Tessa couldn’t even generate enough saliva to swallow, and her already pounding heart made climbing the two flights to her apartment feel like she was running a marathon.  She could feel him behind her, hear his feet on the squeaky, noisy old stairs, wondering the whole while what he was thinking – that she was too forward, that she pulled every man into her apartment in the wee hours of the morning after spending one afternoon with them.  It bothered her, but not enough to let him leave, since she had had the awful feeling that once he vanished out of her life a second time, she might never see him again.  And already he felt like a part of her, like something vital that had been missing from her life had been found at last. 

          Her fingers fumbled with the keys at the door, and they stepped inside the small entryway.

          He immediately backed her to the wall.  “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are, Tessa Noel?” he asked.  His eyes glittered with hunger in the semi-dark.  His voice was  rich, smooth and sweet, the way chocolate would sound, if it were music.  He leaned up against the wall, trapping her in place as soft lips moved over her forehead, down her temple, brushing over her ear and down to her neck, where a tongue lapped gently, leaving a cool trail of moisture behind as he explored her shoulder, then up again to her cheek.

          She was almost hyperventilating and he hadn’t even kissed her mouth yet.  He paused, and she opened her eyes.  She had to smile, and reached up to touch his cheek.  It was almost sad.  She was certain he was trying so hard not to push, to let her set the pace, even not to fall in love.  But somehow – maybe it was something in the eyes, a tiny furrow in the dark brows, the set of the hard jaw or a quirk of a sensuous mouth – as hard as he might try to hide what he was feeling, she knew she would always be able to tell.

          And she knew that even now, he would walk away if she gave the slightest sign of hesitation.

          She let her hand trail down his neck, to the v of his chambray shirt.  Soft curly hair met her fingers and she wanted nothing more than to pull off the material so she could feel more of that warm flesh, but she had another goal in mind at the moment.  Something more immediate.  She found the cold metal of the big silver buckle that had caught her eye more than once that day, and – feeling the color rise in her face as she did – she boldly pressed her hand into his groin, feeling heat and hardness and movement there that had her convulsively swallowing when he hissed in a breath and pressed into her hand.

          Now he would have no doubt exactly what she wanted, and how much she wanted it.

          He leaned forward, whispering breathlessly into her ear.  “Not that I’m complaining, but unless you want to do this in the hallway…”

          She slid under his arm, grabbed his hand and pulled him down the hall and into her bedroom.  Some part of her brain was worrying about the open closet door, the dirty clothes thrown over the top of the chest of drawers, the semi-made bed, but those errant thoughts evaporated when she turned to find he had slipped his coat off, laying it with care over a nearby chair.  In a blur of movement and touch and harsh breath, clothes came off and his weight was heavy and hot on her, so solid, feeling bigger and more intimidating than she had expected.

          Duncan weighed her down, holding her with hands that felt like they could wrap completely around her body, painting her flesh with his mouth while she stroked the thick ropes of muscle that undulated under the warm, smooth skin of his back.

          His lips closed gently over a nipple and she arched, feeling the sensitive aureole tingle and contract and her breasts swell almost painfully, somehow connecting in a straight line to the nerves in her belly.  He moved to the other nipple and she pressed her hips up into his abdomen as her body automatically sought to fill what suddenly felt like a huge void deep inside.

          “Duncan,” she whispered, trying to ask without having to say the words. 

          “Shhh,” he answered.  “Let me do this my way, Tessa.”

          Her already thundering heartbeat skipped several times.  Her experience was fairly straightforward and quite conventional, a reflection of the age and experience of her partners – fellow students, young artists like herself, enthusiastic but more interested in speedy gratification than any other, more adventurous possibilities.  She didn’t know if she was ready for…

          Duncan’s fingers carded through the curly hair between her legs, searching out and finding the sensitive nerve endings housed there, gently massaging with his thumb, watching Tessa as she gasped and twisted.  She felt like a puppet, with Duncan gently tugging her this way and that, but it all felt so wonderful, she couldn’t bring herself to resent the manipulation.

          Her thighs were damp and she could feel her own juices trickle into the sheets below, and still he touched her, kissed her, and when he crawled down between her legs, laving that same sensitive place with his tongue, she cried out.  It was too much.  She didn’t think she could stand any more, except that he slipped his fingers inside and she moved against them in near-relief.  Then his whole mouth closed over her clitoris and he sucked.

          The world went white.  And she came in an orgasm that seared her from her heels to her crown.

          A hand gently stroked her hair, then traveled down her shoulder to rest, cupping a breast that still tingled.  She opened her eyes and Duncan was looking down at her with a look of awe and adoration that was…humbling.

