Delaneys heart pounded in her chest and she couldnt answer. He lightly brushed his mouth over hers and slid the tip of his tongue across the seam of her lips. A current of pleasure swept across her breasts. Her bodys immediate reaction surprised and alarmed her. Nick was the last man for whom she wanted to feel such aching desire. Their past was too ugly. She meant to push him away, but he turned up the heat, and the kiss turned carnal. His tongue entered her mouth for a long hot assault, devouring her, consuming her resistance, and creating a delicious suction with his lips.

She wanted to hate him. She wanted to hate him even as she kissed him back. Even as her tongue encouraged him. Even as she wound her arms around his neck and clung to him as the only steady thing in a dizzy chaotic world. His lips were warm. Firm. Demanding she kiss him back with the same fiery passion.

He slid his big hands down her sides, then slipped them beneath the loose edge of her sweater. She felt his fingers lightly caress the small of her back, the stroke of each across her skin. Then his warm callused palms slipped to her waist, and his thumbs skimmed her abdomen, fanning lightly over her heated flesh. The knot in her stomach tightened even more and the sensation of pinpricks tingled her chest, drawing her nipples taut as if hed touched her there. He made her forget she stood on a crowded dance floor. He made her forget everything. Her hands drifted to the sides of his neck, and she tangled her fingers in his hair. Then the kiss changed, became almost gentle, and he softly pressed his thumbs into her navel. He slid his thumbs beneath the waistband of her jeans and pulled her tight against the long hard bulge just to the right of his button fly.

Her own choked moan brought an instant of sanity, and she tore her mouth from his. She gasped for breath, ashamed and appalled at her bodys uncontrolled reaction. Hed done this to her before, only that time she hadnt stopped him.

She pushed at him and his hands fell to his sides. When she finally looked into his face, his gaze was hooded and watchful. Then his jaw hardened and his eyes narrowed.

“You shouldnt have come back. You should have stayed gone, he said, then he turned and forced his way through the throng of people.

Stunned by her behavior and his and the desire still surging through her veins, Delaney was unable to move for several long moments. Blues continued to pump from the big speaker, and the couples around her swayed to the beat as if nothing disturbing had just happened. Only Delaney knew that it had. It wasnt until the music stopped that she stumbled back to her table. Maybe he was right. Maybe she should have stayed gone, but shed sold her soul for money. A lot of money, and she couldnt leave now.

Delaney shoved her arms into her jacket and made her way to the front entrance. There was only one way she was going to survive the next seven months. Revert back to plan A and avoid Nick as much as possible. With her head down, she stepped out into the brisk air. Her breath hung in front of her face as she zipped her coat.

The unmistakable rumble of Nicks Harley shook the night, and Delaney glanced over her shoulder. He stood with the big bike between his widespread legs, his back to her, and a worn black leather jacket stretched across his shoulders. He held his hand out and one of the Howell twins jumped on behind, bonding her perfect self to his butt like super glue.

Delaneys head snapped back around and she shoved her hands in her pockets for the short walk home. Nick had the morals of a tomcat. He always had, but why hed kissed her when he had one of the Howell girls with him was beyond Delaneys understanding. In fact, why hed kiss her at all was past comprehension. He didnt like her. That much was clear.

Of course, he hadnt liked her ten years ago, either. Hed used her to get back at Henry, but Henry was dead now, and getting involved with her could mean hed lose the bequest Henry had given him. Nick was many things, all of them complicated, but he wasnt stupid.

She took a left at the alleyway and walked toward the stairs leading to her apartment. It didnt make sense, but many things Nick did had never made any sense to her.

In any other city, Delaney might have been afraid to walk the streets after dark, but not in Truly. Occasionally one of the summer homes at the north side of the lake got broken into. But nothing really bad ever happened here. People didnt lock their cars, and more often than not, didnt bother to lock their homes, either.

Delaney had lived in too many big cities to leave without locking her apartment. Once shed climbed the stairs and was inside, she secured the door behind her and tossed the keys on the glass and black coffee table. While she unlaced her boots, she thought about Nick and her crazy reaction to him. For a few unguarded moments, shed wanted him.

And hed wanted her, too. Shed felt it in the way he touched her and in the hard bulge of his erection.

The boot in Delaneys hand hit the floor, and she frowned into the darkness. On a crowded dance floor, shed kissed him like he was a fresh batch of sin and she was dying for a taste. Hed made her burn, and shed wanted him like she hadnt wanted any other man in a long time. Like shed wanted him once before. Like no one existed beyond him and nothing else mattered. Nick was the only man shed ever known who could make her forget everything. There was something about him that went straight to her head. Hed gotten to her tonight, just as he had the night before shed left Truly ten years ago.

She didnt like to think about what had happened, but she was exhausted and her mind did an unstoppable turnback to the memories shed always tried to forget, but never could.

The summer after high school graduation had started out bad, then proceeded to go to hell. Shed just turned eighteen and figured it was finally time for her to have a say in her life. She didnt want to attend college right away. She wanted to take a year off to decide what she really wanted to do, but Henry had already preregistered her at the University of Idaho, where hed been a member of the Alumni Hall of Fame. Hed chosen her classes and signed her up for a full load of freshman courses.

At the end of June she got up the nerve to talk to Henry about a compromise. She would go part-time to Boise State University where Lisa was going, and she wanted to take classes she thought sounded fun.

He said no. End of subject.

With the August registration date breathing down her neck, she approached Henry again in July.

“Dont be silly. I know whats best for you, he said. “Your mother and I have discussed this, Delaney. Your plans for your future are aimless. Youre obviously much too young to know what you want.

But shed known. Shed known for a long time, and somehow shed always thought that on her eighteenth birthday she would get it. For some mixed-up reason, shed thought that with her freedom to vote would come real freedom. But when her February birthday had passed without the slightest change in her life, she figured graduation from high school had to mean liberation from Henrys control. She would get the freedom to break out and be Delaney. The freedom to be wild and crazy if she wanted to. To take silly college classes. To wear holey jeans or too much makeup. To wear the clothes she wanted. To look like a preppie, a bum, or a whore.

She didnt get those freedoms. In August Henry and her mother drove her four hours north to the University of Idaho in the town of Moscow, Idaho, and she registered for the fall semester. On the way back home, Henry kept saying, “trust me to know whats best for you. And “Someday youll thank me. When you get your business degree, youll help run my companies. Her mother accused her of being “spoiled and immature.