LITMIR.BIZ

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and besides, in spite of the fear, her body ached for him. Those silver flashes exploded everywhere now, and her core was tugging toward him.

      She felt him, so wondrously rigid and velvety at the same time, pressing against that tingling spot between her legs. Her lungs tightened. Her fingers dug into his shoulders. She tried to find enough air to breathe.

      He kissed her again, his tongue driving that spiced sweetness into her mouth, and she inhaled sharply. And then she let her knees fall apart to welcome him.

      After that, for a very long time, nothing seemed quite linear or logical. She was all body, all sensation, with no brain to interfere. She was all aching and pushing, panting and exploring.

      Finally, even the body was unnecessary. He had, with his amazing hands and his clever lips, unwound the spiraled fortress of that outer shell and found the vulnerable truth inside. She was sunshine and starlight and invisible currents that were ready to carry her to places she’d never been.

      But at the very end, in that point-of-no-return moment before the currents took her away, like a fool she opened her eyes.

      And David Gerard’s strong face was above her, gleaming with the sweat of their lovemaking. And so, as she twisted away into the most shattering climax she’d ever experienced, she was looking into his eyes. And God help her, he wasn’t just a man. He was this man. Âme perdue.

      She wasn’t going to be able to forget him now.

      DAVID WOKE in the purple hour before dawn, and he sensed immediately that he was alone.

      He lifted up just enough to squint toward where her clothes had fallen. Nothing. The carpet was bare. His sweet, mysterious lover—he knew only that the name on her badge had been Kitty—was gone.

      He fell back onto the couch, irrationally disappointed. Had he really expected her to stay all night? What, in fact, had he expected from any of this?

      He sleepily relived the strange events that had led to…

      To this.

      If anyone had told him that he’d mark Belle Carson’s wedding day by picking up a tough-talking, green-haired bartender whose badass attitude barely covered up the fact that she was really a little girl lost, he’d have laughed in their faces.

      If anyone had told him that the bartender would make crazy love with him until he collapsed and passed out stark naked on his own couch, he would have said they were crazy.

      And if anyone had dared to suggest that, when he woke up, he’d still be hard as a rock and hungry for more, he’d…

      But he was. He was exhausted, and yet he was fully aroused, still on fire, as if she’d cast a spell on him. Why the hell had she left? He wondered if the hotel would give him her room number. If he could stand the pain of putting on pants, maybe he could go and…

      He laughed at himself. He couldn’t even walk right now, much less go out in public.

      Could he find her before he’d have to leave for the airport? His plane was at two, which gave him…

      Not long enough.

      Not nearly long enough.

      How much would it cost him to change his flight? He rolled on to his side and groaned as the cool leather pressed against the sensitive places.

      He didn’t care if it was a thousand dollars. There was something about his little green-haired Kitty with no last name. Something clever and sexy…and something else, too. A haunting quality he couldn’t put a name to.

      He remembered the look in her eyes as she made love to him. She’d been frightened, and at the same time so alive, so in love with the feeling. He could almost hear her whimper, and feel her pulsing helplessly around him. He groaned again. Oh, yeah. Once with that woman was definitely not enough.

      And then, suddenly, as if his hunger had summoned her up, he felt the cushions bend, and he felt her warmth slide onto the sofa behind him. He felt her breasts press into his back as she spooned up against him. He sighed with pleasure, and more than a little relief.

      She reached around and pressed her hands against his chest.

      “Ahhh,” she said. She nipped his shoulder, purring in a delighted murmur.

      Slowly, she began to slide her palms up and down, from collarbone to hips. For a moment, he shut his eyes and let the bliss wash over him.

      “Kitty,” he said softly. He stilled her hands just below his rib cage, but he felt his control slipping.

      “No,” a strange voice said, breaking the moment as brutally as a hammer shattering a mirror. “But obviously Kitty wasn’t exaggerating about you.”

      He turned sharply, and faced a voluptuous brunette, dressed in the same bartender’s uniform that Kitty had worn. But different, so different…such dark, almond-shaped eyes over full, hungry lips.

      “Kitty said you were a carnival ride like no other.” The woman licked the skin on his shoulder. “And now I see it’s true.”

      It was the other bartender. Jill. He’d seen her a dozen times, pulling drafts and raking in big tips. She’d flirted with him, night after night, as she did with every male customer she encountered.

      But what the hell was she doing here, on this sofa? And what did she mean, “Kitty said…”?

      He sat up, grabbing her shoulders and moving her out of the way as he might have moved a child who had become a pest.

      She chuckled softly, clearly undaunted, and reached out to smooth his tousled hair.

      “Don’t you remember me, sweetheart? I’m Jill. Kitty said to say she’s sorry. She had to go, but she sent me to see if you needed anything…” Her eyes slid down. “Anything else.”

      CHAPTER TWO

      Eight weeks later

      BY THE TIME the Brantley deposition was over, David Gerard couldn’t see anything but January’s darkness outside his law office window, and he was tired. Not just go-to-bed-early tired. The kind of disgusted bone-weariness that made people burn their houses, move to Costa Rica and spend the rest of their lives drinking piña coladas out of conch shells.

      Unfortunately, he’d promised to take Marta Digiorno, a friend who also happened to be an attorney, out to dinner. They’d been circling the idea of dating for the past few weeks, though he wasn’t crazy about mixing the courthouse with pleasure. Tonight would be a trial balloon. Not quite a date, but not completely business, either.

      “Do you think Barker and King will settle?” Marta stuffed file folders into the pocket of her briefcase, then sat on the edge of his desk and smiled. Amazingly, she didn’t look an iota less crisp and professional than she had at eight this morning, when they’d passed in the hall, each heading into the courthouse to take separate depositions.

      She had a good legal mind, and David answered the question honestly. The chauvinistic weasels at Barker and King, Inc., had clearly discriminated against his client, a former employee who had been let go because she got pregnant.

      “They should settle,” he said. “But they might not. They know the case is pro bono. They might think they can stonewall until we get tired of paying out of our own pockets.”

      “Watch your pronouns,” she said, cocking one graceful eyebrow. “I’m not representing anyone for free. You’re the bleeding heart around here. So, any chance your heart feels sorry enough for a fellow lawyer to rub her tired feet?”

      She kicked off her high heels and rested her left foot on his thigh.

      Okay, that certainly shifted the evening squarely into the personal column. He hesitated, then decided he was being a fool. It had been two months since he’d had a date. Longer, really, because that Bahamas madness didn’t really qualify as a date.

      Still…eight weeks since his vacation,

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