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took her mouth in a fierce kiss just as he plunged into her, but suddenly he stiffened, stilled by shock. He did not need to feel her withdrawal, to hear her low moan, to know he had just roughly shattered a young woman’s innocence. Releasing her mouth, he stared at her, noting that she had paled slightly and that her tear-bright gaze was accusing.
    “You said you would not hurt me,” she rasped even as she felt the stinging pain begin to recede.
    “I thought you’d already had a man.” He moved his hand over her body seeking to ease her tension and restore her passion. “I would’ve gone easier if I’d known.” Feeling her grow soft and warm again, he began to feather kisses over her face. “It always hurts a woman the first time.”
    “That seems a strange and unfair arrangement,” she murmured huskily as her passion began to build again. She felt a ripple of delight when he chuckled against her throat. “Is that all there is to it?”
    “Nope.” He began to move slowly and felt her tremble. “There’s more, darlin'.”
    Emily found it suddenly difficult to talk. After a moment she did not need his guiding hands on her slim hips but matched his rhythm without urging. He positioned her legs around him and she clung to him as she felt herself dragged helplessly along.
    Suddenly she panicked. Her body felt as if it were ready to hurl itself from some precipice. She tried to retreat from the edge, but he held her tight against him, murmuring nonsense that worked too soothe her sudden fear. Emily heard a strange cry even as she went under a blinding wave of sensation and realized that it came from her. She felt Cloud drive into her and held him there, her body drinking deeply of his release. The sound of her name breaking from his lips as he shuddered in her arms increased her own pleasure.
    It was a while before he eased the intimacyof their embrace. She lay still, feeling confused, then watched as he rose to fetch a cloth. A sensuous lethargy held her still and placid as he returned to the rough bed and pulled her into his arms.
    “I knew it would be good,” he muttered softly as he smoothed his hands through her hair. “Whose boy is Thornton? Damn well isn’t yours as I’d first thought.”
    “Why should you think he was mine?”
    “He calls you mama and, although he doesn’t resemble you that much, he’s got green eyes.”
    “Oh. Well, his name is Sears. He was the only child of the young couple I was traveling with.”
    “Traveling alone? To Harper?” Cloud wondered why the unseen Harper was beginning to irritate him.
    “Yes. It might seem foolhardy but it was my only chance. I was living with my sister, and it was not the best of situations. I was taking care of her children, but I began to think that she wished me to take care of her husband as well. Harper’s invitation seemed like the answer to my prayers.”
    “A new life,” he said a little sarcastically.
    “Perhaps not new, but at least different and, I hoped, better.” She sighed, overwhelmed by shame. “Who knows what will happen now.”
    “Why do you say that? Because you’re a fallen woman?” he drawled.
    “To me, it is far from a matter of jest,” shesnapped, fighting tears.
    Rolling so that she was beneath him, he said, “Worried you face spinsterhood because you’re not a virgin anymore? That might have been the way of it back east, but not out here. Women are scarce, darlin'. Virginity ain’t all that important. A man out nere wants a woman, not a saint.”
    Aware of his hard length and annoyed by that awareness, she said crossly, “I was not aiming to be a saint, but a sense of what’s right never hurt anyone.”
    “Honey, this is right,” he growled as he touched his lips to the increasing pulse in her throat.
    “This is what I should be doing with my lawfully wedded husband, not with you.” She gritted her teeth but failed to stem the warmth his touch engendered in her. “This is a sin.”
    “What a