          No words came to her mind, just a sense of completeness that she couldn’t have described even if she had the energy to try.  She touched his face and he leaned down and kissed her on the mouth for the first time since they had landed on the bed.  It was a gentle, chaste meeting of lips that communicated more feeling than any declarations of devotion.

          Tessa pushed herself up on her elbows, letting herself really look at Duncan for the first time.  Her artist’s eye absorbed facial features that were a fortuitous genetic combination of wide, dark eyes, a gently sloped but strong nose, high forehead, heavy dark brows, a jaw that was almost too square, but softened by lips that any woman would envy.   She pushed him gently onto his back, letting her sculptor’s hands trace the masculine lines of a muscular neck that broadened at its base onto the wide wings of highly developed trapezoids, well-defined pectoral muscles accented by a dusting of curly chest hair and small, dark nipples.

          She leaned down and licked at one of them, then bit gently and felt him groan and shift.  It made her feel powerful and she looked up.  His eyes were closed and his sweaty brow was slightly furrowed as his head moved a little.  She dared turn her head to find one muscular thigh raised as he shifted once more, his hard, flat abdomen contracting as he undulated his hips.

          Her heart was racing again.  It was rare that she had felt a thrill at seeing a man’s fully erect cock, but his was large and throbbing, with one small pearl of pre-cum glistening at its tip.  Her hand closed around the smooth flesh, feeling the throb of thick veins just underneath the incredibly velvet-like skin.  Taking a deep breath, she dared taste him, lapping her tongue gently at the small slit and he pulled in a large gulp of air.

          “Careful!” he whispered.

          She found herself smiling, speculating.  If he could drive her straight over the edge, could she do the same to him?  Her other hand traced lower, feeling the tight sacs between his legs.  The touch and taste and feel of men’s private places had never seemed so charged with warmth and desire and sexual energy.  She could see the rhythm of his heart in the thick veins of his neck as he arched back at her touch, could feel it throbbing in her hand.  Like liquid power she could hold and mould to her pleasure.  And his.

          Her mouth closed over him, sucking him deep into her throat.  She loved it when his hands grabbed for the sheets and he groaned something that sounded like her name.  She took him deeper, just to see if she could, to see what he would do, and he cried out, his whole torso straining as he came up off the bed.

          She wanted to continue, but he grabbed her shoulders and dragged her up his body, panting now, whispering words she didn’t understand.  He rolled them both over and she instinctively wrapped her legs around him, giving him access to slide inside her in a motion that felt so right, so very good, both of them sighed in unison as he panted into her neck for a moment, savoring the intensity.

          She could feel him, inside her, outside her, around her, part of her, and she wanted it never to stop.  Then he moved, slowly, sliding over that secret, sweet place, and back again.  They rested again for a minute while he occupied himself by tasting her neck, her ears, the inside of her mouth, and she occupied herself with feeling the rippling muscles of his back, the tightness of his ass as he moved again, and she pulled him close, tight, as far inside as he could go until it hurt.

          Minutes, maybe hours passed, she had no idea. Only that he knew how to make time seem to stand still, right at the pinnacle of pleasure until she thought she would die of it, believed her heart might just stop when he finally set a steady rhythm and her belly clinched, then he sped the pace and she was moving against him, panting, ready, waiting, desperate.  She opened her eyes and he was watching her again, his pupils black with arousal.  She grabbed his face, arching up into him, and they locked eyes as their bodies sought release at last, as though each was trying to wait, determined that the other come first.

          But Tessa quickly lost control of her breath and of her body and a primal growl started in her belly and erupted from her throat as she came again, and her whole frame convulsed.  He shouted something, Tessa didn’t know what, and wrapped his arms around her, pushing deep and holding, then pushing deep again with another low cry as he came at last.

          They lay entangled for a long time, and Tessa was perfectly content to lie there with his heavy weight on top, stroking his soft, sweaty, unruly hair.  With a sigh, he finally slipped out of her and moved, curling up behind her, pulling her close.  She so wanted to say something, to tell him that it had been unlike anything she had ever before experienced, but he kissed the back of her neck and his breathing immediately deepened and slowed. 

         Men! She thought, but she couldn’t help but smile.

