Marie-Terese had been convinced Vin was going to kiss her on the mouth.

And there was a part of her that wanted just that, but she'd been panicky, too: She might have technically been having sex at the club, but it had been three years since she'd actually been kissed. And the last time it had happened it had been forced on her as part of an act of violence.

Instead of giving her what she both wanted and feared, though, Vin had just pressed his lips to her forehead and eased her up against his chest - and here she was, in the strong arms of a man whose heart was beating close to her ear, whose warmth was leaching into her own body, whose big hand was making slow circles around her back.

Marie-Terese smoothed her palm up his pecs. Underneath the cashmere, his body was hard, suggesting that he exercised a lot.

She wondered what he looked like without his clothes on.

She wondered what his mouth would feel like on hers.

She wondered how having him skin-to-skin would be.

"I guess we should probably go," he said, his voice rumbling through his chest.

"Do we have to?"

His breath caught and then resumed. "I think we'd better."

"Why?"

Vin shrugged, the movement rubbing his sweater against her cheek. "Just think it's for the best." Oh, man...how about that for a polite brush-off. Good God, what if she'd read it all wrong? Abruptly, she shifted upward, pushing herself off of him. "Yes, I think you're right - "

In her haste, her palm slipped on the fine nap of his sweater and brushed over something that was hard below his waist. And not hard as in bone.

"Damn, I'm sorry," he said, moving his hips away. "Yeah, it's definitely time to pull out of here..."

She looked down. His erection was unmistakable, and what do you know, she had a roaring sexual response to it. She wanted him. Needed to have him inside of her. And all the rational reasons not to go there were suddenly nothing more than yada, yada, yada...

Locking eyes with him, she whispered, "Kiss me." Vin froze in the process of getting up. As his chest expanded, he stared at the floor and didn't say a thing.

"Oh," she said. "I understand."

His body might have wanted her, but his mind was jamming at the thought of being with a whore.

In a horrible rush, she saw the faces of the Johns she had been with...or at least those she could recall. So many of them, more than she could count, and they crowded the space between her and this man who sat on his boyhood bed, looking as sexy as anything.

She hadn't wanted the others. Had taken pains to be as separate from them as she could, layers of latex and dissociation barriers she used to try to stay as untouched by the contact as she could.

Vin, however...Vin she wanted close, and he couldn't go there.

This was the real damage she had done to herself, wasn't it: she'd assumed that as long as she stayed disease-free and unharmed physically, the long-term effects were going to be limited to a store of memories she'd be desperate to forget. But this was cancer, not the flu. Because she could barely see Vin through the cast of hundreds, and he was as blinded by the anonymous, invisible crowd as she was.

Swallowing hard, she thought...in this moment, she would have given up everything to have had a clean slate between her and Vin. Everything...except for her son.

Marie-Terese shifted off the bed, but he caught her hand before she could shoot out of the room.

"I can't stop at just kissing you." His hot eyes locked on her. "That's the only reason I'm holding off. I'd like to tell you I'm a gentleman and could pull back or out with only a word from you, but I can't trust myself. Not tonight."

Caught up in the distance between them, all she could hear was, Women like you don't get to say no.

In a hoarse voice, she said, "You already know I'm a slut. So I won't stop you." Vin's expression went cold and he dropped his hold on her.

After a moment, he rose to his feet and glared at her. "You don't ever refer to yourself like that in front of me again. We clear? Never again. I don't give a fuck who you were with or how many there were - you're not a slut to me. You want to beat yourself up, do it on your time and don't try to drag me into it."

On a survival instinct, she cringed back from him and shielded her head, expecting his hands to curl into fists and come flying at her.

She'd been trained thoroughly in what men who were furious did to women.

Except Vin just stared at her, the anger in his face draining out and leaving a pale panic behind. "He hit you, didn't he."

Marie-Terese couldn't answer that. Because even a nod would have sent her into a spiral of tears. Tonight...as Vin himself had said, tonight was not the night for trusting herself: Whereas quitting the business had made her feel stronger, that had been temporary. Here and now, she was vulnerable as hell.

"Jesus...Christ," Vin murmured.

Before she knew it, she was back in his arms, back in them and up close. As they stood together, something occurred to her about the choices she'd made...something that she didn't want to look too closely at, so she pushed it away and locked it up tight.

Lifting her head to look up at him, she said, "Be with me. Now."

Vin went stock-still...and then cupped her face with his gentle palms. "You sure?"

"Yes."

After a long moment, he closed the distance between their mouths and kissed her sweet and slow. Oh...soft. He was so soft and careful, stroking, tilting his head to the side, stroking some more.

It was better than she remembered, because it was better than she'd ever had.

Running her palms up his arms, she felt as if the two of them were suspended in air, tethered by choice, not trapped by circumstance. Light as the contact between them was, gentle as his lips were, careful as her hands were, power sizzled between them.

Vin pulled back a little. He was breathing hard, the muscles in his neck straining. And that wasn't the only thing. As he looked at her, his body was even more ready for what was going to happen next. He cleared his throat. "Marie-Terese..."

