“Yes.”

“Good noise or bad noise?” The first time was supposed to hurt.

He reached out and brushed his fingers across her lips, making them tingle. “Good.”

That sounded promising. She licked her lips, tasting his subtle presence on them.

“So, how soon can you be ready to go?” he asked again.

Then she remembered what she was going to tell him about Claire. “We don’t have to go anywhere.”

“Are you having second thoughts?”

“No. The thing is, Claire works nights at a nursing home twice a week. This is one of them. She probably won’t even come home between classes and going to work.”

He shrugged as if that information made no difference. “A woman’s first time should be special.”

She felt her expression going all gooey, and she couldn’t do a thing to hide it. “That’s really sweet, Nitro.”

“Daniel. I am not just another mercenary to you. After tonight, I will be your man.” He sounded really serious about this, and she finally caught on to the fact that what she called him was of major importance to him.

“I can be ready to go in twenty minutes…Daniel.”

He smiled his approval at her, and she got all warm and happy inside. “After we make love, I will tell you my true name.”

“Your true name?”

“The one I was given by the Sioux.”

“Then will you expect me to call you that?” she asked, thinking maybe this whole name thing could be taken a little too far.

“My name to you is Daniel.”

“But you want me to know your true name.” She was trying to understand and not getting very far.

“After we have shared our bodies, yes.”

“Do all the women you’ve made love to know your true name?”

“Only two other living people know it, and neither of them are women.”

Well, that was something. Maybe being an obsession was more important than a casual bed partner.

Later, Josie’s heart fluttered in her chest as Daniel unlocked the door to their hotel room. Facing armed guerillas was not as intimidating as the unknown beyond that door.

She’d known soldiering her whole life, but the man/woman thing, seems it was all a complete mystery to her. Other women had started heavy petting when she’d been busy learning how to build and dismantle car bombs. The only orgasms she’d known had been of the self-made variety, and while they made pretty good battle tension relievers, they weren’t anything to get excited about.

Not like the way she felt when Daniel kissed her.

Which was why she was here, ready to make love for the first time to a man who until that very morning, she’d been convinced didn’t even like her.

He’d acted as though he liked her in the park. He’d played with her, and she had a feeling their tussling had been as new an experience for him as it had been for her, but the desire they felt was not.

He knew so much more about this than she did.

“My dad wouldn’t have taken you on as a partner if you weren’t a pretty good teacher, would he?”

Daniel turned his head to look at her, his hand on the doorknob. “What?”

“Your method of teaching isn’t tossing someone into a river and seeing if they learn to swim before they drown, is it?” Her voice was high-pitched, and her breathing had turned ragged at the edges.

He winked, shocking her to her toenails. “Don’t worry, Josette. I won’t let you drown.”

She swallowed and tried to believe him. He pushed the heavy, ornate wooden door open and indicated she should go in first, but her legs refused to cooperate.

His dark eyes narrowed. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, but I can’t seem to get my feet to move.”

“You’re nervous.”

What had been his first clue? The way she equated making love for the first time with death by drowning, or the deer-caught-in-the-headlights look she knew was in her eyes? “I shouldn’t be. I’m not a child.”

“But you are innocent.”

“Only physically.” She’d heard and seen things women married for forty years would never experience.

He shook his head, his mouth twitching at the corners. “Your heart and your mind are very innocent still, no matter what you think you know.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes.”

That sparked another set of worries that kept her feet firmly glued to the floor outside their room. “Won’t you be bored making love to me, seeing as how I don’t know anything?”

“Josette, I could spend the entire night just looking at you and not get bored.” His tone wasn’t reassuring so much as bewildered.

Which was actually pretty comforting. Later, she would probably feel flattered and special, but right now, she just felt relief. At least something about this was new for him, too. “I take it you’ve never been that way with a woman?”

“No.” And if the frown on his face meant anything, he didn’t like it.

“It’s a first for both of us.” She couldn’t help the satisfaction that laced her voice.

He let out an impatient breath. “It’s not going to be anything if we don’t get out of the hall.”

She sighed and looked into the room. It was a suite. She could see the bedroom through the sumptuously decorated sitting room. It was like a room out of time, the colors and décor something from a bygone era.

“It’s a pretty room,” she said without moving.

“Not as pretty as the woman I’m bringing into it.” Before she knew it, the decision was being taken from her as he swept her up in his arms and carried her inside.

“This isn’t our wedding night,” she said breathlessly.

“I know that.”

“But you just carried me over the threshold.”

“It was the expedient thing to do.”

Perhaps, but she liked the sensations zinging through her body as a result of being held securely in his strong arms. She looped her arms around his neck and buried her face in the warmth of his chest. He smelled so different than she did, but it was a good different. Masculine.

Maybe she wasn’t as lacking in the feminine department as she thought she was. At least she now realized she smelled like a woman, not a man. She should have caught on to that sooner, as much time as she spent around male soldiers, but she couldn’t ever remember actually smelling one before.

He carried her through the sitting room to the bedroom beyond, and her breath caught in her throat.

Did he want to make love right now, just like that?

Of course he did. She was his obsession. It wasn’t the romance of the century or anything schmaltzy like that.

Then another scent, one very different from Daniel, invaded her senses. Roses.

She lifted her head from his chest and looked around them.

The room was filled with flowers—red roses, white roses, yellow roses and even lavender roses. They were everywhere. Swags of dried orange blossoms hung off the ornate head and footboard of the antique bed, too, but the thing that caught her attention and kept it was a white silk gown spread over the burgundy velvet bedspread.

“Daniel?”

He looked down at her, the hardened mercenary she knew him to be not quite hiding the man who cared enough to make this night special. “It’s your first time. I want you to remember it for all the right reasons.”

Tears filled her eyes, and she couldn’t get a sound out past the big lump in her throat.

He let her down and stepped back, seemingly unconcerned by her display of emotion.

“I’m going to take a walk. I’ll be back in a while. The bathroom is through there.” He pointed to a door on the opposite side of the room. “Take your time getting ready. I’m not going to rush you tonight, in any way.”

She was still shivering from the promise in that last comment when the outer door closed.