"Thank you for tonight," I murmured against his neck, unable to find the will or the strength to leave his arms.

"My pleasure," he whispered back, and found my lips to plant a kiss.

"I hope you . . . . It's important to me that you know that I don't normally do this sort of thing." I kissed him back.

"What sort of thing—make out on a Kawasaki?" He sucked at my bottom lip, which no longer hurt.

"Yeah . . . I'm a Harley chick."

He chuckled at my lame joke.

I shifted my face away from his searching lips and directed a serious look toward him.

"What I mean is, I don't make love with guys I don't know. I mean, I've only been with . . . really, I'm not a . . . ." For some stupid reason, I felt tears burning my eyes. I lowered my head.

"I know what you meant," he said, kissing my forehead, the top of my cheek, the corner of my eye, "and I know you're not."

"How do you know?" My question was labored—he had moved on to nibbling the delicate dangling flesh of my earlobe, sending chills down my spine. "We don't know each other." I spoke slowly. It was hard work this talking thing when my brain was rushing signals of incoming hot pleasure to all parts of my body and blocking out all instructions such as breathing and talking.

"Everything about you screams 'good girl'." His voice was low and as seductive as the feel of his lips traveling down my neck and across the strip of skin left bare from where the top few buttons of my dress were still open.

My fingers curled in his hair to hold his head and searching mouth and tongue close to me.

I didn't feel like the good girl with him. "Mmm. I can't get enough of you." My words danced out in a voice full of rapture.

His lips found mine and he kissed me fully, sensuously. Then he pulled back, looked at me and cupped my face in his hands. Moonlight flickered in his eyes and answered the whisper I was hearing all through my body.

"Come home with me Angel," he said softly. "I'll spend the rest of the night making love to you."

"And fulfilling my desires?"

"Every one of 'em."

"I bet you could," I said huskily.

"Or have fun trying," he replied and sweetened the offer with another convincing kiss. His hands, which had been around my waist, dropped lower to rest on my thighs. They crept beneath my dress and slowly inched their way up my legs as he kissed me. My panties had been sacrificed to line the nests of the little critters that lived on the river bank, so Nick's wandering fingers had green-light access to the wetness between my legs.

He brushed his thumbs lightly against me, pleasuring me, and I leaned into his touch. I drew in a quick breath when one thumb gently circled the sensitive spot standing at attention just above the entry.

"You're not making it easy to say no." The words sounded like they came from a person groggy from sleep or drink.

"Then say yes," he prompted and stopped his hands.

Every nerve in my body screamed 'yes, yes, just don't stop!' but the small part of my brain that was not fogged over retained control of the unruly crowd. I leaned into him and hugged him.

"I can't. My parents would kill me if I stayed out all night."

"With me."

"With anyone." I was quick to answer because I knew what he was implying.

His hands retreated to a safer place around my waist, and he was quiet for a moment.

"I can't change your mind?" he said finally, and kissed me.

"Yeah, you could. Especially if you keep kissing me like that." We were both going to have swollen lips tomorrow.

"I'd keep kissing you like that forever if there was a chance it would change your mind."

"Nick, I told you . . . my parents . . . ."

He sighed and scratched his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end. "Is that all that's keeping you from me?"

His tone pushed me back a bit.

"What do you mean?"

"When we see each other at school, are you going to run into my arms and kiss me like you kissed me tonight, or are you going to look away and act like you don't know me?"

His blunt questioning shot through my heart, knocking me out of his arms and off the bike. I knew myself. While I would want to choose his arms and kisses, what I would do was choose to look away. The separate worlds we lived in wouldn't allow anything else. But still I hesitated, not wanting to give my answer even while knowing it had to be done.

"That's what I thought," he said at my silence.

I wanted to say something more, something to ensure the last moments of our magical night wouldn't simply disappear in the dark to be lost forever. Something like, carry me away on the back of your bike and make good on your vow to satisfy my every desire. But I couldn't bring myself to speak those words, so instead I said, reluctantly, the words that would be the beginning of the end of this night.

"I better go inside."

"Yeah, I guess you'd better."