“There’s no way you could disappear from my life now that wouldn’t hurt,” she told him.

It wasn’t the sort of thing she said to a man, ever, not even to a man she was fond of and whose company she enjoyed. It was too encouraging, too misleading; her sense of fair play wouldn’t permit her to knowingly lead a man down a dead end.

And this thing with Hazard? It had to qualify as the deadest end of all time. She would hardly describe what she felt for him as fondness. As for his company, it was more maddening and disruptive than enjoyable. The man was a thorn in her side. A threat to everything that mattered to her. Bad news. Trouble. The kind of complication she didn’t need. And she wanted him more than she could bear.

She wanted to kiss him; she wanted to know the taste of him layered over whiskey, and to breathe him in until her head was spinning and she couldn’t hold any more. She wanted to feel him, the cool silkiness of his long hair sliding over her skin and the taut ripple of his muscles beneath her fingertips. And she wanted to press her cheek against his chest and feel his heart pounding hard and fast. For her.

Then she wanted to rip off his clothes so she could touch and lick and nibble and do all the things she’d imagined doing when she should have been thinking about something else. Something safe.

She must be crazy. And, she decided as the steady drumbeat of her desire became louder and more insistent, that was probably for the best.

Crazy people had a right to do crazy things. In fact, it was almost an obligation. It was up to them to counteract the sort of controlled, reasonable person she used to be, to shake things up and keep the world from sliding into monotony. The best part was that they couldn’t be held accountable after the fact. It was the law. Not guilty by reason of insanity, Your Honor. Even the temporarily insane were given a pass.

Maybe that’s what this was, temporary insanity. Maybe if she left right then and got a good night’s sleep, she would be her old self in the morning. The self that knew better, the self that didn’t take chances or act impulsively or daydream about ripping off men’s clothes.

That’s what she would do. She would stop staring into Gabriel Hazard’s eyes; she would forget those amazing amber flecks mixed in with the gray, flecks so small you had to get really close to him to see them. She would forget all about amber flecks and obscenely long eyelashes black as soot. She would snap out of it and pull herself together and go home. And life would go on as planned.

Temptation resisted.

Status quo maintained.

Disaster averted.

On the other hand, if this really was temporary insanity, it might be best to wait it out. Driving while crazy could be dangerous. The smart, sensible thing to do might be to stay off the roads and let nature take its course and then get on with her life as planned.

Maybe it was because, to a crazy woman, temptation was just opportunity dressed up in racy black lingerie, but for reasons she didn’t want to examine just then, Eve decided that’s what she would do, she would play it smart and stay. With that settled, it seemed only natural that she should be the one to make the first move.

She lifted her hand to touch Hazard’s face and he caught it in midair.

“What are you doing?” he demanded. His usually smooth voice had gone all low and gritty.

The real Eve wanted to say “I don’t know” or “Oops, sorry, my hand slipped,” but the real Eve wasn’t driving this bus and that’s not what came out of her mouth.

The response that came out, in a tone that matched his, was, “I’m making the first move.”

Hazard’s eyes narrowed. “That would be a mistake.”

“I know,” said the crazy woman at the wheel. “But I’m tired of waiting for you to do it.”

Surprise flashed in his eyes, and the barest hint of amusement.

“You do understand that nothing good can come from this?” he asked. Rhetorically, since even as he said the words his grip on her arm gentled and his thumb began to slide back and forth across the inside of her wrist.

Eve might have nodded. She wasn’t sure. His touch brought a drift of pleasure as light and buoyant as champagne bubbles, and she went with it happily.

“I have nothing to offer you,” he warned. “No pretty words. No promises. Not even tomorrow.”

“You have what I need,” she told him. “You have tonight.”

“One night?” He regarded her solemnly, his full bottom lip curling with what might be regret. “You deserve so much more.”

“Yes. I do. So you better make it memorable.”

His smile was slow and wicked.

“I shall do my best,” he promised, pulling her close with a quick, hard tug.

Eve stumbled, but it didn’t matter because Hazard caught her with his body. And then he took control.

