“Wait!” he said, grabbing her money off the table and digging frantically for his wallet. “I said this was on me, remember?” He opened his wallet to find a movie ticket stub and two quarters peeping up at him.

Dammit! No time to get cash yesterday and he’d been planning to pay for lunch with a credit card. With a muffled curse, he tossed her money back on the table and started after her.

He caught up with her as she was entering a dingy park across the street. The park was so small it was hardly the width of a city street, with a pitiful swing set and a teeter-totter that looked like it could deal death to unwary toddlers. The sodden sandbox was full of mud and a squatting cat, doing what Jared didn’t want to think about. But the park, he saw with alarm, had one advantage for an ambush: trees pressed in closely on all sides but one and hardly anyone could see them from the street.

“What the hell is going—” was as far as he got before Kara seized his arm, kicked over a park bench and forced him behind it.

“Stay down,” she said firmly, “and out of the way.”

“What am I, your dog? You’re not the boss of me. I—” He trailed off as Kara spun to deal with the accountants who had been following them.

He recognized the men. They had been, he realized, the last customers to take seats in the restaurant.

They must have followed him and Kara right out the door into the park. There were three, all average-looking men with ordinary builds, nice suits and expensive haircuts. Before he could figure out just when Kara had gone crazy and started attacking business executives, he noticed the one closest to her had his hand stiffened in a wicked looking chop. Kara ducked under the blow and kicked the man high up on the ribs. Jared winced as the evil accountant bent, whooshing for breath and cradling his side.

The second one groped in his pocket and whipped out a pen…but it wasn’t a pen, it was a three-foot long antenna that whistled through the air like a blade. Kara reached out, almost casually and at the same time she caught the guy’s wrist, she brought her knee crashing into his groin. But the third one was flanking her, moving past Kara’s sight line and awfully close to Dr. Jared Dean, E.R. resident and pissed-off would-be boyfriend. The creep was going to bushwhack his Kara?

“Mistake!” he yelled, as he shoved the park bench over. It caught bad guy #3 just behind the knees, effectively tumbling him face-first to the damp ground. Jared pounced and in mid-air imagined himself landing on the bad guy’s back, forcing the air out of his lungs and reigning triumphant.

Instead, the man flipped over quick as a snake and as Jared’s knees thudded to the ground on either side of Kara’s assailant, a walloping pain exploded in Jared’s nose.

He clapped both hands to his face, tasting blood and wondering dazedly when the bad guy had had time to throw a punch. As the man reared to a sitting position, Jared brought his head forth in a crude but effective head-butt. Now , he thought with grim humor, there’s two of us holding our faces and thinking about throwing up.

Hard fingers seized his ear and hauled him straight up. “Putz!” Kara hissed, just before she kicked Jared’s bad guy in the chin, snapping his head back into the dirt. Jared looked around blearily and noted with no real surprise that Kara’s two assailants were down for the count.

“Are you talking to me?” he asked thickly, then spat to clear his throat. “And let go of my ear, willya?”

“How did you ever get your medical license if you can’t. Follow. Directions.” Without a look at the unconscious men, she was marching Jared out of the park, across the street, back to his apartment. She never let go of his ear. She never stopped scolding him in a furious whisper. Finally, he reached up and pried her fingers loose.

“Back off, blondie,” he said crossly. “If you expect me to cower behind a damned bench while you get set upon, you need some new medication.”

“I expect you to do as you’re told,” she growled. They were now standing outside his apartment door and Jared fumbled tiredly for his keys. Before he could produce them Kara yanked at her sleeve, produced two thin blades and in about six seconds had his front door unlocked. He realized dazedly that it took him longer to unlock the door with a key than it took her to pick the lock. Three cheers , he thought, for American ingenuity.

She marched him inside, toward the bathroom. “I can’t adequately protect you if you insist on throwing yourself in the path of danger. What’s the matter with you? Any five year-old knows enough to keep his head down and let the other person take the lumps.”

“Bull shit,” he replied politely. He found himself leaning against the sink while she ran warm water in the basin, found a washcloth and gently pressed it to his nose and mouth. The tender motion was a puzzling conflict to her tight-lipped expression, narrowed eyes, and sharp words.

“Where I come from, you don’t let the lady take the lumps. Jeez, what kind of household did you grow up in, any—” He made himself stop talking and stared at her. She was tending to his face and wouldn’t look at him and no wonder…Kara hadn’t exactly been brought up in the be-kind-to-children-and-animals mode.

