ax, what are we going to do with Sam’s money?” Lola asked from the passenger seat of the Jeep. To be on the safe side in case they were stopped, he’d told her to change into the skirt and bandeau she’d worn earlier.

“What do you want to do with it?”

She looked over at him as she pulled off her half boots. “Give it to charity,” she said, and tossed them in the back. “Maybe we should shove it in a mail slot at some church.” She unzipped her jeans and they soon joined her boots. She cast a quick glance at Max’s profile as she wiggled into her python skirt. Still all business, he kept his gaze on the road.

The hair on the backs of her arms tingled and her heart continued to pound in her chest. Stealing back those photographs had been one big adrenaline rush, and something she never wanted to experience again. Unlike Max, she was not cut out for black missions and undercover operations. For walking in the shadows and blowing up safes. She just wanted to breathe normal again.

A bead of perspiration rolled between her cleavage as she pulled her turtleneck over her head. “How much was in the safe?” she asked, then drew her arms through the bandeau and adjusted it over her breasts. When he didn’t answer, she looked up at him, and through the dark interior of the Jeep, he was finally looking back.

He gave her a quick once-over, starting at the top of her head and sliding to her breasts. But his gaze got stuck on her skirt riding up her thighs perilously close the crotch of her thong underwear.

“Not sure,” he answered as if he were distracted and trying to figure out the exact color of her panties. “Maybe a thousand.”

“He probably made that money off my naked pictures,” she said as she gathered up her shirt. She raised herself to her knees on the seat and turned around. With her python-covered behind in the air, she reached around back and did her best to shove everything in her suitcase. After she’d zipped it closed, she turned back around and pulled down her skirt. Although there wasn’t all that much to pull. She slid her feet into her sandals and lowered the visor to look at herself in the lit vanity mirror. “I think some good should come out of the profit.” She finger-combed her hair and smoothed her eyebrows.

“Are you wearing thong underwear?”

“Yes, were you peeking?”

“Peeking? You make it sound as if you weren’t doing your best to show me.”

She flipped the visor back up and looked at him. “I wasn’t trying to show you.” Of course, she hadn’t been not trying to show him, either.

“You were practically waving them in my face.”

“You’re twisted.”

“And you’re a tease.”

Neither of them spoke again until after Max had stopped the Jeep in front of an old stone building with ivy growing up one side. Lola watched him pull his leather gloves back on, grab the cash from the rucksack, and run up to the door. He shoved the money through the mail slot, and it wasn’t until they were back on the road that she asked him about it.

“What was that place?” she finally broke the silence.

“Light House Urban Ministry,” he answered, and tossed his gloves on the floor by her feet. “They supply inner-city kids with school supplies and tutoring. They have a great mentoring program.”

He couldn’t have surprised her more if he’d told her he was a priest. “You’re a mentor? What do you teach them to do, blow up their school?”

“Very funny, Lola.” He shook his head. “I just send a little money now and then.”

Probably more than a little, she thought. On the heels of that thought came a question. “Why don’t you want children, Max?”

“Who says I don’t?”

“You did, when we were on the Dora Mae.”

Street light slid across the lower half of his face as they moved through the city. “I’d make a lousy father.”

“Why do you say that?”

He shrugged. “I’m not home enough.”

Lots of fathers weren’t home much. “Weak excuse. What’s the real reason?”

“The real reason?” He gave her a quick glance, then returned his gaze to the road. “I don’t want to disappoint a child, and I would. I grew up that way, waiting for promises that usually didn’t come true. I used to wait for my dad to come home and take me fishing or to a movie or just to sit and watch the tube, but it never happened. He’d always make grand promises about the things he and I would go do someday, and the weird thing was, I’d always believe him. No matter how many times his promises fell through, and ninety-nine percent of the time they did, I believed him anyway.”

Now she felt bad that she’d called him twisted and she reached over and laid her hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Max.”

“Don’t be sorry. You asked and I told you. I have hundreds of stories just like it. Each one a bit more pathetic than the last.”

“I think you would make a wonderful father. The best kind. The kind that would make a child feel safe and secure.”