          In his 380-odd years Duncan MacLeod had awakened many times in an unfamiliar bedroom, in a situation where he was required to instantly assess where he was, who he was with, why he was there, and what dangers might lurk in the immediate area.  This time there was the usual instant of adrenaline rush, but when he felt/saw/smelled the woman in his arms, all other considerations were washed away in the rush of intense feeling that he finally recognized as happiness.  A feeling that closed his throat, that made him pull the warm body next to him close into his own, that made him want to bury his face in the wispy softness of her hair, to forget all that had gone before and might come after.  The Game, the fact that he couldn’t grow old with her, couldn’t die, the killing that was part and parcel of who he was.  There was only now, this moment, this incredible woman in his arms.

          “What the…?” a startled shout brought his head up with a jerk.

          Andre Charpin was poised in the doorway, his hand still on the knob, his mouth hanging open, his narrow face flushed bright pink.

          “Tessa!” Andre's voice cracked into a different octave, sounding like a shocked old woman.

          Tessa sat up, yanking at the sheet to cover her bare breasts, pulling the cover off Duncan in the process, leaving his ass bare to the world.

          A woman, probably a roommate, Duncan guessed, suddenly appeared behind Andre, dressed in a garish robe, her auburn hair loose and tangled around her face.  She took a quick look at Tessa and an uncomfortably long look at Duncan, then glanced up at Andre.  She started to say something, then decided against it with a smile and a shake of her head, then disappeared down the hallway.

          “Andre!” Tessa finally managed.  “What are you doing here?”

          “I…I was here to see you, to ask if you wanted to go to breakfast.  To…” he blushed even deeper as Duncan surrendered any attempts at modesty and sat up, reaching for his discarded underwear on the floor.

          “Tessa, would you like me to…?” Duncan began.

          “No!” She snapped, throwing him an almost pleading look.  “Stay here.  I’ll handle this.”  She groped for a robe while trying to keep the sheet wrapped under her arms, all under Andre’s intense scrutiny.

          Duncan pulled on his trousers as Tessa and Andre headed down the hall in ominous, tense silence.  He battled instincts pulling him in opposite directions.  One, the most immediate and most compelling, was driving him to just go out there and bodily escort the asshole to the door, maybe boot him down the stairs.  The other, the voice of centuries of experience with strong-willed women, told him to stay put and let her deal with it.  He compromised and took up station in the hallway, close enough to hear the conversation, but out of sight.

          There was an awkward silence, then…

          “Well?  What do you have to say for yourself?” Andre demanded.

          “Me?  I wasn’t the one who barged into someone’s bedroom.  It seems to me you should be the one making explanations.”

          “For God’s sake, Tessa, we’re practically engaged, and here you are sleeping around with some…some muscle-bound beach boy.  I understand you were a little nervous at the thought of marriage, but this is ridiculous!”

          “Andre, you don’t seem to understand.  We are not practically engaged.  We were never engaged.  We will never be engaged.  I am not ‘a little nervous at the thought of marriage.’  This is not some whim that will go away with time.  I am not going to marry you.  Not now.  Not ever.”

          There was a long silence.

          “Tessa.”  Andre’s voice had softened, so that Duncan had to strain to hear.  “You’re not making any sense, thinking with your hormones, not your head.  Mr. Tight Ass in there can’t offer you what I can, won’t understand that you are an artist, that you need to be taken care of, nurtured, won’t be able to share the most essential part of your life.”

          Duncan moved closer, restraining himself from interfering with real effort as he crossed his arms, gripped his biceps and leaned up against the wall, listening closely.

          “Get away from me, Andre,” Tessa’s voice was tense.  “I don’t need nurturing.  I need respect.  That’s something you’ve always seemed to have trouble with.  Now give me my spare apartment key, and get out.”

          “Oh, Tessa, come on,” Andre wheedled.  “You know there’s always been something special between us…”

          “Andre, let go…”

          Duncan was into the living room in two strides, pulled the artist’s arm up behind him, twisted his wrist and pushed him up against the wall with a thump that rattled the pictures off square.  “The lady said to leave, my friend,” he heard himself growl between clenched teeth. It was an effort to resist the urge to twist just a little more.  In his experience, wrist and arm bones broke with remarkable ease. 

          “Duncan, don’t hurt him!” Tessa insisted.

          He took a long, calming breath and loosened his hold slightly.  He reached into the boy’s jeans pocket with his free hand and pulled out a set of keys, tossing them to Tessa. 

          “You think you’re so tough,” Andre blustered, his words comically distorted as his face was mashed against the wall.  “Wait ‘til…”

          “Shut up, boy, before you say something fatally stupid,” Duncan instructed.  “Let me say this so even you can understand.  Tessa isn’t interested.  Don’t bother her anymore.  If you do, I will personally see to it that the only body part you will be able to paint with is your teeth.  Have I made myself clear?”