He put his arms around her, one hand cupping the back of her head, the other at the small of her back. She wasn’t petite, or delicate, but that’s how he made her feel as he easily tipped her back just enough so that her weight was resting on his arm. Eve wound her arms around his neck purely for pleasure and not because she had the slightest fear that he would let her fall. He didn’t press or push, he leaned, he nudged, he guided. He had moves that must have taken all of his two hundred years to perfect.

When her hair fell back, he lowered his mouth to the hollow below her ear. His breath was warm against her skin, but she shivered anyway as he slid kisses over her throat and jaw, edging closer and closer to her lips, always slowly, too slowly, so slowly impatience made her skin prickle and her breath come fast, and even with all that rapid breathing it seemed not enough oxygen was reaching her brain. Or maybe it was getting too much oxygen; she tried to think which of the two it was that made you lightheaded.

Then at last he was kissing her lips and there was an explosion inside her and she didn’t think at all. She felt. She’d heard the expression “zero to sixty in six point seven seconds”; that was her, her sensory speed shot from zero to sixty . . . to a hundred . . . faster . . . in the time it took his tongue to find hers.

Sensations collided and tumbled through her, all of them new and exciting. It was the heady, consuming feeling she had the first time she saw him multiplied by a zillion, like being caught in a storm that was raging inside and out. There was heat in her belly and sparks danced along her nerve endings; it was more stimulation than she’d ever felt, more than she’d known she could feel, and it still wasn’t enough.

The woman in her understood that he was a man who—if he wanted to—could make her knees buckle as elegantly and effortlessly as he held the door for her, a man who would take the time to seduce her one . . . small . . . slow . . . step at a time, if that’s what she wanted. It wasn’t. Her senses were humming, racing, sending the frantic beat of her heart echoing all through her . . . more, more, more.

Craving him, she drove the kiss deeper, lifting into him hungrily, urgently, resisting when he tried to raise his head to speak.

“Slow down,” he whispered against her mouth.

Eve shook her head. “No. I don’t want slow . . . or gentle . . . or safe. I want it hard and fast . . . and now.”

He did lift his head at that, enough to see clearly the expression in her eyes. His own were shaded with doubt. “You’re sure?”

“Very.”

He smiled that smile again, only this time it was fast and wicked.

In one fluid move, he went from holding her in his arms to grasping her by the shoulders, kissing her hard and pushing forward until Eve felt the wall at her back. And she was thankful for it when he took his hands from her shoulders. Knees buckling now.

Lifting his head, he grasped the hem of her yellow silk T-shirt and dragged it off her. His gaze immediately dropped to her breasts, to where her heavy breathing made them swell above the lacy bra that was also yellow. For a fraction of a second the bright color seemed to captivate and please him; he traced the top edge of one cup with his fingertip. Then he was once again all lusty fervor.

He stared into her eyes, not with doubt this time, but with intent, his own eyes more black than gray, and ravenous, as he slid one hand over her shoulder and behind her to free the tiny hooks more quickly than Eve could have done it herself.

Slipping one finger under each narrow strap, he pulled it off, baring her from the waist up and watching her face the whole time, which somehow made it all the more erotic. She trembled as his gaze slowly moved lower.

His mouth flexed and his breath caught, she knew it did, as he cupped his hand beneath one breast. He swirled the side of his thumb around her nipple until it peaked. Then he bent and did the same with his mouth, and Eve felt heat and dampness and the full blooming of desire between her thighs.

She moved her hips restlessly; she couldn’t stop the soft moan that rose from deep inside her and she didn’t care. The raw passion that she’d ignored and denied for so long, maybe forever, was seizing its moment in the sun and overriding all of her that was cautious and self-conscious.

When Hazard used his teeth to nip the sensitive tip of her breast, a thrill shot through her and he did it again, harder, and shoved his hips against hers, pinning her to the wall, thrilling her with the proof of how badly he wanted her.

“Fast enough for you?” he asked.

Eve opened her eyes, her head tipped back against the wall, and met his gaze.

“No,” she uttered, and grasped fistfuls of his shirt somewhere in the vicinity of his shoulders, tugging and twisting until it was his back against the wall.

