The Pirate & The Adventurer & The Cowboy

demanded.

    "Could we discuss something else? Your voice is rising. If you're not careful, you'll wake Mom and Connor. Their bedrooms open onto this courtyard, too."

    The last thing she wanted was for anyone to overhear this particular conversation. Margaret reluctantly lowered her tone to a fierce whisper. "What did you think you were going to do, Rafe?"

    "Move our thrilling reconciliation up a few months," he told her wryly.

    "You're impossible." She didn't believe for a moment that was all he would have done. It was becoming very clear that Rafe had never stopped thinking of her as belonging to him during the past year. Only the knowledge that he'd been celibate during that entire time himself kept her from going up in flames over the matter.

    "Tell me you missed me, Maggie. Just a little?"

    She shook her head mutely.

    "Admit it," Rafe urged, moving a little closer in the water. "Give me that much, honey."

    "No." The single word was a soft gasp of dismay. He was only inches from her now. His hands were on either side of her, trapping her.

    "You remember how good it was, don't you, love?" He kissed her fleetingly again, closing the distance between them until there wasn't any at all. "I didn't go looking for anyone else because I knew it would be useless. You knew there wasn't anyone else for you, either, didn't you?"

    "Oh, Rafe." She muttered his name in a soft cry that was part protest, part acceptance of a truth that could not be denied.

    "Yeah, Maggie, love. You do remember, don't you? A whole year, sweetheart. A year of pure hell."

    Margaret felt his leg slide between hers as his mouth came down to claim her lips. She felt her breasts being softly crushed against his chest. The hot, sweet rain of passion too long denied swept through her, pooling just below her stomach. Rafe was the only man who had ever been able to do this to her, the only one who could bring her to such shockingly intense arousal with only a look and a kiss and a touch.

    Nothing had changed.

    "Maggie, love, this time we'll make things work between us." Rafe's mouth moved on hers, gliding along the line of her jaw up to the lobe of her ear. He bit gently, tantalizing her with a pleasure that was not quite pain. "Just give me a chance, sweetheart. I'm going to prove it Everything is going to be different this time around. Except for this part. No need to fix this, is there?"

    He was right about one thing, Margaret thought. This part was still very, very good. Slowly, with a growing sense of inevitability, she felt herself sliding back into the magic world of sensuality that she had shared all too briefly with Rafe.

    "Let me love you, Maggie. Let me hold you the way I used to hold you."

    "Back when I was your mistress?"

    He shook his head, his gaze suddenly fierce. "I never thought of you as a mistress. You were the woman I was going to marry. I knew that from the first day I met you."

    "Your mother said I would make a better mistress for you than I would a wife and I think she may have been right."

    Rafe's head came up abruptly. "What the devil are you talking about?"

    "Never mind. As you said a minute ago, it's not important."

    "Maggie, stop talking in riddles."

    "I've got a better idea," she suggested softly. "Let's not talk at all." She put her arms around his neck as she made her decision. Heaven help her, she did not have the power to deny herself a night in Rafe's arms. "You were right, Rafe. This part was always very good." She brushed her lips lightly across his and felt his shudder of response.

    "Maggie, love." Rafe's voice was a husky groan. "Are you telling me the waiting is over?"

    "I want you, Rafe. I never stopped wanting you."

    Rafe's mouth closed over hers once more, hard and passionate and filled with a year's worth of pent-up need. Margaret felt his hands moving on her under the water, relearning the shape and feel of her.

    His tongue surged between her lips as his fingers slipped under the edge of her swimming suit bra. She gasped as she felt his thumbs slide over her nipples.

    "Rafe?"

    "Not here," he muttered. "Too much chance of an audience. I'm taking you back to my room."

    He hauled himself up onto the tiled edge of the pool with easy strength, then reached down and lifted her up beside him. Margaret looked up into his dark eyes and saw the undiluted hunger there. She felt the answering ache of desire within herself and knew she was still in love with Rafe Cassidy.

    You'd make him a better