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Houston.”
    “You’ve had plenty of enemies over the years. None of them considered me family, even if you do.”
    His gaze was narrow and contemplative. “I don’t know how I think of you,” he said absently. “I’ve never taken time to do an inventory.”
    “You could do it between sips of coffee.” She laughed.
    “Don’t sell yourself short,” he said unexpectedly.
    She met his eyes, and her whole life was suddenly stark and painful in her face. She couldn’t bear the memories sometimes. He knew nothing about her past. She hoped he would never have to know. She couldn’t imagine why he was being so nice to her. He must have a guilty conscience.
    “No need for flattery, Cord,” she said with a faint smile. “I know what you think of me.”
    He moved back to the bed and sat down beside her. One lean hand went to her cheek and he turned her face up so that he could see it. He felt the tension in her, the choked breath, the wild heartbeat. Her eyes reflected the helpless response that her body betrayed. That, at least, never changed.She might hate the memory of what he’d done to her—no less than he hated it himself—but she was as hopelessly attracted to him as she’d always been. It comforted him on some level to know that.
    “Don’t play with me anymore,” she said tautly, her eyes telling him that she hated the hopeless attraction he could see. It was almost physically painful to have him so near, to see the chiseled line of his wide mouth and remember the feel of it, to know the warm strength of that powerful body so very close.
    He read those reactions with textbook accuracy. His proud head lifted. His eyes narrowed. His lean hand spread against her cheek and his thumb suddenly swept hard over her soft lips, dragging a gasp from them.
    His other hand caught in her thick hair and he pulled her, lifted her, until she was lying across his body with her head in the crook of his arm.
    Her breasts were flattened against his broad, hair-roughened chest over the thin cotton shirt he wore. She looked up at him with helpless desire. He gently smoothed his hand up and down her throat, caressing, tantalizing, while his head bent and his hard lips hovered maddeningly just above her mouth.
    “What makes you think I’m playing?” he murmured roughly.
    Her nails dug into his shoulder as she hung there, vulnerable, aching for him to bend those scant inches and crush his mouth down hard on her parted lips. She could smell thecoffee he’d had for breakfast on his breath. She could smell the clean, spicy scent of his skin. Where his sports shirt was open at the throat, she could see the thick press of curling dark hair that covered his broad, muscular chest. She remembered unwillingly the way it had felt against her bare breasts that one time in their lives when she’d thought he really wanted her. Even the memory of pain and embarrassed shame that came afterward didn’t diminish her reactions to him. They were eternal. He touched her and she melted into him. She belonged to him, just as she had at the age of eight. And he knew it. He’d always known.
    Involuntarily her cold fingers went trembling to his cheek, up into the thick darkness of his hair at his temple, where that slight wave gave it definition. He always felt clean to the touch. He always smelled good. She felt safe when she was with him, despite his hostility. He was the first male thing in her young life that had ever given her a feeling of security. He was the only man she’d ever trusted.
    He caught her hand and held it tightly while he looked into her wide eyes. Abruptly he dragged her palm to his mouth and kissed it with something like desperation, burying his mouth in it. His eyes closed as he savored the softness of it.
    She felt the fever in him, but didn’t understand it. He didn’t want her, not really. He never had. But he looked…tormented, somehow.
    He drew her hand back to her cheek and looked at her withpassion. “I hurt you