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  She averted her eyes and took a bite of her sandwich. “Not many men could handle a kidnapping with aplomb.”

  “The kidnapping I can handle. It’s what happened between us on the beach that I’m having problems with. I think you know that.”

  Lisa looked up swiftly and felt a wild tremor run through her. His eyes held the same smoky intensity they had such a short time ago. She felt a slow languid melting sensation in the pit of her stomach. She knew she should look away, but it seemed impossible when the world had narrowed to contain only the two of them. She continued to gaze helplessly across the room at him.

  It was Donahue who finally looked away. “You’re not eating,” he growled as he turned to pour her a fresh cup of coffee. “No more talk until you’re finished.”

  They hadn’t really been talking in the last moment or two, but the bands of communication had been loud and crystal clear. Too clear. Lisa immediately grasped the excuse to avoid a confrontation with the exact nature of that communication. “Okay.” She took a bite of her sandwich. “Later.”

  Her throat was so tight she found it difficult to swallow. She managed to finish the sandwich and a little of the salad. She didn’t taste much, however, with Donohue leaning lazily against the cabinet and watching her with narrowed eyes. She pushed away the plates. “I don’t want any more.”

  “Good.” He straightened. “We can take your coffee into the study. Come on.” He crossed the room and lifted her from the stool. She felt a tiny shock of sensation as his hands grasped her waist. She inhaled sharply and hoped desperately he hadn’t noticed. She glanced up at him.

  He nodded gravely. “I felt it, too. Pretty explosive, isn’t it?” He released her and picked up her cup and saucer. “I think we’d better avoid physical contact for the time being. The study is down the hall and to your left.”

  “All right.” Lisa avoided his eyes as she hurried ahead of him down the hall. She was losing confidence by the moment. When she reached the study she chose a wing chair beside the huge mahogany desk and tried to look as businesslike as the room itself. That impersonality was immediately nullified when Donahue handed her coffee to her, then dropped down on the carpet at her feet, leaning against the desk, and linked his hands loosely about his knees.

  He stared at her. “I want to go to bed with you,” he said softly.

  She almost dropped the coffee cup. “That wasn’t what I wanted to talk about, Donahue.”

  “It’s the only thing I’m interested in discussing, but we’ll touch on the item that’s your primary interest first. I can’t let you go until Baldwin shows up.” He smiled with beguiling warmth. “Discussion closed. Now let’s talk about going to bed.”

  She drew a deep, exasperated breath. “Donahue, I won’t deny there’s a certain chemical attraction betw—”

  “Clancy,” he corrected. His eyes were fixed on her face. “I want to hear you say my name.” His voice dropped to a velvet whisper. “Say it, Lisa.”

  She would not be caught up in that breathtaking intimacy again. Yet she found herself repeating, “Clancy.”

  She was rewarded by that same rare smile. “I like that. Thank you, acushla.” The faint brogue was more pronounced now and so was the appealing Gaelic charm she’d noticed so fleetingly in the dressing room.

  She looked down at the cup in her hands. “I won’t let you dismiss the subject so lightly. You behaved outrageously and—”

  He suddenly sat upright, kneeling by her chair. “Look, you don’t understand.” He took the cup from her hands and put it on the floor beside the chair. Then he gathered her hands in his big, warm clasp. “It’s not important anymore. Even if I didn’t have a reason for using you to lure Baldwin here, we’d have to deal with him anyway. First, because he’s making you so damn miserable, and second, because he’s a part of your life I have to face and eliminate.”

  Her eyes widened in shock. “Eliminate? You mean …”

  He shook his head. “I wish I could, but I know it’s not that simple now. There’d always be a cloud hanging over our life if I conveniently ‘removed’ your first husband.”

  “First,” she repeated dazedly.

  He smiled. “First. I’m going to be your next and your last husband. We’re going to be married, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t know. This is utterly insane.”

  “I agree completely.”

  “We don’t even know each other.”

