Free Talons of the Falcon by REBECCA YORK

shouldn’t be surprising. After all, she was living right next door to him. Through the bathroom door she heard Marshall get Mark up in the morning and help him into the shower. Late at night, as she hovered between waking and sleep, the edges of fact and recollection would blur. Her mind would fill with warm memories of an ardent, responsive Mark Bradley, and she would long to feel his arms around her. More than once she awoke from sleep knowing that in her dreams she had crossed the short distance that separated them.
    By the end of the week her daytime exasperation made her feel as though she were going to explode. Ironically, she was beginning to understand some of Major Downing’s irritation. In a month of concentrated effort, he hadn’t been able to pry a thing out of Mark Bradley. And she could see why. The man who sat so calmly in front of her had an iron control over his immediate environment. The harder you pressed him, the more he was able to exercise his will against you.
    “What is it going to take to get you to cooperate with me?” she questioned, barely able to keep a very unprofessional edge of annoyance out of her voice. If she were the kind of person who relieved tension by swearing, she would be turning the air blue by now. Jumping up from the chair she had been occupying for the past half hour, she began to pace back and forth. But her patient was too busy playing statue to notice her agitation.
    “You’re afraid of making contact with another human being, aren’t you?” she goaded, aware as she spoke that her words would probably garner no more response than Marshall’s taunting gibes. “You don’t trust anyone, do you? But you’ve got to start somewhere or you’re going to destroy yourself.”
    Still the figure in the easy chair remained silent. Eden felt something inside her chest tighten painfully. She wanted to pour out a torrent of assurances that he could trust her. She wanted to explain that the Falcon had sent her here to get him out of this mess. She couldn’t offer that frank an explanation yet. There had to be another way to get through to him.
    Crossing the room, she knelt before Mark as she had that first day. For a long moment she searched his face. Then, before she could change her mind, she reached out and covered his hand with hers.
    His skin was warm and dry. Now that she was so close to him, she was suddenly aware of the clean smell of soap and water mingled with the indefinably masculine scent of his body. All at once she was forced to ask herself whether she had made this contact for her patient or for herself—or for both of them.
    Closing her eyes, she stroked her fingers along the back of his hand, feeling the ridge where a line of recently healed scar tissue met normal skin. It was another reminder of the ordeal he had gone through, and how he was coping with the aftermath.
    “Mark,” she whispered. “Mark, please let me in, let me get through to you.” And then, clasping his hand more tightly, she lifted it and pressed it against her cheek. She had told herself she was making a bid for his trust, just as she would with any former captive. But the emotions involved were infinitely more complex.
    She hadn’t known what would happen, but she hadn’t been prepared to feel the hand she held against her cheek tremble slightly. For several heartbeats the man in front of her didn’t move, and she sensed some inner struggle raging within him. Then, finally, his fingers began to move against the soft skin of her face. He might have been a blind man memorizing her features, except that the stroking caress held a much more sensual quality.
    Eyes still closed against the harsh reality of her surroundings, Eden swayed forward slightly.
    “Eden.” Her name was the barest of whispers. But she heard, and her heart leapt inside her chest. When two of Mark’s fingers found her lips and traced slowly along the upper curve, she trembled with reaction. From someone else, it