Night shadows whispered like mist through the bedroom and danced with the dreamy glow of the neon light blinking softly but steadily through the curtains covering the window. Logan fought to hang on to the oblivion of sleep, where he could hide a little longer from the pain.

  Sweat soaked his body. Sleep drifted farther away and with it the numb relief it offered; a fragrance drifted nearer. Her fragrance.

  He opened his eyes and looked toward the door to see her standing there.

  Carmen. His silken angel. His steady strength. His uncommon weakness.

  She’d undone her hair. And it could be his undoing.

  The first time he’d seen her thick black braid falling across her shoulder, he’d wanted to see that glorious hair unbound. He’d wanted to see it brushing across the honey-colored slope of her breasts so he could brush them with his fingers, then his mouth. . . .

  He swallowed thickly at the sight of her hair cascading about her face, tumbling wildly over her shoulders and down her back, sleep-mussed, shining— in need of a man’s hands to add to the paganly elegant disarray.

  In need of his hands.

  He knotted his fists into the sheets at either side of his hips as she hesitated in the doorway, her shadow falling softly across the foot of the bed.

  She was so still as she stood there, watching him, waiting. Her sleep shirt had slipped off the delicate slope of one shoulder. Backlit as she was by dim light and shadows, the thin cotton provided little more than a film that caressed her body.

  Her breasts sweetly filled the stretchy fabric. The velvet tips of her nipples crowned dark, dusky aureoles that strained against the cream-colored cotton. Silken shadows defined the sweet concave between fragile ribs and tiny waist, and lower, where the faint line of French-cut bikini panties left little else to the imagination. The shirt ended where hip met thigh, gently molding the slender curve of her bottom, revealing completely the long length of her legs.

  Her skin was satin smooth and flawless, the color of butter caramels. He grew ravenous looking at her.

  He tried to speak her name through tight, dry lips and a parched throat.

  She moved quickly to his side. “You . . . you cried out in your sleep,” she whispered, searching his face. “The pain . . . is it bad?”

  He managed to shake his head. A huge, silent lie.

  She didn’t buy it. “I’ll be right back.”

  Silk and sex and sultry nights. That’s what her voice made him think of. The low, heavy ache in his loins established its dominance among all the others as he waited in the darkness.

  Aware of the deepness of the night.

  Aware of how completely they were alone and of a need greater than any he’d ever known.

  In his mind’s eye, he saw again the way the light had intimately caressed the shadowed curves of her body. In his mind’s eye, he saw his hands replacing the light.

  She slipped to his side. Quiet. Efficient. All business. All bluff. All woman. Temptation incarnate.

  She eased a hip next to his on the bed. Her slight weight pulled the sheet snugly across his hips, tightening the pressure against an arousal he couldn’t have tempered if he’d tried.

  “Take this. It’s a painkiller,” she whispered, and carefully tucked the pill between his lips. “Left over from when Rico was hurt.” He gripped her wrist, steadying her hand as she brought a glass to his mouth. Watching her face, he chased down the tablet with water.

  She set the glass on the nightstand and touched a hand to his face. Cool hand. Soft. Trembling.

  He reached without thought and covered it with his own.

  Her hushed words made him a promise. “You’ll start to feel better tomorrow, Johnny.”

  Johnny. Jealousy seared through Logan like a flash fire. It was not an emotion with which he felt remotely comfortable. Not an emotion he wished to feel. He’d never had the need. What he’d wanted he’d bought, bartered for, or taken. In the case of women, whatever he’d wanted had been freely given. But never had it been given from the heart.

  Dallas had this woman’s heart. In spite of Logan’s intentions not to hurt her, envy goaded him into finding out what prize came with that possession.

  “Tomorrow,” she repeated with soft, sweet assurance as he wrapped his fingers possessively around her small wrist and pulled her toward him.

  “Tonight,” he whispered, meeting her shadowed gaze and seeing that she understood what his harsh whisper suggested. “Tonight.”

