Mind Over Matter

side of her mouth. “I’m not planning on getting much sleep, anyway.”
    Her body was a mass of nerve endings waiting to be exploited. Exploitation led to weakness, she reminded herself. And weakness to losses. “I don’t spend the night with men.”
    “You do with this one.” He brought his hand up, tracing as he went until he cupped her throat.
    If she was going to lose, she’d lose with her eyes open. “Why?”
    He could have given her quiet, persuasive answers. And they might have been true. Perhaps that’s why he chose another way. “We haven’t nearly finished with each other yet, Aurora. Not nearly.”
    He was right. The need was screaming through her. That she could accept. But she wouldn’t accept being pressured,being cajoled or being seduced. Her terms, A.J. told herself. Then she could justify this first concession. “Let go of my hands, Brady.”
    Her chin was angled, her eyes direct, her voice firm. She wasn’t a woman, he decided, who could be anticipated. Lifting a brow, he released her hands and waited.
    With her eyes on his, she brought them to his face. Slowly her lips curved. Whether it was challenge or surrender he didn’t care. “I wouldn’t plan to sleep at all tonight,” she warned just before she pulled his mouth to hers.
     
    The room was still dark when A.J. roused from a light doze to draw the covers closer. There was an ache, more pleasant than annoying, in her muscles. She stretched, then shifted to glance at the luminous dial of her clock. It wasn’t there. With her mind fogged with sleep, she rubbed a hand over her eyes and looked again.
    Of course it wasn’t there, she remembered. She wasn’t there. Her clock, her apartment and her own bed were miles away. Turning again, she saw that the bed beside her was empty. Where could he have gone? she wondered as she pushed herself up. And what time was it?
    She’d lost time. Hours, days, weeks, it hadn’t mattered. But now she was alone, and it was time for reality again.
    They’d exhausted each other, depleted each other and fed each other. She hadn’t known there could be anything like the night they’d shared. Nothing real had ever been so exciting, so wild or desperate. Yet it had been very real. Her body bore the marks his hands had made while he’d been lost in passion. His taste still lingered on her tongue, his scent on her skin. It had been real, but it hadn’t been reality. Reality was now, when she had to face the morning.
    What she’d given, she’d given freely. She would have no regrets there. If she’d broken one of her own rules, she’d done so consciously and with deliberation. Not coolly, perhaps, but not carelessly. Neither could she be careless now. The night was over.
    Because there was nothing else, A.J. picked his robe up off the floor and slipped into it. The important thing was not to be foolish, but mature. She wouldn’t cuddle and cling and pretend there had been anything more between them than sex. One night of passion and mutual need.
    She turned her cheek into the collar of the robe and let it linger there for a moment where his scent had permeated the cloth. Then, securing the belt, she walked out of the bedroom and down the stairs.
    The living room was in shadows, but the first tongues of light filtered through the wide glass windows. David stood there, looking out, while a fire, freshly kindled, crackled beside him. A.J. felt the distance between them was like a crater, deep, wide and jagged. It took her too long to remind herself that was what she’d expected and wanted. Rather than speak, she walked the rest of the way down the stairs and waited.
    “I had the place built with this window facing east so I could watch the sun rise.” He lifted a cigarette and drew deep so that the tip glowed in the half-light. “No matter how many times I see it, it’s different.”
    She wouldn’t have judged him as a man drawn to sunrises. She hadn’t judged him as a man who would choose a secluded house in the hills. Just how much, A.J. wondered, did she know about the man she’d spent the night with? Thrusting her hands into the pockets of the robe, her fingers brushed cardboard. A.J. curled them around the matchbook he’d stuck in there and forgotten. “I don’t take much time for sunrises.”
    “If I happen to be right here at the right time, I usually find I can handle whatever crises the day has planned a little better.”
    Her fingers closed and opened, opened and closed on