Witchcraft

Milly put in with serene confidence. "After all, he's the head of the family. It's his duty to hold things together." Kimberly said nothing but for some reason she happened to catch Starke's eye as he looked up from the newspaper he was reading across the room. She wasn't certain she could read the message in his quiet eyes but she thought she saw approval there. "A man trying to hold things together for everyone else," Starke murmured softly, "needs a woman who can understand him and occasionally protect him from all that responsibility." There was an embarrassed silence among the three women in front of the fire. Starke appeared oblivious to it as he went back to reading his newspaper. "By the way," Aunt Milly announced forcefully, as if to distract everyone from Starke's comment, "Ariel said to tell you that she's ready to tell your fortune, Kim. She'll give you a reading tomorrow."
    "I'll look forward to it." Kimberly replied ruefully, knowing there was no polite way to escape the promised session. "She's very good at card reading, you know," Aunt Milly went on chattily. "She even predicted you'd be returning with Dare." Julia laughed. "The whole household predicted that. We all know where he'd gone and why. I was the one who answered the `=-«/' phone that day you hung up, Kim. When I told Dare, he seemed to know immediately it was you. Why didn't you stay on the line?"
    "I had a few second thoughts."
    "Well, I'm certainly glad you're here now," Aunt Milly intoned. "You're going to be very good for Dare." At ten o'clock Kimberly excused herself and climbed the stairs to her room. Cavenaugh , who had long since returned to the living room to read the paper, said a polite good-night. She felt his eyes on her as she made her way up the staircase. And in that moment she was very certain she knew exactly what was going through his head. He was remembering the passion they had shared that afternoon. Well, Kimberly thought, so was she. An hour later she heard the door to her room open. It was a small sound in the darkness, a sound fraught with inevitability. Turning sleepily in bed she stared at the shadowy outline of the man who stood on the threshold.
    Her voice was a soft, husky whisper as she greeted him. "Hello, Cavenaugh ." Without a word he closed the door behind him and walked across the room to stand looking down at her in darkness. Although she could not make out their emerald color in the shadows, Kimberly could see the way his eyes gleamed. She sensed the hunger in him because it was much the same as her own. Kimberly held out her arms and he went to her with a heavy groan of need and desire.

CHAPTER SIX.
    Cavenaugh lay watching the dawn stream through an uncertain cloud cover and lazily contemplated the sense of satisfaction that permeated his body. He felt good. More than that, he felt great. He couldn't remember feeling quite like this ever in his life. It was as though something vital had been missing in his world and now he had it in his grasp. He would be a fool to let it go. But he was also, he discovered, a very greedy and possessive man. He didn't just want to warm himself beside the fire that was Kim. He wanted that fire to engulf him. Beside him Kimberly shifted as she began drifting awake.
    Her bare foot brushed against his leg and the curve of her hip was pressing his thigh with unconscious invitation. Cavenaugh told himself it was probably adolescent or, at the very least, ungentlemanly to wake up in a state of semi-arousal but here he was, doing exactly that. And all because of the woman beside him. With the practical approach of his sex, Cavenaugh had decided to stop trying to figure out why this particular woman exercised such power over him. He wanted her; he needed her. Having possessed her, it was now impossible to even think about the possibility of giving her up. And he could make her want him.
    That thought brought a savage satisfaction. She was like hot, flowing amber in his arms, clinging to him as she surrendered to the intimate demands of his body and her own. Yet he lost himself in her even at the moment when he claimed her most completely. It was a paradox which, being male, he decided not to waste time analyzing. It was the way things were and he was content to accept the situation. He was old enough and intelligent enough to realize that a relationship such as this came along once in a lifetime if a man was very, very lucky. Only a fool would question it or analyze it to