  Her eyes glistened with a hundred questions, a thousand longings, a very real conviction that she knew giving in to him would be a mistake. The floral scent of her hair brushed across his face, as black as midnight, as delicate as moonglow. She slowly shook her head, denying his gruff command.

  He’d never pleaded with a woman. So he wasn’t sure, exactly, what pushed him over the edge. His own need perhaps, which was so much stronger than any he’d ever felt. A wanting as profound and as demanding as any he’d ever known.

  He touched a hand to her hair, threaded its satin weight through his fingers, then knotted a handful in his fist.

  “Lie down with me.” Grave with urgency, raspy with wanting, his voice betrayed his deep and wild need.

  In the dark, in a silence interrupted only by the sweet, unsteady cadence of her breathing, he waited. Watching her eyes, tugging her closer, he counted on her feelings for Johnny Dallas to persuade her.

  “Lie down with me. I need you near. Just for a little while.”

  He’d known she wouldn’t deny him. He’d known and he’d used that knowledge like a lever.

  She searched his face, hesitated, then eased down on the bed beside him.

  It was painfully obvious to Logan that her action was prompted by love. He could feel it in the careful way she settled her head beside his on the pillow. He could see it in her dark gaze that pleaded and cared and agonized over her decision to give in to him while she knew it would be wiser to walk away.

  Suddenly it didn’t matter that he was a charlatan, a fraud. Suddenly he didn’t care that it was Dallas’s wish she was granting. It only mattered that she was with him.

  When she surrendered, he embraced the warmth her lush curves offered. Sinking into her healing heat, he buried his face in her hair.

  It was devastatingly humbling, this feeling he had holding her. Here in his arms was a woman whose sole motivation for lying with him was to give. Against her better judgment, she’d come to him. Against all odds, he was deeply touched by the gesture.

  So this is what it felt like when a woman gave without guile, he thought. This was what it felt like when a woman offered without expectation. A gift without a trade-off. Such a basic instinct for a woman like Carmen.

  A natural gesture for her.

  A rare experience for him.

  He closed his eyes and felt an odd thickness in his throat. He swallowed it back, clenching his jaw against the flood of emotions this woman caused to swell inside him.

  Nothing but her thin sleep shirt was between them. Her shirt and her uncertainty. And, suddenly—unexpectedly—his conscience also wedged its way between them too.

  Amazing. When had it gotten so strong? Somewhere between sitting in her kitchen and watching her prepare his supper? Somewhere between telling her she deserved better than what she got and plotting to give her even worse?

  Somewhere between her giving and his dawning determination not to take.

  She was everything soft and sensual pressed against him. Everything warm and real. And though he was anything but immune to the subtle shifting of her unbound breasts, the satin length of her legs aligned with his, his heart reacted to her needs.

  Did he want her physically? Only as badly as he wanted to breathe. And no matter how many times he’d told himself he would take her, he realized that he couldn’t.

  He was going to take care of her instead. It was past time someone did.

  She was exhausted. Physically. Emotionally. He’d known, and he’d deliberately taken advantage, sensing she’d lie down with him simply because he’d asked her to. Because she thought she was doing something for him—for Johnny, he corrected himself. Grating as that conclusion was, he wasn’t going to let it sway him.

  He’d known it would never occur to her that she needed this from him as well. It would never occur to her that for once, someone other than she was going to do the giving. But it occurred to him. It was the first time in recent memory that he’d manipulated someone into doing something strictly for selfless reasons.

  Along with all the other feelings, she prompted that long-lost need in him too. He was still in a quandary as to why. Her innocence for one thing. And maybe he admired her naïveté more than he was willing to admit. A quality that rare deserved something more than to be taken advantage of.

  He eased his arm around her shoulders and drew her against him.

  “Johnny . . .” she whispered, her body tensing, her eyes growing wary.

  “Shhh.” He brushed the hair back from her face, then slowly stroked her arm from shoulder to wrist. Lacing his fingers with hers, he drew their joined hands to his chest. “Shhh. Just sleep. Just lie here and sleep with me.”

