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as if he knew he held her very center.
    Her eyelids fell closed and she moaned. “More right than anything I’ve ever felt. Please don’t say you’re really in the mood to talk.”
    He laughed against her throat, and she felt the caress of his lips clear to her toes. “I’m not. But I would be happy to talk, if that’s what you wanted.”
    She shook her head almost imperceptibly, terrified she’d dislodge his mouth from her skin. “I want you.”
    “Good. Because I’m about to make love to you.”
    Yes, she wanted that, too. To be filled by this very different man, to the brim. To connect, bodies and minds. Souls.
    He threaded a hand through the hair at her neck, his fingers solid and firm against it. “Angie,” he murmured, almost reverently.
    “Stop.” Tears stung the corners of her eyes. Baffling, irrepressible tears because she wanted something else from him, something she’d resisted all evening. “Just stop.”
    “Okay.” His hands withdrew and the sudden lack of support buckled her knees.
    “No! Don’t stop touching me. Stop calling me Angie.” Before her subconscious could come up with one of the hundreds of reasons it was a dangerous idea, she reached up and yanked off her mask. “My name is Evangeline. Make love to me , not the mask.”

Four
    “E vangeline.”
    It flowed from Matthew’s mouth like a prayer. Yes. That fit this angelic, winged woman who had bared herself to him in more ways than one.
    He drank in her face, and it jolted something inside, as if his soul had done a double take and said, There you are .
    “Angie is a nickname. Evangeline is who I am.”
    A nameless emotion tightened his throat. “I’m honored you trusted me with it.”
    She’d done far more than simply remove her mask. The significance of it sent a flood of guilt through him. Guilt because he could shed his physical mask—but not his internal one.
    And still he drew off his mask and dropped it to the floor. “Allow me to reciprocate.”
    For a long while, she fixated on his face. His neck heated. Who would have thought taking off a mask could provoke such intensity?
    “God, you’re gorgeous.”
    “Most people call me by my given name, but if you want to address me as God, I won’t argue.”
    She laughed, pushing her firm breasts into his chest. “Way to defuse the moment. That’s a rare talent.”
    He’d intended to diffuse his own embarrassment at her frank admiration, which even Amber had expressed infrequently. But if Evangeline chose to believe he had superpowers, so much the better.
    “Are we finished with the revelations?” he asked.
    “Not even close. Now that I’ve seen what’s under that mask, I’m dying to peel away this suit—” she flicked his bow tie “—and get a look at the rest of the goods.”
    “I hope it meets with your expectations.” His voice dropped. Nerves. Of all things.
    Before fully internalizing the implications, he swept Evangeline into his arms and carried her up the stairs to the bedroom.
    “Any man who can do that without having to catch his breath most definitely has a body that’ll meet my expectations,” she said as he laid her on the bed. “Oh, wow. That’s quite a fresco.”
    Matthew glanced up at the ceiling, where stucco divided sixteen individual paintings last touched by a brush during the Renaissance. “It’s my favorite.”
    “I like it, too. I’ll lie here and look at it while you fetch the condoms out of my clutch. Which is downstairs.” She flipped him a cheeky grin as he cursed.
    He cursed some more as he tromped back down the narrow stairs in search of the errant bag. It was still attached to her dress, but instead of pulling out a couple of condoms—because who was he to question how many they’d need—he untied it and brought the whole thing.
    The bulging sides of Evangeline’s clutch induced a healthy dose of reality. He was about to have sex with a virtual stranger, one whose face he’d seen for the first time less than