The dream began to fade, but not his lust. He was feverish with it. The smell of soap, shampoo, and woman enflamed him. He thrust again and again, dragged open his eyes, and … couldn’t believe what he saw!

He was buried inside Daphne Somerville.

He tried to say something, but he was long past talking. His blood pounded, his heart raced. There was a roaring in his head. He exploded.

At that moment everything inside Molly went cold. No! Not yet!

She felt his shudder. His weight crushed her, driving her into the mattress. Much too late, her sanity returned.

He went slack. Dead weight on top of her. Useless dead weight.

It was over. Already! And she couldn’t even blame him for being the worst lover in history because she’d gotten exactly what she deserved. Nothing at all.

He jerked his head to clear it, then pulled out of her and erupted from the covers. “What in the hell are you doing?”

She wanted to yell at him for being such a disappointment, wanted to yell at herself even more. Once again she’d been caught pulling the fire alarm, but she wasn’t seventeen any longer. She felt old and defeated.

Humiliation burned through her. “S-s-sleepwalking?”

“Sleepwalking, my ass!” He vaulted out of bed and stalked toward the bathroom. “Don’t you dare move!”

Too late she remembered that Kevin had a reputation for holding grudges. Last year it had turned a rematch against the Steelers into a bloodbath, and the year before that he’d gone after a three-hundred-pound Viking defensive tackle. She scrambled from the bed and looked frantically for her nightgown.

A stream of obscenities erupted from the bathroom.

Where was her gown?

He shot back out, naked and furious. “Where the hell did you get that condom?”

“From your—your shaving kit.” She spotted her linen gown, snatched it up, and clutched it to her breasts.

“My shaving kit?” He rushed back into the bathroom. “You pulled it from my—Shit!”

“It was … an impulse. A—a sleepwalking accident.” She edged toward the hall door, but he reappeared before she could get there, charging across the carpet and grabbing her arm, giving her a shake.

“Do you know how long that thing was in there?”

Not nearly long enough! And then she realized he was talking about the condom. “What are you trying to say?”

He dropped her arm and pointed toward the bathroom. “I’m trying to say that it’s been in there forever, and the son of a bitch broke!”

Exactly three seconds ticked by. Then her knees gave out. She sagged into the chair across from the bed.

“Well?” he barked.

Her fuzzy brain started working again. “Don’t worry about it.” Too late she grew conscious of the dampness between her thighs. “It’s the wrong time of the month.”

“There isn’t any wrong time of the month.” He flipped on the floor lamp, exposing more than she wanted him to see of her very ordinary, very naked body.