  He felt her slowly relax beside him. And fought the temptation to lose himself completely in her softness. Telling himself he couldn’t afford to get lost anyway. Denying the fact that he already had.

  He couldn’t afford to get lost in anything. Especially not in a woman. Most specifically not a woman like Carmen.

  She needed passion and promises. Whatever passion he’d once had was long buried under layers of corporate responsibility and calculated control. ‘Whatever promises he could make hinged on the swing of the Dow Jones average.

  She needed commitment and caring. He was committed to Prince Enterprises. As for caring, he simply didn’t have in him. Thirty days from now he was going to walk away. He’d go back to his world and leave her to hers.

  That reality troubled him far more than it should have.

  She fell asleep long before he did. Long before he quit questioning his motives, which were as uncharacteristic as they were confusing. Long before he accepted that Johnny Dallas, a drifter and a wastrel, owned this woman’s heart.

  Too long he lay in the dark, brooding, resentful, convinced that despite his own fortune and power, that precious possession made Dallas the wealthier man.

  He slept, although he wasn’t sure when, for all the thinking he’d done. By dawn, after a night with Carmen nestled in his arms, he’d realized that as consciences went, his was long on good intentions and short on staying power.

  Midnight conviction was no match for the needs she’d resurrected, needs that had come to full realization in this pearly blush of morning. Midnight conviction was no deterrent to a desire only she could satisfy.

  Everything about Carmen Rodriquez was real. He’d never had that from a woman before.

  He had it now. He wanted to hold on to it. And somewhere between darkness and dawn, that want had grown into an obsession.

  He wanted to taste it. To hold it in his hands. He wanted to feel it. Breathe it. Savor every nuance, every sigh, every giving, selfless feeling for what it was.

  Fully awake, fully aroused, he ran his hand from the elegant length of her back to the slender curve of her hip.

  She sighed and snuggled closer. The leg that she’d slung across his hips in her sleep pressed against his erection.

  He clenched his jaw at the sweet torture and cupped her face in his hand. Her skin was velvet soft, her breath whisper light and sweetly fragile against his jaw. Threading his fingers through her hair, he tested its weight, drowning in its texture before gathering a handful in his fist and tilting her face gently toward his.

  Reluctantly, lazily, she came awake. Slowly, then wonderingly, she became aware of the intent in his gaze, the heat of his body, of the strength of his arousal beneath her leg.

  Such fire flared in her eyes. Such sweet anticipation and glittering awareness. Such trust.

  He closed his eyes, not wanting to see that trust as he drew her against him.

  “Just a kiss,” he whispered against her mouth, telling himself that was as far as it would go.

  She hovered hesitantly above him, the delicacy of her breath feathering across his lips a gentle torture, a powerful seduction.

  With tender care, she lowered her head and pressed her lips to his. Exquisitely gentle, undeniably shy, it was more of a dance than a kiss. Her mouth moved over his with graceful rhythms, shivery sighs, subtle shiftings. And her question became a plea underscored with simmering heat and morning desire.

  His low groan of response gave her confidence. He could see it in her eyes as she levered herself above him. The flat of her hands pressed into the mattress on either side of his chest. The soft crush of her breasts against his chest inflamed him.

  “Your mouth . . .” she whispered, then placed the lightest of kisses to the swollen flesh. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Hurt me,” he said fiercely, then surprised them both with a shadow of a grin. “When you hurt me like that, it feels too good.”

  Her tentative smile told him she was having difficulty believing she could provoke that response. She lowered her mouth again and, emboldened by his restless yearning, experimented with the satin glide of her tongue against his teeth.

  “Better than good,” he whispered harshly. Cradling her head in his hands, he drew her into a deep, drugging kiss.

  There were so many textures to this woman. So many tastes. All of them heaven. All of them hell on a man who wanted to take charge but had to pander to his injuries and let her set the pace.

