Carnal Innocence

ached.
    He wasn’t supposed to ache over a kiss. His head wasn’t supposed to swim when she locked herself around him. He wasn’t supposed to tremble when she moaned out his name.
    He knew what it was to want a woman. It was a natural, pleasurable part of being a man. It didn’t rip at you or carve a hole in your gut. It didn’t make your knees shake until you were afraid you’d fall down on them and beg.
    He felt himself teeter on some high, thin edge. Self-preservation had him windmilling his arms and stumbling back before he could fall. Carefully, he put his hands on her shoulders and drew her away. His brow rested weakly against hers while he struggled to catch his breath.
    Caroline let her unsteady hands stay at his hips. Gradually, through the mist of sensation, she forced her thoughts to surface and hold. It had simply been too long since she’d felt the comfort of an embrace, or tasted genuine desire on a man’s lips. Those were reasons enough to excuse losing herself for a moment.
    But she was back now. The blood was no longer pounding in her head. She could hear the whirl and click of insects, the croak of frogs. The sweet three-note call of a whippoorwill.
    The light was shadowed, caught in that final magic moment between day and night. Already day was losing, ebbing away, and taking the passionate heat with it.
    “I guess we both could’ve been wrong,” Tucker said.
    “About what?”
    “You figuring you wouldn’t care for it, and methinking that once I’d kissed you, I’d sleep better.” On a long breath, he lifted his head. “I gotta tell you, Caroline, wanting a woman’s always been a pleasure for me. Since I was fifteen and Laureen O’Hara and I wrestled off each other’s clothes in her daddy’s barn. You’re the first woman I’ve come across since that monumental day who’s complicated that pleasure.”
    She wanted to believe him, wanted to believe that what he’d felt here was more difficult, more intimate, more dangerous than anything he’d felt before. And because she did believe him, she was frightened enough to shake him off.
    “I think it would be best if we left it alone.”
    His gaze flicked down to her lips, swollen and soft from his. “In a pig’s eyes,” he said mildly.
    “I mean it, Tucker.” A trace of desperation crept into her voice. “I’ve just ended a destructive relationship and have no intention of starting another. And you … your life certainly has enough complications at the moment without adding another.”
    “Normally I might agree with that. You know, your hair looks just like a halo in this light. Maybe I want a shot at redemption. The angel and the sinner. Christ knows, there’s just about that much difference between us.”
    “That’s the most ridiculous—”
    His hand shot out quickly, so quickly she swallowed the rest of her words as it fisted into her hair. This time when he spoke, the mild tone was lined with steel. “Something about you, Caroline. I don’t know what the hell it is, but it eats at me at the oddest times. There’s usually a good reason for a reaction like that. I figure it’ll come out sometime.”
    “My time doesn’t flow the way yours does, Tucker.” She thought her voice was admirably calm, particularly when her heart was thudding in her throat. “In a few months I’ll be in Europe. A quick affair to pass a hot summer isn’t in my plans.”
    The ghost of a smile lit his mouth. “You do make plans. I’ve noticed that about you.” He stepped forwardand crushed her lips under his in a hard, brief kiss that rocked her back on her heels. “I’m going to have you, Caroline. Sooner or later we’re going to have the hell out of each other. I’ll try to leave the timing up to you.”
    “That’s the most outrageously arrogant, despicably male statement I’ve ever heard.”
    “Depends on your point of view,” he said affably. “I meant it as fair warning. But I don’t want to get you so riled up it spoils your digestion.” Clamping his hand over hers, he started back toward the house. Lightning bugs were glinting and dancing in the growing dark. “Why don’t we sit on the porch awhile?”
    “I have no intention of sitting anywhere with you.”
    “Now, honey, you talk like that, I’m going to think you find me irresistible.”
    Her quick hoot of laughter made him grin. “The day I can’t resist some self-styled delta Don Juan—”
    He gave a hoot of his own and scooped her off her feet to