Her body strained toward his. She squeezed her thighs together, struggling to speak. To breathe. “I . . .”
He watched her face as his fingers rubbed her through her slacks.
“I‟m not that grateful,” she choked out.
“You would be.”
Oh, God.
Laughter, shocked, excited, broke from her. She stepped back firmly, away from his touch, out of temptation. “The
children,” she articulated carefully, “are upstairs.”
He shot a glance toward the empty steps, the darkened hall. “We are down here.”
She ignored the thrill that ran through her veins and along her bones. He‟d never married, she reminded herself. He didn‟t
have kids, except for Zack. He couldn‟t understand.
“I can‟t do this,” she said. “I need to set an example.”
I need to be in control.
He stood very still, watching her, his eyes dark and considering between those thick blond lashes. Tension rolled off him in
waves like heat from an oven. She could feel herself melting.
“You are in earnest,” he said finally, flatly.
She inhaled. “Yes.”
“Why? You are ready for me.”
“Not ready for this.”
“You are. I feel it. I smell it. Your body weeps for mine. Let me satisfy you.”
Temptation almost overwhelmed her. “You can‟t. I need more than a quick grope on your way out the door. I need trust
and tenderness and companionship and commitment. Can you offer me all those things? Or any of those things?”
“I am offering you sex.”
“That‟s not enough.”
His gaze met hers. “It was once.”
His words thumped low in her midsection. An exquisite shudder went through her as she remembered the earth moving and
the stars wheeling and his body plunging into hers again and again.
Remembered how she‟d waited for his call the next day and all the days after, the sick realization she was pregnant as the
result of a one-night stand.
She raised her chin. “It was never enough.”
His eyes blazed. His mouth curled mockingly. “You have changed your tune. You sang a different song when you were
open and under me.”
She sucked in her breath. But before she could respond, he tugged on the door. The night swirled in, and he was gone.
The moon breasting the clouds left a wake of broken silver. The fog flowed, a cool current from the sea.
Morgan welcomed the chill in the air, for he had a burn in his blood that would not be satisfied this night.
His own fault, he acknowledged.
He had miscalculated Elizabeth‟s resistance. But then, he had not expected resistance. He had never had a female reject
him before. Never known a woman who demanded more than her pleasure as her due.
“I need trust and tenderness and companionship and commitment. Can you offer me all those things? Or any of those
things?”
Of course he could not. Would not.
He was not bloody human.
But he should have worked harder to gain her trust, he realized now.
A hunter must think like his prey. He had managed well enough with the boy, observing from a distance, anticipating his
moves. But with Elizabeth, Morgan had blundered badly. He had allowed his hunger to compromise his skill. Betrayed by
appetite, he had struck too soon.
Something to think about when his blood was cooler.
He left the road, plunging down a slope thick with huckleberries, beach roses, and tall weeds.