He looked at her hand, then ran his gaze up her arm to her face. “Axe you trying to tell me something?”

It took her a moment to understand what he wanted to know. “No. No! I told you I have an IUD.”

“Have you had your period yet?”

Well, he certainly wasn’t shy, and she pulled her hand away from his shoulder. “Yes, a few days after I returned.”

“Thank you, Jesus!”

His relief was so obvious, so tangible that it felt as if he’d slapped her. Right now a baby wasn’t a good idea, but he didn’t have to behave as if he’d just been given a reprieve. “You don’t have to act like it would be a fate worse than death.” She folded her arms beneath her breasts and looked out the window. At the lush woods and the other cars on the road. She’d been trying to make him feel better and he’d made her feel like a loser. “I’m not that bad.”

“You’re not bad at all.”

“Gee, thanks.”

The Jeep pulled into the drive of a brick town-house, and Max reached above his head and hit the switch to open the garage door. The front of the townhouse was ablaze with light on the first and second floors as if someone were home.

“You still planning to fly out at noon tomorrow?” Max asked as the garage door shut behind them.

“Yep.”

He grabbed her suitcase and his rucksack from the backseat, and she followed him up a set of stairs and through the dark kitchen. Porch light poured through a window above the sink, and she got a vague impression of old wallpaper and worn linoleum before Max led her down a narrow hallway to the front parlor. The velvet maroon drapes were drawn closed and a single bulb burned from the hanging ceiling fixture of heavy pink glass. The wood floors appeared to have been recently refinished, but only half the walls had been stripped of the red and gold brocade paper. The newer blue-and-beige-striped furnishings and oak tables appeared totally out of place in the half-finished room.

“Make yourself comfortable,” Max said as he knelt in front of a woodstove that had been inserted in the original fireplace. Lola chose to kneel beside him as he lit the kindling. Within a few short minutes, he’d built a roaring fire, and together they fed the flames with everything they’d taken from Sam’s house.

Max handed Lola the photographs that had caused her so much grief and embarrassment, and one by one, she tossed them in the stove. Each wisp of smoke curling from the pictures and negatives seemed to take ten pounds of weight off her shoulders, turning her burden to ash. She was free. Finally. Thanks to Max.

Max shut the door on the fire raging within the stove. No man had ever risked so much for her, and she wondered how she would ever make it up to him. “You never did tell me how I can repay you for what you’ve done for me tonight.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He stood and helped her to her feet. “You don’t owe me anything. After tonight, you can finally be rid of me.”

Be rid of him? The thought of never seeing Max pressed in on her chest, and only after his words ripped at her heart did she realize that somewhere between the time he’d kissed her at the Foggy Bottom and now, Lola had fallen completely in love with him. Or perhaps it hadn’t happened tonight at all. Maybe she’d fallen in love with him the day she’d opened her front door and he’d been standing on her porch with a toothbrush in his hand.

Or perhaps it had happened even before that. Onboard the Dora Mae when he’d held her during the storm, or the night they’d sped toward Florida in a drug runner’s boat and he’d made sure she’d been wrapped in the only blanket. Or maybe she’d fallen in love with him a little bit each of those times until it was so deep it cut clear to her soul.

He wanted them to go their separate ways, but she couldn’t imagine not having him in her life. She opened her mouth to tell him what was in her heart, but her throat got clogged up.

Seeing her struggle, he asked, “What is it, Lola?”

She shook her head as if she didn’t know. But she did. Standing beneath the glow of that tacky pink light fixture, she knew that falling in love wasn’t supposed to hurt so much or be this scary. “Max,” she began, and placed her hand on his chest, “I don’t want to get rid of you. Please, I thought we were friends.”

Air rushed from his lungs as if he’d been hit in the stomach. He looked down at her hand resting on his chest and whispered on a heavy breath, “Friends? Jesus, are you torturing me on purpose?”

Lola looked up into his face, his black hair and brows. The deep furrow at the bow of his top lip and beautiful mouth. “Being with me is torture?”

