„But I never intended to go to bed with you!“

„Then why did you?“ he countered with the trace of a smile.

„Because… because…“ She broke off, floundering for an explanation of the unexplainable.

„Because you wanted me as much as I wanted you,“ he finished for her, all sure, masculine triumph as he pulled her close. „And I’m going to see if I can’t make you want me even more in the days to come. Starting tonight.“

„No! All you want from me is sex. I won’t fall into that trap,“ she cried as he lowered his head to take her lips.

„You’re wrong, honey,“ he whispered seductively against her mouth. „I want something much more important from you. I want a commitment“

Kalinda struggled. Struggled to ask him what he meant by a commitment, struggled to free herself from his embrace. Both efforts failed abysmally as his kiss swamped her senses.

Just as it had that morning in his home by the lake, the potent desire in him reached out to trap her senses and send them reeling. It fed the desire in herself until Kalinda could barely sustain the futile struggle to control it.

He seemed oblivious of her hands pushing on his shoulders, his hold on her a warm, confining, unshakable thing that kept her gently, securely in his grasp. It lured her, seduced her, promised the stars to her and her traitorous body believed everything.

He groaned with relief and longing as he coaxed apart her lips, feeling them soften and yield beneath his own. His hands slid down her back, urging her body more firmly against tautening thighs.

Kalinda felt herself sinking against him, responding to his passion with a desperate craving of her own. A craving she had never known before she had met this man who mystified her. Reality spun away, leaving only the knowledge that he was here with her again. The emptiness she had experienced as she drove away from him that morning in the mountains was at last being filled. *

His tongue, moving with hot aggression in her mouth, slowly withdrew as Rand gently, reluctantly broke the kiss.

„Take me into your bed, Kalinda. I swear I’ll be as loyal as any of your faithful band of employees. I’ll keep the marauding sharks away from your door for you.“

She turned her head into his shoulder, felt his damp, arousing kisses on the vulnerable, sensitized skin behind her ear and then on her throat.

„I thought it was yourself you called a shark,“ she reminded him shakily, trying to think straight and knowing it was hopeless.

„It takes one to fight one, sweetheart.“ He trembled against her, eliciting that seductive feeling of female power that she had known before with him. It was power combined with the illogical desire to satisfy. It made no sense to Kalinda but it seemed to make perfect sense to her body.

„Are you really a shark?“ she whispered, ripping her head back to meet his eyes searchingly.

He sucked in his breath, his hands tightening around her waist.

„Yes,“ he said with heavy honesty. „But you can control me, darling. I’ll only work for you, never against you. Please believe me!“

She shook her head, dazed. „But I don’t understand, Rand. If you know all about the ruthless side of the business world, if you have those abilities, what were you doing for the past year and a half in the mountains?“

He hesitated, as if uncertain how to explain himself. „I was running away from what those abilities had made me. I was running away from the shark I had become. A year and a half ago I took a good look at myself, sweetheart, and decided I didn’t like what I saw. I needed time to think, time to discover another side of life. So I went to the mountains.“

Kalinda saw the naked, vulnerable look in his eyes and knew in that moment that he’d never told another soul what he’d just told her. Before she could stop to think, she lifted her palms to either side of his harshly carved face.

„And now you think you want to come back to the life you left behind? What makes you believe it will be any different this time, Rand?“

„This time I have you. This time I have something more important than building an empire.“

In spite of the tension of the moment, Kalinda’s lips twitched. „I’m supposed to be a civilizing influence on a shark?“

„I seem,“ he observed, sweeping her up into his arms with an easy movement, „to be fated to serve as a source of amusement for.you!“

„I wasn’t laughing at you,“ she protested, clinging automatically as he began striding out of the kitchen.

„Yes, you were,“ he said beguilingly. „But I know how to wipe that smile out of your lovely eyes!“

When he turned unerringly down the hall to her bedroom, Kalinda’s head fell back against his shoulder, her lashes drooping softly to flicker on her cheeks.

Her implicit surrender made itself felt Rand held her with fierce passion as he walked into the bedroom at the end of the hall. With a glance around the room, he made his way to the bed and settled her gently down on it.

The green and apricot color scheme had been reversed in this room; the apricot in the carpet, the verdant green in the bedspread and chair. In her red and gold and peacock blue silk, Kalinda was a splash of vibrant color as she lay on the green spread.

„You look like some exotic creature from a harem lying there waiting for me.“ Rand stood beside the bed, pulling free the satin bow tie and dropping it onto the carpet.

„Your harem?“ she asked throatily, her gaze trapped by his.

„Definitely,“ he smiled, his fingers on the buttons of his white shirt „But it’s a harem of one.“

Kalinda felt herself melting beneath the heat of his gaze and when he had finished undressing himself and reached for her, she shivered violently with the emotion his touch aroused.

„Kalinda, my gentle, passionate Kalinda,“ he rasped, pulling her into his arms and finding the fastenings of her dress with fingers that shook ever so slightly. „I couldn’t believe you had left me when I awoke that morning. 1 couldn’t believe you hadn’t found in my arms what I had found in yours. You credited me with good perception but you were wrong. I would never have guessed you would have left like that…“

„I saw so little future for us.“ She stirred as the coolness in the room bathed her skin. He removed her dress with deftness and a sensual touch that was a caress in itself. She lifted appealing eyes to his intent face. „And I’m not sure there’s any more of a future now than there was before. Why did you follow me, Rand?“

„Hush, darling,“ he whispered, bending to kiss the nipple of her breast as it hardened beneath his hand. „Stop trying to put obstacles in our path, We need each other tonight Let that be enough for the time being.“

Under his possessive, exploring touch, Kalinda had no choice but to put the doubts and fears aside. What he offered at that moment was too important, too wonderful to turn down. And he knew it He was using that fact to seduce her as surely as he used his lips and fingers and the strength of his hard, lean body.

Cradling her against him, Rand rested on one elbow, his free hand trailing exciting patterns down the length of her side to her thighs. He felt her response and slowly built the tempo of the random patterns until she moaned and turned her mouth into his chest.

Finding the male nipples with her quick, gentle teeth, Kalinda returned the mounting excitement, glorying in his reaction. She felt him shift his legs, inserting one foot between her own. Then his circling, feathering hand went to the inside of her thighs.

„Oh!“ The sob of desire was muffled against his skin but he heard it and growled her name against her shoulder.

„My God, Kalinda, you make me wonder how I ever got along without you in my bed!“

She raked her nails convulsively but lightly along his back, down to the sensitive point at the base of his spine and beyond. He arched into her, his hand moving exquisitely at the point where her thighs joined her body.