"Don't be ridiculous. First, you call me Lucrezia and then Delilah. I didn't poison you, and I wouldn't know how to go about playing Delilah. But Lani thinks-" She stopped.

"What does Lani think?"

She shrugged. "She thinks you're not as hard as you'd like to be. She says you might have second thoughts about killing Papa if-"

"If you couple with me?" he prompted.

"I told her it wouldn't do any good, but she thinks that you're-" She broke off again and gestured impatiently. "It doesn't matter what she thinks. I know you have no softness, but if I'm close to you, I'll still find a way to use you."

"A challenge," he said softly.

"I don't mean to challenge you. You wanted an explanation. I gave it."

"With your usual honesty and bluntness. I do believe I must teach you a bit of diplomacy for the sake of my self-love."

"I don't care about your self-love. I don't care anything about you."

He lifted a brow. "Yet you wish to give yourself to me."

"You keep saying that. I'll never give myself. That's not why I'm here."

"Isn't it the same thing?"

"Not to me," she said. "And I don't think it's the same to you, either. You'd like to think I'd meekly surrender to you."

He slowly shook his head. "You're wrong. I'd be very disappointed if you surrendered, and I can't imagine your doing anything meekly." His gaze moved down to her breasts and his smile was purely sensual. "It's my earnest hope you'll display no meekness whatever."

A tide of heat enveloped her, and she had to take a moment to steady her voice. "Then you'll not be disappointed. I'm coming to you because it suits me to do it. After we couple, I'll get up and walk away. It will mean nothing to me."

Rage momentarily crossed his face before he said lightly, "What a peculiar attitude for a woman."

"Only peculiar to a man. You all wish us to be meek and faithful and let you be the ones to get up and walk away. Your world is very unfair, and I won't live by your rules."

"All of this is more of your Lani's teachings, no doubt. Do you know, I believe I value your virginity more than you do. I actually felt quite guilt ridden before I overcame it."

She shrugged. "Because you're a foreigner and have strange ideas." This pose of boldness was growing more difficult by the moment. Why wouldn't he stop talking and begin their coupling? Anything would be better than this tension. "Why are you just standing there? I don't want to talk anymore."

"But I do. I find it fascinating to explore your reasoning in this matter."

"Why? You told me to use you as you intended to use me, and you said I'd come to your way of thinking."

"But not this quickly." His gaze went to the sarong. "And not in this charmingly barbaric fashion. Now, I wonder why you chose to present yourself in this guise."

"It's no guise. As I've said, I feel most comfortable dressed this way."

"It's the way Kanoa would feel the most comfortable," he corrected. "Not Cassandra Deville. Kanoa would dress like this. Kanoa would not hesitate to come to my bed. I'd wager you came to me like this because at the moment it's easier pretending to be Lani's little sister."

"I'm not pretending." She had acted purely on instinct when she had donned the sarong. She had not even thought about it. "I don't need excuses to do what I choose."

"Kanoa doesn't need excuses, but what of Clara Kidman's charge?"

She was beginning to think he might be right and was becoming uneasy that he knew her so well. "What does any of this matter? Don't you want me?"

His mockery vanished. "God, yes, I want you," he said thickly.

She inhaled sharply. "Then stop arguing. What difference does it make? I told you why I came here."

"To use me." He repeated the words with a grimace. "For some odd reason the term bothers me."

"You don't make sense. It's the term you used to me."

"I know." He unfolded his arms but still did not touch her. "But it's difficult to think coolly at a time like this." Suddenly he laughed harshly. "Christ, I can't believe I'm still standing here instead of inside you on that bed."

He reached out and touched her upper lip with his index finger.

She stiffened at the gentle touch as if he had struck her with a torch. Her lips felt as if they were swelling, softening, ripening at the caress. She involuntarily jerked her head back.

"No." He took a step closer and his finger outlined her upper lip. "No, Kanoa, let me… This is why you came here."

She stared up at him in helpless fascination as wave after wave of heat washed over her. "I don't think that this is all I came for."

He chuckled. "You're damn right it isn't. But I have to start somewhere. I've never had a virgin before, and this seems fairly innocuous."

Not to her. Everything he did or said, everything about him shimmered with sensuality-the scent of him, the planes of his face, the tension of his body. She was drowning in it, and her gaze clung to his as if to a safe mooring. No safety there, only glittering promise.

His fingers brushed the upper swell of her breast.

She shivered, and the muscles of her stomach contracted in response.

"You'll take me and then get up and walk away?" he murmured.

"Yes."

His fingers were at the knot of her sarong. "It will mean nothing to you?"

She had to force the answer through dry lips. "Nothing."

The sarong fell to the floor. She was naked.

He unbuttoned his shirt and threw it aside. "The hell it won't." He buried his hands in her hair and tilted back her head. His eyes were blazing. "I won't be nothing to anyone, goddammit." He pulled her into the cradle of his hips. Arousal. Stark, bold, merciless against her nakedness. "Is this nothing?" His palms cupped her buttocks, lifting her, rubbing her against him.

Shock tingled through her. The hair of his chest was brushing against her nipples, and they were growing more sensitive and hard with every passing second.

"Is it?" he asked again.

She could barely remember the question. "It's very pleasant… I think."

"And this?" His head bent, his tongue touched her nipple.

She cried out, her spine arched.

He lifted his head and he smiled. "Pleasant? I think you'll find that too tame a word." Then his lips closed on her breast, sucking strongly.

Fire. Hunger. Emptiness. It seemed impossible they could exist together, but they did. She reached out, her fingers burying themselves in his hair, holding him to her. Dear heaven, even the feel of his hair between her fingers was causing a tingling heat. She wanted to scream, moan…

He switched to her other breast, sucking, licking. His hands began to open and close on her buttocks. Pressure. Heat. Her heart was beating so hard it filled the cabin-no, it filled the world. Darkness and flame… and hunger.

He finally lifted his head and looked down at her dazed face. "I can't take this anymore," he said hoarsely. "I have to be inside you." He took her hand and pulled her toward the bunk. "Come."

She followed him docilely. In that moment she would have followed him anywhere.

Then he was over her, parting her thighs and moving between them. His hand was on the curls surrounding her womanhood, patting, stroking. "So soft." He tugged gently as he positioned himself. The muscles of her stomach clenched as a bolt of heat went through her. He nodded. "You like that? I'll give you more after I-" He stopped, not moving. "Christ." He looked down at her. "I don't know anything about this."

She looked at him in bewilderment through the haze of lust he had so skillfully built around her. What on earth was he talking about? It was clear to her he knew everything about this. "You appear to be very… well versed."

"Not with virgins, dammit. I don't know- It's supposed to hurt. I should take more time."