  If he hadn’t been flat on his back, she’d have brought him to his knees as she scattered long, lingering kisses across his brow. He sucked in his breath when she brushed her lips in a slow, teasing slide down his cheek, nuzzling, tasting, scraping the underside of his jaw with her tongue. He groaned at the whispers of sensation from her mouth and the gentle friction of her breasts moving across his chest as she stretched to gain better access.

  Untangling his hands from her hair, he framed her slim shoulders lightly before grasping her ribs. In silent awe, he explored her fragile bone structure, her slender hips. He pressed the heels of his hands against the plump sides of her breasts. She was small everywhere but there. The contrast was stunningly erotic and made a shambles of his resolve not to take this any farther.

  She made a soft, urgent whimper when he wedged his hands between their chests and strafed her nipples with his thumbs. Beneath the thin cotton, her nipples hardened. Beneath the sheet that had slipped low on his hips, his arousal responded in kind.

  He groaned and spanned her ribs with his hands, spreading his fingers wide. Quickly she pulled away, her dark eyes clouded with questions and uncertainty.

  “Did I hurt you?” she asked, her hands skillfully checking his bandaged ribs.

  He shook his head and reached for the hem of her shirt. “I want to see you.”

  Her hands stilled, as did his heart when their gazes locked.

  This was all wrong. But it was moving too fast for him to stall it. He saw the desire laced with hesitation on her face, and he couldn’t stop himself from wanting another taste of her.

  “Shhh . . .” He drew her gently toward him. “It’s all right.” He smoothed the sleep shirt back over her hips, then watched with a tightening in his chest as she brushed her hair away from her face. One long heavy strand escaped to cascade over her breast and curled provocatively over the cotton-covered tip of a dusky-brown nipple.

  She was stunningly beautiful. Achingly unsure. He told her with his eyes, showed her with his touch how incredibly lovely, how impossibly exotic he found her.

  He reached for her and praised her with his gaze when she didn’t pull away. His hands were large. Her breasts filled his palms with pliant heat, pillow softness. Every pulse point in his body thrummed with desire as he watched his fingers caress, and mold, and play across her flesh until her nipples pearled to rigid peaks beneath her shirt.

  Her eyes grew slumberous and dark, so dark, as with a gentle pressure of his hands he drew her toward his mouth. “I want to taste you,” he whispered, and her expression told him she wanted it too.

  Honeyed velvet sheathed in a wisp of cotton skimmed across his lips as he closed his mouth around her. He arched his neck, reaching, seeking as he lowered his hands to her waist and urged her closer.

  Even through the shirt, her texture and weight was incomparably sweet, a delicious taste of forbidden fruit, a sultry promise, an elusive temptation.

  Beneath his hands, he felt her delicate shivers, her shimmering sighs. She leaned closer, then rose to her knees and, planting her hands on the pillow on either side of his head, straddled him. Her knees sank into the mattress as she closeted his hips between her thighs.

  Logan had hungered before, but never like he hungered for this woman. Braced on hands and knees above him, her hair tumbling wildly about her face, her back arched, she looked both pagan and pure.

  The tips of her breasts strained against the cotton that was wet from the caress of his mouth. The fabric molded to her nipple, as revealing as bare skin and, if possible, more erotic as she brushed her nipple across his lips . . . teasing him . . . tempting him.

  He recaptured a distended nipple between his lips, laving it with his tongue, sipping, suckling, drawing her into his mouth with uncommon gentleness—then insatiable greed.

  He opened his eyes, wanting to see her face as he loved her. A soft “oh” of desire formed on her sweetly parted lips as her eyes drifted shut and her thick lashes swept down onto her flushed cheeks.

  He tunneled his hands under her shirt and filled them with the generous weight of her breasts. Breathless and needy, she offered yet more of herself, throwing her head back, arching the satin length of her neck, straining for more of what he was doing to her.

  Her responses were wildly provocative. Brazenly lusty. Yet so honest and natural, he lost himself in her taste and her giving. He felt himself slip faster, deeper into a desire that blended sweetly with surrender—his own surrender.