She stirred.

That is good, he said, suddenly aware of a strange sizzle in the air, an electrical rush moving through his body. He glanced to check if a breeze ruffled the curtains. But there was nothing.

Then Ginger sighed, her dainty pink lips parting ever so slightly, and Lucio felt it again, stronger this timea wave, a disturbance in the air, a question and its answer tucked inside a crackle of energy. Ginger's eyelashes flickered. His self-control had been short-lived.

Forgive me, Lucio said as he lowered his mouth to hers. But I must.

He kissed her. Her lips yielded to his gentle pressure, opening to him. Lucio groaned in bliss, the energy coursing through him, the kiss building, surging, growing hotter and hotter

Until she struck him.

The thud of her palms against his chest knocked the wind from his lungs. Lucio prevented himself from falling off the edge of the bed, and managed a smile. Sleeping beauty awakes! he said, bowing slightly.

You freakin' pig!

With that pronouncement, Ginger sat up abruptly, her thick auburn hair askew, her dress falling far south of modesty. She choked in outrage, yanking the dress up past a set of stupendous breasts all the way to her clavicle. That's when she screamed.

In the two decades he'd roamed the globe as a nature photographer for Geographica magazine, he'd dealt with hysterical females of every size, shade, nationality, and demeanor. They'd cursed him in a variety of tonguesMandarin, Punjabi, and Cajun French initially came to mindand in a variety of exotic settings. The Nepalese highlands. Kenya's Rift Valley. Under a canopy of strangler fig vines over the Upper Amazon. But he couldn't remember any of them being as desirable as Ginger Garrison. There was something beguiling about the womanquite tall but, oh, so feminine. He guessed she was in her mid-thirties, at the peak of mature beauty, with fiery hazel eyes and delicate hands, one of which was, at that very moment, flying toward his face, palm flat and open.