Free Quicksand by Iris Johansen Page A

recklessly casting them aside. Beautiful, she thought hazily. She'd always thought Joe was beautiful naked. Lean and muscular and full of repressed energy.
    Not repressed any longer.
    Fierce. Desperate. And, yes, rough.
    To hell with it. It didn't matter. Her nails dug into his back as she pulled him to her. She'd meet fierceness with fierceness, roughness with roughness . . .
    "ARE YOU OKAY?" JOE'S CHEST was lifting and falling with the harshness of his breathing as he looked down at her. "Did I hurt you?"
    "I've no idea." She couldn't catch her breath. "If you did, it didn't make an impression through the . . . " Through what? The maze of wild erotica that was almost animalistic? "I didn't care." Joe got off her and rolled over to the other side of the bed. He tucked his arm beneath his head. "I care. I lost control. I knew it would happen."
    "If I hadn't wanted it, I'd have walked away." Eve pulled up the sheet. "Now come over here and cuddle me. I'm not having this separate-sides-of-the-bed business. That's not the way we do it and we're not going to start now."
    "I should go up to my room and unpack."
    "Bullshit." She rolled over and pressed her body against him. "Hold me." He hesitated and then put his arm around her and drew her close. "It could happen again."
    "Good. But not right now. I want to get my breath before the next storm." She pressed her lips to his shoulder. "Why are you fighting me, Joe?" she whispered. "You held me like this not four days ago. I thought everything was getting all right between us."
    "Did you? I didn't. I knew that it was only a matter of time before it blew up in our faces." He brushed his lips over her forehead. "It was only a question of when I got word about Kistle. I knew that would be the trigger."
    "It wouldn't have made any difference if you'd just not closed me out. We would have worked through it together. That's what we've done all these years."
    He shook his head. "I can't do that any longer."
    She stiffened and then sat up and looked down at him. "That sounds final. Are you trying tell me something, Joe?"
    "I'm trying to tell you that I've changed and the way I'll react will be different."
    "I see." She swung her legs to the floor and stood up. "Then I'd better find out what to expect, hadn't I?" She slipped on her terry robe and sat down in the easy chair across the room. She drew a deep breath. "Was it Colombia, Joe?"
    "You mean Montalvo? He brought a few things to a head. But it's been going on long before you went to Colombia. We both knew you were slipping away from me. I couldn't seem to stop it. I didn't even know why it was happening." He stood up and started putting on his clothes. "I blamed it on you. Then I blamed it on Montalvo."
    "I never slept with Montalvo, Joe. I'd never be unfaithful to you."
    "But you told me you wanted to do it."
    "You asked me, I'd never lie to you. I don't know why he had that effect on me. I felt close to him because he'd suffered the same loss and then it just became . . ." She wearily shook her head. "You know I haven't had much experience with that kind of sexual attraction. The kid who got me pregnant with Bonnie when I was sixteen and then disappeared? I believe you're the love of my life, but evidently that doesn't mean that I'm totally immune to feeling something for others." She stared him in the eye. "But I'm not going to apologize. I didn't do anything to hurt you but tell you the truth. I treated our relationship with honor."
    "I know that." He smiled crookedly. "And I don't blame Montalvo for trying to snatch the gold ring. I'd do the same thing. But it doesn't stop me from hating his guts. I'm too primitive to do anything else." He shrugged into his jacket. "But blame is something else. The only reason I blamed either of you was that I didn't want to blame the person who rules our lives. I knew my chances weren't good of ever being able to fight Bonnie."
    She stared at him. "You don't have to fight Bonnie. We only have to