Instead he ripped open his own shirt, then placed his huge palms against her back to draw her to his chest. He groaned when their skin touched, and electricity seemed to flash through her. Lightning split the sky.

He rumbled foreign words against her ear. She felt they were…tender words, making her think she'd lost her mind. She went limp, her arms hanging while he shuddered against her, his lips so hot in the pouring rain as he ran them down her neck, across her face, even brushing them over her eyelids. There he knelt, clutching her; there she lay, boneless and dazed, as she watched the lightning slash above them.

His hand cradled the back of her head as he moved her to face him.

He seemed torn as he watched her with some fierce emotion—she'd never been looked at so…consumingly. Confusion overwhelmed her. Would he attack or let her go? Let me go…

A tear slipped down her face, warmth streaking down amidst the drops of rain.

The look disappeared. "Blood for tears?" he roared, clearly revolted by her pink tears. He turned away as if he couldn't stand to look upon her, then blindly swatted at her shirt to close it. "Take me to your home, vampire."

"I-I don't live here," she said in a strangled tone, staggered by what had just occurred, and by the fact that he knew what she was.

"Take me to where you stay," he ordered, finally facing her as he stood before her.

"No," she amazed herself by saying.

He, too, looked surprised. "Because you doona want me to stop? Good. I'll take you here on the grass on your hands and knees"—he lifted her easily until she was kneeling—"till well after the sun rises."

He must have seen her resignation because he hauled her to her feet and pushed at her to get her moving. "Who stays with you?"

My husband, she wanted to snap. The linebacker who's going to kick your ass. Yet she couldn't lie, even now, and never would have had the nerve to provoke him anyway. "I am alone."