It wasn’t a difficult question to answer, as she was feeling it again. “Tempted.”

He smiled, pressed his curved lips to her temple. “That’s not all of it. There was more, wasn’t there? A kind of remembering.”

Her body was refusing her very sensible order to stay rigid and aloof. “I don’t believe in those things.”

“I didn’t ask what you believed.” His lips cruised from temple to jaw, patient. “But what you felt.” Through the thin barrier of silk her skin was warming. He thought he might go mad holding himself from stripping that barrier away and finding all of her. “It wasn’t just now.” He indulged himself a few miserly degrees, sliding into the kiss, savoring the way her mouth yielded for his. “It was again.”

“That’s nonsense.” But her own voice seemed to come from a long way off. “And this is crazy.” Even as she spoke, her hands were fisting in his hair to hold him close, closer, until the pleasure bounded past reason. “We can’t do this.” The purr of delight sounded in her throat, rippled wonderfully into his mouth. “It’s just chemistry.”

“God bless science.” Nearly as breathless as she, he dragged her to her toes and tortured himself. Only for a moment, he vowed. And plundered.

Explosions burst inside of her, one after another until her system was battered by color and light. On a wild spurt of greed, she all but clawed at him in a fight for more.

Touch me, damn you. The order erupted in her head. But his hands did no more than hold while her body ached to be possessed. She knew how his hand would feel. She knew, and could have wept from the power of the knowledge. Hard palm, gentle strokes that would build and build into brands.

With a feral instinct she hadn’t known lurked inside her, she dug her teeth into his lip, baiting him, daring him. At his violent oath, she flung her head back, her face glowing with triumph.

Then she paled, degree by degree. For his eyes were warrior’s eyes, dark, deadly, and terrifyingly familiar.

“God.” The word burst out of her as she struggled away. Fighting for air, for balance, she pressed her hands to her breast. “Stop. God, this has to stop.”

Teetering on the thin edge of control, Murphy fisted his hands at his sides. “I want you more than I want to take the next breath. It’s killing me, Shannon, this wanting.”

“I made a mistake.” She dragged her trembling hands through her hair. “I made a mistake here. I’m sorry. I’m not going to let this go any further.” She could feel herself being pulled toward him—negative to positive. Power to power. “Stay away from me, Murphy.”

“I can’t. You know I can’t.”

“We have a problem.” Determined to calm down, she walked unsteadily to the table and picked up her wineglass. “We can solve it,” she said to herself and sipped. “There’s always a way to solve a problem. Don’t talk to me,” she ordered, holding up a hand like a traffic cop. “Let me think.”