“Putz,” she said again and he silently agreed.

A long moment passed, then he caught her wrists and gently took the washcloth away from her. “I can do that. And quit manhandling me, will you? Don’t make me kick your ass.”

She snorted and he continued. “Listen. I get that you’re truly angry with me. I couldn’t figure out why until right now—you truly feel it’s your job to get hurt and mine to stay safe?” She said nothing. “The thing is, I see us as more of a team.”

“We’re not a team. I’m never in a team,” she said fiercely and tried to take the washcloth away from him. He held it high above her head, out of reach.

“Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but bullshit.”

“I can’t keep you safe if you’re not going to listen,” she said flatly. She gave him a disgusted look as he dangled the washcloth out of her reach, as if saying: You don’t really think I’m going to jump for that, do you?

“Well, I won’t stay safe if it means you’ll get hurt. Period. The end. The fat lady singeth.”

She stared at him. “You're an idiot.”

He raised an eyebrow at her and sponged the rest of the drying blood off his face. The nosebleed had stopped a few minutes ago, luckily. “I don’t want to see you get pounded, ergo I’m an idiot? What, you’ve never hung around with one of the good guys before?”

“I’ve never hung around with a moron before,” she muttered, looking away.

He caught her chin and gently forced her to look at him. “In all the excitement,” he said mildly, but his heart was starting to pound, “I forgot to thank you for kicking some major ass on my behalf.”

He leaned forward to kiss her and to his amazement and pleasure she met him more than halfway. She tenderly licked his sore upper lip, then her tongue slipped past his teeth and suddenly he was tasting her, devouring her, holding her tightly against his chest and kissing her with all the passion and excitement she had called up in him from the moment he first saw her.

Jared, who’d been sure the infatuation was one-sided, thrilled to feel Kara’s hands slip under his shirt, her fingers brushing across his nipples and sliding through his chest hair.

He cupped her skull in his hands tenderly, carefully, as if holding a Faberge egg, precious and priceless.

He pulled at the clip keeping her hair up. Suddenly the rich blonde waves were tumbling past his hands.

He groaned and buried his face in her hair.

“Oh we can’t,” she said in one breath, then nipped at his ear with her small teeth.

“We hardly know each other,” he agreed with a groan and kissed her throat. He brought his hands down to her waist, across her taut stomach and up under her t-shirt. He closed his eyes and rubbed his face against her hair like a cat, for Jared Dean was a pure sensualist and nothing was more delightful to him than the feel and smell of a woman’s skin and hair.

He explored her body as a blind man would, bringing his palms across the muscles in her abdomen, sliding up, marveling at the sleek power contained in her body. He found her bra and—joy!—realized the clasp was in front; with one sure tug the fabric parted and her breasts were in his hands. He groaned again at the sheer joy of it, of her. Firm and sweet and fitting exactly into his palms, he caressed the tender undersides with his knuckles, then brought his thumbs to her nipples. She moaned and pressed against him as he stroked the stiff peaks then kissed him so hard his lips flattened against his teeth. He had time for a dazed thought—did I ever think this woman was a cool one?—before she was tugging at his shirt so hard, he could hear the buttons popping off and clattering on the bathroom tile.

“That’s right, you’re strong, rip our clothes off, rip all of our clothes off,” he mumbled in delirious joy,

“take me, I’m yours,” and her soft laughter brought a silly, pleased grin to his face.

She started to lean forward to kiss his now-bared chest, but he stopped her long enough to pull her shirt over her head. Her bra straps were sliding off both shoulders but he couldn’t take the time to help her out of it; he was transfixed by the perfection of her upper body. Slim, yet sleekly muscled, with proud, high breasts, her nipples were the dark pink of prairie roses and he would have gladly traded his medical license for a taste. Praise all the gods who ever were, he didn’t have to. He kissed one, then licked, then sucked, pressing the nipple to the roof of his mouth and tightening his grip at her sigh.

His arms were around her waist then slid lower to cup her firm buttocks and pull her gently against his groin. She pushed back and he loosened his grip at once, but to his delight, she wasn’t pulling away, just trying to get more room…it was then that he noticed his nimble-fingered Kara had gotten his fly unbuttoned and his zipper down without him noticing.