EVEN THOUGH SHE was tempted to do so, Kelsey didn’t wear the brown tweed suit the next morning. But the jeans she chose were loose-fitting, and her sweater enveloped her from throat to hip in bright green wool.

      If Luke Griffin made the slightest move toward her, she’d belt him first and then she’d quit.

      In January’s weak sunlight, Griffin’s Keep looked ridiculously like the haunted house of a thousand books and movies. She marched up the front steps and found the door firmly locked.

      Yesterday Luke had unlocked it before she’d arrived. Not in the mood for subtlety, she leaned hard on the bell. Once, twice, three times. With absolutely no effect. His car, a sleek Mercedes, was parked by the garage, so she knew he was here.

      Had he changed his mind overnight and fired her? If so, would he bother to let her know? He was the great Luke Griffin, accountable to no one.

      She banged on the panels of the door, hurting her fist. Her jaw set mutinously, she then walked around the house until she came to the room where they worked. Standing on tiptoes, she peered inside. Empty. So was the kitchen. By now it was a quarter to nine.

      Kelsey had slept very badly, her dreams full of enough torrid sex for ten women. The man she’d cavorted with in purple satin sheets that exactly matched her toenails had been Luke, an unabashedly and gloriously naked Luke.

      No wonder she felt out of sorts this morning. She stormed back to her car and laid on the horn. Although for all she knew, he slept at the back of the house. She then went through the whole bell-ringing routine again. No Luke, apologetic or otherwise.

      Fine. She’d go home and scour Kirk’s room from one end to the other.

      However, as she thrust the key in the ignition, the sun went behind a cloud and the ugly turrets and pinnacles of Griffin’s Keep were shrouded in shadow. It wasn’t just a depressing house, she thought, it was downright foreboding.

      Maybe Luke had slipped on the stairs and hurt himself? Maybe he was ill? Should she go for help?

      Unease nibbling at her composure, Kelsey got out of the car and circled the house one more time. Against the south wall a stout Virginia creeper clung to the worn shingles, climbing all the way to the brick chimney. Partway up, it skirted a window that was open several inches.

      She’d been a daredevil climber as a kid, outdoing the boys because she had no fear of heights. She shucked off her jacket, glad she’d worn her hiking boots, and started to climb.

      It was a cinch. She placed each foot with care, wrapping her fingers around the stout branches, the exercise warming her, the little adventure lifting her spirits. Her life had been too dull for too long. She should add adventure to the list. Near the top, with a capital A.

      The window slid open on its hasp. Kelsey levered herself over the sill, landing with a small thud on the floor.

      She was in a bedroom. Luke’s bedroom.

      He was fast asleep on the double bed, his face buried in the pillows, the sheets twisted around his waist. He was also naked, the light falling over the long curves of his spine.

      Her dream had collided with reality. Except the sheets were white, not purple.

      Kelsey crept closer across the worn floorboards. His torso was rising and falling with the rhythm of his breathing; his hair lay dark on the pillow. He had, she thought unwillingly, a most impressive set of muscles.

      Clearly he wasn’t sick. She should go straight downstairs and get to work. Then her heart leaped into her throat as he stirred, muttering something under his breath. She froze to the spot, watching in dismay as he turned over. He rubbed his eyes, their vivid blue focusing on her. As she opened her mouth, with no idea what she was going to say, he said, in a voice still blurred with sleep, “I was dreaming about you—come here.”

      She gave a startled yelp as he seized her wrist and tugged her toward him. Losing her balance, she fell on top of him, her hands splayed on the sheet, her breasts crushed to his bare chest. He looped one thigh over hers, pinning her down, and buried his hands in her hair, pulling her head down to his. She had time to think, I’m in bed with a man who’s tall, dark and handsome. Then his lips were locked to hers, moving slick and hot until she dissolved into a pool of longing. She moaned his name in helpless surrender, assaulted by the heat of his body, the shock of bone and muscle and sinew.

      With strong fingers he dragged her sweater up to her waist; a shudder rippled along her spine as his palms stroked her back, warm and very sure of themselves. “Your skin,” he muttered. “I knew it would feel like silk.” Then he was fumbling with the clasp on her bra, freeing her breasts.

      As his fingers, those clever fingers, found her nipple, teasing it to the hardness of stone, she closed her eyes, drowning in pleasure and a raging hunger she couldn’t possibly have denied. She leaned forward, finding his mouth with hers, greedy to taste, frantic to give.

      So she was generous, Luke thought in a rush of gratitude. Hadn’t he known she would be? Hadn’t he known how perfectly her breast would fit his palm? How the scent of her hair would envelop him?

      He had to have her. He’d been a fool last night to think he could walk away from her without a backward look.

      Rearing up, carrying her with him, he covered her with his body. His kiss deepened until he could scarcely breathe, his heart hammering in his ears. Or was it her heart? Swiftly he hauled her sweater further up, baring her exquisite breasts, all ivory curves and pink tips in the pale light. As he flicked her nipples with his tongue, desperate to taste her, she arched to meet him, her eyes wide-held, shining dark with desire. Her hips moved beneath him, nearly driving him out of his mind. He thrust once, twice, against the denim of her jeans, and heard the tiny cry as her breath caught in her throat.

      He had to have her, Luke thought again, striving to breathe past the tightness in his chest. But not here. Not in this joyless house, in a bed not his own, where he’d been visited by nightmares.

      He said jaggedly, “Kelsey, we’ve got to stop. God knows I want you. But this isn’t the time or the place.”

      Had he ever done anything so against every instinct in his body? So contrary to his own impulsions?

      Kelsey was clutching him by the shoulders, her nails digging in his flesh. His voice seemed to come from such a long way away that she had to struggle to take the words in. Stop, he’d said. We’ve got to stop…

      Her body, so lissom, so wanton, was a stranger to her. And it was he who’d brought that about. His skillful mouth, his roaming hands, had changed her into a woman she scarcely knew.

      She pushed hard against his chest, shaking her hair back, yanking at her sweater to hide her nakedness. Swiftly Luke brought a hand up to still hers. “Wait,” he said huskily, “let me look at you.”

      “I—”

      “You’re so lovely… Stroking you is like stroking a pearl, smooth and exquisitely shaped.”

      Poetry