Passion by Marilyn Pappano

sight of the ashtray made him long for a cigarette—he’d been smoking them by the carton in the last
     few months, at least until he’d heard the news about Simon. Then smoking had become too nervous a habit, and he was already
     nervous. Already edgy. He didn’t need anything to add to it.
    The only other furniture in the room was a dresser with a TV bolted to it, mounted on a black swivel base. Automatically turning
     it toward him, he pulled out the button that turned it on. The audio came on immediately, but the picture, like a giant Polaroid
     shot, developed slowly. It was snowy and ghostly, but even with the bad reception, it was easy enough to recognize the show,
     a replay of “New Orleans Afternoon.”
    Without hesitation, he pushed the button and shut it off again.
    Teryl had stopped at the foot of the more distant bed. She stood there, still holding her suitcase, as if awaiting further
     instructions. She needed aspirin, she’d said, and something to drink and a bathroom. She also needed food—which hecould get from the convenience store across the street, even if it was just packaged honey buns or more candy bars—and sleep.
     If that weary, bruised look was anything to judge by, she needed rest as desperately as he did.
    Sleep she would get. Rest he wasn’t so sure about. Somehow he doubted that she would be able to relax enough to get any real
     rest until he had been removed from her life and put away, preferably someplace with iron bars, strong locks, and soft, padded
     walls.
    With a dispirited sigh, he moved away from the door toward the closer bed, leaning across it to turn the air conditioner to
     high, then freeing the pillows from the spread. As he did, she abruptly broke her silence.
    “I’d like to take that bed.” Her thoughts so easily readable in her brown eyes, she offered what was meant to be a logical
     excuse for her request. “That way the air conditioner won’t be blowing directly on me because I’ll be more or less under it.”
    “You get cold easily?”
    “Y-yes, I do.”
    He glanced at her over his shoulder as he began stripping the covers off. “Right. I was in your room last night, sweetheart,”
     he reminded her. “It was cold enough to make ice… only you weren’t cold at all. You were hot.” He remembered just how hot—hot
     enough to brand, hot enough, it seemed when he had entered her, to steam—and felt his body respond. He felt the tension pooling
     deep in his belly, felt the hunger licking through him with a fiery rush.
    She remembered, too, with a flush that heated her face, that spread down her throat to the soft, fair skin above her breasts.
     She had flushed like that last night, he recalled, the first time she had come, and the second and the third. Passion had
     tinted her face, her throat, and her breasts, had given her swollen nipples a rosy hue, had made her so damned hot that they
     had sizzled where they’d touched.
    She remembered.
    And he would never forget.
    Neglecting his task for the moment, he turned toward her.“Teryl…” His voice was husky, his tone too damned obviously an appeal.
    She stiffened and avoided looking at him. “Please… I just want…”
    She didn’t finish, but he could think of several possibilities.
I want to be left alone. I want to sleep unharmed. I want to be safe. I want to come out of this with my life and my sanity
     intact. I want to forget I ever met you. I want to forget last night ever happened
.
    There were any number of possibilities, except the one he would most like to hear.
I want you
. His actions this morning had guaranteed that he would never hear that from her.
    “You just want the bed closest to the door,” he said grimly, trying to ignore the need inside him. “The closer you can get
     to the door, the less distance you’ll have to cover on your way out and the better your chances of escaping once I fall asleep.”
     Leaning over, he grasped the edge of the mattress and half lifted,