“Yes,” he answered on a strangled groan. She took a step back, but he pulled her against his chest and said next to her ear, “Being near you is the worst kind of torture. I’m obsessed with you. The smell of your hair and the touch of your skin. When you’re near, I’m afraid of losing control.”

It wasn’t a declaration of love, but it was so close it fed her hope and warmed her heart. “I want you to lose control.”

His fingers brushed her bare back above her bandeau. “Honey, that is one thing you don’t want.”

“You’re wrong.” She kissed the side of his throat. “I want you to lose control and take me with you.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” He placed his palm against her cheek and pulled back far enough to gaze into her face. “I’m afraid that once won’t be enough. That I won’t be able to stop loving you until one of us is dead.”

She grasped his wrist and kissed the heel of his hand. Then she bit him. “That sounds good to me, Max,” she whispered.

He took her jaw between his fingers, tilted her face up, and lowered his mouth to hers. He pressed kiss upon hot kiss on her lips, then his moist tongue invaded her mouth and spread fire through her blood and warmed the pit of her stomach. She combed her fingers through the sides of his hair and held the back of his head. Standing within the partially refurbished parlor of his home, Lola felt the instant he lost control. The kiss turned hotter, wetter, feeding. He kissed her as if she alone were responsible for the breath in his lungs. He released her jaw and his hands moved over her, up and down her body, touching as much of her as he could. Her arms, waist, and back, above and below her bandeau. Her behind and hips. Grasping her through her skirt and finally working the side zipper until it slid down her legs to her feet.

A deep groan rumbled from his chest and he tore his mouth from hers. Their heated gazes locked, their tangled rasping breaths the only sound in the stillness.

His fists grasped the bottom edge of her top and he pulled it over her head. “This is what you want?” he asked, and dropped it at her feet.

“Yes.” She dug the end of his shirt from his pants and pulled it over his head. His shirt joined hers on the floor and she slid her hands up his bare chest, sliding her fingers though the fine hair. She brushed aside the cool gold chain around his neck, and she placed her open mouth on the side of his throat and sucked. Hard.

“Then you better hang on tight,” he said as he bent at the knees and shoved his shoulder in her stomach. He rose and upended her as if she weighed nothing. “This could get rough.”

“Max, what are you doing?”

“Taking you to bed before I completely lose it and toss you on the hard floor.”

“I can walk,” she protested as he carried her from the room. First one sandal, then the other dropped from her feet.

“Not for much longer.” Then he followed that audacious boast with a kiss on one bare cheek.

She placed her hands in the small of his bare back as he carried her up a set of narrow stairs, past several closed doors, to a room at the back of the townhouse. He kicked the door closed behind them and moonlight poured from the big arched window onto a wrought-iron bed covered in a plaid quilt. He set her on her feet, and she stood before him wearing nothing but her purple bustier bra and thong underwear.

For an endless moment he said nothing. He just looked at her, his gaze going all sleepy with lust as he tossed his wallet and a black pager on the bedside table. Then he unlaced his boots and dropped them on the floor. “It’s a good thing I didn’t know what you were wearing beneath your clothes at that bar.” He pushed his pants to his feet, then he shoved them aside with his socks. “I had a hard enough time keeping my hands from diving down that top and giving Scooter a pleasant memory.”

She looked down at the satin bows on the front of her bustier. “Do you like this?”

“Yes.” When she glanced back up, he was completely naked and moving toward her. “I like it, and I like you,” he said, and she shivered as he pulled her against his warm body, his penis hot against her bare belly.

His fingers sank in her hair, angling her head back, and he kissed her mouth, her throat, then her mouth again. In between burning kisses, he murmured the things he wanted to do to her. Things that, if she hadn’t wanted him so badly, would have brought a blush to her cheek. Sexually explicit words that left Lola arching her body against his. He shoved his bare thigh between hers and brought her crotch into hard contact with his rigid erection.

