sleeping bag on the floor.
I stood there, dripping and steaming, and said, "You're kidding."
He didn't open his eyes. "You've said that to me before. Do I really look that funny?"
"Bastard." I flopped down on the bed again, squirmed under the covers, and stripped off the towel beneath. "You made me get up for nothing."
"No," he corrected. "Now you're clean and you'll sleep better."
He turned over on his side, away from me. I wondered if he was naked inside the sleeping bag, growled in frustration, and put a pillow over my face. Suffocation had no appeal. I took it off and said, "You can bring your sleeping bag up here, you know. Beats sleeping on the floor."
He didn't answer for a few seconds, long enough for me to experience total rejection, and then he turned over and raised himself up on one elbow to look at me.
I expected some quip or some question, but he just looked. And then he flipped open the sleeping bag, slid out, and walked over to the bed.
He hadn't lied. Pajama bottoms. They rode low on his hips.
I folded back the covers. He got in. I lowered my head to rest on the pillow, still watching him, and he rolled up on his left side to face me.
Some sane part of my mind was telling me that this was just some guy I'd picked up on the road, for God's sake, some guy who could be a rapist or a killer, and that part of my mind was completely right and completely wrong. I knew him in places that had nothing to do with my mind.
"Turn on your side," he said. I did, feeling like I was already dreaming. The slide of sheets felt cool and soothing on my overheated body.
I could feel him warm at my back, not quite touching. He put a hand on my hip, slid it gently up.
I couldn't breathe.
He put his fingers at the base of my neck and drew them lightly down the curve of my spine, all the way down. I felt my muscles contract and shiver, and I wanted to stretch like a cat against him; it took all my control not to do it.
If I'd been melting inside before, I was boiling now.
"I'll have to call a penalty," he said. His voice sounded far away. "You're not even wearing a T-shirt. Definitely a violation of the rules."
His fingertips followed the curve of my hip again.
The tacky room had dropped away, and it was just the two of us, suspended in time and silence. There were no rules for this, none that I'd ever known. Just instinct. I started to turn toward him, and his hand spread out, holding me in place. His breath was warm on the back of my neck, his lips barely touching skin.
"You're afraid of me," he whispered. His hand moved into the demilitarized zone of my stomach. "Don't be afraid."
It wasn't him-I was scared of myself. I was tired, vulnerable, frightened, lonely, desperate. I couldn't trust my own senses, much less . . . whatever this was. Whoever he was.
I hadn't thought about the Mark for hours, but now I could feel it moving inside me, turning restlessly as if it hungered as much as I did. Oh, God, I couldn't concentrate enough to hold it back, not with him so close, so warm.
"Shhh," he whispered, even though I hadn't made a sound out loud. His hand moved again, gently, tracing a line of fire from my stomach up between my breasts. Flattened out over my heart. "Be still."
I felt a lurch inside, a chill, a burst of heat.
The Demon Mark stopped moving.
"How-?" I blurted, and instantly stopped myself from asking. I didn't want to know. There was so much here I didn't want to know, because if I knew, then I would have to move away from him, give up this warmth, this beautiful peace.
"Shhh," he said, and his lips touched the back of my neck. "No questions, no pain, no fear."
I glimpsed something then, just the edges of something vast and powerful, and I almost knew-
His hand moved again, gliding down, drawing my mind away from what it chased in the dark. His fingers brushed gently over my aching nipples, settled back on my stomach.
"You should sleep," he whispered. As if I