She closed her eyes against the delicious sensation he was arousing. "Does one of the royal family's limousines count?"

He caught her earlobe gently between his teeth. "Not unless the windows fogged up."

She wasn't sure who moved first, but somehow Dallie's mouth was on hers. His hands moved up along the back of her neck and plowed through her hair from beneath, spreading it out over his bare forearms. He imprisoned her head in the palms of his hands and tilted it farther back so that her mouth opened involuntarily. She waited for the invasion of his tongue, but it didn't come. Instead, he played with her bottom lip. Her own hands crept around his ribs to his back and unconsciously slipped beneath his T-shirt so she could feel his strong bare skin. Their mouths played together and Francesca lost all desire to try to maintain the upper hand. Before long, she found herself receiving his tongue with pleasure-his beautiful tongue, his beautiful mouth, his beautiful taut skin beneath her hands. She devoted herself to the kiss, concentrating only on the feelings he was arousing without giving a thought to what would happen next. His mouth slid away from hers and traveled to her neck. She giggled softly.

"Do you have something you want to share with the rest of the class," he murmured into her skin, "or is this a private joke?"

"No, I'm just having fun." She smiled as he kissed her neck and tugged on the rosette of material at her waist securing the long tail of the T-shirt. "What's an Aggies?" she asked.

"An Aggie? Somebody like me who went to college at Texas A &M is an Aggie."

She pulled back abruptly, her amazement etching itself in the perfect arch of her eyebrows. "You went

to a university? I don't believe it!"

He looked at her with a mildly aggravated expression. "I've got a bachelor of arts degree in English literature. Do you want to see my diploma or can we get back to work here?"

"English literature?" She burst out in laughter. "Oh, Dallie, that's incredible! You barely speak the language."

He was clearly offended. "Well, now, that's real nice. That's a real nice thing to say to somebody."

Still laughing, she tossed herself into his arms, moving so suddenly that she knocked him off balance and bumped him back into the steering wheel. Then she said the most astonishing thing.

"I could eat you up, Dallie Beaudine."

It was his turn to laugh, but he didn't get very far with it because her mouth was all over his. She forgot about being scared and about not being any good at sex as she lifted herself to her knees and leaned on him.

"I'm running out of maneuvering room here, honey," he finally said against her mouth. Pulling away, he opened the door of the Riviera and got out. Then he extended his hand for her.

She let him help her out, but instead of opening the back door so they could resettle in roomier quarters, he pinned her hips with his thighs against the side of the Riviera and drew her into another kiss. The dome light left on by the open door produced a dim area of illumination around the car that made the darkness beyond seem even more impenetrable. The vague image of her open-toed sandals and alligators lurking beneath a car flickered through her mind. Without losing one moment of the kiss, she draped her arms over his shoulders and pulled herself up so that one of her legs was wrapped tightly around the back of one of his and her other foot was planted firmly on top of his cowboy boot.

"I do like the way you kiss," he murmured. His left hand slid up along her bare spine and unfastened her bra while his right reached between their bodies to tug at the snap on her jeans.

She could feel herself getting nervous again, and it didn't have anything to do with alligators. "Let's go

buy some champagne, Dallie. I-I think some champagne will help me relax."

"I'll relax you." He pulled the snap open and began working on the zipper.

"Dallie!" she exclaimed. "We're outside."

"Uh-huh. Just you, me, and the swamp." The zipper gave.

"I-I don't think I'm ready for this." Reaching under her loose T-shirt, he cupped her breast in his hand and let his lips trail over her cheek to her mouth. Panic began beating inside her. He rubbed her nipple with his thumb and she moaned softly. She wanted him to think she was wonderful-a spectacular lover-and how could she do that in the middle of a swamp? "I-I need champagne. And soft lights. I need sheets, Dallie."

He withdrew his hand from her breast and settled it gently around the side of her neck. Gazing down into her eyes, he said, "No, you don't, honey. You don't need anything but yourself. You've got to start understanding that, Francie. You've got to start relying on yourself instead of all these props you think you need to set up around you."

"I-I'm afraid." She tried to make her words sound defiant, but didn't quite succeed. Unwrapping herself from his legs and stepping down off his cowboy boot, she confessed everything. "It might seem silly to you, but Evan Varian said I was frigid, and there was this Swedish sculptor in Marra-kech-"

"You want to hold on to that part of the story for a while?"

She felt some of her fight coming back, and she glared at him. "You brought me here on purpose, didn't you? You brought me here because you knew I'd hate it." She took several steps back and pointed a shaky finger toward the Riviera. "I'm not the sort of woman you make love to in the back seat of a car."

"Who said anything about a back seat?"

She stared at him for a moment and then exclaimed, "Oh, no! I'm not lying down on that creature-infested ground. I mean it, Dallie."

"I don't much like the ground myself."

"Then how? Where?"

"Come on, Francie. Stop plotting and planning and trying to make sure you always have your best side turned to the camera. Let's just kiss a little bit so things can take their natural course."

"I want to know where, Dallie."

"I know you do, honey, but I'm not going to tell you because you'll start worrying about whether it's color-coordinated or not. For once in your life, take a chance at doing something where you may not come out looking your best."

