The Tycoon's Virgin Bride. Sandra Field

then she remembered the incredible power of that single kiss; mysteriously, hadn’t it transformed her into a woman truly aware of her own femininity? Was she going to run away from that?

      With a barely discernible quiver in her voice, Jenessa said mendaciously, “My first rule is protection.”

      “Fine. And your second?”

      This time she was telling the hard truth. “That no one, but no one, controls my life but me.”

      “Then we’re on the same wavelength,” Bryce said.

      Jenessa sat back, trying to still the trembling of her limbs. Right now she was going on the assumption she’d have at least some control over whatever happened in Bryce’s hotel room.

      But what if she was wrong? What then?

      CHAPTER TWO

      AS A CABDRIVER blared his horn, Jenessa gave a nervous start. She depended deeply on her intuition in the studio; it was now screaming that the next few hours could unalterably change her life in ways far more significant than any lost virginity.

      She was under no illusions: she was about to go to bed with her brother’s best friend. It was a crazy plan. Plain crazy. But never before had her blood fueled her body with such an undeniable and imperative ache of desire.

      She’d allow herself to be seduced by Bryce; and then she’d leave. If he ever found out who she was, she was sure he’d never tell Travis.

      In that, at least, she was quite safe. And how much better to lose her virginity with an experienced man who was, however obliquely, known to her, than to any of the fumbling undergraduates who had only filled her distaste. She said coolly, “I’ll take a cab home afterward.”

      Not taking his eyes off the constant traffic, Bryce asked, “How old are you, Jan?”

      Her lashes flickered. “Twenty-one.”

      “Do you graduate next spring?”

      “No…I was late applying.”

      He said in exasperation, “I can’t read you—you elude me. Usually women are an open book to me. But not you.”

      “Perhaps open books aren’t worth reading.” She gave a sudden chuckle. “Which sounds like a Japanese koan, doesn’t it?”

      “Mysterious? Paradoxical? You’re both.” He grimaced. “I’ll be back in New York in a couple of months. Will you give me your phone number?”

      “No.”

      Her answer, like everything else she’d done in the last hour, had been instinctive. Bryce said flatly, “You really are into control.”

      Suddenly exhilarated as much by their verbal fencing as by his physical presence, Jenessa said provocatively, “Is there any reason why I shouldn’t be?”

      Deliberately he took his hand from the wheel and slid it up her stockinged thigh, bared by her miniskirt. “I hope neither of us regrets this.”

      “There’s no reason why either of us should,” she said, as much to herself as to him; and made no attempt to hide her shiver of response.

      Leaving his hand heavy and warm on her thigh, he said, “Two more blocks.”

      Ten minutes later, Bryce was ushering her through the double doors of the penthouse suite in one of the city’s most prestigious hotels. She gained a quick impression of gleaming parquet and opulent Chinese carpets before Bryce said with the underlying impatience she was already realizing was characteristic of him, “Do you want anything to eat? Or drink?”

      The courage that had preserved her time and again in her childhood came to the fore. She slipped her feet out of her shoes and stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “You and you,” she whispered.

      With a strength that intoxicated her, he lifted her in his arms and carried her the width of a richly furnished living room, its tall windows jeweled with the lights of the city. His corded muscles were hard against her body; she could hear the heavy pounding of his heart, an intimacy that made her faint with longing. He pushed the bedroom door open, strode across a thick carpet to the bed and lowered her onto it. Then he straightened and yanked at the knot of his tie.

      Mesmerized, Jenessa watched as he hauled off his jacket, tie and shirt. He kicked his shoes to one side. Socks and trousers followed. His watch, whose price tag would probably have paid her entire year’s tuition, he placed on the bedside table. Then, wearing only a pair of dark boxer shorts, he said softly, “Take off your clothes, Jan.”

      Jan, she thought. Jan. Another woman, a fictional woman. When all she wanted was to be herself.

      She sat up, unzipping her black jacket. Her brief camisole, skintight, joined his clothes on the floor. Her bra was also black. She eased out of her skirt and drew her stockings slowly down her legs, her eyes glued to his face; scarcely able to breathe, she murmured, “I want you to take off the rest.”

      For a moment his gaze roamed the pale curves of her body. “You’re so beautiful,” he said huskily.

      Wondering if she could die of waiting, Jenessa opened her arms to him. He plummeted to the bed, enveloping her in the heat of his body, flicking open the clasp of her bra and tossing it to the floor. Her breasts were firm, delicately pointed. With his tongue he found the soft peak, hardening it within seconds. Jenessa gave a startled gasp of pleasure, her body arching toward him. He circled her waist, lifting her so that they fitted together as though made for each other.

      Against her pelvis she felt the hardness that was his essence: proof of his desire. Then he was kissing her, plundering her mouth for all its sweetness, his hands roaming her body. She tangled her fingers in the hair that curled on his chest, wanting to delay an exploration that melted every nerve she possessed, yet driven toward a completion she could only imagine.

      Glorying in her nudity, she pressed thigh to thigh, hip to hip. He sank lower, his lips tracing the swell of her breasts, the sweet concavity of her navel and belly. Then he opened her legs, plunging to find all her sensitivities. She cried out his name, writhing beneath him, losing herself in rhythms that were sheer delight.

      With a muttered exclamation, Bryce reached for the small envelope by the bed. “Wait for me,” he said roughly, “I want us to come together.”

      She had been waiting for him for months, ever since she’d fled the house where she’d grown up, she thought dazedly; waiting for a lover capable of unleashing a passion she hadn’t known was hers. As she opened her thighs, he thrust between them, brushing her breasts with the hard wall of his chest.

      Then she felt resistance, a sudden shaft of pain; despite herself, she flinched. With a suddenness that shocked her, Bryce pulled back. He said sharply, “Jan—you’re a virgin.”

      “Yes. But I want you so much, I don’t care if—”

      He was holding his weight on his palms, his elbows taut; he looked appalled. “You’ve never done this before?”

      “No…so what? What difference does it make?”

      He said, each word falling like a stone on the bed, “You told me you were experienced.”

      “I didn’t!”

      “Not in so many words. But that’s the impression you gave me. I don’t have one-night stands with virgins, Jan Struthers. It’s not my style. I want a woman who knows the score.”

      There was a sharp pain in Jenessa’s belly; her skin was suddenly so cold that she was shivering like a half-drowned kitten. “You wanted me, you can’t deny that. Experienced or not, you wanted me.”

      “I’m glad you put it in the past tense,” he said savagely.

      She wrapped her fingers around his arm. “Please, Bryce, don’t stop now…I’ve waited all term to meet someone like you, someone who brings me to life and makes me realize why