As many times as he'd told himself he didn't care about anyone or anything. Lucky couldn't stomach this. He'd been raised to treat women gently and with respect. Despite the cynicism that had taken root inside him over the years, the idea of a man physically abusing a woman, overpowering her with his strength, was abhorrent to him. The idea of hurting Serena, brave, proud Serena, whose regal mask hid secret fears, cut deeper than he wanted to admit.

His hand was trembling slightly as he brushed her hair back from her temple. «Serena? Serena, I'm sorry-«

«Don't be,» she whispered. «I'm all right.»

«I hurt you. I was too rough. I-«

«No. That's never happened for me before,» she said, breaking in on his apology with her confession.

Lucky went still above her as comprehension dawned. «Never?»

She turned her head and gave him a tremulous smile. «Not like that. I didn't have any idea it could be like that. I've never been very good at sex.»

Nothing could have aroused Lucky more strongly or more immediately save having her tell him she was a virgin. Knowing he had taken her somewhere no other man ever had was the next best thing. Possessiveness surged inside him and for once he didn't try to fight it or deny it. She was his. He felt it on a fundamental, instinctive level. She was his.

Still snug in the silken pocket of Serena's womanhood, his body stirred strongly and her body tightened around him in automatic response. He stared down at her, feeling caught in the grip of a powerful emotion he couldn't name. She looked up at him, her eyes dark and liquid, her lips parting softly as her breath caught.

«Oh, ma jolie fille,» Lucky said, lowering his head to gently nuzzle her throat. «That might have been your first trip to heaven, but it sure as hell won't be your last.»

He'd had the dream a hundred times, he was crawling through a sewer tunnel under the private prison of self-styled general and drug kingpin Juan Rafael Ramos, the fumes choking him, the screams of prisoners in the interrogation rooms coming to him through the stone walls like the eerie cries of tortured souls from another dimension.

He had planned this escape since the day he had regained consciousness after his first «questioning» by Ramos's men. He had concentrated on the plan every time they tortured him, focusing his mind on freedom instead of the excruciating pain, had visualized it in his mind over and over through the endless hours in a dark, dank cell. Now the end of the tunnel was literally in sight. His fingers threaded through the rusted grate and pushed it out. On the other side, standing in a ball of bright light were Ramos, Amalinda Roca, and Lieutenant Colonel R. J. Lambert.

He lunged for Lambert first and killed him with a rough metal shank. Blood gushed from the body like water from a fire hydrant and pooled around him, thick and warm and shoulder-deep. He could hear a woman's laughter, and he turned toward it slowly, his movements hindered by the fluid rushing around him. Amalinda hovered above him, her long hair flowing around her like streamers in the wind.

The instant he recognized her her face contorted grotesquely into a monster's snarling countenance with fangs dripping venom. Her fingers transformed into snakes that wrapped around his throat and pulled his head under the swirling current of blood, drowning him. He could feel the pressure, the pain in his lungs, the panic rising in the back of his throat-

Lucky jerked awake, gasping for air and looking wildly for the source of the pressure on his chest. A woman lay with her cheek pressed over his heart, her hair spilling like a curtain of silvery silk over his dark skin. Shelby. No, no, he told himself, working to keep another rush of ugly memories at bay. Not Shelby. Serena.

It took him a long moment to sort reality from the nightmare, to realize who Serena was and where they were. Fragments of thought and emotions swirled like dust at the edges of his mind, and he painstakingly selected the appropriate pieces and frantically attempted to push the rest aside.

Serena. Safety. Home.

She lifted her head and blinked sleepily, looking up at him in silent question. Lucky said nothing. He eased out from under her and left the bed, padding naked to the front window.

A cold sweat filmed his skin. His hair was damp as he ran his fingers through it, slicking it back from his face. He was shaking-perhaps not visibly, but inside he was shaking violently and his heart beat like thunder. He braced his hands against the frame of the open window, trying to get a breath of fresh air, trying to hang on as fear tore at the edges of his sanity. It crawled up the back of his throat to choke him, and he coughed and gripped the window frame harder as he fought the sensation back down.

They were old companions, the nightmares and their aftermath, the shaking, the blinding fear that maybe this time he wouldn't be able to push the darkness back from the edges of his mind, the weariness, the regret. The thing he wanted most was to lie down and escape from it all with sleep, but he knew he wouldn't sleep again this night. The dreams were too terrible, too vivid, too seductive in their attempts to pull him over the edge.

He wouldn't sleep again this night because he was afraid, and because he was afraid he was ashamed. A stronger man could have slept. A better man wouldn't have been plagued by demons the like of these. Knowing Serena was there to witness it all made the shame a hundred times worse and he called on his deep reservoirs of anger and self-protection to deflect it.

Serena watched him from the bed. She couldn't see his face, but the pale moonlight spilling in through the window washed silver over his shoulders and back as he stood with his head lowered. Every muscle was tense, taut, perfectly delineated from its neighbor. His back rose and fell as he struggled for breath. She had no idea what kind of nightmare had driven him from sleep to this mental ledge he was clinging to now. All she knew was that she wanted to help. She wanted to reach out and offer him her strength as he had offered his the night before.

She found Lucky's T-shirt among the tangle of clothes on the floor beside the bed and pulled it on. It fell to the middle of her thighs as she slipped from the bed and went to him.

«What's wrong?» she asked quietly. For a long moment the only sounds that answered her came from outside-the chirrup of frogs and insects, the distant whinny of a raccoon.

«Rien,» he said at length, then shook his head impatiently as he realized he hadn't answered her in English. «Nothing.»

She reached out to lay a hand on his arm. «Lucky-«

«Nothing!» He roared, turning on her. It was a tactical error. Serena didn't back away. Instead, she looked up into his face and read it as plainly as a college professor might have read a grade-school primer. Lucky turned away to stare out the window again, schooling his voice to a calmer tone. «It s nothing to do with you. Just some leftover stuff from my stint in Central America.»

«What were you doing in Central America?»

A sardonic smile twisted his mouth. «Well, I wasn't down there with the Maryknoll Fathers, that's for sure.

«The army?»

«Yeah. Doin' a little job for Uncle Sam. It was nothing.»

«We don't get nightmares from nothing.»

«Pas de betises,» he muttered.

«If you want to talk about it, I might be able to help,» Serena said softly, her eyes warm with concern.

Lucky forced a laugh. «You can't even help yourself,» he said, almost wincing at the deliberate cruelty of his words.

Serena ignored his verbal strike. He was scared and hurting; lashing out was a natural response. «It's easier to solve other people's problems.»