Serena reached out to steady the easel, steadying herself at the same time. She watched Lucky pace, watched the storm of emotions raging inside him and witnessed the awesome battle to contain those emotions within him. As she watched, her fear receded and was replaced by something stronger-the need to reach out to him.

«Lucky, I didn't mean any harm,» she said softly. «I'm very sorry. Really, I am.»

He stopped abruptly and looked at her sideways, his eyes as bright and hot as molten gold. A savage smile cut across his dark face. «You're sorry. You invade my life, invade my privacy, drag me into your battles, and all you have to say is that you're sorry. Use me to your own end and excuse it all with an apology. Very civilized. Very proper. Dieu, isn't that just like the Sheridan girls?»

The words rang in his ears like the clashing din of cymbals. If he could have reached out and grabbed them back, he would have, but they hung there. Serena met his gaze, her face filled with dawning awareness and questions.

«How well do you know Shelby?» she asked carefully, not wanting to hear the answer.

«Well enough to know better than to let her twin take me for the same ride.»

Serena was unprepared for the stab of jealousy that pierced her at the thought of Shelby and Lucky together. It didn't seem possible. She didn't want to believe it, but she didn't have much choice.

«I'm not Shelby,» she said, drawing her armor of cool poise around herself. «I'm nothing like Shelby. I'm sorry if she hurt you, but I won't pay for her sins, Lucky.»

«Forget it,» he muttered. «It was a lifetime ago.»

He could see she had more questions, but before she could voice them, he jerked his head around and resumed his pacing, dismissing the subject as if it hadn't been the one pivotal event that had changed his life's course.

«What did you think you would find up here, ma petite? Contraband? Guns? Drugs?»

«You let me think you were a poacher,» Serena said evenly. «Why, Lucky? Why let me think you're something bad when you're not?»

To keep you away. To keep from getting hurt. He pressed the heels of his hands to his temples as if to hold the thoughts in as they swelled and throbbed behind his eyes. When he started toward her, he roared, an animal cry of impotent rage and guilt and fury. Serena jumped, but held her ground, waiting for an answer. Lucky lunged at her, pulling himself up just a hairbreath in front of her.

«You look at me and see something bad. That's because I am,» he insisted.

«I've seen what you wanted me to see, not who you really are.»

«Mais non, chere,» he said bitterly. «You've seen all there is.»

«That's a lie. What about this?» Serena raised a hand toward the half-finished canvas on the easel. «You wouldn't have let me see this. There's nothing bad here. Your paintings are beautiful and touching, Lucky. Why wouldn't you let me see them? Do they show too much?»

Snarling an oath, he pushed past her, grabbed the canvas off the easel, and hurled it across the room like a giant Frisbee. It hit the leg of the workbench with a loud crack, the stretcher snapping in two along one side of the canvas, ruining it.

«Cloth and pigment,» Lucky spat out. «That's all it is. I do it to pass the time. Don't read anything into it, Dr. Sheridan,» he warned, leaning over her again. «Don't look for symbolism or metaphors. Rest assured, the only way I want to touch you is with my hands,» he said, pulling her against him with barely leashed violence.

«This is how I want to touch you, chere,» he whispered savagely, sweeping his hands over her hair, down her back to her hips. His fingers pressed into her flesh, stroking roughly, caressing without tenderness. «This is the only way I want to touch you.» He brought one hand up to cup her breast through the sheer fabric of her blouse. «This is all I have to give you, all I'll let you take.»

He lowered his mouth the rest of the way and kissed her hard.

She should have pushed him away. Common sense told Serena to push him away. Common sense told her that poacher or artist, Lucky Doucet was a man with problems, a man who wouldn't share himself. He'd given her fair warning on that score. All he wanted was this, the physical, the sexual. He wanted desire and nothing more. Even that need he gave in to grudgingly, angrily. He wanted her, but he didn't like it. She wanted him and it confounded her. She was too smart a woman to fall into the trap of wanting a man who would never give of himself. She was too slick and polished to want a barbarian, too in need of control to surrender it utterly.

She should have pushed him away. But she didn't. Couldn't. She wanted his touch, his kiss. He had awakened an instinct in her that had lain dormant even through marriage. Now it roared with life, with hunger. It frightened her and thrilled her, and she surrendered without a fight because no matter how wrong her common sense told her it was, the woman in her said it was right.

The woman in her, who had never known true passion, yearned for it now, with this man, this warrior with the soul of an artist. She had held herself in check with the idea he was a criminal, but he wasn't a criminal. He was a man with hidden fears. He was a man who covered his tenderness, his inner loneliness, his goodness with a mask of toughness and danger, a man who needed love but would never reach out to take it.

Serena didn't push him away. She melted against him.

Lucky groaned helplessly as her mouth softened beneath his. He hadn't meant this to happen. He had meant to push her away, to frighten her, to repel her, to chase her so far away she wouldn't want to come within an emotional mile of him. But the instant her resistance melted, so did his anger. Need swept over him like a tidal wave. He needed to touch her, to taste her, to hold her. He wanted to lose himself in her. It was madness, he knew, but such sweet madness he couldn't resist.

He raised his head a scant inch and looked into her eyes. What he saw was a mirror of his own bewilderment, need, and wariness of that need.

«I want you,» he murmured, untangling the overwhelming knot of emotions to the root of the problem. «I want you, Serena.»

«I know.»

Her words were little more than shadows of sound passing between her lips, lips that were swollen from his kiss. Her braid had come loose and her hair fell around her shoulders in disarray, a shaft of light from the window above turning it the color of spun gold. She was temptation personified, a temptation Lucky had no intention of resisting.

«I stopped last night,» he reminded her. «I'm not stopping this time, chere.»

Serena could feel him, hard and urgent against her belly, and she knew he meant what he said. A primitive thrill shot through her at the thought that he meant to claim her as males had claimed their mates from the dawn of time. He lowered his mouth to hers again, sipping, tasting, testing her. Serena framed his face with her hands and pressed her lips more solidly against his, letting him know she had no intention of stopping him.

She met the thrust of his tongue eagerly as reason and logic shut down and instinct took control. He filled her mouth with the taste of him, surrounded her body with his heat and raw power. She slid her arms around his neck and gasped as her breasts flattened against the wall of his chest.

Lucky pulled her lower body tight against his with one hand and slid his other hand between them, seeking and finding the open throat of her blouse. He needed to touch her skin, needed to see her. The top button gave way as he curled his fingers into the fabric and pulled downward. One by one the buttons surrendered, falling to the floor.

He trailed his kiss down her jaw to her throat, stripping the blouse from her shoulders and discarding it. His thumbs hooked under the straps of her bra and he drew them down off her shoulders, peeled the cups away to reveal her breasts to his touch, his gaze, the hunger of his kiss.