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her eyes.

      Passion tightened Mark’s features. He pushed inside her, filling her until she gasped.

      “I want you,” he growled.

      “Please.”

      Mark told himself this was a mistake, but it was a little late now. As he pushed into Darcy’s tight body, he groaned. She felt too good—hot, slick, ready. If only she hadn’t looked at him as if she’d never before seen a man she wanted. If only he hadn’t noticed the swell of her breasts earlier that afternoon. If only she hadn’t responded like a starving person enjoying her first meal in weeks.

      Remember what happened last time, he told himself, as he continued to push inside her. But this was different, he argued silently. No, she was a woman with secrets. He knew better.

      Damn. She pulled him close and kissed him. As their tongues circled and danced, he felt himself losing control. She kissed better than anyone he’d ever been with. It’s just sex, he told himself as he slipped toward the edge.

      “Mark,” she breathed, then gasped.

      He felt the shudder of her release. It was more than he could resist. With a gasp of his own, he went over the cliff and began his journey to paradise.

      Chapter Four

      Darcy didn’t have the luxury of waiting until the morning after to feel like an idiot. No, she got to feel stupid the second Mark straightened, pulling out of her body. There she was, naked as the day she was born, half sitting, half lying on her sofa while a strange man pulled up his trousers and zipped them. He hadn’t even taken off his clothes.

      Color flooded her face. She wanted to run and hide, but there was no easy way to extricate herself from the sofa. Plus there was the whole naked thing.

      Frantically she looked around for something with which to cover herself. The sofa didn’t offer many ideas. Mark must have noticed her distress, because he picked up his shirt and draped it over her, then rose to his feet. Something very like chagrin darkened his green eyes.

      “Darcy, I—” He broke off and rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t do this sort of thing enough to know what to say.”

      “Me, either,” she said, pulling on the shirt and buttoning it. She assumed they were discussing the suddenness of the encounter, and not the fact that they’d made love. Somehow Mark didn’t strike her as sexually inexperienced. Could the situation be more awkward?

      “I don’t usually…that is I’ve never—” She pressed her lips together and wished she could simply fade into the fabric of the sofa.

      He crouched in front of her and brushed the hair from her eyes. “I know. This isn’t your style. Mine either. I guess we were both caught up in the moment.” One corner of his mouth quirked up slightly. “Must have been all the tofu in the potatoes.”

      “Must have been.”

      He dropped his hand to his side. “Are you okay?”

      No!

      She held in the word. “I’m not upset, well, not that much. It’s just, I don’t know. Too weird, I guess. I barely know you. We’re not even dating.” She swallowed and wanted to die. “Not that I’m hinting we should date, it’s just…”

      She looked away, hating what he must think of her. That she was cheap and easy. She wasn’t—she’d never been that way. If she tried to explain about her life, he might start to ask questions and what was she supposed to say about Dirk? Talking about her brother was hardly post-lovemaking material.

      He stood, then bent over and grabbed her clothes. Darcy took them gratefully. She pulled on her panties, then rose and quickly pulled on her slacks. There was a really awkward moment when she had to hand him back his shirt, then slip on her bra and sweater all while trying to keep from thinking about him watching her. Which was crazy. The man had just touched about every significant body part she owned. Modesty was coming a little late to help.

      When she was dressed, she forced herself to look at him. He stood with his hands shoved into his slacks pockets. Tension filled his body—a body that she had touched, that had entered hers. The memory of what they’d done to each other made her study the carpet again.

      “I don’t know what to say,” she admitted.

      “Do you want me to apologize?”

      She stared at him and wished she knew what he was thinking. “Are you sorry?”

      “No.”

      “Then don’t apologize.”

      “Fair enough.” He shifted his weight. “I’m guessing it’s probably time for me to go.”

      She winced. “Of course.” She headed for the door.

      He followed her, then surprised her by bending down and kissing her cheek. “Thank you. That was an amazing experience.”

      “Um, yes well, for me, too.” Despite her embarrassment and lingering horror at her impulsiveness, she couldn’t complain about the physical aspects of their lovemaking. Mark had been amazing.

      “I’ll call you,” he said.

      “Don’t say that.” She forced herself to smile at him. “It’s kind of a button for me. You don’t have to call.”

      “What if I want to?”

      “Then just do it, but don’t tell me you’re going to. If you do, I’ll obsess about it and when you don’t call, I’ll try to figure out what I did wrong. Two weeks later I’ll finally remember that it’s not my problem, it’s yours. But I don’t need the emotional down time.”

      “There’s nothing wrong with you,” he said earnestly. “You’re an incredibly attractive, sexy woman.”

      “As true as that may be, your gender can be stupid. So don’t tell me you’re going to call. Okay?”

      “Deal.”

      He stared at her. She gazed into his green eyes, trying to memorize everything about him. Because she didn’t have a doubt in her mind that except for incredibly stilted conversations at the diner, she wasn’t going to see him again.

      “Bye, Darcy. Thanks for the dinner.”

      She opened the door and he stepped into the night. She gave a quick wave as he hurried toward his own apartment. She got the door closed and was halfway to the kitchen when reality slammed into her with all the subtlety of a runaway dish tray hitting the floor.

      She and Mark had just had sex. Unprotected sex.

      Darcy leaned against the dining room wall. No. That couldn’t have happened. She wasn’t that stupid, was she? After five years of trying to get it right, she couldn’t possibly have blown it. And for what? Thirty minutes of hot, wild, incredible sex? If she had a craving, couldn’t she just stick to chocolate?

      Still calling herself fifteen different kinds of moron, she crossed to the calendar and counted days. Okay, the pregnancy issue didn’t seem to be a problem, but there were other considerations. For one thing, where exactly had Mark Kincaid been putting his handsome self? For another, even if her body got through this unscathed, what about her emotional well-being? One-night stands went against everything she believed in. She prided herself on being a thoughtful, intelligent, organized woman who made informed choices. She hadn’t gotten through all the hell of the past few years by jumping into bed with every pretty face who asked.

      Why had she allowed a juvenile crush on her good-looking neighbor to overwhelm her good sense? And what was she supposed to say to him the next time she saw him?

      

      Darcy turned off the alarm two minutes before it was scheduled to go off. She stared at the time. Four fifty-eight. She figured she’d gotten maybe two hours of sleep the whole night. Worry and self-recrimination had kept her awake most of the

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