She felt as if he had held a mirror up in front of her-not a very large mirror and one with clouded glass, but a mirror nonetheless. Was she as vain as Dallie seemed to believe? As calculating? She didn't want to think so, and yet… She stuck out her chin and began defiantly peeling down her jeans. "All right, we'll do it your way. But just don't expect anything spectacular from me." The slim denim pantlegs caught on her sandals. She bent over to struggle with them, but the heels stuck in the folds. She gave the jeans another tug and tightened the snare. "Is this turning you on, Dallie?" she fumed. "Do you like watching me? Are you getting excited? Dammit! Dammit to bloody hell!"

He started to move toward her, but she looked up at him through the veil of her hair and bared her teeth. "Don't you dare touch me. I mean it. I'll do it myself."

"We're not getting off to a real promising start here, Francie."

"You go to hell!" Jeans hobbling her ankles, she hopped the three steps back to the car, sat down hard on the front seat, and finally extricated herself from the pants. Then she stood up in T-shirt, underpants, and sandals. "There! And I'm not taking another thing off until I feel like it."

"Sounds fair to me." He opened his arms to her. "You want to cuddle up here for a minute and catch your breath."

She did. She really did. "I suppose."

She curled into his chest. He held her for a moment, and then he tilted back her head and began kissing her again. She'd sunk so low in her own estimation that she didn't even try to impress him; she just let him do the work. After a while, she realized that it felt nice. His tongue touched hers and his splayed hand pressed against the bare skin of her back. She lifted her arms and wrapped them around his neck. He reached under her shirt again and his thumbs began to toy with the sides of her breasts and then slid over onto the nipples. It felt so good-shivery and warm at the same time. Had the sculptor played with her breasts? He must have, but she didn't remember. And then Dallie pushed her T-shirt above her breasts and began teasing her with his mouth-his beautiful, wonderful mouth. She sighed as he sucked gently on one nipple and then the other. Somewhat to her surprise, she realized her own hands were once again beneath his shirt, kneading his bare chest. He picked her up in his arms, walked forward with her curled into his chest, and then laid her down.

Over the trunk of his Riviera.

"Absolutely not!" she exclaimed.

"Give it a chance," he replied.

She opened her mouth to tell him that nothing in the world would convince her to be mauled while she was stretched out on the trunk of a car, but he seemed to take her open mouth as some sort of invitation. Before she could frame her words he started kissing her again. Without quite knowing how it happened, she heard herself moan as his kisses grew deeper, hotter. She arched her neck to him, opened her mouth, thrust her tongue, and forgot about her demeaning position. He reached down and encircled her ankle with his fingers, then pulled her leg up. "Right here," he crooned softly. "Put your foot right up here next to the license plate, honey."

She did just as he asked.

"Move your hips forward a little bit. That's good." His voice sounded thick, not as calm as usual, and his breathing was faster than normal as he rearranged her. She pulled at his T-shirt, wanting to feel his bare skin against her breasts.

He peeled it over his head and then began tugging at her underpants.

"Dallie…"

"It's all right, darlin'. It's all right." Her underpants disappeared and her bottom settled on cold metal dusted with road grit. "Francie, that package of birth control pills I spotted in your case wasn't just there for decoration, now, was it?"

She shook her head, unwilling to break the mood by offering any lengthy explanations. When her periods had unaccountably stopped a few months ago, her physician had told her to quit taking her birth control pills until they resumed. He had assured her that she couldn't get pregnant until then, and at the moment that was all that mattered.

Dallie's hand closed over the inside of one of her thighs. He moved it slightly away from the other and began stroking her skin lightly, each time coming closer to the one part of her that she didn't find all that beautiful, the one part of her that she would just as soon have kept hidden away, except that it felt so warm and quivery and strange. "What if somebody comes?" she cried as he brushed against her.

"I'm hoping somebody will," he replied huskily. And then he stopped brushing, stopped teasing, and touched her… really touched her. Inside.

"Dallie…" Her voice was half moan, half cry.

"Feel good?" he muttered, his fingers sliding gently in and out.

"Yes. Yes."

While he played with her, she closed her eyes against the slice of Louisiana moon above her head so that nothing would distract her from the wonderful feelings that were rushing through her body. She turned her cheek and didn't even feel the dirt from the trunk rub against her skin. His hands grew less patient. They spread her legs farther apart and pulled her hips closer to the edge. Her feet were balanced precariously on the bumper, separated by a Texas license plate and some dusty chrome. He fumbled with the front of his jeans and she heard the zipper give. He lifted her hips.

When she felt him push inside her, she gave a small gasp. He bent over her, his feet still on the ground, but drew back slightly. "Am I hurting you?"

"Oh, no. It-it feels so good."

"It's supposed to, honey."

She wanted him to believe she was a wonderful lover-to do everything right-but the whole world seemed to be sliding away from her, making everything dizzy, wavery, and mushy with warmth. How could she concentrate when he was touching her that way, moving like that? She suddenly wanted to feel more of him. Lifting her foot from the bumper, she wrapped one knee around his hips, the other around his leg, pushing against him until she had absorbed as much of him as she could.

"Easy, honey," he said. "Take your time." He began moving inside her slowly, kissing her, and making her feel as good as she'd ever felt in her life. "You with me, darlin'?" he murmured softly in her ear, the sound slightly hoarse.

"Oh, yes… yes. Dallie… my wonderful Dallie… my lovely Dallie…" A cacophony of sound seemed to explode in her head as she came and came and came.