“Max,” she whispered as he moved against her, sensation collecting and pooling right there where the tiny barrier of silk was the only thing keeping his hot flesh from hers. His clever fingers worked the hooks on the front of her bustier. One by one he opened them until her breasts popped free. Before the bustier hit the floor, his hands were on her. Touching, possessing, rolling her nipple beneath his palm. His mouth fed her hungry passionate kisses, and he grasped the back of her thigh and urged her leg around his waist. His smooth erection stabbed at the minuscule crotch of her thong, now slick with her desire for him. He slid both hands down her sides to her behind and cupped her bare cheeks, pulling her tight against his body and smashing her breasts against his chest.

With his hands on her behind, he carried her to the bed and fell with her in the center. Max landed on top, pinning her with his weight and desire. He planted two hands by her shoulders and looked down at her, his gaze ravenous with his loss of control. His thin gold medallion swung between them and bumped her chin. She raked her short nails up the corrugated muscles of his belly and sternum, through the short hair on his chest, to his dark flat nipples. His breath left his lungs in a heavy whoosh when she brushed her thumbs across them. “You have a beautiful body, Max.” She pushed his chest until she had him on his back, staring down into his face. Into his blue eyes, narrowed with passion. His strong jaw was clenched, and his mouth was moist from her kisses. “Looking at you makes me go all hot and hungry.” She leaned down and her breasts brushed his chest as she licked his earlobe. “It makes me want to nibble all your parts.”

In a flash, he reversed their position until she was once again on the bottom looking up at him. “Tonight, I nibble your parts.” He kissed her eyelids, her nose, and her jaw. “Starting right here.”

He kissed the sensitive skin in the hollow of her throat and worked his way down. He slid his hot open mouth down the top of her breast, and he licked the tip with his soft tongue. From deep within his chest, she heard his low groan of need and arousal. He sucked one of her hard pink nipples before he palmed the sides of her breasts and pressed his lips to her cleavage. Then he moved to place wet kisses down her stomach, past her navel, to low on her belly. He reached for the waistband of her thong, pulled it down her legs, and tossed it on the floor.

He made himself comfortable between her thighs, then gave her a big moist kiss just above her pubic hair. Hot little tingles spread outward across her flesh as if she’d been zapped with a white-hot current. His touch seemed different from the last time they’d made love. More personal. More possessive. She felt it deeper in her heart and in her soul. It swelled within her chest like a balloon, and she felt as if she might float away.

“Max,” she gasped, “you’re killing me.”

“Not yet.” He moved his lips to the inside of her thigh and shoved his hands beneath her behind. He lifted her to his gaze and simply looked at her. She didn’t think anyone without a doctor’s license had seen so much, and just when his up-close-and-personal scrutiny was beginning to embarrass Lola, he glanced up into her eyes and drew her to his lips. The immediate suction of his warm mouth stole her breath and she grasped the bedding in her fists.

He kissed between her thighs as he’d kissed the rest of her body, with passion and heat, drawing mindless sounds of pleasure from her throat and from his. She closed her eyes as feverish desire pulsed and beat just below her skin, out of control and curling her toes. Max might not know a lot about romance or relationships. He might not be quite as charming as he thought he was, but he knew a thing or two about how to please a woman.

He caressed her with his tongue, pressing into her slick flesh and drawing her into his mouth for a delicious kiss that nearly sent her over the edge. Repeatedly, he coaxed her to the point of orgasm, only to back off and place his open mouth on the inside of her thigh. Each time he took her higher, further, and just when she was about to come apart, he stopped.

When she opened her eyes, he was above her, reaching for his wallet on the bedside table. As if he’d had plenty of practice he tore open the condom and placed it over the head of his penis. He rolled it down the long shaft to the base, then he looked at her, fire and need and greed in his eyes, and she held up her arms for him. Placing one elbow by her shoulders, he kissed her mouth as he entered her body, plunging so fully, he pushed her up the bed. Again and again he delved into her, hard and deep, and she arched up to meet each thrust of his pumping hips. Her choppy breath matched his, over and over, until climax grabbed her in its hot grasp, and she couldn’t breathe at all. Wave after fiery wave rushed across her flesh as the walls of her body gripped and pulsed and tore a raw groan from the depths of his chest.