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him to call her by her real name, but she stopped herself. "Yes?" she whispered in a voice as husky as his.

"Lie down with me."

When she nodded, he gathered her into him and pulled her onto the bed so that they ended up with her top. As their bodies adjusted to glorious effect, his hands brushed her hair from her face and lingered on her shoulders.

"I like the way you feel under me," she said.

He smiled. "And how do I feel?"

"Hard." She arched into him, rubbing herself on his arousal.

As Vin reared back into the pillow and hissed, she put her mouth on the rigid cords that lined his neck, kissing her way up them until she got to his sharp jaw. Now she was the one fusing their mouths, and he was following her, tongues sweeping in and out, hands roaming, hips moving in the ancient surging motion of raw sex.

It wasn't long before she needed so much more. Her breasts were aching, the tips straining against her bra, and she took his hand and eased it under the shirt she had on. The contact of his palm on her ribs made her suck on his tongue and to urge him onward, she guided the contact over to her -

"Vin..."

As he palmed her breast, he groaned and rubbed his thumb around her nipple. "You're hell on my willpower. Total hell..."

With a surge, he leaned up and nuzzled at her breast through her clothes. "I need you naked."

"Just what I was thinking." Sitting back on his hips, she swept her fleece over her head and was attacked by a wave of modesty. Abruptly, she wanted her nakedness to be beautiful to him...she really did.

As if he read her mind, he murmured, "Would you rather do this with the lights off?"

Well, yeah. Except then she couldn't see him. "I'm not perfect, Vin."

He shrugged. "Neither am I. But I will guarantee that whatever you choose to show me I'm going to like because it's you."

Dropping her hands and holding his stare, she said, "Take my shirt off then. Please." Sitting up so that they were face-to-face and she was in his lap, Vin unbuttoned the thing down to her navel, his mouth going to her throat and then her collarbone and finally to the front clasp of her bra. His eyes flipped to hers as he reached up and sprang the fastening.

He didn't let the two sides snap apart, but held them in place.

Inch by inch his mouth kissed its way onto her breast. As he went, he slowly exposed her flesh until he got to her nipple and then he pulled the lace cup off entirely. His whole body shuddered with lust.

"You're so wrong," he groaned. "Look at you...perfect." He extended his tongue and licked her. And licked her again.

Watching him was nearly as good as feeling him, and the two together, the sight and the sensation, fired her blood up until she was panting. Thank God they'd left the light on.

Vin shifted their positions, putting her on the bottom and rising up above her, his broad shoulders blocking out the fixture on the ceiling as he kissed her mouth again. Beneath his strength, she felt small and fragile, but powerful too: He was breathing hard because he wanted her, because his desperation was as sharp and demanding as her own, because he needed this with the same clawing drive she did. They were in this together.

And then she stopped thinking, because he dropped his mouth onto her breast and took deep pulls while he parted her shirt all the way and swept aside the other cup of her bra.

As he continued what he was doing, she was dying to know the feel of his skin on hers, so she fisted the back of his sweater and started pulling it up. He finished the job, lifting himself to peel it from his chest.

In the mirror across the way, she watched as his back was revealed, the light from the overhead hitting the spectacular spread of muscles that filled out his shoulders and wrapped around his torso. And the view of his pecs was just as good.

He was a fantasy made real, his body nothing but ridges of strength that shifted under smooth flesh as he brought his lips down to her nipple again. With his bowed arms supporting the weight of his chest, he was a magnificent male animal ready to ditch fifty thousand years of evolution and mental development for the base mating that was to come.

Talk about perfect...

Marie-Terese rolled her hips and sank her fingers deep into his thick hair. Her body was fluid under his mouth and his touch, heat rolling through her and tightening the ache between her legs. When the erotic need got to be too much, she split her thighs and -

They both moaned as his erection landed in just the right place.

Vin arched against her, and her nails raked across the waistband of his slacks: Careful and gentle was all well and good, but the momentum had started to build and all of the worry of what to do was swept away.

"Can I take off your jeans?" he asked. Or groaned was more like it.

"Oh, please..."

She braced herself on her heels as he slipped the top button free, unzipped and swept the denim down her legs. Her panties were black and he stopped and just stared at them on her body. "Good...lord," he murmured.

His hands actually shook as he reached out and ran his fingertips across her belly. She waited for him to kiss her again...or move over on top of her...or take her panties off..."Is there anything wrong?" she said hoarsely.

"No...not at all...I just can't get enough of looking at you."

Finally, he came up to her lips. Licking into her mouth, he settled on her with his full weight, his bare chest on hers, their legs intertwining. Together, they found a rhythm, an erotic arch and retreat that sexed her up until she was gasping and so was he.

"Please...Vin..."

As he kissed her, his hand eased down her hip and over her thigh, then brushed across the stretch of her panties. "I need to feel you - " he said.

She took his forearm and pushed down, moving his fingers to her core, dragging them across her covered heat. As she shuddered and let her legs fall to the sides even more, he took his mouth to her breast and suckled at her...while he rubbed at what covered her. "More," she said.

