this is important to you, but believe me, you'll get a lot more enjoyment if you let me take over now."

"Okay." She smiled up at him.

He smiled back at her, but only briefly. She saw the exact moment when the shadow of remembrance came over his eyes, just as she watched him fight against it.

He shut his eyes, and she knew he was trying to forget that the woman who lay beneath him wasn't his wife. She couldn't bear letting him pretend she was anyone else, so she brushed her fingertips across his lips, and said softly, "Don't go squirrely on me now, dude, or I'll have to throw you out and find a younger model."

His lids shot open. She grinned and took the condom from him. "I'll do this."

He grabbed it back. "No, you won't."

"Spoilsport."

"Hussy."

She'd erased the darkness from his eyes, and only seconds passed before he settled between her thighs.

He felt so good there. Heavy, but solid. Dampness had penetrated their makeshift bed, and the sodden grass squished beneath her back. She should have been uncomfortable, but she could have stayed like this for a thousand years, safe and sheltered beneath his strength with the warm summer rain falling on their bodies.

She had never imagined she could feel aroused and weepy at the same time. She pushed herself against him, needing more. He pushed back, but her body wasn't as willing to accommodate him as her mind.

"Sorry," she managed, wanting to burst into tears.

"It's been a long time for you," he replied, not sounding all that upset about it.

Once again he began his slow dallying. Even though his breathing was uneven and she could feel his tension, he didn't rush.

But she wasn't nearly as patient. It was his fault. He was too big; he was too… She arched against him and writhed, really writhed, couldn't help herself because she had to… she simply had to…

"Easy… Easy…"

"No!" She pushed against him, doing her best to impale herself. Needing… wanting…

He reached between their bodies. What was he doing now? Idiot! Moron! Couldn't he stick with one thing at a time? Couldn't he-

She exploded into a million pieces at his touch, and he drove inside her.

Above them, the skies split open, drenching their naked bodies. She wrapped her legs around his and dug the heels of her hands into his shoulders, wanting him closer, even closer.

Rain pummeled his back as he thrust high and hard. She buried her head in the crook of his neck because she was drowning in the cloudburst, drowning in sensations so overpowering she didn't want the storm ever to end.

It went on forever and was still over too quickly. She lost herself once more, just as he came apart.

She held him and reveled in his rough shuddering. He was too big for her, too heavy, but she felt bereft when he finally eased his weight.

It was raining so hard they could barely see the house, and they both seemed to realize at the same time how embarrassing this lust in the rain was for two people who needed to keep some distance from each other. If they'd gone inside and found a bed, at least there would have been a certain dignity about it, but this backyard tussling in the rain spoke of a need so overwhelming that neither wanted to acknowledge it, certainly not with tender words.

He levered himself up, raised one knee, and glanced down at her. "Pretty good for a beginner."

She rolled to her side so that the ends of her hair dangled in the trampled grass. "Now quite as wild as I would have liked, but definitely adequate."