Wes McCord had charmed, cheated and lied his way through life, and nothing but blackmail would have drawn fragile, beautiful Anna Nilsen into his arms -- and into his bed. She fought him, rebelled against her own furious longing for this unprincipled empire builder but the treacherous ecstasy he taught her was unbearably exciting. She was silk and heat, he was thunder and lightning in this stormiest of passions, but when their bodies cooled, Wes was shocked to recognize his own surrender to a primal hunger Anna had awakened in him. Ravished in a moonlit forest by a destroyer who'd never known gentleness, Anna felt the seed of unexpected love blossoming within her. She doubted Wes would ever share her feelings. He was not a good man or a safe man, but he was hers -- and once he'd branded her flesh with the flames of his desire, could this impossible love endure the sunlight of all the days to come?