.

intertwining with the sensuous music of the Latin tongue. She wanted to answer him. She wanted him to keep talking. Each syllable out of those works of art he had for lips, crooned in that intoxicating voice, was lulling her back to oblivion, this time a blissful one.

      His face filled her field of vision. She could see every shard of gold among the emerald, moss and caramel that swirled into a luminous color she was certain she’d never seen except in his eyes.

      She wanted to stab her fingers into the lushness of his raven mane, cup that leonine head, bring him even closer so she could pore over every strand’s hue and radiance. She wanted to trace each groove and slash and plane that painted his face in complexity, wanted to touch each radiation of character.

      This was a face mapped with anxiety and responsibility and distinction. She wanted to absorb the first, ease the second and marvel at the third. She wanted those lips against her own, mastering, filling her with the tongue that wrapped around those words and created such magic with them.

      She knew she shouldn’t be feeling anything like that now, that her body wasn’t up to her desires. Her body knew that, but didn’t acknowledge its incapacitation. It just needed him, close, all that maleness and bulk and power, all that tenderness and protection.

      She craved this man. She’d always craved him.

      “Cybele, por Dios, say something.”

      It was the raggedness, tearing at the power of his voice, that stirred her out of her hypnosis, forced her vocal cords to tauten, propelled air out of her lungs through them to produce the sound he demanded so anxiously.

      “I c-can hear you….”

      That came out an almost soundless rasp. From the way he tilted his ear toward her mouth, it was clear he wasn’t sure whether she had produced sound or if he’d imagined it, whether it had been words or just a groan.

      She tried again. “I’m a-awake …I think …I hope, a-and I h-hope you’re r-real….”

      She couldn’t say anything more. Fire lanced in her throat, sealing it with a molten agony. She tried to cough up what felt like red-hot steel splinters before they burned through her larynx. Her sand-filled eyes gushed tears, ameliorating their burning dryness.

      “Cybele!”

      And he was all around her. He raised her, cradled her in the curve of a barricade of heat and support, seeping warmth into her frozen, quivering bones. She sank in his power, surrendered in relief as he cupped her head.

      “Don’t try to talk anymore. You were intubated for long hours during your surgery and your larynx must be sore.”

      Something cool touched her lips, then something warm and spicily fragrant lapped at their parched seam. Not his lips or his tongue. A glass and a liquid. She instinctively parted her lips and the contents rushed in a gentle flow, filling her mouth.

      When she didn’t swallow, he angled her head more securely. “It’s a brew of anise and sage. It will soothe your throat.”

      He’d anticipated her discomfort, had been ready with a remedy. But why was he explaining? She would swallow anything he gave her. If she could without feeling as if nails were being driven into her throat. But he wanted her to. She had to do what he wanted.

      She squeezed her eyes against the pain, swallowed. The liquid slid through the rawness, its peppery tinge bringing more tears to her eyes. That lasted only seconds. The soreness subsided under the balmy taste and temperature.

      She moaned with relief, feeling rejuvenated with every encouraging sweep of tenderness that his thumb brushed over her cheek as she finished the rest of the glass’s contents.

      “Better now?”

      The solicitude in his voice, in his eyes, thundered through her. She shuddered under the impact of her gratitude, her need to hide inside him, dissolve in his care. She tried to answer him, but this time it was emotion that clogged her throat.

      But she had to express her thankfulness.

      His face was so close, clenched with concern, more magnificent in proximity, a study of perfection in slashes of strength and carvings of character. But haggardness had sunk redness into his eyes, iron into his jaw, and the unkemptness of a few days’ growth of rough silk over that jaw and above those lips caused her heart to twist. The need to absorb his discomforts and worries as he had hers mushroomed inside her.

      She turned her face, buried her lips into his hewn cheek. The bristle of his beard, the texture of his skin, the taste and scent of him tingled on her flesh, soaked into her senses. A gust of freshness and virility coursed through her, filled her lungs. His breath, rushing out on a ragged exhalation.

      She opened her lips for more just as he jerked around to face her. It brought his lips brushing hers. And she knew.

      This was the one thing she’d needed. This intimacy. With him.

      Something she’d always had before and had missed? Something she’d had before and had lost? Something she’d never had and had long craved?

      It didn’t matter. She had it now.

      She glided her lips against his, the flood of sensuality and sweetness of her flesh sweeping against his sizzling through her.

      Then her lips were cold and bereft, the enclosure of muscle and maleness around her gone.

      She slumped against what she now realized was a bed.

      Where had he gone? Had it all been a hallucination? A side effect of emerging from a coma?

      Her eyes teared up again with the loss. She turned her swimming head, searching for him, terrified she’d find only emptiness.

      Far from emptiness, she registered her surroundings for the first time, the most luxurious and spacious hospital suite she’d ever seen. But if he wasn’t there …

      Her darting gaze and hurtling thoughts came to an abrupt halt.

      He was there. Standing where he’d been when she’d first opened her eyes. But his image was distorted this time, turning him from an angel into a wrathful, inapproachable god who glowered down at her with disapproval.

      She blinked once, then again, her heart shedding its sluggish rhythm for frantic pounding.

      It was no use. His face remained cast in coldness. Instead of the angel she’d thought would do anything to protect her, this was the face of a man who’d stand aside and brood down at her as she drowned.

      She stared up at him, something that felt as familiar as a second skin settling about her. Despondence.

      It had been an illusion. Whatever she’d thought she’d seen on his face, whatever she’d felt flooding her in waves, had been her disorientation inventing what she wanted to see, to feel.

      “It’s clear you can move your head. Can you move everything else? Are you in any pain? Blink if it’s too uncomfortable to talk. Once for yes, twice for no.”

      Tears surged into her eyes again. She blinked erratically. A low rumble unfurled from his depths. Must be frustration with her inability to follow such a simple direction.

      But she couldn’t help it. She now recognized his questions for what they were. Those asked of anyone whose consciousness had been compromised, as she was now certain hers had been. Ascertaining level of awareness, then sensory and motor functions, then pain level and site. But there was no personal worry behind the questions anymore, just clinical detachment.

      She could barely breathe with missing his tenderness and anxiety for her well-being. Even if she’d imagined them.

      “Cybele! Keep your eyes open, stay with me.”

      The urgency in his voice snapped through her, made her struggle to obey him. “I c-can’t….”

      He seemed to grow bigger, his hewn face etched with fierceness, frustration rippling off him. Then