Eclipse Bay

shot to her feet. “I had a crush on you. Every girl in Eclipse Bay did.”
    “That’s supposed to thrill me?” He was suddenly on his feet, too, although he had no recollection of getting out of his chair. “To know that for you I was just the interesting bad boy with the bike and the leather jacket and the dangerous rep? The kind of guy your parents always warned you about? The kind of guy it might be amusing to fool around with but definitely not the kind you would ever marry?”
    A fresh tide of hot color rose in her face. He could have sworn he had embarrassed her. Good. Served her right. But her gaze did not slide away from his.
    “How did you know what kind of man I’d marry?” she asked evenly.
    “You told me that night, remember? You were only nineteen and you already had your damned list of requirements for a husband made out.”
    “I was twenty, not nineteen, and I swear, if you mention that list one more time—”
    He reached for her. He closed his hands around her shoulders and hauled her up against his chest. “As far as I’m concerned, I don’t care if I never hear about that damned list of yours again for as long as I live. Furthermore, I’m not real keen on hearing about your new, updated version of it, either.”
    “Uh, Rafe, you’re acting a little weird here. Maybe the stress—?”
    “Yeah. Maybe.”
    He covered her mouth with his own, letting the fierce tension that was eating him up inside pour into her. She made a soft, muffled sound, and then her arms closed tightly around him and she was kissing him back with all the passion that had infused her anger a few seconds earlier.
    “My God,” he muttered against her throat. “Do you have any idea of the scare you gave me tonight?”
    “Scare?” Her own voice was muffled because she was frantically kissing his jaw. “Why were you scared?”
    “First, because I thought maybe the reason you weren’t answering the door was that you were with some other man.”
    “No. Really?” She went very still. Then she pulled back slightly and looked at him with wide, fascinated eyes. “You were actually afraid that I might be in bed with another man? Did you think that I might have a few old flames of my own here in Eclipse Bay?”
    “Let’s not go there.” He refused to be sidetracked again by that possibility. “My other big fear was that you’d gone for a walk with Winston and fallen on the rocks.”
    “Like Kaitlin Sadler?”
    “I wasn’t thinking of Kaitlin,” he said bluntly. “All I could think about was you.” He wrapped his fingers around the back of her head. “Lord help me, I haven’t been able to concentrate on anything else except you since I got that letter from the lawyer.”
    “Don’t give me that.” Fresh outrage erupted. “If you’ve been concentrating on me, it’s because I’m connected to Dreamscape. You have to deal with me before you can get your hands on my property. That’s why you suddenly started focusing on me. Admit it.”
    He cast about briefly for the words he needed, but he could not find them.
    “We both want the same thing for Dreamscape,” he said finally. “We ought to be able to work together.”
    “And sleep together?”
    “We both want that, too. I really don’t see the problem here, Hannah.”
    “Probably because you’re thinking like a Madison.”
    “You know something?” he said through his teeth. “I’ve had it with you implying that just because I’m a Madison, I can’t handle a sexual relationship and a business relationship simultaneously.”
    “I’ve had it with you classifying our relationship as sexual .”
    “Well, what would you call it?”
    She stilled. “I don’t know.”
    “Fine. Great. That’s a lot of help.”
    She raised her chin. “I just know that for me there has to be more than sex.”
    That stopped him cold. “More?”
    “And don’t you dare tell me that a business partnership will fill in the empty places,” she added icily.
    He was annoyed. “I wasn’t going to say that. That sounds like something a Harte would say, not a Madison.”
    “If I’m not allowed to insult your family, you can’t insult mine.”
    “Sure, right. Take all the fun out of the argument. Damn it, Hannah, I’ve had enough of this. You know that what we’ve got is more than just a sexual thing. I want you. I think you want me. Can’t we just go with that for now?”
    She put her hands on his shoulders as if to steady herself. “I don’t understand