“Thief,” he said into her mouth. “Took my heart, too, damn you.”

Then I’m not the only thief in the room, she had time to think, before capitulating to the sensations he effortlessly called up in her. His crisp, clean, utterly masculine scent delighted her, she felt like burying her face in his neck and never letting go. She tugged at his shirt and his fingers were there, frantically unbuttoning it for her and then he was yanking at her t-shirt. She sat up, straddling him and pulled it off, then unsnapped her bra. He groaned as her breasts bounced free and reached eagerly for her, his arms coming around her, his fingers stroking the smooth skin of her back. He sucked at the tender skin at the hollow of her throat and she grinned, knowing a hickey would soon bloom there, realizing they were like a couple of horny teenagers, furiously necking on the living room floor. As a teenager, she’d never had the leisure to neck on anyone’s floor. She found she liked it. A lot.

She pulled free of him and stood, then unzipped her jeans and slid them down her thighs until they puddled on the floor. He lay on the floor, arms crossed behind his head and watched with eyes narrowed from urgency. She pulled her panties down and stood over him for a long moment. His gaze held nothing but admiration, but part of her was frightened. It had been years since she had done this. Over three, at least and the last time out of pure loneliness and desperation, a foolish one night stand; she had never seen the man again.

But this was different, Jared was different. She hadn’t had feelings for her other lovers, pitiful though their numbers were. She hadn’t had to will herself to keep her hands off them, didn’t feel deep fear in the pit of her stomach when one of them had been in danger. The three men she had taken out of loneliness since she turned seventeen had lived in her life, had been raised by the same institutions she had and were quite conversant with danger. But Jared…

“I want you to know something,” he said softly, breaking her tormented reverie.

“Yes, Jared?” Was she really standing naked over this man, debating whether or not to take him?

“Be gentle. It’s my first time. Also, frequent exposure to X-ray radiation has neutered me.”

“Oh!” She pounced on him, cutting off his laughter before it really got started. “How can you make jokes at a time like this?”

“I can’t help it,” he chuckled, “I joke when I get nervous. And since you looked like you were getting ready to bolt—naked, no less—I figured I’d better say something before you pulled another Houdini.”

“Do me a favor and stop figuring,” she said dryly and then he mock-grabbed for her. She pulled back and they rolled over and over on the floor, tussling. She won, of course and soon she was once again straddling him.

“Has anyone ever told you how utterly, utterly gorgeous you are?” he said, his expression pure delight.

She blushed at his obvious sincerity. “Someone should paint you and hang you in a museum.”

“Museums, now there’s an easy hack,” she teased.

He groaned and put his hands under her bottom. For a moment she wondered if he was going to grab her, then realized he was shoving his jeans down. “Kara, please. Now is not the time. I don’t want to hear how you cracked the Louvre and made off with a zillion dollars worth of paintings.”

“I was only kidding. I’d never steal from a museum,” she said, offended.

“Of course. How silly of me.” He stopped smiling when he saw she wasn’t. “I know. You only crack the bad guys. Reason number seven hundred fifty-seven why I’ve got a crush on you the size of Czechoslovakia. Now come here.”

She bent to him, still prepared to sulk, then realized she was looking for a reason, any reason, tempted to pick a fight so she wouldn’t have to be intimate with him. It wasn’t a matter of being afraid of him. It was strictly a matter of being afraid of losing control, of blurting things to him that she swore to herself she would never tell anyone, ever.

His lips drove the unpleasant thoughts from her mind. They nibbled and kissed and sucked and then his tongue was darting into the cup of her ear and she could feel the zing of pleasure right down to her toes.

She could feel his length pressing urgently against her lower stomach and reached down to gently clasp him. He was hot and hard and quite large and throbbed intriguingly against her palm. She started to ease down, intent on taking him into her mouth, when he grabbed her shoulders and pulled her back up.

“Oh, no,” he said softly. “I’m thrilled, honest to God, but if you do that , we’re done before we started.”

“How disappointing,” she teased.

“Shameful, but true. I remember your fingers from the last time we got carnal, you know. You can get to anything...especially me.” While he murmured to her his hands were on her breasts, his fingers gently caressing the sensitive undersides.

She stroked his stomach, his ribs, enjoying the way his firm flesh felt beneath her hands. He liked to rave about her body, but he was in pretty fine shape himself. She told him so.

