"Thank you."

Despite the fact that she'd been f**king him like a wild woman in the shower not five minutes ago, she sounded just as prim, just as innocent as she had the night before.

He was about to tell her how mind-blowing f**king her was when she made a sudden sound of dismay.

"My clean clothes are all back in my room."

"They were delivered last night."

"When? I didn't hear anyone knock on the door." Her eyes went big. "Oh no. They didn't come while we were..."

Cole barely hid his grin in time at her clear embarrassment. Still, he couldn't stop himself from teasing, "Come to think of it, we were pretty loud last night." He lowered his voice, made sure she held his gaze. "Especially when you were begging me to make you come."

Her face flamed again and he had to press a kiss to her sweet mouth.

"You're too easy, sweetheart."

Shooting him an irritated glance, she said, "I'm going to get dressed."

After she'd left the bedroom, Cole realized it was the first time he'd been alone since last night. Normally, when he was done f**king, he couldn't wait for the woman to go home and leave him alone. But even though Anna was only a room away, even though he could hear her unzipping her suitcase and pulling out clothes, she was too far away.

He didn't just want her in the same room.

He wanted her in his arms.

As he dressed, Cole forced himself to face what had happened on their wedding night, despite how much he'd rather keep his head in the sand over what Anna was making him feel.

Of course he'd wanted to give her pleasure. And he'd taken the responsibility she'd given him to show her true pleasure seriously. But at the same time, he'd been fighting against the strange feeling in his chest--a warmth he'd never felt for any other woman--and had thought that tying her up and doing kinky things to her would put some separation into sleeping with her.

But it had backfired.

Big time.

Because even as she'd been begging and pleading with him for release, he'd been the one dying. Just thinking about the way she'd been naked and stretched out and bound and blindfolded--and so damn sweet, through it all--had him hard again.

Because he hadn't known it could be like that either.

And he wasn't just talking about the sex.

Cole hadn't known he could feel that close to anyone.

Not until he'd met Anna.

Chapter Seven

"My grandmother is probably going to ask you all sorts of questions, like how we met.

Let's change around a few of the details."

Still trying to catch her breath from the way Cole was shooting through the streets of Las Vegas in his sports car as if he were trying to win a race, Anna somehow managed to get a reply out through her clenched teeth.

"Which details?"

Cole shifted gears again and knocked the air she'd just sucked in back out of her lungs.

"Most of them. I'd like to get our story straight before we get to the hospital."

They hit a straightaway and she was finally able to think clearly enough to hear the warning bells clanging in her head. A hundred questions shot through her mind all at once. She started with, "We need a story?"

His face was the picture of innocence--her first clue that something wasn't right. Until now, Cole had been nothing but wicked. And she'd loved every second of it. Innocence looked all wrong on him.

"My grandmother is from a different generation and I think it might be easier for her to accept our relationship if she thinks it's more than a quickie Vegas wedding."

The words quickie Vegas wedding grated at her, made her feel like nothing more than a cheap slut all of a sudden.

"Are you saying you want me to lie to your grandmother?"

A muscle jumped in Cole's jaw and his hand tightened on the gear shift. "Look, Anna, she's really sick. Stage four melanoma."

"Oh, Cole." Even though what he was saying wasn't sitting right with her, she had to put her hand over his, had to try to give him comfort.

"She raised me. Took care of me when anyone else would have put themselves first. All she's ever wanted is for me to be happy. To have a good life."

"She sounds amazing."

"She is. That's why I've got to fulfill her dying wish, Anna."

There was no logical reason for her to feel as if ice had just settled over her heart. Not when she was out in the middle of the desert with a man who had taught her the true meaning of pleasure. All she wanted was to rewind an hour, to go back to being in Cole's arms beneath the covers.

"What's her dying wish?"

Cole looked as tense as she'd ever seen him. "Jesus, there's no good way to say this." He grimaced, blowing out a hard breath. The muscles along his forearm were taut. "She wanted me to fall in love with a good girl. So I told her that I already did and that I was going to bring you to meet her this morning."

An icicle speared her chest, going so deep that for a moment she half expected to find blood on her shirt.

Pulling her hand from his, she turned away from him and focused her gaze on the flat road. His words from the night before came back at her: Perfect. My sweet little schoolteacher.

"Oh my God, that's why you picked me last night."

"Anna, sweetheart, don't take it like that."

She whirled to face him, her seat belt cutting into her skin. "Don't take it like the truth, you mean? God, I'm so stupid. So unbelievably, idiotically stupid. Of course you wouldn't have come over to me without an ulterior motive. You could have had anyone in that club." Her throat swelled, caught on her next words. "But you had to find a good girl for your grandmother--and I was the only one in the room wearing a halo."

Without warning, Cole drove off the side of the freeway into the dirt, causing a huge dust storm all over his previously shiny car. "Fine, so I picked you out of the crowd because you looked innocent." He was clearly angry, frustrated. "But that doesn't change what happened between us last night. That doesn't change the fact that we can't keep our hands off each other."

"Wrong. It changes everything."

"No. It doesn't change this."

He had their seat belts off and his mouth on hers so fast she couldn't stop her reaction to it, couldn't stop her tongue from mating with his, couldn't stop her whimper of desire from sounding into his car.

"Last night you said you didn't know it could be like this. It isn't, Anna. Not with anyone else. It's never been this hot. It's never been this good. Just with you."

She had to force herself to push away from his seductive words, from the heat that was wrapping itself around her all over again. The pain of what she'd just learned still spreading through her chest helped.