Tabitha eased into consciousness at a tortoise pace. Cushioned by a soft cloud, she came awake by slow, sweet degrees.

The first thing she became aware of was the warmth surrounding her. Not hot like the Texas sun. More like a warm bath. The water lapped soothingly on her skin, pulsing ever so gently along her spine like a heartbeat.

Her eyes opened wide.

Heartbeat?

Oh, jeez. It was a heartbeat. Jake’s heartbeat.

Fully awake now, she realized she lay spooned against him. How had this happened? The last position she remembered being in was facing him across the width of a cat. A big cat.

There was certainly no cat between them now. She was butted against him—literally—so tight no one could slip a prayer between them. She’d deliberately worn a T-shirt to bed instead of the spaghetti-strap teddy she usually wore, just in case of an invasion like the one that had happened last night.

A lot of good the thick cotton did her now, with the hem twisted nearly to her waist. Her bottom rested against his hips; the only thing separating them was the thin silk of her panties and his—

Had he taken off his pants? She couldn’t feel the thickness of a zipper.

She moved her hips ever so slightly.

He was wearing something, but she didn’t think it was briefs. Her panties moved too easily against him. Boxers, maybe? Silk?

A cop in silk boxers? That image was too foreign to fully form in her mind. She had to be wrong.

But she couldn’t worry about his choice of underwear now. She had to extricate herself, hopefully without waking him.

She considered their positions.

She was on her left side, facing the window. He lay against her, his left arm serving as her pillow, his right curled around her waist. His hand rested across her stomach and—surprise, surprise—his fingers had found the scant half inch of bare skin between her panties and the twisted hem of her shirt.

The second she realized where his fingers were, shivers danced across her skin, raising goose bumps in their wake.

Her eyes drifted closed. Was she imagining it, or could she distinguish the heat of his fingers from the general warmth beneath the covers? It seemed she could feel every slightly calloused tip brushing like an angel’s breath across her skin.

Tabitha forced her eyes open.

What was going on? Was she actually enjoying the intimate embrace? Any other time someone had held her this tightly, for this length of time, she’d had a conniption and had fought to be free. Yet she’d lain here—God knows how long—without panicking, without even waking up.

This wasn’t like her. Not at all.

But she still didn’t have time to figure it out. Heck, she probably couldn’t, with the heat fogging her brain. Every time she let down her guard she thought about the weight of his arm on her waist, or the pliable firmness of the biceps against her cheek, the hair on his legs that tickled the—

Jeez! There she went again.

Did she actually want this man?

She knew the answer to that question before it formed in her mind. Yes, she wanted him—with desire that hid like red-hot embers beneath everything she said, everything she did. Embers that burst into flames with the slightest prodding—a smile, a word, a touch.

What would he do if she twisted around and began fanning those flames with kisses, with caresses, with provocative movements of her body?

She knew the answer to that question, too. He’d made his desire perfectly clear, more than once. He’d also made it clear that he’d seen the embers inside her, felt their heat.

Tabitha almost wished she could turn around. Who would know? The world that waited outside already knew he was staying with her. If any of the reporters had suspicions about where he was sleeping, they wouldn’t hesitate to splash them all over the papers, no matter what went on.

But Tabitha couldn’t turn around. Her heart pounded with fear at just the thought.

She’d been so unsuccessful in every intimate relationship she’d ever had—all one of them—she didn’t have the confidence to initiate anything more than a handshake.

No, it was more than a lack of confidence. She didn’t know how to initiate intimacy. Her father had spurned any kind of affection at all, and Scott had turned cold the one time she’d kissed him first. He’d insisted on being the one to start their sexual encounters—and they’d always begun and ended with pain. She’d finally realized they weren’t making love at all. Scott had a rape fantasy, and all he’d wanted from her was fulfillment.

She’d only dated a few men since, and never more than twice, never going further than a chaste good-night kiss.

Until yesterday when Jake had kissed her and she’d kissed him back. He seemed to like it. So…

No. She had to get up and get dressed before he woke.

Reaching back, she gently lifted his arm and began moving it back to his side.

The cat jumped on the bed with a bounce and meowed.

Jake came awake immediately, fully conscious the instant his eyes opened.

“Go away,” Tabitha whispered hotly. “I’ll feed you in a minute, but first I have to get up without waking him.”

“Him who?” Jake asked with a smile. His voice was still husky with sleep. However, other parts of him had definitely wakened.

Tabitha started, then froze. “You’re awake.”

“How can a man sleep with you two caterwauling?”

She twisted to look at him. “I was not.”

Her eyes widened as her hip bumped against his morning erection. “Oh.”

He couldn’t help smiling. “Surprise.”

“You…” She swallowed visibly. “That wasn’t there a minute ago.”

“Did a little exploring, did you?”

“No, I just—”

She tried to ease her bottom away, but he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her back against him. Her softness felt so good. He wanted to sink into her and never come up for air.

He nuzzled the hair off her neck. “I wouldn’t mind if you did.”

“You wouldn’t?”

“Not a single bit,” he said in between the kisses he placed up the right side of her neck.

“Jake, we—we need to get to the hospital.”

“What time is it?” He lifted his head and squinted at the clock beside her bed. “Just six-thirty. The press conference isn’t until nine.”

“We both need to take showers and… Oh.” She sighed sensuously as he slipped a hand under her T-shirt and ran it across the velvet of her stomach. “I don’t… Oh.”

