“The right man wouldn’t ask me to give up anything.” She turned her gaze on him, clean and clear, as if looking right through him. “The right man would accept me as I am, and learn to love the things I love, or at least appreciate them.”

One of the lads came up to discuss the cut of a pane of glass, and Devon was left alone for a moment.

He wondered what it would be like to be loved by a woman like Kat. He suddenly realized one reason that his previous affairs seemed so unsatisfactory; those women had been pale shadows of what a woman could be; Kat was beginning to show him that.

In fact, the passion he’d shared with his past loves didn’t seem nearly as exciting to him as it once had. It had been about the chase, and nothing else. No wonder none of them had lasted more than a few weeks.

He looked down at the picture of the unicorn, absently noting that though the metalwork was uneven, the animal itself was well rendered. What would it be like to be loved by Kat, both physically and emotionally?

Emotionally, he didn’t know. But physically, he could vouch for her reactions—at least partially. He’d kissed her no fewer than six times now, each one more scorching than the last and though he’d attempted to keep the kisses sweet, chaste even, in an effort to reassure her, she’d been the one to tug them both closer to the edge. She was responsive, wildly and passionately so, a fact that warmed his blood and heated his soul.

He knew the time was approaching when he wouldn’t be able to stop at just one kiss. He both looked forward to and hated the thought of that day, for it would signal the beginning of the end of their relationship. Just as it did in all his previous relationships. Because once that occurred, the chase was over.

He thought of their last kiss, the memory enough to make his body react. Devon glanced at the door, wondering how he would get Kat away from the prying eyes of her lads so that he could taste her once again.

Suddenly he realized that he had only a week and a few days before he left.

Blast and hell, what was he waiting for? It was time he moved the relationship forward, at least some. If he didn’t do so soon, he’d be gone before he could discover the true extent of Kat’s passion, and Devon was determined not to let that happen.

Kat’s voice sounded at his shoulder. “Do you like the unicorn?”

He realized he’d been blindly staring at it. “Just trying to see all the flaws.”

“Sometimes ’tis best just to focus on the beauty.”