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He ain, but she backed away and he looked at her, puzzled

"Shower, please? I’ve…envisioned this ht I’d smell like formaldehyde if and when…"

He s, she nodded

"I have, too," he told her "What about protection?"

"I’o upstairs She didn’t hear hi up his jacket and gun and holster

She hurried into the bathroo the powers that be--her bathroo ot about it She started the hot spray of the shower, and as she turned, she ended up in his arms "Your lips don’t smell like any che to say, but…"

She sain and they began pulling at each other’s clothing, kicking off shoes, skiht

He was beautiful naked

Later, she barely re into the shower stall She felt the delicious wet heat of the water, along with the stroking of his hands They kissed again under the warainst hers

Beautiful, and scarred She knew he’d been a Ranger and he’d fought, bringing down criminals And he was still in law enforcement She didn’t knohat had caused the scars that lay white against the bronze of his flesh She traced a white scar line on his lower abdoently

"Knife wound I didn’tdealer in San Antonio," he told her

"Thank God he didn’t kill you!"

"He’s doing twenty-five to life"

She looked into his eyes and he griers rode over another scar on his ar her touch

He pulled her to hied a bullet outside Houston"

There was a third scar low on his abdo his heat and vitality along with the slickness of the stearinned, drawing her up "Appendectoain

She didn’t think she’d ever been so stirred or felt such hunger and urgency She wondered if they would make love in the shower stall

But they didn’t Tyler lifted her up, leaving the shorapped her in one of the bath towels and caressed her body as he dried it She shivered at his touch, just savoring the feel, then growingherof his heart and hers as their excitean to soar She nearly tripped on the towel; they both laughed and he swept her into his ar down on the bed, san to th of her, teasing and inti and arching and returning every touch When he rose above her andcare into her body, she thought she’d explode in that instant, but he withdrew and began a slow, intense movement, his eyes locked with hers The world didn’t seem in the least real, and yet she could feel the softness of the bed and the cool cotton of the sheets But th of his body Everything that had happened in the past few days evaporated as sheer sensation see to him as waves of sensation rolled over her, as the climax seized her, and as she drifted in an after back to life

When they lay silently, she stroked the rich, tawny fall of hair froht--and so wrong," she whispered

He sht," he told her "Hurting others is wrong, but living…and finding soain why they knew each other, as reality ca back upon her

"I feel so bad for Julian and Sarah," she whispered

He drew her close "Allison, we can hurt for others But you’re doing everything you can to help the Life is precious and fragile, and we live it while we can"

She didn’t dare get too coainst his chest and started to speak But then she trembled "Your life is filled with people who are ready to take on any fight," she said "And when you met me, I was a basket case at the police station You know so many women who are heroines in real life, and I’ve been…pretty ers threaded into her hair and he smiled, not with amusement, but onder "Have you never heard?" he asked her "Courage isn’t about not feeling fear Courage is when you’re terrified--but go forth, anyway I think you’re one of the bravest wo in his words, soin to relax as she curled up again

He sht, the first tihed and started to rise "The art showing," she began

"We’ll get there"

"It’s late"