"Mel. She's a live wire. The eyes of an angel and the right hook of a middleweight."

"I imagine she needed both," Darcy said dryly. "You probably teased her unmercifully."

"No more than was my right and duty. Besides, I'm the one who taught her how to punch. No girlie little slaps for my baby sister."

"I bet they're all beautiful. With heart-stopping faces and killer smiles." She turned her head, let herself trace his mouth with her fingertip. "And between the looks and the breeding, they're a confident bunch. The kind who walk into a room, take one slow glance around and know exactly where they stand. I always envied that innate sense of self."

"I thought the word was arrogance."

"It is, but it's not always a criticism. Did you argue all the time?"

"As often as humanly possible."

"No one argued in my house. They reasoned. At least in an argument you have a chance to win."

"I've noticed you hold your own in that area."

"Beginner's luck," she claimed. "Wait until I'm seasoned a bit. I'll be a terror." She grinned. "Then I'll learn how to punch, in case arguing doesn't work."

Her lips were still curved when his lowered to them. The easy kiss turned dark quickly, began to heat rapidly around the edges. They both shifted, moving into it, into each other.

Emotion surged through him so powerfully, so violently that fury sprang up to tangle with need. "I shouldn't want you this much." He dragged her head back to try to clear his own. But all he could see were those dark gold eyes, and what was the shadow of himself drowning in them. "It's too damn much."

She remembered his words of the night before and gave them back to him. "Take what you need."

"I've been trying to. It doesn't stop."

The words sent a wild thrill soaring through her. Recklessly she knelt on the seat beside him, watched his gaze lower and follow the movement of her fingers as she unbuttoned her blouse. "Try again," she murmured.

He should never have touched her, was all he could think, because now he couldn't seem to stop. He drove the long, straight road back to Vegas at a fast clip, with Darcy sleeping like a child beside him, her head on his shoulder.

He'd taken her in the front seat of the car like a hormone-rattled teenager. He'd driven himself into her with a blind desperation, as though his life had depended on it.

And Lord help him, he wanted to do it again.

He'd broken all the rules with her. A man who made his living with games knew the rules, and when they could and should be ignored. He'd had no right to ignore them with her.

She'd been innocent and alone, and had trusted him.