“Volleyball,” he replied. “That’s the secret. Also being too overworked to eat. Now come down here again. Kiss me.”

She did and as his tongue slipped past her teeth she felt his fingers caressing her stomach and moving lower. Straddling him as she was, her knees were spread wide and he found her easily. She sucked in breath as his fingers stroked her slick flesh, moving with exquisite care and gentleness.

“Oh, that’s nice. You’re like…like hot damp silk,” he sighed, breaking the kiss. One of his fingers slipped inside her, just barely nudging into her and she swallowed a groan. “Sit up a bit so I can watch your face.”

A terrifying thought. He could watch her unguarded expressions, know instantly just how dear his touch was, how she craved it, craved him… “No,” she said, hoping he would mistake her breathlessness for passion and not apprehension.

His face didn’t change but his eyes went thoughtful and his finger slowly withdrew. “Okay,” he said easily, “that’s all right.” He pushed her up a bit and put his hands on her thighs, spreading them even wider. His thumbs stroked her inner thighs. “Kara, sweetheart, I’m dying to find out if you taste as good as you look.” While he talked, his hands were easing her forward, his voice gentle, as if soothing a wild mustang ready to bolt. More than a little dazed by the magic his fingers had wrought, she found herself over his mouth. She put her hands out and steadied herself against the wall and instantly realized in this position he couldn’t see her face. Why had he done that? What was he thinking?

Then his tongue flicked against her and darted up inside her and she forgot everything except how he was making her feel. She swallowed a groan as he gently kissed then sucked and nibbled her so-sensitive flesh while marvelous warmth spread through her limbs, while she bit her lip to keep from crying out, while she pounded her palms against the wall. He groaned against her slick flesh and the vibration sent another shock wave of pleasure racing through her. She began to rock against his sweetly talented mouth, as unable to stop her movement as she could have regulated her heartbeat. Her orgasm neared, taunted her, then danced out of reach.

She felt his thumbs between her thighs, spreading her apart, exposing all of her to his mouth and she nearly shrieked at the wonder of it. She should have felt laid open, vulnerable, frightened. Instead, she was very much afraid Dr. Jared Dean was going to be raped in another half minute if he didn’t…

His tongue found her throbbing center, darted across the sensitive bud and then his lips closed around it and he suckled gently while his tongue flicked with astonishing speed. She wasn’t slapping the wall anymore, she was pounding it with her fists, her concentration narrowed to a fine point: in all the world, there was only his mouth and her approaching orgasm. But ah God it was still so far away, dancing just out of reach, she couldn’t—

His finger—no, two fingers slid inside her but his mouth, his tongue never stopped and her orgasm wasn’t far away at all, it was right here , racing through her, making her shake, making her choke back a wild groan, making her claw the wall.

Another few moments and she was resting her forehead against her arm, trying to get her gasps under control. “Jared,” she breathed.

He was stroking her thighs; she’d pulled back from his mouth so he could have some breathing room.

“Yes, hon?”

“Do it again,” she whispered and smiled at his groan. He put light pressure on her thighs and she let herself be pushed down until she was straddling him again. She reached behind her and found him, clasped him gently. About to lower herself on his throbbing rod, a glance at his face told her how it was with him…there was a muscle jumping in his cheek and his eyes were dark slits. His ‘yes, hon?’ had been so thick as to be unrecognizable. That made her feel closer to him than the intimate duty he’d just performed for her…what was it he had said? That it was a relief to find out the attraction wasn’t just one-sided?

“I want to go slowly,” she said, “to make it last.”

He nodded. “Sure. I see that happening.” He pushed at her thighs and lunged; in half a second he was fully embedded inside her, his hot hard length starting a glorious aching inside her. “Sorry,” he panted, while she gasped and steadied herself on his chest as he began to thrust, “but if I don’t come soon I’m definitely going to enter heart attack country. God , you tasted good...sounded good.”

She didn’t care, she barely heard his words, she was astonished at the power of his strokes, how he manipulated both their bodies to give them pleasure, how in this instance he wasn’t easy-going Dr. Dean, but a pure male animal, determined on his course, obeying a biological imperative older than the family of Man.

She recovered from her surprise long enough to help him, to meet his thrusts and they both moaned in unison at how splendid that was, how they both made each other feel…if she believed in such things, she would have thought their bodies had been made expressly for the other and no one else…certainly it had never been like this before with another man. How could it have been? Other men were not Jared.