  “That’s definitely a stumbling block, but one that can be easily remedied in this situation.”

  “You have to be joking.” Her eyes were wide in her pale face.

  He shook his head. “If I am, the joke’s on me. I’m not a boy any longer. I suppose it must seem a little ludicrous to you that a man of my age could fall in love as violently as any teenager, but that’s what I’ve done.” He lifted her left palm to his lips and pressed a warm kiss on the soft skin. Holding her gaze with his own, he said softly, “I’ve fallen in love with you, Lisa Landon. Wildly, passionately, romantically, and with all the accompanying uncomfortable symptoms. I’m jealous as hell, possessive, and miserably uncertain.” He shook his head. “You can laugh if you like. I know I must be funny as the devil.”

  “I don’t feel like laughing.” Her palm was tingling, burning beneath his lips, and she felt panic racing within her. “You actually mean it, don’t you?”

  “I told you I didn’t lie. Of course I mean it.”

  She moistened her lips. “I’m not ever going to be married again. Not ever.”

  “I won’t push you. I’ll give you the time you need to adjust to the idea,” he said quietly. “I just thought I’d better get everything out in the open. This situation is complicated enough without your misunderstanding my intentions.” He smiled with surprising sweetness. “My intention is to marry you and love you for the rest of our lives. Is that clear enough?”

  Lisa shook her head. “I won’t marry you, Clancy. Not if you wait a hundred years.” She met his eyes directly. “And I don’t love you.”

  “I didn’t expect you to love me. It would have been too much to hope that we’d both succumb to the same insanity.” His warm, wet tongue suddenly stroked her palm. “But you do want me. I’m experienced enough to recognize those particular signs. I’ll start with that and work my way up.”

  “No! I won’t let you—” She broke off. His teeth were gently nibbling at the smooth tips of her fingers. She felt her heart jerk and then start to pound wildly. “Clancy, stop. I’m not like this. I don’t fall into bed with every man who crooks his finger.”

  “I know that. It was all in your dossier. You haven’t been with a man since you divorced Baldwin. After I realized the exact nature of my affliction, I found that very comforting reading.”

  “That damn dossier.” His tongue was licking the hollows at the base of her fingers, and she had to concentrate to bring her thoughts back to the subject. “It’s practically indecent to pry into a woman’s personal life like that.”

  “I’ll ask Alex to send you mine. It must still be around somewhere. Then we’ll be even.”

  She could see the drumming of the pulse in his temple and felt a sudden urge to reach out and touch that vital life force.

  “Okay?”

  “What?” He was so warm and alive that she could feel the heat and vitality radiating from his big body, surrounding her, nearly overpowering her.

  He grinned. “Why do I feel you aren’t paying proper attention to my soulful declaration? Which isn’t at all kind, considering that I’ve never told a woman I was mad about her before.”

  “You’re mad, period. Love at first sight is something out of a storybook. Sexual attraction at first sight I can accept. But love …” She shook her head. “It’s too far-fetched. In a few days you’ll be glad I didn’t take you seriously.”

  “Not that far-fetched. I’ve seen it happen before, but I’ve always been on the outside looking in. I’m familiar enough with the phenomenon to recognize it when
it appears on my horizon.” He gently touched her lips with his fingertips. “I never thought it would happen to me. I thought I would just go on forever, doing my job and hovering on the edge of relationships, but never really being involved. Do you know what a miracle this is for me?”

  She felt her throat tighten painfully. “I’m the wrong woman,” she said huskily. “I won’t let myself get involved with any man. Find someone else, Clancy.”

  “I can’t. You may be the wrong woman, but you’re the only woman.”

  “I’ll hurt you.” There was a note of desperation in her voice. “Give it up. I don’t want to cause anyone pain, Clancy. There’s too much of that in the world already.”

  “I’ll take my chances.” His index finger traced the curve of her lower lip. “You have a beautiful mouth. I love to see you smile. It lights up the whole world. You don’t do it often enough, though.”

