He pulled her toward him and kissed her and the taste of herself on his mouth coupled with the fierce plunging between her thighs jolted her into another orgasm; she whimpered into his mouth. His tongue thrust past her teeth, demanding, possessing, insisting, his hands were hard on the back of her neck, forcing her to him, keeping her to him and she wanted more, needed more, but finally it was too much, too intense and she broke the kiss and buried her face in his throat. He cradled her head gently and then stiffened and she could feel his muscles lock as he at last found release.

They stayed pressed together for some minutes, too sated to venture conversation, but Kara started a silent countdown and couldn’t help but smile when the inevitable wisecrack came: “You realize that as my bodyguard, it’s completely unethical for you to be sexually harassing me like this? I’m lodging a complaint with the union.”

“I knew you’d find a way to spoil this,” she said, but she didn’t mean it. ‘This’ had been nothing special, not at all, merely an instant treasured memory to be taken out and lovingly explored some time in the future when she was alone again. “Am I too heavy? Should I get off?”

“Yes and don’t you dare move. Christ. As much as I’ve been fantasizing about it, I never thought it’d be so fabulous.”

She giggled into his neck. “You’ve been fantasizing? About me?”

“No, about Granny from The Beverly Hillbillies…of course about you. Christ, don’t you know? You’re all I can think about. Dream about. Wait’ll I tell you what I was reduced to doing in the shower this morning…”

“No thanks,” she said dryly, inwardly thrilling to his words. “And as far as the sex being good, conceit, thy name is Jared. It was good because you’re good.” She laughed. “And it’s obnoxious to immediately start complimenting your own performance.”

“That’s not it at all,” he said, serious for once. She pulled back from his embrace and looked at him.

There was no hidden grin, no teasing glint in his eyes. “It was you. You’re amazing…so beautiful and responsive, although,” he added with a wry smile, “you certainly did your best to hide the fact that you were affected by my surging, tumescent loins—”

“Tumescent means windy,” she said, fighting another laugh.

“—I mean, would it have killed you to scream that I was your love monkey? Maybe claw my back a little?”

She didn’t say anything, just kept smiling. Funny how he had noticed, though. Her control seemed to bother him, though she wasn’t sure why. If anything, he should be grateful for it.

“Next time, maybe,” he said, then leered when she raised her eyebrows at him. “Aw, you know you can’t resist me, baby. Of course, I’ll need a good forty-eight hours to recover…”

She poked him in the ribs, earning a grunt, then snuggled against him again, oddly reluctant to separate from him. Their lovemaking had been marvelous, sublime, but it had solved nothing. They were still ludicrously different, he would still bug out on her the moment things got hairy. But for now…

For now, she thought, I could almost believe in happy endings.

“Oh, Kara,” he sighed, stroking her back, “you really do have to marry me.”

She froze. He felt it at once, but didn’t comment, just kept running his hands up and down her back, trying to calm her with his touch. She would have given anything to know what he was thinking.

Stupid, she told herself. You know what he’s thinking. Unlike you, he doesn’t hide how he feels. He really thinks he loves you, the poor bastard.

O God, she thought in despair, we are in so much trouble .

CHAPTER SIX

He fell asleep with a stupid grin on his face, a grin that absolutely would not fade. He didn’t want Kara thinking he had some sort of “me Tarzan, you Jane, me Jane’s hot love monkey” mentality about what they had shared, so he tried to quit smiling by deliberately calling up terrible thoughts: Famine (Boy, Kara doesn’t eat enough to keep a newborn alive, I should really get her to eat more…), war (Kara would kick some major ass in a war, we should get her into Afghanistan, take care of a few problems that way…), working a 48 hour shift with no intern to help (I wonder if Kara would come to work with me again and hang out for a while?), but she pervaded every rotten thought, making every one of them not so rotten. And now she was sleeping beside him!

She hadn’t wanted to. She’d wanted to get off the floor, get dressed, lock him in his apartment like a barely-trained dog and leave for the rest of the night. To go where, he had no idea…he didn’t even know if she lived in the city. She was obviously rattled by his latest declaration of love and in true Kara fashion wanted to run away from strong emotion, hide until she had everything under control. Jared wanted more.

Seeing he was going to be stubborn, she had sighed and acquiesced and they had crawled into bed together. Kara had dropped off at once—after insisting she be the one to sleep nearest the door, still selflessly looking out for him like the utter sweetheart she was—but Jared was having a little more trouble.