He didn’t resist. Leaning back, he was the perfect height for her to settle her thigh high between his with a rocking motion that made him jerk and suck in a quick, sharp breath. Heady with power, she slid her palms slowly down the front of his shirt, feeling the heat and muscle beneath the soft fabric, thrilled by the rapid thud of his heartbeat. She opened one button and pressed her lips to the base of his throat; his pulse jumped and so did hers. Lifting her head to look into his eyes, she slid her hands up under his shirt and touched him the way she’d imagined doing. The light coming from a lamp behind her bathed him in intriguing shadows that danced as she inched her hands lower to caress him with ever bolder strokes. His skin was warm and firm, and there was a narrow strip of silky hair that started a few inches above his belt and disappeared beneath it. It was a trail far too enticing for Eve to resist following, especially knowing she may never be this crazy again.

She quickly opened his belt buckle and lowered his zipper. Hazard’s head shot back against the wall with an audible bang. His chest lifted as he dragged in a long, ragged breath and held it.

Eve pressed her fingers against his rock hard belly and slid them lower. He was hard there too, and hot, and when she took him in her hand, a fierce, savage need shot to life and ripped through her. It clawed at her already battered restraint and roared in her ears.

She was still able to hear Hazard groan, “Oh God,” and bang his head against the wall a second time in the heartbeat before he grabbed her at the waist and spun them so that they were right back where they started, except this time they were both half-naked and panting and wild-eyed.

“My move,” he half said, half grunted.

Eve braced her hands on the wall on either side of her to keep from swaying as he took hold of her skirt from the bottom and worked it up over her hips, bunching it at her waist until there was no more room to bunch.

He murmured with surprise and delight when he discovered all she was wearing underneath were the pretty yellow panties that matched her bra and covered about an inch and a half of her flesh.

Even that was too much for him to be denied. Eve gasped, startled, when he dipped his shoulder and lifted her off her feet with one very strong arm. She clung to him as he used his free hand to strip her panties off with amazing skill and agility; then he set her back down and slipped his hand between her legs and touched her, revealing a gift far more amazing.

Eve gripped the wall and gladly let him have his way. With the hand not driving her mad and making her whimper, he stroked the curves of her hip and waist and breasts. His mouth closed hungrily over hers, swallowing the sounds she made, his tongue pumping inside her in slow, evocative thrusts that made her want one thing only . . . want it badly and right away.

“Now,” she pleaded, grabbing his hips and moving against him. “Now.”

Hazard was torn.

The habits of several lifetimes and everything he believed were commanding him to slow down, hold back, play gently. It was folly to rush a woman, even a woman pleading to be rushed, especially a woman pleading to be rushed if that woman was Eve. He knew intuitively that her life was as lacking in romance as it was flowers from male admirers. He couldn’t fathom why it was so—the tastes and proclivities of modern men often baffled him—but he knew it was that way. And he knew that if anyone needed and deserved to be courted and wooed, it was Eve

The trouble was that, competing with those noble commands, rising from a darker, more primitive place inside him, were demands that were selfish and urgent and carnal. They clamored for him to act, to seize, to give her what she wanted, as hard and fast as she professed to want it . . . as hard and fast as he knew he wanted it.

Whatever nobility was in him was already hanging by a very thin thread when she suddenly dipped her head and bit his lip and snapped the thread altogether.

He grabbed and lifted her.

She wrapped her legs around him, tightly, and slid lower, slowly.

He held his breath, concentrating on sensations, diligently, skillfully, like a master safecracker listening for the perfect alignment of tumblers, and when he felt her soft, wet heat open to him, he thrust up and into her, filling her and fueling the desire that was driving him through a spiraling tunnel toward release and the safe, sweet darkness of oblivion beyond.

It had been so long . . . so long . . . and never like this.

He felt her moving with him, her hunger and excitement a perfect match for his own.

And when their gazes met and locked, her eyes mirrored the same wonder he felt, the same passion that was surging inside him.

She was with him, both of them inside the same storm, both riding the same blessed, merciless wave.

When they were almost there, she reared up and tossed her head back, radiant with beauty and power . . . power that ignited the air around them. He could taste it on his tongue and feel it scorch his skin.

