Once inside, Taylor's gaze swept the ticket counters, lines of overweight businessmen, lovers embracing for their last farewell, mothers struggling to keep young children in tow. Her throat tightened at the sight of three-year-old twin girls circling their mother like maypole dancers, twisting their mother's skirt first one way and then the other. Their identical giggles were as welcome as raindrops on a summer-parched landscape.

She swallowed hard and looked away. No siblings could be closer than those who had shared a womb. No one owed more loyalty and love than one twin to another.

Spotting a man she took to be a supervisor, Taylor angled toward the LanChile airline counter.

"Excuse me," she said in Spanish as she slipped several U.S. twenties from her waistpack. "I wonder if you could help me."

The youngish gentleman turned toward her. "Señorita?"

"I'm hoping you can tell me if my brother flew to Punta Arenas sometime in the past few weeks. You know how younger brothers can be, so forgetful about—"

"Excuse us," Rafe said to the supervisor, taking Taylor's arm and dragging her away.

Her gaze snapped up, colliding with his. His pupils were dilated almost to black. "What are you doing? I just gave that guy a twenty—"

"Don't panic. Your black-jacket buddies just showed up," he murmured an instant before his mouth covered hers.

Don't panic? Good God! He'd kissed her before she'd had a moment to catch her breath. Panic, however, was not her first reaction.

Hot, jagged lightning seared through her at the initial contact of his lips. Some part of her brain registered surprise that the entire electrical system at the airport hadn't burned out in that single instant. No lights. No circling baggage carousel. And certainly no operational control tower.

This kiss was more than a diversion. Adrenaline swept through her veins. Fear mixed with arousal in a heady combination that left her heart pounding a hundred-and-fifty beats to the minute and her breath staggering in her lungs.

His mouth shifted, making the kiss more intimate, and she knew something monumental was happening—to both of them. She craved the experience as a connoisseur longed for the next sip of fine wine. She'd go anywhere, do anything, to sustain this intoxicating sensation.

Her hands cupped the back his head, pulling him closer, and she dug her fingers into the neatly trimmed hair at his nape. He murmured something unintelligible as his hand on her hips pressed her into the hard ridge of his arousal. She thrilled at the sensation of his need. And hers.

With his tongue, he made love to her. Stroking. Caressing. Right in the middle of an airport terminal. With hundreds of people milling around. And she relished the wild, illicit experience in a way that no ordinary love making had ever achieved.

She leaned into him, her breasts flattening against his rock-hard chest. Her nipples ached for even closer contact. For the feel of skin on skin.