It was easy to enjoy. The fast, open car on the curving road, the shadowy moonlight and the sea-flavored air. And it was easy to enjoy him, this man who drove with a natural, confident flair, who played the radio too loud, who smelled of the night and all its secrets.

Turning her head, she studied his profile. Oh, she would have enjoyed running her fingers over that angular face, testing the shape of the bones, brushing a touch over that clever mouth, perhaps feeling the slight roughness of his chin. She would have enjoyed it very much.

So why did she hesitate? Though she'd never been promiscuous or seen every attractive man as a potential lover, she recognized the deeper desire to be his. And she had seen that it was to happen before much longer in any case.

That was her answer, Morgana realized. She would always rebel against being destiny's puppet.

But surely if she chose him for herself, if she kept the power in her own hands, it was not the same as being led by fate. She was, after all, her own mistress.

"Why did you go into town tonight?" she asked him.

"I was restless. Tired of myself."

She understood the feeling. It didn't spring up in her often, but when it did it was unbearable. "The script is going well?"

"Pretty well. I should have a treatment to send to my agent in a few days." He glanced toward her, then immediately wished he hadn't. She looked so beautiful, so alluring, with the wind in her hair and the moonlight sprinkling over her skin, that he didn't want to look away again. It wasn't a wise way to operate a moving vehicle. "You've been a lot of help."

"Does that mean you're through with me?"

"No. Morgana, I—" He stopped and swore, catching himself a moment after he passed her driveway. He backed up and turned in, but left the motor running. For a moment he sat brooding in silence, looking at the house, where only a single window glowed gold and the rest were black as pitch.

If she asked him in, he would go with her, would have to go. Something was happening tonight. Something had been happening since the moment he'd turned and looked into her eyes. It gave him the unsettling feeling that he was walking through someone else's script and the ending had yet to be written.

"You are restless," she murmured. "Out of character for you." On impulse, she reached over and switched off the ignition. The absence of the engine's purr had the silence roaring in his head. Their bodies brushed, and the promise of more sizzled hot in his gut. "Do you know what I like to do when I'm restless?"

Her voice had lowered, and it seemed liquid enough now to slide over his skin like mulled wine. He turned to see those vivid blue eyes glowing with moonlight. And his hands were already reaching for her. "What?"

She eased away, slipping from his hands like a ghost. After opening her door, she walked slowly around to his side, leaned down until their lips nearly touched. "I take a walk." With her eyes still on his, she straightened and offered a hand. "Come with me. I'll show you a magic place."

He could have refused. But he knew if there was a man who wouldn't have stepped from the car and taken that offered hand he had yet to be born.

They crossed the lawn, walking away from the house where the single light glowed, and entered the mystic shadows and whispering silence of the Cyprus grove. Moonlight flickered down, casting eerie silhouettes of the twisted branches on the soft forest floor. The faintest of breezes hummed through the leaves and made him think of the harp she kept in her drawing room.

Her hand was warm and firm in his as she moved forward, not with hurry, but with purpose.

"I like the night." She took a deep breath of it. "The scent and the flavor of night. Sometimes I'll wake in the dark, and come to walk here."

He could hear water on rock, a steady heartbeat of sound. For reasons he couldn't fathom, his own heart was thudding relentlessly in his chest.

Something was happening.

"The trees." The sound of his own voice seemed odd and secretive in the shadowy grove. "I fell in love with them."

She stopped walking to eye him curiously. "Did you?"

"I was up here on vacation last year. Wanted to get out of the heat. I couldn't get enough of the trees." He laid a hand on one, feeling the rough bark of a trunk that bent dramatically away. "I'd never been much of the nature type. I'd always lived in cities, or just outside them. But I knew I had to live somewhere where I could look out of my window and see these trees."

"Sometimes we come back where we belong." She began to walk again, her footsteps silent on the soft earth. "Some ancient cult worshiped trees like these." She smiled. "I think it's enough to love them, appreciate them for their age, their beauty, their tenacity. Here." She stopped again and turned to him.

"This is the center, the heart. The purest magic is always in the heart."

He couldn't have said why he understood, or why he believed.

Perhaps it was the moon, or the moment. He knew only that he felt a stirring along the skin, a fluttering in his mind. And, from somewhere deep in memory, he knew he'd been here before. With her.

Lifting a hand, he touched her face, letting his fingertips trace from cheek to jaw. She didn't move, not forward or away. She only continued to watch him. And wait.

"I don't know if I like what's happening to me," he said quietly.

"What is happening to you?"

"You are." Unable to resist, he lifted his other hand so that her face was framed, a captive of his tensed fingers. "I dream about you. Even in the middle of the day I dream about you. I can't turn it off, or switch the scene around as I'd like. It just happens."

She lifted a hand to his wrist, wanting to feel the good, strong beat of his pulse. "Is that so bad?"

"I don't know. I'm real good at avoiding complications, Morgana. I don't want that to change."

"Then we'll keep it simple."

He wasn't certain if she had moved, or if he had, but somehow she was in his arms, and his mouth was drinking from hers. No dream had ever been so stirring.

Her tongue toyed with his, tempting him to plunge deeper. She welcomed him with a moan that sizzled in his blood. At last he pleasured himself by tasting the long line of her throat, sliding his tongue over the pulse that hammered there, nibbling the sensitive flesh under her jaw, until he felt the first quick, helpless shudder pass through her. And then he was diving, more deeply, more desperately, when his mouth again met hers.