Elusive Dawn by Kay Hooper Page B

things like that?"
    Robyn was very tired of conversation. She slipped her arms up around his neck, standing on tiptoe to mold her body against his. "I don't know," she murmured. "Tell me."
    "Robyn..." His mouth unerringly found hers in a fierce kiss of driving need. It was like that first night, when nothing seemed to matter but their mutual desire, their need to touch and go on touching because it was something they couldn't fight.
    Along with the excitement fluttering through her veins, Robyn felt a sense of triumph and exhilaration. She was tired of playing by Shane's rules, and more than a little dissatisfied with the platonic relationship he had imposed on them. Unwilling to make a commitment, she was still fiercely determined to be in his arms, to feel his touch on her reawakened body. She wanted him.
    Her fingers threaded through his hair, her mouth echoing his demand with a heat that matched his own. Shane's hands moved up and down her back unsteadily, shaping her willing flesh and pulling her closer until their hearts seemed to beat with a single pounding rhythm.
    Robyn threw her head back, shivering, as his mouth finally left hers to press hot kisses against her throat. Through half-closed eyes, she stared up at the stars, thinking dimly that they had never seemed so close. She could almost reach out and touch them.
    "Robyn, you're playing with fire," Shane warned hoarsely, his hands defying the protest with increasingly demanding caresses.
    She gasped when one hand closed around a sensitized breast, forgetting the stars for more earthly things. She could feel his thumb probing through the material of her knit top, and she managed to say fiercely, breathlessly, "I hope I get burned!"
    Quite suddenly, her upper arms were gripped in steely hands, and she was held nearly a foot away from the body she wanted so badly to touch. Shane was staring down at her, his jaw taut, his eyes a glittering neon green in the moonlight.
    "But I don't want to be the one to burn you. Don't you understand that?" he asked hoarsely. "I don't want to wake up in the morning and find you gone because you only needed one night. I need more than one night, dammit ! And until I'm sure-"
    Robyn broke the grip of his hands and took a careful step backward. For the first time, she was furious with him. Utterly and completely furious. He was trying to back her into a corner, and she didn't like it one damn bit!
    She was only dimly aware that there was a curious role reversal in the situation. She was taking the "traditional" male attitude, insisting on no strings and no complications. She wouldn't make a commitment while the threat of his hobby haunted her. But Shane wanted more.
    Robyn didn't say a word as she turned and made her way to the top of the steps. There she spun about abruptly to face him. "Tell me something," she requested, her voice amazingly mild under the circumstances. "How many times do I have to throw myself at you before you catch me?"
    With his back to the rising moon, she could make out nothing of his expression. But his silhouette was stiff with tension, and she could see that his hands were clenched into fists at his sides. When he answered her question, his voice was a hoarse rasp in the darkness.
    "As many times as it takes. Until you get it right."
    Robyn's smile showed most of her teeth but was not meant to be taken as amusement. "I'll keep that in mind."
    She turned back to the steps, making her way down them to the hall. Going into her cabin, she flipped on the light, shut the door with unnatural care, and then looked around for something to throw across the tiny room. The only thing she found was her pillow, and that made a disappointingly quiet thump against the wall.
    She ducked under the top bunk to sit on the lower one, leaning against the wall and staring with brooding eyes at the small chests containing her and Shane's clothing.
    How, she wondered vaguely, did one go about seducing a man?
    Oddly enough, she had