Slipping under the delicate edge, he found her softness and cursed hard, his body snapping tight from head to foot, his teeth gritting, the cords in his neck tightening up starkly. "Oh...Christ..." he said. "Oh...damn." Abruptly, he pulled back and looked down at himself.

"What?" she asked breathlessly.

"I think I just had an orgasm."

As he flushed, she started to smile and couldn't stop. "You did?"

He shook his head at her. "Right, okay, that's not a good thing at a time like this. Five minutes from now? Perfect. At this moment? Not so hot."

"Well, it makes me feel sexy," she said, smoothing her hand down his face.

"You don't need any help with that."

Marie-Terese let her touch slide slowly over his chest and his hard stomach, then down farther, over his belt and onto his...

Vin threw his head back and moaned, his pecs flexing, his torso curving up. "Shit."

Moving her palm up and down on his erection, she tucked her face into his neck and bit down a little. "I don't think it's going to slow you up much."

His rib cage contracted, breath shooting out of his mouth. "I gotta get naked."

"I should hope so."

His hands were rough on his belt and his fly, and his slacks hit the floor at the speed of light. Black briefs cupped his sex - barely. His erection was a long ridge crammed over to one side, the head fighting to get free of the waistband that held it in.

Before he could lie back, she reached out and tugged those briefs down his hard thighs, springing his arousal. He had orgasmed and the glossy, weeping tip of him made her even more ready for what was coming fast.

Wrapping her hand around his shaft, she stroked his sex and looked up, watching as he planted one palm against the wall and let his head fall loose. He moved with her, and she glanced across at the mirror, watching what his back looked like as his hips swung forward and back, the clenching and releasing of his torso muscles and the way his spine undulated in a wave the most erotic thing she'd ever seen...

Marie-Terese let go of him, took off her panties, and stretched out beside him. Ready. Vin righted his head and stared at her from under his brows, his silvery eyes lit up bright as a flash of steel in the midday sun.

They both remembered the same thing at the same time. "Do you have a - "

"I have a condom - "

Thank you, God, she thought as he went to his wallet and took out one of those Tiffany blue Trojan packets. She was on the Pill, courtesy of her regularly visiting a doc-in-the-box in town, and she'd just had a checkup, but no matter how attracted she was to Vin, she wasn't going to be reckless with her own body with anyone.

Safe sex was the only way.

And watching him protect them both was sexy as hell. When he was done, they resumed the position they'd been in before, her back against the duvet, him half on top of her, half to the side. The condom was chilly against her thigh, leaving a quickly cooling trail, and she wished she'd had a moment to feel his sex for real somewhere on her. But then he was fully on top of her and between her legs, the head of him nudging at the heart of her.

She stared into his eyes as she guided him in.

How right it was. How filling and spectacular the joining. How wondrous to meet his stare and see reflected in it the same things she was feeling - the glorious shock at how well they fit, the coiling need to go even further...

And there was another surprise for her: For once it didn't hurt because her body actually wanted this.

"Are you okay?" he asked in a guttural voice.

"More than okay."

Marie-Terese wrapped her arms around his shoulders and held him close as they began to move together. Her last sight before she squeezed her lids shut was of them in the mirror, their bodies wrapped around each other, her legs split wide, his hips doing the driving. As she met her own eyes, her reflection was a shock. Her cheeks were flushed and her hair tangled around his heavy arm and her lip? parted. She looked very much like a woman with a good partner.

Which made sense. This was sex the good old-fashioned way - between two people who wanted to be together for no other reason than that it was the right thing at the right time for both of them.

When what the mirror was showing grew wavy from tears that sprang to her eyes, she closed the sight of them off and turned her face into his shoulder.

Somehow, he managed to hug her and still keep up the rhythm.

As Marie-Terese pitched over the edge of pleasure and went into the kind of free fall she had only a vague memory of, she held on to the man responsible for the way she felt and let herself go. Her climax milked another one out of his sex and she felt utter satisfaction as he shuddered and kicked -

Except then everything went wrong. For a split second, she thought of what she had been doing for money, and that was all it took to ruin it: A cold gust blew into her chest and spread out from there until all her veins were frozen and her muscles drew tight against bones of ice.

Vin stilled as if he had sensed the change in her and he lifted his head from her hair. "Talk to me."

She opened her mouth. But nothing would come out.

"It's okay," he said softly, catching her tears with his fingertips. "This has to be hard for you. Even if it felt right, it has to be hard."

She struggled to catch her breath, not from exertion, but from the effort of not flying apart. "What if it all comes back every time I'm..."

With you, she wanted to finish, but that seemed a bit much. For God's sake, she didn't know whether she was still going to be in this town next week.

He kissed her. "Other memories will take the place of all that. It's going to take time, but it will happen."

She glanced at the mirror and thought of the way he moved. As she recalled the feel and sight of him, the cold retreated some, ushered out of her by a wave of warmth.

"I hope you're right," she said, running her hands through his hair. "I really do."

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