Her head tilted back responsively, offering another dangerous threat to the self-control he’d always taken for granted. Her hand reached tentatively for his shoulder. He felt the softness of her breasts beneath her jacket, the lift of her as she rose up on her toes to meet him…

He doubted that she knew she was setting off dynamite inside him. All he knew was that his whole body suddenly ached. His tongue slipped between her teeth; she suddenly stiffened a little, her fingers tightening on his shoulder. She murmured a protest, but her body language gave it the lie. She wasn’t moving away. She was so very warm…

And he felt so damned drugged. Her lips were so sweet, so giving… He wasn’t going to hurt her. He’d murder anyone who tried to hurt her. He wasn’t even going to see her again. This was just…a moment in time. He’d learned to value such fleeting moments of happiness. For years, he’d thought that was all the joy he would ever know.

His palm gently traced the line of her back, ending up in the curtain of her hair, captured there. The damp silk curled around his fingers, scented with the softness of rain, more sensuous than a thousand fantasies of women he’d conjured up over the years. This wasn’t a schoolboy’s libido talking, but a man’s. Her lips were infinitely responsive, returning his pressure, wildly returning his pressure for one fleeting instant…

Kay broke off, staring up at him. Her eyes weren’t sherry-brown at all, but suddenly very dark. And her lips were red and trembling.

He still held the umbrella in one hand, but it had tilted. Rain was pelting down on both of them; neither seemed to have noticed.

“Now, you listen here…” Her voice was shaky. Her lashes lowered; she ran her hand through her hair. “Is this your car?”

“Yes. Kay…”

No one had ever kissed her like that. As if she were the first Christmas present opened, during one of those too-few years when one honestly believed in Santa Claus. As if she were brand-new and ever so special, and so desperately wanted it hurt.