He cursed in Spanish and English and praised her in the same tortured breath. She clung to him, holding him close as he plunged into her one last time. He collapsed on top of her, and she held him to her. Held him to her heart, which seemed to beat just to love him.

Only after their breathing had returned to normal did Max pull out of her body and leave to use the adjoining bathroom. When he returned, a rectangle of light flooded through the open bathroom doorway and lit up the end of the bed. Max pulled back the quilt and she joined him beneath the sheets. They lay face-to-face and she ran her hand over his wide shoulders and chest. She’d never loved a man the way she loved Max. It felt as if all the love and happiness that had taken place in her life up to that moment had only been a prelude to this. She would not think about tomorrow. She would not ruin what they shared tonight by worrying about an uncertain future.

“Max? Did you mean it when you said you’re obsessed with me?”

He rolled onto his back and brought her with him. “Is this a trick question? Where if I say yes, you accuse me of being a sick bastard, but if I say no, you get hurt and offended?”

She laughed “No. I just always want us to be honest with each other.”

He lifted a brow. “How honest?”

“Completely.”

He pushed a curl of her hair behind her ear. “I’ve developed an obsession for the little throaty sounds you make when I’m loving you.”

“I make throaty sounds?”

“Yep, and I’ve a real fondness for the weight of your breasts in my hands.”

“Max?”

“Hmm?”

She wanted to ask him what he felt for her, not the throaty sounds and the weight of her breasts, but she didn’t have the nerve. She brushed her fingers across the thin gold disk nested in his black chest hair. It was beat-up and she couldn’t see the details very well. “What is this?”

“A St. Christopher. It was my father’s. He gave it to me when I was eighteen.”

“Why eighteen?”

He grinned. “He thought I needed protection from wild women.”

“I might not be Catholic, but I do know that St. Christopher is the patron saint of travel.” She gently tugged on his chest hair. “Not of boys who need protection from wild women.”

“Ouch. Jesus, I think you pulled some out.” He held up her hand in front of his face.

“Don’t change the subject. Why did your father give it to you when you were eighteen?”

He kissed her knuckles. “Besides the clothes on his back, when my father left Cuba, it was all he brought with him. He’d obviously arrived safely, so he considered it lucky. When I joined the Navy, he gave it to me.”

“And you’ve certainly been lucky.”

He laughed against the back of her hand and tiny lines appeared in the corners of his eyes. “Very lucky.”

“I’m not talking about that kind of luck.”

“I am. Do you know what it’s like for a guy like me to be here? With you?”

“No, but I know what it’s like for a girl like me to be here with you.”

“Not the same. You’re so beautiful, and you could—”

She placed her finger over Max’s lips. “I want you.” She placed her hand to the side of his face and looked into his eyes. She loved him so much, it hurt. It just kept swelling in her chest, getting bigger, until she could no longer hold it in. “I love you, Max,” she said on a rush of air.

He stilled and looked at her for a long moment before he very clearly said, “No, you don’t.”

Although she hadn’t known what she expected him to say, that wasn’t it. “I don’t?”

“No. You’re just caught up in the afterglow.”

Incredulous at his response, she raised onto one elbow and stared down at him. “What?”

“It happens after mind-numbing sex. When you’re spent and not thinking clearly.”

“Has it happened to you?”

“No.”

She sat up and held the sheet to her breasts. “Let me see if I have this straight.” She paused for a moment to get her thoughts together because she didn’t want to misunderstand him. Just in case he wasn’t saying what it sounded like he was saying. “You think I said I love you because I’m suffering some sort of mind-numbing afterglow from your superb lovemaking?”

He sat also and looked at her a bit warily, as if he feared she could go off on him at any second. “I think that might have something to do with it,” he said as if he’d been here before.

“Does this happen to you a lot?”

“What?”

“Women falling in love with you because... because...” She paused and pointed toward his middle. “Because you stun them with your wonder dick?” He was so delusional, and it was her curse that she loved him more than ever. It would be so much easier if she didn’t.