And just before they crashed, in that final, fleeting, endless speck of time, he sensed it winding around them, pulling them even closer together, a gossamer ribbon of quicksilver, piercing and flowing through her and into him.

Unless the man you tangled with is Hazard.

With Hazard in charge, Eve found herself back on solid ground, supported by his strong hands at her waist until it was certain her legs weren’t too wobbly to hold her. Before she could stutter a single syllable, her skirt was unbunched, her shirt and bra were in her hands, and Hazard’s back was to her as he attended to his own buttoning and zipping.

He finished before she did—probably because he didn’t have himself as a distraction—and walked over to a recessed steel panel on the wall near the bar. He passed more time fiddling with buttons and dials and soon the music of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata streamed from a half dozen small speakers mounted close to the ceiling.

Interesting, she thought, no photos, no tchotchkes, and not so much as a stale cracker in the kitchen, but there was a state-of-the-art sound system and a small distillery’s worth of top-notch whiskey. Boys will be boys . . . no matter how many centuries old they happen to be.

Once she was dressed, she looked around and found her purse.

“Do you mind if I use the bathroom,” she asked Hazard.

“Not at all. It’s just down the hall on—”

“The left,” she finished for him. “I remember.”

“Of course.” He snagged her hand as she walked by and held onto it. When she turned to look at him, he used his other hand to smooth her hair back from her face and then stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers.

“So soft.” It was as if he were talking to himself. His deep voice was pitched low; it blended with the music and Eve had to strain to hear. “I’d forgotten how soft skin can be . . . I hadn’t realized how much I’d forgotten . . . how much there was to forget.”

“Maybe it’s time to start remembering,” she told him.

His mouth crooked in a faint smile, but his gray eyes were somber. For a second she thought he was going to say something else, but he only lifted her hand to his lips to kiss the back of it and then he let her go.

Her hand tingled all the way to the bathroom.

The man definitely had a gift. Several actually, as evidenced by the delicious, lingering hum of nerve endings in other strategic places on her body. She knew many well-mannered men, well-mannered by twenty-first-century standards anyway, and she couldn’t name one capable of pulling off a hand kiss with a fraction of Hazard’s effortless grace. He raised gallantry to an art form.

Which is why the sudden change in his behavior was so unexpected and confusing.

When she returned to the living room, he was half sitting with one leg hitched up on the back of the low-slung sofa, a glass in his hand.

He lifted the glass toward her. “Whiskey?”

“No, thanks. I only drink whiskey when I’m going into shock,” she explained in an attempt at humor.

“Perhaps you’d prefer a glass of wine? Something intense and complex but ethereal . . . a Prosecco would suit you, I think.” The words were polite enough, solicitous even, but there was an unmistakable coolness in his tone, as if someone had stopped by in the three minutes she was out of the room and told him she was a serial killer. “Or tea . . . a soothing cup of tea. Or chocolate.”

Wine? Tea? Chocolate? She thought about the barren kitchen. Was it possible he had another kitchen tucked away somewhere? Or a wine cellar?

“Wine would be lovely,” she replied, trying not to sound uneasy even though that’s how he was making her feel.

“Yes, it would,” he countered. “We could settle ourselves here on the sofa and snuggle. You could tell me that you’ve never done this sort of thing before; I could tell you that no other woman in my considerable past compares to you.” He took a serious swallow of whiskey. “Unfortunately for you, Enchantress, I don’t have wine here. Or anything else you might want or need or deserve. And I refuse to feel guilty about it.”

Is that what this was about? Some misguided notion of chivalry? Maybe she shouldn’t be surprised. It was entirely possible that his attitudes were as old-fashioned as his manners.

“There’s no reason you should feel guilty,” she assured him. “I’m a big girl, Hazard. I knew what I was doing.”

“Did you?” He eyed her with open skepticism. “Could you possibly?”

“I’m not looking for promises, if that’s what this is about.”

“Good. I told you I had nothing to offer you and I meant it.”

“And I told you that we had tonight and that was enough. And just for the record, the night’s not over.”

His jaw clenched and his gaze hardened. “It is for me.”