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Tess or giving chase. That was no choice at all.
His mouth crushed down over hers for one long instant before he dragged it away and turned the car
down the wide street into traffic. He didn't let go of Tess. He couldn't.
"They almost had me," she whispered breathlessly. "One of them grabbed me as I started out of our
office. He had a knife at my ribs...."
"God," he groaned harshly, pulling her closer.
"Helen taught me how to defend myself against somebody holding me from behind," she said. Her
cheek moved against the soft fabric of his jacket. "I remembered it. I caught him off guard and got
away." She grinned, now that it was all over. "It was very exciting," she said, her eyes sparkling as she
looked up at him. "I can see why... Dane?"
He pulled off the street into a parking space and sat, white-faced, his hands trembling on the steering
wheel. He didn't speak or look at her.
"It's all right," she said softly. She moved, reaching up to draw his head down to hers. She kissed him
slowly, nibbling at his lips, his nose, his closed eyes. Her arms slid around him and she pressed close,
her face finally sliding against his hot throat and resting there. "It wasn't your fault," she whispered.
"You forgot that you'd told me I couldn't go with Helen."
"I didn't forget," he said unsteadily. "I left in plenty of time to get back before the office emptied. But I
had a flat on the way."
"Dane?" she murmured.
"Let me hold you, Tess," he said, his voice torn. "Don't talk. Just let me hold you."
She did, sighing as the peace of the embrace finally got through to him and calmed him. He felt guilty,
she supposed, although God knew why he should. She didn't blame him. She smiled against his throat
and kissed him just below his Adam's apple. She was about to say that for a man who didn't love her, he
was certainly excitable. But she thought better of it. He was vulnerable. He wouldn't like having her
point it out.
He drew in a rough breath, and she glanced up at him. His eyes were frightening. He touched her face
with warm, hard fingers. "Did he hurt you?"
"No," she assured him. Her eyes sparkled. "But I hurt him. I think I broke his nose."
He whistled softly. "I'm going to have to talk to Helen."
"You wouldn't teach me," she said defensively.
"Thank God she did. I'll treat Helen and Harold to the biggest damned anchovy pizzas they can eat," he
mused.
"That's nice." She laid her forehead against his chin. "Can I have one, too? I'm hungry."
"Poor little scrap, you haven't eaten." He put her back in her own seat and fastened her seat belt, his
hands brushing against her body accidentally and setting her tingling. "You can have a pizza if you
want one."
Her eyes melted into his, adoring, acquisitive.
He bridled at that look, at his own vulnerability. He didn't like having her see him when he couldn't
hide his disturbed state from her. She might think he was emotionally involved. Ridiculous, of course.
All the same...
He bent and put his mouth softly over hers, kissing her gently. "From now on, if I have to leave the
office, I'll make sure someone's with you. I'm sorry, Tess. Damned sorry."
She smiled. "I told you, it wasn't your fault." She stared at his mouth dizzily. "Kiss me again."
"Too public," he murmured, drawing back. He indicated throngs of passersby.
"We could eat at the apartment, couldn't we?"
"No, we could not," he said gently, reading her expression all too well for his peace of mind. "In the
first place, you'll need days to recuperate from what I did to you last night. In the second place," he
said, his expression growing sterner by the second, "from now on, you're going to sleep in your own
bed, not mine. I won't let that happen again."
"Why not?" she asked softly.
His thumb rubbed slowly over her chin and he looked worried. "Because I don't want commitment," he
reminded her. "I won't ever forget how it made me feel to be your first lover. But you want forever after.
I don't believe in it anymore. I've had my illusions shattered."
"You might change your mind," she said. "I might grow on you."
"You already have. But I can't marry you," he said bluntly.
"Listen to me, Tess. You think you love me, but you don't have any experience of men except what
you've learned with me. One day, sex won't be enough for you. You'll want a child."
"I love you, Dane," she said simply.
His cheeks darkened and his eyes seemed to kindle, but he fought down the fever those words initiated.
"You don't know what love is," he replied quietly. "You think it's two bodies in bed."
Her eyes searched his. "What we did together last night was much more than two bodies in bed. We
made love, Dane," she said. "Made it so beautifully that I can't imagine ever letting any man but you
touch me as long as I live."
His eyes closed. He felt that way, too, but he couldn't tell her. His feelings were locked up, chained.
"It was sex," he said coldly, forcing his eyes to open and stab into hers. "And you're damned lucky I'm
sterile or you'd really have a problem."
"I wouldn't have thought so," she said, smiling.
He gazed out the window blindly. "Anyway, it's a moot point," he said. He started the car. "We have to
report this to the nearest precinct. Assault with intent is a felony. I'll have that—" he employed some
old ranger language "—in jail by sundown, and he won't get out this time, not if I have to call in a few
markers and have some old friends help me surround the courthouse!"
She could picture a throng of cold-eyed Texas Rangers holding a courtroom at gunpoint. She laughed
gently.
"How can you laugh?" he demanded. "God in heaven, don't you realize how close you came to being
killed?"
"Nerves," she told him. "Reaction. Yes, I realize it. I remember thinking I wouldn't see you again," she
added, adoring his face with her gray eyes. "It made me sad."
He looked away. He'd had too many shocks lately, all of them to do with losing her. He put the car into
gear and pulled out into traffic. He lit a cigarette and didn't say another word all the way to the police
station.
Helen gloated later when she found out that Tess had used her instructions to foil a kidnapping. Dane
was in a black temper that lasted all day, even if he did unbend enough to give Helen a bonus for
teaching Tess how to survive an assault. But he watched Tess openly, his mind on the dope peddlers.
He'd never felt so homicidal.
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