He hadn’t told her he loved her. Obsessed with her, yes. Loved her, no. Knowing how he truly felt angered her almost as much as it hurt. “You know,” she said, and threw the covers aside, “you’re extremely insulting. I tell you I love you, and you say I’m confused. Like I’m stupid and don’t know the difference between love and sex. I’m thirty years old; I know the difference, Max.” She moved to his closet and threw open the doors. She flipped on the light and told herself she wouldn’t cry. She felt raw and her chest ached, but to her vast relief, she discovered she was too angry to cry. And feeling extremely foolish for having blurted out her feelings.

“The least you can do is say thank you,” she continued as she rifled through his things. “That’s what I’ve always done when I’ve been in your situation. When someone makes a fool of himself and tells me he loves me and I don’t love him back.” She pulled a black silk robe from the hanger and threaded her arms through it. Lola had suffered a broken heart before, but never like this.

“And for your information,” she said as she turned around and tied the belt around her waist, “I fell in love with you before your performance here tonight. I fell in love with you for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with sex.”

He was sitting up in bed with his elbows on his raised knees, holding his head in his hands. “I don’t think you’re stupid or a fool, Lola,” he said in a voice gone so low she almost didn’t hear him.

“Forget it.” She turned to the closed door of the bathroom. “Forget I said anything. I take it back.” Just as she pulled the door open, he was behind her, slamming it shut.

With one hand planted in front of her face, Max said next to her ear, “You can’t take it back now.”

“Yes, I can.”

“No.” He leaned his big body into her and shoved her up against the door. “I heard you.” His hot breath brushed her temple. “You love me, Lola. I won’t let you take it back. You can’t ever take it back.”

Something in his voice cooled her anger. A deep yearning. An unspoken plea. It was in the depths, if not his words. It was in the hand caressing her hip and sliding around to her stomach.

“Don’t leave.” He leaned his forehead against the door next to hers. “I’m a real bastard, I know, but don’t leave, Lola.”

“I wasn’t going anywhere. I was just going to get my suitcase.”

“Oh.” He eased away from her and she turned and looked up at him.

“Funny, though. When you thought I was leaving, you sure jumped off the bed fast.”

“Charley horse.”

“Sure. I think you care about me more than you want to admit. I think it scares the heck out of you. I know it scares the heck out of me.”

“What scares you?”

She looked into his eyes and said, “That I have fallen in love with you, and there is no future for us. That you burst into my life suddenly only a short time ago. That it’s too fast, too soon, and you will leave the same way you came into my life. I’ll turn around one day and you’ll be gone.”

He shook his head and inhaled deeply through his nose. “Listen, I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow or the day after or next week. I only know that when I’m not with you, I think about you. I’ve never wanted a woman the way I want you. And it’s not just physical.” He placed his hands on the sides of her face. “I love the smell of your skin and the tangle of your hair around my fingers. I love your courage and your tenacity.” He pressed his forehead into hers. “I love being with you, and we’re good together. And I think we’re only going to get better.”

Yes, but for how long? she wanted to ask. The thought of him alone somewhere, getting beaten and shot at, ate a little hole in her heart, but what could she do about it? She couldn’t stop him any more than she could stop loving him.

“I don’t want to let you go,” he said just above a whisper. “I’ve tried and I can’t. The thought of it twists me in a knot.”

“So, don’t let me go.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“I know.” Then she spoke her biggest fear out loud. “I’ve fallen in love with a man who puts himself at risk as if his life is meaningless. But your life means something to me, Max, and I don’t know how long my heart can stand it.”

He closed his eyes and breathed deeply through his nose. When he opened them again, his gaze was filled with passion, and he lowered his mouth and kissed her because there was nothing left to say. He was a man who didn’t make promises he didn’t intend to keep. He tore at the black robe and seemed to touch her all over at once. He worshiped her with his hands and mouth and carried her back to his bed. He made love to her again. This time more desperate than the last, almost frantic, as though, if he kept her in bed, he could keep the world away.

And it worked. Within his arms, and tangled in the sheets that smelled of him, nothing else existed. By the sheer force of his will, he kept reality at bay.

But for how long?