He backed off slightly. His tongue explored her softness while his hands kneaded the resilient flesh of her bu**ocks.

An image popped into Sariana's head. It was similar to the picture of herself she had seen that afternoon on the sled, the view that seemed to linger on her backside. In this image the round cheeks of her bu**ocks were full and lightly flushed. The dark cleft that separated them was deep and shockingly mysterious. A familiar masculine hand was gliding around to explore the hidden valley.

Even as she realized what was happening, Sariana felt Gryph's fingers sliding into that secret place, seeking its mysteries with a boldness that made her tremble.

Sariana gasped for air and banished the picture with an act of will. This was her fantasy, not Gryph's. She would control it and control him in the process. He had a lesson coming and she knew now she could teach it.

Sariana won the battle to control his questing fingers but as she concentrated on that skirmish, she lost control of the kiss. It deepened quickly as his tongue slid between her teeth. Then she felt Gryph's blunt, hard shaft sliding along her stomach.

Sariana realized she bad to control the sensual battle on all fronts. Gryph was too clever, too knowledgeable about her responses. He was too much the hunter, the one trained to take charge. And he'd figured out what she was trying to do.

Sariana replaced the graphic image she had just banished with one of her own. This was a much softer, more romantic picture of a woman lying on her back while a faceless man knelt beside her and gently touched her br**sts.

"That's me, not some faceless fantasy," Gryph muttered, lowering Sariana to the blanket that had fallen onto the sand. "If you're going to draw pictures, get them right."

The unseen man kneeling beside the woman instantly assumed Gryph's features. And then Gryph himself was kneeling beside Sariana. He drew small circles around her dusky aureoles. The hard ni**les grew even tauter. She arched upward, seeking a firmer touch.

"Is this what you want, Sariana?" He tugged gently at sensitized flesh.

"Yes," she managed. "Oh, yes, that's what I want." She took his hand and raised it to her lips, kissing his rough palm. Then she pushed it slowly, firmly down her body.

When his fingers threaded through the dark hair between her thighs she moaned and lifted herself against him. She thought of the way he had touched her there the last time he had made love to her and deliberately she tried to project that image. Then he was touching her there.

His fingers grew wet with her natural dew and they moved more slickly over her. Sariana reached down urgently to guide his hand still lower.

Gryph sucked in his breath and obediently gave her the caress she sought. He slid two fingers just inside her throbbing passage and opened her slowly until she felt deliriously stretched and waiting.

"Do you like that?" he rasped thickly. "Is that what you want, little tyrant?" "More," she pleaded imperiously. "I want more of you." She looked up at him and saw the stark

hunger in his face.

"How much more?"

"Everything. Anything." She twisted restlessly under his hand and groped for him, trying to drag him down onto her. She was growing wild with her own desire and the knowledge that his passion was an urfemo fed her responses. "Come here." An image of him lying on top of her, thrusting into her formed in her head. It was getting hard to think clearly enough to create such explicit pictures. This one was definitely fuzzy around the edges.

"Are you sure that's what you want?" "What else is there?"

His eyes blazed down at her while his fingers continued a slow, achingly exciting motion. "Give the command and I'll show you."

She moved urgently. "Yes. Show me," she ordered.

"As my lady wishes." He moved then, but he didn't come down on top of her as she had thought he

would. Instead he gently pried her thighs widely apart and knelt between them. Then he lowered his head to drop a startling, incredibly intimate kiss into her warmth.

Sariana jerked bolt upright in shock. "Gryph!" "You don't like it?"

"I… I don't know," she hedged.

"Give it time." He eased her back down onto the blanket and once more treated her to the exquisite, worshipful caress.

"By the Lightstonn," Sahana whispered. She reached her hands down to push him away and found herself clutching at him and pressing him closer instead.

She could form no more coherent images. Her mind was consumed with a riot of colors and textures and heat. Sariana felt the tension coiling more and more tightly within her and she held Gryph firmly in place while she waited for tihe explosion.

Gryph didn't seem to mind the fierce grip she had on his tousled hair. He sipped at her warmth as if it were nectar. His fingers probed gently into her channel as he took the tiny bud of passion between his lips.

The sudden release of the sensual tension exploded out of nowhere, convulsing Sariana's entire body. She cried out and Gryph rode the storm as she arched upward and tightened her thighs around him.

When she sank slowly back to the ground, Gryph stretched out along her. His manhood poised at the vulnerable entrance of her body, his mouth still carrying the taste of her, he took her face between his hands and waited until she opened her eyes.

Sariana lay still for a long moment, vitally aware of him waiting for her to come back to her senses. She was tempted to let herself drift but there wasn't much point in that. Sooner or later she would have to open her eyes and she knew that no matter how long it would take he would be waiting. Silently she lifted her lashes.

An unspoken question throbbed in the air between them. But Sariana wasn't listening to silent questions. There was another image forming in her mind. She saw herself holding a babe with night-dark hair and blue-green eyes. The infant was smiling mischievously, its tiny fists grasping eagerly for whatever was within reach.

Gryph wanted that child. It represented life and the future to him.

Sariana realized she wanted to give him that babe.

She also knew in that moment that she wasn't falling in love with him. She was already in love with him. Sariana thought about the contraceptive she had purchased from the medic that morning. Then she

made her decision. She would not use it.

Wordlessly she pulled Gryph down onto her and into her. He took her with a low, hoarse groan of unremitting need, driving into her so deeply that Sariana knew instinctively she would never again be free of him.

Much later that night when she lay curled beside him on the gently rocking river sled, Sariana remembered the image of the babe that had formed in her mind.