  “Clancy, for God’s sake, listen to me.”

  “I’m listening.” His eyes met hers. “Thank you for the warning, acushla, but it’s too late. I don’t have a choice any longer. I have to try.” He smiled faintly. “I must warn you that I can be a fairly tough customer when I go after something, and there will be no holds barred this time. It’s a battle I’ve got to win.”

  “You can’t win, dammit! It’s a no-win situation.” Her lower lip was throbbing and felt swollen and satin soft beneath the light caress of his finger. That throbbing seemed to be sending out shock waves to every nerve ending in her body. “Let me go.”

  He shook his head. “I couldn’t, even if I wanted to now. We have to finish what we’ve started.”

  “We haven’t started anything. Now is the time to—” His hands were suddenly at her waist and he pulled her to the floor beside him. “Clancy!”

  His blue eyes were dancing. “I have to show you that it’s already begun, don’t I?” His big hands gently framed her face. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to attack. I just want to make a point.” His head lowered slowly until his warm breath feathered her lips. He was barely touching her and she could feel the tremors begin to sear through her. He chuckled. “That’s not the only thing I want to make, of course, but it will do for a start.” His lips touched hers with the greatest delicacy, tasting, brushing, moving, giving her only enough to tantalize without satisfying. His broad chest brushed against her breasts as he shifted position to angle her lips to meet his. She inhaled sharply and felt him hesitate for the fraction of an instant before his lips closed on hers once more. He lifted his head. “Your breasts are exquisitely sensitive, aren’t they?” he murmured. “I thought they were.” He rubbed his upper body against her with a slow, sinuous movement. She couldn’t breathe, and the tremors had centered to become a pulsating ache between her thighs. Her breasts were firming, swelling, and she could feel the hard crest of her nipples thrust against the knit of her sweater. Her eyes closed as she reached for his shoulders to keep herself from swaying. “Earlier, on the beach, I wanted to do this,” he said thickly. “And so much more. I wanted to take that satin top off you and just look at you. I wanted to take your nipples in my fingers and make them come alive for me.” His hands dropped away from her face to the hollow of her back, arching her up against him. The sound she made deep in her throat was a half moan. “I wanted to use my tongue, my lips, and my teeth.” Lisa could hear the heavy pounding of his heart against her breasts, and it triggered a melting somewhere deep within her. She swayed and knew if his hands hadn’t been supporting her, her knees would have given way. “I wanted to touch you with every part of me. I still do.”

  “Please. This is crazy.” For heaven’s sake, it was the lightest of foreplay and she was about to go up in smoke. She had never before experienced anything even remotely resembling this emotional tempest. “Clancy, this has got to stop.”

  “I know.” His chest labored with the harshness of his breathing as he tightened his arms around her. “It’s getting out of hand. Give me a minute.”

  That was easy to say. The muscles of his chest were still pressed against her, and she could sense his sexual arousal as a living force, swirling in waves around her. There was no aphrodisiac stronger than the knowledge of that arousal. Her hands pressed against his chest. It was a mistake, for now she could feel the heated thunder of his heart against her palms. “Now,” she said desperately, opening her eyes to gaze up at him. “Right now!”

  He drew a shuddering breath, then his arms dropped away from her and he sat back on his heels. “Okay.” The skin was pulled taut over his cheekbones. There was a heavy sensuality curving his lips, and his nostrils were flaring slightly. He looked hungry.… Oh, did she look like that, too? He smiled with an obvious effort. “I think the point’s been made, anyway. We want each other.” His breath released in an explosive rush. “How we want each other!”

  “Yes.” She raised a trembling hand to brush back a lock of hair from her eyes. “But it doesn’t change anything. I’m not about to mistake lust for love. And I’m not about to tumble happily into your bed just because I have a yen for you. I have an idea you’d use that to your advantage.”

