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Eventually his pulse slowed, beating in deep thuds in time with hers. The rhythm of his breathing hitched as a heavy sigh rumbled against her ribs.

“Are you okay?” he murmured, lifting off her and studying her face as he touched her cheek with his thumb. “Did I hurt you?”

She could feel the tender spot between her legs where he was still firm inside her, the sublime aches and pains from the urgency of his love-making, even the stinging abrasion on her thighs from the rough stroke of bearded cheeks.

But she shook her head, because it didn’t hurt. However inexperienced she was, she had never been fragile. And the only pain she could feel right now was his.

* * *

Forcing himself to get off her before he collapsed on top of her, Jared walked over to his discarded clothes and yanked on a pair of boxer shorts. He felt weary to the bone.

Holding onto the dresser, he ducked his head.

“I just made love to you without a condom again,” he said, unable to look at her. He was no better than an irresponsible kid. The same irresponsible kid who had once been reduced to using sex as a substitute for affection.

He’d done it deliberately, he admitted to himself, sick with disgust—the desire to get her pregnant all part of the madness which had gripped him ever since he’d walked away from her at JFK. Hell, ever since he’d picked her up on the road outside Sorrento. Maybe even before that. Did this all-consuming need to brand her as his in the most basic way possible track all the way back to that night when she had

looked at him with such yearning—and for one brief, shining second he’d wanted it to be real?

“I’m now on the pill,” she said in a tremulous voice.

His head swung round, elated and appalled at one and the same time, especially when she sent him a tentative smile and said with complete sincerity, “I didn’t want there to be anything between us if I ever got to make love to you again.”

“Hell, Katherine.” He scrubbed his hands over his face and dragged his fingers into his hair. “What am I going to do with you?”

Her honesty and openness, her bravery and generosity, crucified him and made him feel like even more of a coward. He’d been rough, uncontrolled, just as he had been on their last night together. And she had taken everything he had to give her and reveled in it. But still he knew he’d defiled her innocence, taken advantage of a situation she would never understand.

He wasn’t worthy of her, could never be worthy of her, and he would have to tell her why not. He was going to have to reveal all the sordid details of his past, his childhood, or she would never realize how wrong she was about him.

But first he needed a beer.

Leaving her on the bed, he trudged down the open staircase and walked to the kitchen on the far side of the living room. Opening the double-wide refrigerator, he pulled out a bottle and rolled it across his forehead, hoping the frosty condensation would cool the flush burning his skin.

He popped the cap and took a long draught.

He heard the soft pad of her bare feet on the granite flooring. She had followed him into the kitchen, just as he’d known she would. Because she had more bravery in her little finger than he had in his whole damn body.

He turned to lob the cap into the trashcan and had to bite down on his lip to control the renewed kick of desire in his crotch.

She had donned his shirt. It swamped her slender frame, reaching almost to her knees. But as she walked toward him the tails shifted, giving him an uninterrupted view of lacy panties and those long legs which had been wrapped so securely around his waist as he’d pounded into her like a man possessed.

He concentrated on taking another swallow of the cool brew.

Maybe he was possessed. Possessed by her. Was that why the nightmares hadn’t stopped? Why they’d plagued him every night in his dreams in the two weeks since he’d forced himself to walk away?

He’d come to Vermont to escape them. But the cabin had been too silent. Too solitary. The hard physical tasks he’d set himself—repairing the broken shingles on the barn, chopping enough wood to survive a nuclear holocaust—hadn’t taken the edge off his hunger. And seeing her in his kitchen, the residual hum of desire still flowing through his veins, now he knew why.

Ever since he’d escaped the horrors of his childhood he’d always been self-sufficient, at his most content in his own company. He’d never thought he was lonely, because he’d been determined never to need anyone but himself.

But after a few short days sharing a villa with her, and only one night sharing a bed with her, she’d managed to invade every corner of his consciousness. She’d captivated him, not just with her body but with her personality—that heady mix of boldness and vulnerability, innocence and bravery.

He took another long lug of beer but the cold, malty taste did nothing to moisten the arid dryness in his throat.

“Why do you want to be with me, when you don’t know me?” he finally forced himself to ask.

“Because I do know you,” she said, so simply and so directly he wanted to weep. “We’re a lot alike. We spent so long running from our feelings that we’d forgotten how to feel. How to trust—not just others but ourselves too. I don’t want to be that person anymore. I want to stop running. Because I’ve discovered it’s better to feel everything than to feel nothing at all.”

He let his head drop and grasped the bottle.

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