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to the hotel.
    He stopped, lifted his blond head and smiled, a little puzzled. “What?”
    “Sorry that you married me,” she continued. She searched his eyes nervously. “You’ve been so quiet. I know I’m not much to look at, and we don’t know each other at all. I…we can always get a divorce,” she finished miserably.
    “I’m quiet because I have a logistical problem to work out,” he said then. “Not because I’m regretting that we got married. When you know me better, you’ll learn that I never do things unless I want to. I can’t be pushed or coerced.” He reached out and curled her fingers into his. “I like being with you,” he said, meeting her eyes. “Like this, and in bed. We’re both old enough to want someone to be with.”
    “Yes,” she confessed. Tears stung her eyes and she lowered her lids before he could read her thoughts. “I never thought it would happen to me,” she added. “I thought I’d be alone all my life.”
    “So did I.” He smoothed his fingers across the back of her hand. She had pretty hands, he mused. “Do you play anything?” he asked unexpectedly.
    She laughed. “The piano. Badly.”
    “I like piano. I play a little, too.” He slid his fingers in between hers, feeling oddly possessive as he saw the bright little gold band that encircled her ring finger. “A wedding ring suits you. Feel better now about what we did last night?” he asked with a slow smile, as if he understood her uneasiness about intimacy without marriage.
    “I’m old-fashioned.” She sighed miserably.
    “You don’t have to apologize for it, not to me.” His eyes gleamed suddenly as he looked at her. Short brown hair, creamy, oval face, wide gray eyes. “I liked being the first.”
    There was a deep, possessive note in his voice that surprised her. She smiled slowly. Her fingers squeezed his, and she looked into his eyes for so long that she flushed.
    “This morning,” he said softly, holding her eyes, “was my first time. I didn’t realize that I was capable of tenderness. I let go with you in a way I never could before with a woman. I trusted you.”
    Her face was bright red, but she didn’t look away. “I…trusted you.” She let her eyes fall to his hard mouth, remembering with a surge of desire how it felt on her body. “One of my friends got married two years ago. She said her husband shocked her speechless on her wedding night, and made fun of her….”
    His fingers contracted. “I think it would kill something in you to have a man treat you so,” he remarked.
    Her eyes came up, stunned at the way he understood.
    He nodded. “Yes. It’s that way with me, too. I don’t like ridicule.”
    Her expression said more than she wanted it to, and she knew that he could read the worshipful look in her eyes. But she didn’t care. He was her whole world.
    His breath caught at that look. It bothered him, and he let go of her hand. “Don’t ever try to build a wall around me,” he said unexpectedly, staring at her. “I’ll stay with you only as long as the doors remain open.”
    “I knew that the first time I saw you,” she said quietly. “No ties. No strings. I won’t try to possess you.”
    He started walking again. He wondered what she was going to do when she knew the truth about him. He glanced up, searching her face quietly. She was so damned trusting. She probably thought he was in the army reserves or something. He almost laughed. Well, she’d just have to get used to it, he told himself, because he didn’t know how to change.
    After they’d changed their status at the hotel desk and switched everything to his room they went downstairs for lunch. Dani picked at her food, wondering at the change in Eric. Something was on his mind, but she didn’t know him well enough to ask what it was. She glanced at him with a slow-dawning mischief in her eyes. Well, she couldn’t dig it out of him, but she could help him forget it.
    “Hey,” she called.
    He glanced