He smiled at that and stroked her hair. The mix of pleasure and uncertainty was unbearable.

"Fair enough."

Then he reached around and cupped her head in his hand and pulled her to him. His mouth was on hers before she could prepare herself, and the sensation was nothing less than apocalyptic.

Kurt didn't kiss her like this. The man's mouth was soft but persistent, and his lips opened over hers, and he sucked at her lips and tongue, and she found herself doing the same to him, and he just kept asking for more, and she gave it to him.

He bit her gently. She felt his fingers undoing the clasp of her bra under her shirt, then moving to the zipper of her shorts. He was so smooth. Clearly, he'd had lots of practice. In a way; she was glad-glad because if she was going to have one shot at wild sex, it was good that it was with a man who might actually know what he was doing.

Then it occurred to her that she was by the side of a road, where anyone could come across them. She pulled her lips from his and looked around nervously. "What if someone sees us?"

He nodded and surveyed the area. "I'm not usually one for public displays of affection myself, but I think we're pretty well hidden."

Then he put the flat of his palms on her belly and slid them up under her loose bra. She gasped-his hands felt so hot! Then it occurred to her that she didn't have a condom-of course.she didn't have a condom! She'd never had a condom in her life! She froze beneath his touch.

His hands stilled. "Are you okay?"

"No. No, I'm not!" She knew she sounded borderline hysterical but couldn't help herself. "I don't have a condom! I can't do this without one!"

"Ahh." He smiled at her, then dragged his hands from her breasts down her back, insinuating them into the back of her shorts, cupping her bottom. "I have sonie," he whispered.

Charlotte felt herself relax into his grip, get lost in the pull of the man's smile. Then he rose and whispered in her ear, "But you're so small. I don't want to hurt you."

She trembled. He kissed her again. She allowed herself to touch him-his hard shoulders and upper arms, his neck, his chest-and the physical sensations began to blur until they were going at each other like they intended to consume, each other, a rush of mouths and hands and breathing until he ripped off her clothes and she ripped off his and they made a little bed in the weeds and she was dying of impatience as he tore open the condom wrapper with his teeth.

Not a moment too soon, he was once again leaning against the tree and she was once again straddling him, but this time she was rolling a condom down his unbelievably beautiful penis and she was suddenly grateful for the required public health education courses she'd had to suffer through.

He pulled her up by the waist and positioned her over him. She tried not to shake. She tried not to have any regrets. And before she knew it, he was pushing inside her, and she tried her best to hide the shock she felt and breathed through the burning pain, inch by inch, until it transformed into molten pleasure.

And as she rocked on him and ground against him, she watched his greedy mouth move all over her pale breasts. She felt him kiss and suck her neck and face and lips. And she smiled up at the sky through the leaves, through her tears, breathed in the honeysuckle that seemed to be everywhere, and knew she'd made the right decision.

It was everything she'd hoped for. This man and his mouth and hands and cock were just what she craved.

She looked down into the bottomless dark eyes of this stranger and he smiled at her with joy. Then he urged her on, using words that appeared in no nursing text she'd ever read.

"God, your little pussy is so damn tight," he moaned. "Come all over me. Let go, you sexy thing. I want to feel you bust it."

That's when she had her first orgasm in the presence of another human being. And boy, was it ever better than going solo.

She had many more before it was done. He had three. And they stopped only when they ran out of condoms and she was late to meet the plane.

They left their nest in the weeds and she stood by. the Miata again, the man pressed up against her, just where they'd started. Strangely enough, she didn't feel awkward. They both knew what this had been about. She would never be sitting by a telephone that didn't ring. They would never pass each other in a hallway and have to look away.

"Good-bye," she said.

She saw him frown, start to say something, then just offer her another of his perfect smiles. As an afterthought, he reached in his front jeans pocket and pulled out the little notebook.

She laughed as she took it from him. Then she threw her arms around his neck and practically jumped him, kissing him so hard she thought she heard something crack. Then she hopped back into the car and pulled out of the parking space: so fast she burned rubber, never looking back, tasting the blood on her lip.

That little trip down memory lane had exhausted her. Charlotte dragged herself off the couch and put of the past and headed up to bed, where she'd likely dream it all over again.

"I really don't want to hear this, Roger."

Joe's supervisor sighed into the phone. "Two weeks. The Cincinnati office is expecting your help. I'm expecting you to stay alive. So you'll give us two weeks."

"I'm getting a hotel, then. On the other side of town."

"The hell you are!"

Joe had known his boss long enough to suspect he was at the end of his patience. Roger's next comments confirmed it.

"Listen. You will remain right there,, where we know you're safe, for two fucking weeks, that's fourteen fucking days, and you can do damn near anything for fourteen days, so just suck it up and do it, Bellacera."

Roger hung up, and Joe stared at the phone in his hand.

How was he supposed to live next door to Honeysuckle Mama for two weeks? Especially after what happened the other night? After he'd made the brilliant decision to hold a gun to her head and then kiss her? And how could he stay here after she'd practically begged him to take her right there in the driveway?

He was strong, but not strong enough for this.

Joe put the phone in the cradle and scanned the bedroom that served as his office, and the boxes stacked against the wall. Two weeks. How could he occupy himself for two weeks? Yes, he was committed to brainstorming with Cincinnati Field Office Supervisor Rich Baum and his agents about a sudden influx of Mexican-made crystal meth into the suburbs. He'd talk on the phone with the assistant U.S. attorney handling the Guzman case. He'd get in two good boxing workouts a day. He'd take naps. He'd keep an eye on Charlotte.

He'd like to keep a few other body parts on her, too- like his lips and his hands. It took every ounce of restraint he had the other night not to give that woman everything she wanted and then some. He couldn't stop thinking about the intensity of that kiss. The instant his lips made contact with hers, he'd been flung back in time. In his mind, he was right back under that tree, under her spell, underneath her sweet body.

Joe sat down at his desk and stared at the computer.

He would never forget the drive that afternoon back to Quantico, where he got his ass chewed for being late for class. He smelled her on his hands the rest of the day. He wondered if she smelled him. He wondered who was on that Northwest flight she was meeting at National Airport but now suspected it was Kurt Tasker.

Had she ever told her husband what happened that day? He doubted it. The file said they'd gotten married about six months later, and he guessed Charlotte kept her mouth shut and her eye on the altar.

So what did that make him! A last-minute fling? Just one more wild boink for the road?