She ran her fingertips lightly up and down his back, finding pleasure in the ridge of muscle, the ripple of it as she aroused him.

She let herself float on sensation as he gave her, and took from her, the gradual glide she'd demanded. Candlelight shifted, then the flames ran straight and true as spears and filled the air with fragrance.

They rose together, danced on that scented air. They knelt on the bed, centered on it, torso to torso and mouth to mouth.

If it was a spell, he'd have stayed bound eternally without question, without struggle. Witch or woman, a blend of both, she was his.

He watched the way his hand looked against her skin, dark to light, rough to fragile. The way her breasts could be cupped in his palms, and how the tips hardened under the brush of his thumb.

They touched, and tasted. A brush, a sip, a lazy caress, a long, slow drink.

When at last he slipped inside her, the gentle rise and fall was like waves of silk. Magic shimmered as they watched each other, as for each, for that moment, no one else existed. Beat to beat, with an intimacy that was more than mating, that abounded past needs and outraced passion.

It welled in her heart, overflowed in a spill like gold.

Her lips curved again as he lowered his mouth to hers. Their hands joined, fingers linking as they slid off the world together.

When she lay curled to his side, her palm over the steady beat of his heart, it seemed nothing could touch them. Her haven, she thought, was safe, as they were safe inside it.

All of her fears and worries, that creeping dread, seemed foolish now.

They were simply a man and a woman in love, lying in a warm bed and listening to the last of a storm pass overhead.

"I wonder if I'll ever learn how to manipulate objects."

"Honey, you manipulate just fine," he chuckled.

"No." She gave him a playful slap. "I mean moving things from one point to another. If I could, I'd chant the proper incantation and so on, and we'd have chicken soup in bed."

"It doesn't work like that. Does it?" he asked.

"I bet it does for Mia, if she wants it enough. But for lowly students such as me, it takes getting up, going into the kitchen and doing it all the old-fashioned way."

She turned her head to give his shoulder a pecking kiss, then rolled away.

"Why don't you stay here and I'll get the soup?"

She tossed a look over her shoulder as she walked to the closet for the robe she'd finally gotten around to buying. "Clever of you to suggest that after I was already up."

"I thought so. And since you caught me, I'll throw some clothes on and come out and give you a hand."

"Fine. Bring out that wet heap in the bathroom while you're at it."

Wet heap? It took him a minute to remember, so she was already out of the room when he leaped out of bed and snatched up his sodden pants from the floor. Digging in the pocket, he let out a breath as his fingers closed around a small box.

She had a round loaf of bread on a cutting board and was ladling up wide bowls of soup when he came in. She looked so pretty, so at home in her soft pink robe, he thought, her feet bare, her hair a little mussed.

"Nell, why don't we let that cool a minute?"

"We'll need to. Do you want some wine?"

"In a minute." Odd, he thought he'd be nervous, at least a little. Instead he was rock calm. He laid his hands on her shoulders, turned her, then ran them down to her elbows. "I love you, Nell."

"I-"

It was as far as she got before his lips silenced hers.

"I thought of different ways to do this. Taking you for a drive one night, or a walk on the beach next full moon. Or for a fancy dinner at the hotel. But this is the right way for us, the right place, and the right time."

The little flutter in her stomach was a warning. But she couldn't step back. She couldn't move at all.

"I thought of different ways to ask you, what words might suit best, and how I should say them. But the only ones that come to me right now are I love you, Nell. Marry me."

The breath that she had been holding released as joy and grief waged a helpless war inside her. "Zack. We've been together such a short time."

"We can wait a while to get married if you want, though I don't see the point in it."

"Why can't we just leave things the way they are?"

Of all the reactions he'd been expecting, the hitch of fear in her voice hadn't been among them. "Because we need a place of our own, a life of our own, not pieces of yours and mine."

"Marriage is just a legality. That's all." She turned away, reached blindly into the cupboard for glasses.

"For some people." He said it quietly. "Not for you or me. We're basic, Nell. When basic people fall in love, and mean it, they get married, start a family. I want to share my life with you, make children with you, grow old with you."

Tears threatened. Everything he said was what she wanted, so deep in her heart that it was into her soul. "You're moving too fast."

"I don't think so." He took the box from his pocket. "I bought this today because we've already started our life together, Nell. It's time to see where it takes us."

Her fingers curled into her palms as she looked down. He'd bought her a sapphire, a rich, warm stone set in a simple band of gold. He'd have known she would need warmth and simplicity.

Evan had chosen a diamond, a brilliant square in platinum that had sat on her finger like ice.

"I'm sorry. Zack, I'm so sorry. I can't marry you."

He felt the slice through his heart, but he never flinched as he watched her face. "Do you love me, Nell?"

"Yes."

"Then I deserve to know why you won't make a promise to me, and take one from me."

"You're right." She struggled to steady herself. "I can't marry you, Zack, because I'm already married."

Nothing she could have said would have stunned him more. "Married? You're married! For God's sake, Nell, we've been together for months."

"I know." It wasn't just shock she saw now. It wasn't just anger. He stared at her as if she were a stranger. "I left him, you see. More than a year ago."

He struggled over the first hurdle. The fact that she'd been married and hadn't told him. But he couldn't make it over the second. That she was married still.

"Left him, but didn't divorce him."

"No, I couldn't. I-"

"And you let me touch you, you slept with me, let me fall in love with you, knowing you weren't free."

"Yes." It was so cold, suddenly so cold in the little kitchen that it penetrated her bones. "I don't have any excuses for it."

"I won't ask when you were planning to tell me. Obviously you weren't." He closed the box with a snap, jammed it back in his pocket. "I don't sleep with other men's wives, Nell. A word from you, one goddamn word from you, and we wouldn't have gotten to this point."

"I know. It's my fault." As his anger grew, hardened his face, she felt the strength she'd rebuilt draining away like the color in her cheeks.

"You think that makes up for it?" he shot back, as temper and misery careened inside him. "You think taking the blame for it cleans the fucking slate on this?"

"No."

"Goddamn it." He spun away from her and caught the way she flinched at the move. "I'll yell when I need to yell. You're only making me madder standing there like you're waiting for a punch. I'm not going to hit you. Not now, not ever. And it's insulting for you to stand there wondering if I will."

"You don't know what it's like."

"No, I don't, because you won't tell me." He reined himself in as much as he could, though temper was still sparking. "Or you tell me just enough to keep things running smooth until the next time."