A Will and a Way

helplessly trapped in passion. Helplessly. The sensation shivered over her. She’d never known what it had meant to be truly vulnerable to another. He could have taken anything from her then, asked anything and she couldn’t have refused. But he didn’t ask, he gave.
    She crested wave after wave. Between heights and depths she pinwheeled, delighting in the spin. On the rug with the afternoon light streaming through the windows, she was locked in blinding darkness without any wish to see. Make me feel, her mind seemed to shout. More. Again. Still.
    And he was inside her, joined, melded. She found there was more. Impossibly more.
     
    They stayed where they were, sprawled on scattered clothes. Gradually Pandora found her mind swimming back to reality. She could see the pastel walls, the sunlight. She could smell the body heat that was a mix of hers and his. She could feel Michael’s hair brushing over her cheek, the beat of his heart, still fast, against her breast.
    It happened so fast, she thought. Or had it taken hours? All she was certain of was that she’d never experienced anythinglike it. Never permitted herself to, she amended. Strange things could happen to a woman who lifted the lid from her passion. Other things could sneak in before the top closed again. Things like affection, understanding. Even love.
    She caught herself stroking Michael’s hair and let her hand fall to the carpet. She couldn’t let love in, not even briefly. Love took as well as gave. That she’d always known. And it didn’t always give and take in equal shares. Michael wasn’t a man a woman could love practically, and certainly not wisely. That she understood. He wouldn’t follow the rules.
    She’d be his lover, but she wouldn’t love him. Though there would be no pretending they could live with each other for the next three months platonically, she wouldn’t risk her heart. For an instant Pandora thought she felt it break, just a little. Foolishness, she told herself. Her heart was strong and unimpaired. What she and Michael had together was a very basic, very uncomplicated arrangement. Arrangement, she thought, sounded so much more practical than romance.
    But her sigh was quiet, and a little wistful.
    “Figure it all out?” He shifted a little as he spoke, just enough so that he could brush his lips down her throat.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Have you figured out the guidelines for our relationship?” Lifting his head, he looked down at her. He wasn’t smiling, but Pandora thought he was amused.
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “I can almost hear the wheels turning. Pandora, I can see just what’s going on in your head.”
    Annoyed that he probably could, she lifted a brow. “I thought we’d just met.”
    “I’m psychic. You’re thinking….” He trailed off to nibble at her lips. “That there should be a way to keep our…relationship on a practical level. You’re wondering how you’ll keep an emotional distance when we’re sleeping together. You’ve decided that there’ll be absolutely no romantic overtones to any arrangement between us.”
    “All right.” He made her feel foolish. Then he ran a hand over her hip and made her tremble. “Since you’re so smart, you’ll see that I’ve only been using common sense.”
    “I like it better when your skin gets hot, and you haven’t any sense at all. But—” he kissed her before she could answer “—we can’t stay in bed all the time. I don’t believe in practical affairs, Pandora. I don’t believe in emotional distance between lovers.”
    “You’ve had a great deal of experience there.”
    “That’s right.” He sat up, drawing her with him. “And I’ll tell you this. You can wall up your emotions all you want. You can call whatever we have here by any practical term you can dream up. You can turn up your nose at candlelight dinners and quiet music. It’s not going to make any difference.” He gathered her hair in his hand and pulled her head back. “I’m going to get to you, cousin. I’m going to get to you until you can’t think of anything, anyone but me. If you wake up in the middle of the night and I’m not there, you’ll wish I were. And when I touch you, any time I touch you, you’re going to want me.”
    She had to fight the shudder. She knew, as well as she’d ever known anything, that he was right. And she knew, perhaps theyboth did, that she’d fight it right down to the end. “You’re