“Then we’ll just sit here a minute.”

“I don’t think—”

“I have something to say to you.”

Nerves began to hum again. She clasped her hands in her lap. She was parked on a dark road in the moonlight. Something she hadn’t done in too many years to count. “All right.”

“You’re a beautiful, desirable woman.” When her head snapped around and he saw her eyes wide and confused, he nearly laughed. “I guess that’s something you hear all the time.”

It certainly wasn’t, which left her at a loss as to how to respond. “I’m flattered you think so.”

“I want you.”

Now there was panic, fizzing up like champagne in a shaken bottle. “I don’t—What do you expect me to say to that? God!” Despite the shoes, she wrenched open the door and stepped out into the night.

“I didn’t ask you to say anything. I’m telling you.” He came up beside her and turned her to face him. “It’s probably a mistake, but I’m telling you anyway. I have memories of you. I didn’t realize how many until I saw you again and they just popped out of my head. I used to think about you. Damned inconvenient, and embarrassing to be thinking about you the way I was when you were the kid sister of my best friend. Josh would have kicked my ass for what I was thinking, and I’d have had to let him.”

“I’m no good at this.” She moved back, retreating quickly. “I’m no good at this sort of thing. You’ll have to stop.”

“Not till I’m finished. I never stop until I’m finished. Keep backing up that way, sugar—Laura,” he corrected himself as he grabbed her arm, “you’re going to break an ankle. I don’t mind you being afraid of me. I’d be surprised if you weren’t.” His grin flashed. “Hell, I’d be insulted. Just hold still a minute.”

He held both of her hands at her sides and moved in. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he murmured as his mouth lowered. “This time.”

It didn’t hurt. Devastation came too quickly for pain. He simply undid her with one soft, lazy kiss. Then with another, harder, impatient, until that reckless, relentless mouth against hers chipped away at the wall of restraint.

And she knew that marriage hadn’t prepared her for this kind of desire—the kind that curled like raw, ragged fists in the gut and twisted in angry frustration.

When she gave, he wanted more. He wanted her there, atop the windy cliff with the moon spotlighting them and the violent thrust of the waves matching the way he imagined thrusting into her. And he knew greed could be his undoing.

“I want you to think about it,” he told her. “The horses taught me patience, so I’ve got a small store where you’re concerned. It seems only fair to let you know that I want you. It doesn’t have anything to do with saving your face in front of the country club set, or with making your idiot ex-husband steam a little. It has to do with you and me. And it’s unlikely when it’s done that you’ll have to ask whether you should thank me.”