For the Taking by Lilian Darcy Page A

began.
    “Please leave.”
    “Not like this.”
    “Yes. Yes. I don’t want this. I can’t do this. I don’t know how.”
    She turned and fled from the room, and a moment later he heard a door slam at the end of the corridor.
     
    Standing in her room in the dark, Lass watched Loucan’s taillights disappear through her open gate and turn onto the road leading to the highway.
    “He must think I’m crazy!” she muttered to herself. “Why did I react like that? I’m not crazy, but I’m a fool!”
    A fool to have let him see how much his arousal had shocked her. And why had it?
    Reasons aplenty.
    She’d been shocked at the fact of it, first of all, with its offer of proof that she wasn’t the only one feeling like this. For her, it was about an awakening that she knew was long overdue.
    She’d been telling herself that it was only because he was mer. She’d told herself that it had nothing to do with any specific chemistry or personality, nothing to do with him, Loucan, at all. Instead, she’d begun to convince herself that it had everything to do with how tightly she’d locked her own sensuality away, for the whole of her adult life.
    But that couldn’t be right, if he felt it, too….
    Secondly, she’d been shocked at how long it had taken her to realize what was going on. She’d been so lost— so lost! —in their kiss. Even now, in memory, the power of it almost knocked her off her feet like a rogue wave surging against her body. There hadn’t been room in her for any conscious thought, until suddenly the melting, swelling sensation deep inside her had struck the vivid contrast of something hard and firm, and she’d understood.
    Far too late.
    Finally, she’d been shocked at her immediate, incongruous sense of simultaneous longing and exultation and fear. Exultant that it was happening. Longing for it to go further. Absolutely terrified about this level of intimacy.
    No one should be this inexperienced at the age of thirty-three.
    “What have I done to myself?” she whispered.
    It wasn’t fair to blame Cyria. It wasn’t even right to blame the horror Lass had witnessed as an eight-year-old child.
    I made my own choices, she thought to herself. I took what life gave me, and I chose my response. Not everyone would have ended up like this. A thirty-three-year-old virgin who turns wild with need the moment she lets her guard down a fraction, and then clams up again and runs a mile. I don’t know how to handle it. I don’t know what to do. What if he thinks he can get what he wants from me this way?
    She dreaded the thought of his return tomorrow.

Chapter Four

    “I wondered if I’d find you here,” Loucan said.
    Lass was with the horses, and it was still early, just seven in the morning. Having heard the distant slam of his car door a few minutes ago, she was prepared for his arrival, but not for his immediate effect on her senses. Her heart began to beat faster as she watched the last few strides of his approach. Her perceptions were heightened and time seemed to slow.
    She had plenty of opportunity to see the way his body moved beneath his jeans and blue chambray shirt, plenty of opportunity to observe the dark gold highlights the sun brought out in his hair. It was like the grain in some rich, polished wood, and as usual he had it pulled into a low, tight braid on his neck. She was suddenly sure that somewhere, way back, he’d had a pirate ancestor.
    “Some days, at this hour, Loucan, you would have found me in bed!” she retorted.
    Her stomach sank. Was that the best thing shecould come up with, having groped several seconds for a reply? Would he think it was a deliberately suggestive line?
    She hated reacting this way, but she was on a hair trigger where he was concerned. Her memory of their powerful kiss and her anguished uncertainty about the meaning of her response to him had overshadowed her joy at rediscovering her siblings. Her stomach began a familiar churning.
    To her relief,