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efforts was a head-butt to the nose. Falling back, eyes watering with pain, she changed channels but continued to fight. The slippery wetness of the ground beneath them helped her, hindered him. Wriggling like a worm on a hook, kicking at him, finally using the fortuitous contact of her foot against his shoulder as impetus, she managed to get free, and swarmed backward in a frantic belly-up crawl. He surged after her, grabbing her around the knees. At this recapture she screamed like a steam whistle—thank God her lungs were functioning at full capacity again!—and yanked one leg free, kicking him as hard as she could in the head.
    “Goddammit,” he roared, rearing up with a shake of his head. Beforeshe could react he lunged forward again and dropped on top of her, flattening her beneath him. The breath went out of her with the force of a blown tire. Sprawled and winded, she bucked feebly in an effort to throw him off. Fully atop her now, he was too heavy to budge. Her right hand was pinned between their bodies—useless. Even as she tried to yank it free, she abandoned Iron Mike in favor of Catwoman and went for his eyes with her free hand, fingers curved, nails ready. She was not going to go gentle into that good night—or whatever else this thug had in mind for her.
    “Scratch me, and I’ll make you sorry you were ever born,” he snarled, locking a hand around her wrist in midair and bringing it into forceful contact with the wet ground, where he pinned it. She was all but immobile now, but still she refused to give up. With the thumb and forefinger of her trapped hand she managed to get in a vicious pinch to the meaty part of his chest. He yelped and delved between them for her other hand. Resisting, she bucked and screamed again, right in his face.
    Their battle had taken them out of the oaks’ shadow into the open. The moonlight fell on his face, and as he grimaced in the wake of her air-horn-worthy blast, she got her first good look at him. Her eyes widened, her jaw dropped, and just like that the fight went out of her. Lying sprawled beneath her attacker’s approximately two-hundred-pound weight, she felt oddly boneless, and realized that this was what it meant to be limp with relief.
    “Matt Converse, what do you think you’re doing?” she demanded furiously.
    He froze. His eyes met hers, and his brows snapped together.
    “Carly?” He sounded doubtful.
    “Yes, Carly.” There was bite to her voice. Even as she sucked in a much-needed breath, memories of the last time she’d lain beneath him like this rushed back at her, about as welcome as a rubber check.
    “Jesus, you’ve got boobs.”
    His hand, with hers flattened beneath it, rested partly on top of her right one. She could feel his fingers flexing, gauging the curve of her breast. She yanked her hand free—and he copped a feel. Last time his hand had been wrapped around her breast she’d barely filledan A cup. Now she was a lush and lovely C, thanks to years of exercises and creams and good living and—all right, about five thousand dollars’ worth of implants. Not that she meant to tell him that.
    “Yeah, well, boobs happen.” She glowered at him. Lucky for him his hand had slid on out from between them or she would have slapped him into next week. She owed him a slap. Had owed him for twelve years. She was practically itching to pay up.
    “And you’re blond.” He was sounding mildly stupefied. His gaze was on her shoulder-length, stick-straight, stylishly choppy platinum blond hair. Its natural state was a wildly curly mouse brown, as he well knew.
    “Blond happens too. Want to get off me now? At least, I’m assuming the rape’s off, since it turns out we know each other.”
    “Rape?” He snorted. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Is that what you thought?”
    “You know, I don’t know why, but when some guy tackles me in the dark and starts feeling me up, rape tends to be one of the possibilities that enters my mind.”
    Her