He smiled at her obvious pleasure and returned his attention to her neck. “Feel good, kitten?”

“I don’t… Oh, yes.” She bowed her head forward, giving him better access to the sensitive tendons extending into her shoulders. “But we… I mean, don’t you… Oh, jeez.”

His hand slipped upward, stroking the underside of her breast. She arched back, stretching the T-shirt across her chest. His gut tightened as he witnessed her nipples forming taut little buds. He held her hips against his, feeling her movements across his throbbing heat, feeling even more blood flow in to engorge him.

He took the weight of one breast in his hand, feeling the satin texture of the pliable curves contrasting with the puckered tip. He rubbed his thumb across it and couldn’t have said what turned him on more—the flexible resistance of the bud against his finger, or watching his hand caress her beneath her shirt, or the moans that emanated from both of them.

“Jake. What are you…”

“I want to make you feel good,” he whispered. “As good as you’re making me feel.”

Wanting to see what he was touching, Jake threw the sheet off. Cool air hit his heated skin.

She had on red panties. Silk.

“Damn, Tabitha.” He ran his hand over the curve of her hip. “How did you know? Red panties do a number on me.”

She didn’t say anything. Didn’t move.

“Kitten?” He pulled his hand from her hip and pushed the hair back from her face. “What is it?”

She turned wide blue eyes to him. “We need to get up.”

He placed a kiss on her shoulder. “We do?”

She shrugged away from him. “Yes.”

Rising to rest on his elbow, he pulled her onto her back and studied her guarded face. The hand he rested on her stomach felt the tension that had suddenly entered her body. “Why?”

Her gaze slid away from his. “You’re the one who said we could stay in the same house and remain professional.”

“I said that? And meant it?”

She didn’t smile at his joke.

“Please let me up, Jake. The cat is hungry.”

Jake lifted his hand from her stomach.

She rose immediately and all but ran into the hall.

Sighing with frustration, Jake fell back to the pillows.

Damn, she’d been so hot for him. Why had she turned cold all of a sudden? Was it him? Or was it the badge he wore?

He wasn’t wearing it now.

What the hell did she have against policemen, anyway?

Her father, Albert Monroe, was the only connection that Jake knew of between Tabitha and police officers.

He glared at the open door.

What had the son of a bitch done to her?

Ten minutes later, Tabitha stood in the shower, letting the warm water sluice down her body. Such a simple thing, yet it felt incredibly sensuous this morning. Even with her eyes closed she could trace every path the water followed along her curves. The shower droplets were thousands of warm fingers thumping against her skin.

The senses in her entire body had been turned up several notches, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out why.

Turning impatiently, Tabitha reached for the shampoo.

Okay, she was attracted to the man. It wasn’t as if she could do anything about it. Above and beyond the fact that he was a cop, above and beyond the fact that they were key players in a situation that meant life and death for two people—a situation that could make or break either one of their careers—was the fact that attraction inevitably led to intimacy. It almost had just a few minutes ago.

And intimacy wasn’t one of Tabitha’s greatest strengths. In fact, she sucked swamp water when it came to intimacy. After Scott, she’d vowed she’d never be close to any man again. Intimacy terrified her—which meant that Jake terrified her, because the desire she felt for Scott paled in comparison to what she felt right now.

Tabitha scrubbed the shampoo deep into her hair.

What was wrong with her? People’s lives were at stake, and here she was having a latent overdose of adolescent hormones.

She had to get a grip on herself. This…hunger she had for this cop was just a passing fancy. A blip on the screen of her long-range goals.

As long as she remembered that, she’d be okay. She could repel his animal magnetism. She could see his smile without having heart palpitations.

Dropping a dollop of scented liquid soap on her pouf, Tabitha rubbed it into a frothing mass of bubbles. Scrubbing her skin, she berated herself until she looked down and noticed that her skin was turning Chinese red.

She couldn’t trust herself enough around him to do the simplest things like give herself a shower.

For the first time Tabitha looked forward to Branson Hines’s call. She needed someone to take her frustration out on. If he didn’t call, she might have to go looking for the little twerp herself, just so she could keep her hands off Jake.

Tabitha opened the bathroom door and called, “Your tu—”

She stopped dead. Jake stood in front of the stove, dressed only in his slacks. At least he had them zipped this morning. The wonderful, wake-up smells of coffee and bacon comingled with the happy sound of his whistling.

“What are you doing?” What a brilliant question. What he was doing was perfectly obvious. Instead of speechless, shock had rendered her stupid.

He glanced over his shoulder and answered her obvious question with an equally obvious answer. “Cooking breakfast.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Hope you don’t mind.”

“For me, too?”

He frowned. “Of course for you, too. What kind of a cook do you think I am?”

Never in her entire life had anyone cooked breakfast for Tabitha. Except a restaurant, and that didn’t count, because she paid them.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She made a conscious effort to raise her jaw. “Nothing.”

“You act as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

The Ghost of Breakfast Future?

“No,” she said too loudly, more to negate her thought than his statement. She cleared her throat and forced her frozen muscles to move. “I’m fine. Thank you for cooking breakfast. It’s very thoughtful.”

And totally unlike a cop.

“You’re welcome.” He smiled. “It won’t be ready for about ten minutes. I checked on my men first thing. Everything’s quiet, both here and at the hospital.”

“Good. Okay, then. I’ll get dressed.”

As she turned toward the bedroom, he said so softly she wasn’t sure she was meant to hear, “You don’t have to on my account.”