Of course, he hadn’t gotten into a fight, taken out three strong men, broken into a mansion, swung by a pross house and then hotly defended her way of life, all in the space of six hours. All he’d done, as usual where she was concerned, was watch and make wisecracks. Except at the end of the evening, of course.

His smile broadened, remembering. Sliding between Kara’s thighs, seeing her gaze soften as her body welcomed him, had been like coming home and in much the same way someone’s life flashed before their eyes at the moment of death, in that instance their future flashed before his. He saw a wedding, Kara blooming with child, babies, a house in the country. Children blessed with his sense of humor and Kara’s utter fearlessness. He saw…oh, everything he’d ever wanted since he was old enough to realize people could make their own families, their own happiness.

He knew better than to mention any of this to Kara. She got rattled enough when he told her he loved her. He always tried to make it sound like a joke, or hide the phrase in the middle of a sarcastic observation, but she tensed up anyway. No doubt about it—the woman he’d fallen for was big-time damaged.

Now, what to do about it?

Also, his mind whispered to him, annoyed, there’s a contract out on your life.

Right, right, he hadn’t forgotten. Well, actually he had, for hours. Getting to know Kara was infinitely more interesting than worrying about some mob boss who, frankly, Kara could beat the snot out of anytime she liked.

He glanced over at her, able to see quite well thanks to the moonlight splashed all over the room. Kara slept in the nude and her full breasts were peeking out from under the sheet. Her hair was unbound and spread across the pillow and looked as amazing as he had imagined it would. Interestingly, there was a frown wrinkle between her eyebrows and even deep into REMs, she looked like she was thinking hard about how to get out of a trap.

He tucked an arm around her slender shoulders and pulled her toward him and she at once shifted in her sleep and cuddled into his embrace. He smiled again—God, he just could not stop with the grinning—and thought it was telling that Kara didn’t keep any sort of distance between them when she wasn’t consciously trying.

Her thigh was draped across him and the feel of her smooth skin, coupled with the sweet weight of her breasts against his arm, caused an interested stirring between his legs. He forced the thought away. Kara needed her sleep…and so did he.

Now if he could only stop grinning.

* * * * *

Doctors, especially those not long out of their first year residency, often came awake easily. In Jared’s case, Kara’s uneasy stirring brought him fully awake a moment before she cried out in her sleep. The sheets and blankets had twisted around her and she fought them with weak, frantic cries. He shook her shoulder—and dodged as her small fist shot out, missing the side of his face by a hair.

“Kara! Wake up, honey, you’re having one hell of a bad dream.”

“Everybody’s gone!” she cried, thrashing. “They’re gone, I’m all alone again. No! Come back! Come back !” The body was Kara’s, the deadly fists were also hers, but the wailing was that of a child, abandoned. Lost. And Jared instinctively responded to that voice.

“That’s not true,” he soothed, dodging another flailing fist and pulling her into a tight embrace. “I’m here.

You’re not alone. Everything’s all right.” Until she remembers a little more of her training , he thought nervously and knees me in the gonads.

Trembling like a puppy, she shook her head against his shoulder. He was fairly certain she wasn’t awake—not completely—and wondered how old this memory of hers was. Ten years? Twenty?

“They’re all gone,” she said, almost moaned, “and I have to go back. He’ll hurt me. He’s always hurting me.”

Who, Jared wondered with growing rage, was ‘he’? A foster father? A guard at Juvenile Hall? One of the many who had hurt Kara for his own end, then either abandoned her or forced her to run away again.

Only, Jared grimly deduced, to be brought back and shuffled into another foster home, where the cycle could start again. And again. A wretched existence, one that had broken more children than not. It was amazing that Kara had not only survived, but had emerged with her conscience and honor intact.

“No one lays a hand on you while I’m around,” he said, pulling the blankets over both of them, gratified at how she pressed against him, already relaxing back into sleep. “It’s all right. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere. Not ever.”

Not even, he added silently, if I have to handcuff myself to your side for a year to get you to believe I’d never abandon you .

He caressed her breast, felt her nipple stiffen against his palm and stroked slowly, soothingly. She sighed. “Go to sleep,” he murmured, “there’s nothing here to be scared of,” and wondered how the hell he was supposed to go to sleep with a cock that was now wide awake and raring to go. For starters, you could keep your hands to yourself, moron . Sure. He’d stop eating and breathing while he was at it.