  “Smart lady. I’d do just that.” His eyes were twinkling. “But I’d make sure that our advantages were so closely entwined that you wouldn’t realize who was using whom.”

  A wave of heat suddenly rushed over her as she had a sudden mental image of that “entwining.” She jumped to her feet. “I think I’d better go to my room. It’s time we resumed our roles of prisoner and jailer.”

  For a fleeting moment she thought she saw a shadow of pain in Clancy’s face. It was gone the next instant. She must have been mistaken; Donahue was far too iron tough to allow himself that emotion. “All right. If it makes you feel safer.”

  There was a hint of desperation in her laugh. “There’s something a little macabre about feeling safer as a helpless prisoner.”

  “You’re not the helpless one,” Clancy said quietly. “I am. I’ve never been so damn vulnerable in my entire life.”

  Her smile faded. He was doing it to her again. Pain, sadness, a yearning to comfort, and the sexual riptide that embroiled them in a whirlpool. “I don’t want you to feel helpless,” she said with a fierceness that shocked even herself. “I don’t want you to feel anything at all for me.”

  He stood looking at her without answering.

  Her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “I won’t let you make me feel guilty about something over which I have no control. You’re not going to complicate my life. I like it fine just the way it is.”

  “Do you? Somehow I received the impression that you could use a little help in straightening out one or two aspects.” He shrugged. “At any rate, you’re going to get it whether you like it or not.”

  “Clancy, I won’t have you marching in and taking me over. Your men might be intimidated enough to put up with that bull, but I won’t.”

  “We’ll see. Now you’d better go to your room and rest. I’ve put you through something of an emotional marathon, haven’t I? Just go to bed and sleep on it. Here’s the way I think we should handle it. First courtship, then sex, and finally marriage.” He grinned. “If you want to rearrange that order, I’m open for suggestions. I definitely can be had.”

  The inarticulate sound she made was charged with both frustration and exasperation. She turned on her heel and strode toward the door.

  “Lisa.”

  She stopped as she reached for the doorknob.

  “We both know we’re going to end up in bed together. In another couple of minutes we’d have been making love on that carpet.”

  Her hand tightened on the knob.

  “I just wanted to tell you that I’ll try to let you get accustomed to me before we—” He broke off and then continued with rough awkwardness, “Oh, hell, I mean I’ll try to be your friend before I become your lover.”

  She opened the door. “You’re not going to be either one. You’re just my jailer, Clancy.” The door closed firmly behind her.


  Clancy uttered a brief but explicit curse. Lord, he certainly had a way with words. It was a wonder she hadn’t reacted more strongly to his clumsiness. He had wanted to tell her that he’d be gentle, charming, and considerate. The way it had come out, it had sounded as if he were doing her a favor by not throwing her in bed and jumping her bones. He had thought he’d learned a little diplomacy working for Alex, but evidently it had vanished completely the moment he’d first seen Lisa. All his confidence had disappeared, and he’d felt like a big clumsy oaf of an Irishman with his first woman.

  He strode to the cellarette and poured himself a stiff drink. It would probably knock him on his backside as tired as he was, but that might not be a bad thing. At least he would forget what a colossal ass he had made of himself. He drank the brandy down in three swallows and started to reach for the bottle again, then stopped. No, he didn’t want to get plastered tonight. Tomorrow he would try to repair the damage his clumsiness had wrought, and he didn’t need a hangover to cloud his senses.

  Courtship. It was an old-fashioned concept, but one that was very appealing to him. A woman like Lisa deserved not only courtship, but the most careful gentleness and cherishing. Despite her strength and spirit, she gave the impression of being infinitely fragile and fine drawn. When she wasn’t smiling there was a somberness about her that filled him with a fierce protectiveness. Pain. There was so much pain behind that tranquil façade. Sometimes he could almost feel it beneath the rigid control she exerted. God, he wanted to share that pain. He wanted to share everything she felt, everything she was.