Strangers in the Night by Linda Howard, Lisa Litwack, Kazutomo Kawai, Photonica

Convulsively he clasped her to him, tears running down his cheeks, muttering incoherently as he pressed desperate kisses to her face, her throat. His big body was taut, shaking with a tension that wouldn’t relent. He rolled her beneath him, jerking the sodden folds of her nightgown to herwaist. Thea felt his desperate, furious need, and lay still as he fought with the wet, stubborn fabric of his jeans, finally getting them open and peeling them down. He pushed her legs open and stabbed into her, big and hot and so hard that she cried out even as she held him as tightly as she could.
    He rode her hard and fast, needing this affirmation that they both still lived, needing this link with her. Thea’s response soared out of control and she climaxed almost immediately, crying out with the joy of having him there with her as she clung to him with arms and legs. He bucked wildly, shuddered, and she felt the warm flood of his orgasm within her, then he fell onto the grass beside her.
    He lay there holding her for a long time, her head cradled on his shoulder, neither of them able to stop touching the other. He smoothed back her unruly tumble of curls; she stroked his chest, his arms. He kissed her temple; she nuzzled his jaw. He squeezed and stroked her breasts; her hands kept wandering down to his naked loins. She imagined they made quite a picture of debauchery, lying there on the ground with her nightgown hiked to her waist and his jeans down around his knees, but the sun was warm and she was drowsy,her body replete with satisfaction, and she didn’t much care.
    Eventually he moved, kicking his legs free of the damp jeans. She smiled as he stretched out, blissfully naked. He had never been blessed with an overabundance of modesty. But then, it was almost a crime to cover up a body like his. She sighed with her own bliss, thinking of the naughty things she planned to do to him later, when they were sprawled out in that big bed. Some things required a mattress rather than grass. Though those pelts had been wonderful …
    â€œAll those times,” she murmured, kissing his shoulder. “You were trying to save me.”
    His vivid eyes slitted open as he gathered her closer. “Of course,” he said simply. “I couldn’t live without you.”
    But you did
. The comment died on her lips as she stared at him, reading his expression. His eyes were calm, and accepting. Emotion swelled in her chest until she could barely breathe, and tears glittered in her eyes. “Damn you,” she said shakily. He
hadn’t
lived. Each time, when he had failed to save her, he had remained there with her, choosing to share her death rather than live without her.This had been his last chance as well as hers, and theirs. “Damn you,” she said again, thumping him on the chest with her fist. “How could you do that? Why didn’t you
live?
”
    A slow smile touched his lips as he played with one of her curls. “Would you have?” he asked, and the smile grew when she scowled at him. No, she couldn’t have left him in the water and gone on living. She would have remained with him.
    â€œYou little hellcat,” he said contentedly, gathering her against his chest. “You’ve led me on quite a chase, but I’ve caught you now. We finally got it right.”

Epilogue

    T wo days later Thea and Richard were sitting outside in the swing, which he had repaired, contentedly watching the lake. Her bare feet were in his lap and he was massaging them, saying he wanted to get in practice for when she was big with pregnancy and would need such services. Both of them were absurdly positive that their first lovemaking had been fertile, and her happiness was so intoxicating that she felt giddy.
    Her fear of the water had disappeared as suddenly as it had formed. She hadn’t been swimming yet, but that was more because of Richard’s anxieties than her own. Whenever they walked, he