LITMIR.BIZ

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his hips between her splayed knees, sliding down the bed on his back. Pausing again, his tongue delved into her navel, then dipped lower.

      Sharp sparks of pleasure darted from her core. She swayed, falling forward until only a white-knuckled grip on the headboard kept her upright. Electricity arced around her, through her. Her skin grew unbearably tight. Unbearably hot. Her blood thickened until the cells pulsed through her veins in great, throbbing knots.

      “Now, Marco,” she groaned. “Oh, now.” Releasing the headboard, she clutched at his hair.

      He pulled her down, rolled, and covered her with his hot, damp length. Perspiration beaded at his temples. Sinew corded in his neck and he bared his teeth, stark white against a swarthy complexion. Lacing his fingers with hers above her head, he pushed their hands against the mattress, levering his upper body away and driving his lower body inside.

      Filled at last by his hardness and heat, Paige mewled her approval.

      “Ah, that’s better.” That not-quite-there smile crossed his lips again, pure male satisfaction, she was sure.

      Gradually adjusting to his thick intrusion, she stroked her hands down his smooth back, marveling at the power of his gathered muscles and the tremble of need, barely contained. Cupping his backside, she pulled him closer, taking his full measure.

      “Much better,” she agreed.

      His smile disappeared as he groaned. He eased away from her, then rolled forward, a thick wave tumbling heavily ashore. Again and again he moved over her, as rhythmic as the sea. And as deep.

      The current of his passion dragged her under. She’d never felt more alive than she did at that moment, yet she was drowning. In him. The deeper he took her, the more intensely she felt the onrush of something even more dangerous, something as powerful—and unstoppable—as the tide.

      Dark eyes bid her surrender to the flow.

      Fear clutched at her from the shadows. Head thrown back, she gasped for air, for coherence. Her fingers bit deep into his shoulders.

      His body pierced hers furiously. Seductively. Enticing her to match his pace. “Come on, let go.”

      “I can’t.”

      “You have to.”

      No, she mouthed soundlessly, her head thrashing from side to side.

      Yes, his eyes commanded.

      Gulping down her panic at the consuming void she felt approaching, she squeezed her eyes shut.

      Growling, he interrupted his rhythm. With his teeth bearing down on the flesh of her neck, he wedged his hand between them, his fingers touched her where all her nerves joined together. Swirling. Spiraling. Creating a riptide of sensation.

      She pushed at his shoulders. Cried out once.

      And gave herself over to the vortex.

      Wonder cascaded over her like moonlight on the crest of a whitecap. One by one the molecules of her body disassembled into pure energy and danced in the beam. Marco pulled back and thrust once more, then his back went rigid. He cried her name, guttural and raw, as his body pulsed inside her.

      Paige held on to him as if he was the last life preserver on a sinking ship. She clutched with arms, legs, body, while the surge swelled around them, lifted them. She held him so close their hearts beat as one, their minds connected, both tumultuous.

      It wasn’t until he gently kissed the tip of her nose and the creases of her eyelids that she realized the maelstrom had passed.

      Still dazed by the intensity of what they’d shared, she rolled to her side, tucking her hands beneath her cheek. Without a word she waited for the shift of the mattress that would signal Marco’s exit from her bed, but Marco didn’t leave. Instead he wrapped his arms around her. He held her securely, almost possessively. One of his firm thighs insinuated itself between her knees and his beard stubble razed the back of her head as he smoothed her hair with his cheek.

      Seconds, then minutes, ticked away. The flush gradually cooled from her skin. She shivered, and Marco pulled a blanket up and tucked it around her shoulders.

      “Sleep,” he murmured.

      But surprise—and the warm current of his breath behind her ear—held sleep at bay. She wasn’t sure what she had expected tonight, but it certainly hadn’t been this. A joining that transcended sex into intimacy in its purest form.

      He’d known exactly how to touch, how to move, to elicit her response. Like master and puppet he’d pulled her strings, and she’d danced for him. She’d held nothing back. She couldn’t have stopped the shattering climax he’d wrung from her even if she had wanted to—which she hadn’t.

      No man had ever affected her so deeply. Touched her on such an elemental level. Had he summoned her very soul, she would have answered his call.

      And that frightened her.

      Marco possessed a will few men could match. He was intense. Driven. Obsessive in the pursuit of whatever—or whomever—he went after. Compulsive in the protection of anything in his keep. He would want too much from a woman, a lover. Demand too much.

      More than she was willing to give.

      Three years ago she’d given everything she had to a man. So much that when he walked out, there’d been nothing left of herself for her.

      She’d worked hard since then to take charge of her life, to regain her independence, her self-respect. She didn’t plan to give it up to another man.

      Not even a man with a sinful body and angel’s eyes.

      The grandfather clock downstairs chimed twelve bells. Midnight. Appropriately, heralding both a new day and a time come to an end. For her first night with Marco Angelosi, she vowed, would also be her last.

      Morning dawned in shades of gray instead of the pink and orange hues more common to coastal Texas. Paige welcomed the dull skies. A full-strength August sun would have been murder on her irritated eyes. She hadn’t slept much last night.

      Despite the gunmetal canopy hanging overhead, she jammed on a pair of aviator sunglasses before stepping out of the Battan Industries warehouse she and her canine police partner, a German shepherd named Bravo, had just wasted another morning searching. This raid hadn’t turned up anything more than the last five.

      Gulls screeched and circled above the nearby docks. A sea breeze toyed with the hair around her face. She tucked the yellow locks behind her ears and surreptitiously scanned the parking area for Marco.

      Not that he had any reason to be here. He hadn’t been appointed to the multiagency task force assembled to investigate the influx of a new cocaine derivative called “Magic” into the area. But then, he hadn’t had a reason to be at any of the other task force busts, either, yet he had shown up at each and every one.

      Department gossip rumored he was jealous. As Port Kingston Police Department’s best narcotics detective, he’d been the leading candidate to head up the task force. But for reasons unknown, his name had been left off the final postings.

      Paige didn’t believe he was jealous. Marco was too much his own man to worry about office politics. She suspected his reasons for showing up where she was working were more personal. Or at least they had been. Today he had no personal reason to be here. Not after the way they’d parted.

      Standing in her kitchen doorway at dawn, her bare feet chilling on the checkerboard tile floor and a terry robe wrapped around her like a suit of armor, she’d told him she couldn’t see him again.

      He had taken her rebuff stoically, but something disturbing had simmered just beneath the black slate surfaces of his eyes. Something volatile and yet vulnerable. Not quite frightening, but not terribly comforting, either.

      For a moment she’d thought he might argue. For a moment she’d wished he would. But Marco had apparently been raised to listen when a lady says no. In the end, his

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