          “Duncan!” Tessa sounded alarmed.

          He tightened his grip until Andre hissed in pain.  “Have I made myself clear?”

          “Yes!” Andre yelped at last, and Duncan stepped back, letting him go.

          Andre turned, hugging his twisted arm into his body.  “You’re insane, you know that?!” he spat, then turned to Tessa.  “And you’re a lying, teasing slut!”

          That was it.  Duncan stepped up, eager to throttle the idiot, but Tessa moved between them.  “Let him go,” she snapped, then put her hand on his bare chest.  “I said let him go!”

          Duncan watched, poised on the balls of his feet, his fists clenching spasmodically as Andre warily backed towards the door.  Tessa tossed Andre his key ring, minus the key to her apartment.  He caught it with his good hand, then turned and left with a snarl, slamming the door behind him.

          The slow clap, clap of one person applauding made him turn.

          The young woman he had seen in the hall earlier was leaning in the kitchen doorway.  “That was quite a show,” she commented.  “You could smell the testosterone a block away.”

          “Claudine!” Tessa hissed, pushing her hair back out of her face and tightening the belt on her robe.  “Stay out of this.”

          “I’d love to,” the woman smiled, “except that you two kept me awake half the night,” she added with a wink at Duncan.  “And now that I see the merchandise, it will give me material for some very nice daydreams.”  At Tessa’s deepened frown, she just laughed and retreated into the kitchen.

          Adrenaline was still pumping through Duncan’s system, and he moved to protectively take Tessa in his arms, but she twisted away.  “What the hell was that all about?” she insisted, her blue eyes flashing with anger.

          “What do you mean?” he asked, slightly mystified.  His actions had seemed perfectly reasonable and necessary.

          “You could have hurt him!” she answered.  “You looked like you could have killed him without a second thought…it was…” she stopped, her eyes widening.  A hand fluttered to her mouth.  “Oh, my God, that wasn’t a joke was it?  About the spy thing.”

          Duncan closed his eyes, picturing what he must have looked like, so ready to solve any problem with violence.  So quickly.  Everything just within his grasp, and then it was gone.  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, unable to look at her again.  “I’ll get my things and leave.”  He slipped past her, catching a whiff of her unique scent, holding it in his nostrils, hoping he would remember.  He grabbed his socks and shoes, his hands trembling only slightly.  He could feel her at the door, watching him.  He found his shirt crumpled on the floor and pulled it on.

          “Can you tell me, Duncan?  Can we talk about it?” she finally asked.

          He shook his head, not trusting his voice.

          “You said you quit.  Was that true?”

          “Yes, but…”  It was no use.  There was no way he could explain in any way she would understand.  He should have known it would come to this.  He just hadn’t expected it to happen so soon.  He sat on the bed to tie his shoes.

          “But what?”  Tessa knelt in front of him, putting her hands on his knees, and he couldn’t escape looking into her eyes.

          With a resigned sigh, he took her hands.  They were strong hands, with long fingers and closely clipped nails, the palms slightly roughened from her work with clay.  He rubbed his own callused thumbs over the soft skin.  “But it's still a part of who and what I am, Tessa.  I am…a violent man with an ugly past.  There are things I can never talk about, things that will never really go away.”  He ended up smiling.  It was either that or weep.  “Believe me, I don’t blame you for being disgusted by it.”  He laughed a little.  “I’m even disgusted by it.”

          He shifted his weight to rise and reach for his coat, but she pushed him back, planted herself firmly in his lap and took his head in her hands.  “Nothing about you disgusts me, Duncan MacLeod,” she whispered.  “You excite me, intrigue me, even frighten me a little,” she admitted, then gently trailed her fingers through his hair.  “But disgust?  Never.”

          “Tessa, you don’t know me, can’t possibly understand what…”

          She gripped his hair until it hurt, almost shaking him.  “I can read what is in your heart, Duncan, from the moment we met.  I trust that.  I trust you.  Would you ever intentionally hurt me?”  She laughed before he had a chance to answer.  “Of course not.  I don’t really care about your past,” she whispered, leaning close until their foreheads touched.  “I care about today, and tomorrow, and next week, but only if you are there to share it.”

          Duncan’s chest hurt and his throat was so tight he couldn’t even swallow. 

          “And don’t you dare ask me if I’m sure,” she added.

          He didn’t.  Couldn’t have spoken if his life had depended on it.  But he didn’t need to, since Tessa had her own ideas about how to occupy his mouth, and he knew this was one woman who would always get her own way.