LITMIR.BIZ

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ran down them as they leaned together, taking for ever for their breath to ease.

      ‘Are you okay?’ he finally spoke. ‘That wasn’t too uncomfortable?’

      She mock-punched his arm. ‘Carter.’

      He started to laugh. And then she laughed too.

      ‘You sure you didn’t mind?’ His laugh became a groan as he carefully curved his hands around her hips.

      How could she mind that? ‘Give me half an hour and then do it again, will you?’

      ‘You don’t need half an hour.’ He swung her into his arms and carried her back to his bed. And made love to every inch of her all over again.

      Monday morning she couldn’t move. Wouldn’t. Point blank refused to let the weekend be over. She screwed her eyes shut when he appeared by the bed dressed in one of his killer suits. ‘Don’t ask me to get up yet. Please.’

      She just wanted to snuggle in the sheets and enjoy absolute physical abandonment. He was perfect. He was playful. He wasn’t ever going to ask anything more of her. And now he was fresh from the shower.

      All she could let herself think about was this. She buried herself in his sensuality, blinding herself to everything else that was so attractive about him. Ignoring the ways in which they were so compatible.

      But the humour she couldn’t avoid—not when he brought it into bed with them.

      He tugged the sheet from her body; she stretched and squealed with the pleasure-pain of well-worn muscles. She really didn’t want to get up yet. But then he unzipped his trousers. Delighted, she scrunched a little deeper into the mattress.

      ‘Oh, my,’ she murmured as he straddled her. ‘You want me to set a personal record or something?’

      ‘Well, it’s like anything—the more practice you have, the better you get.’

      ‘Then hurry up and practise with me.’ Oh, she was so into it now—utterly free in the physical play with him.

      His brows lifted.

      ‘Come on,’ she begged. ‘You’ll have me hit orgasm just from thinking about it soon.’ Just from thinking about him.

      ‘You’re complaining?’

      ‘No,’ she giggled as he nuzzled down her stomach like a playful lion.

      Suddenly he stopped and looked up her body into her eyes. ‘Seriously, though, you’re not too sore?’

      She arched, brazenly lifting her hips to him. ‘Don’t you dare stop!’

      Monday sucked. Monday meant other people were in the office—meaning he couldn’t go and kiss her freely. So Carter locked himself in his office and ploughed on with the tedious task of hunting for tiny financial irregularities. He didn’t move from his desk for hours—just to prove to himself that he could concentrate for that long. Because all he really wanted to do was hang out by Penny’s desk and talk to her. He wanted to spend every minute with her, resenting the job he had to do, even though it was because of the job that he’d met her in the first place.

      Tuesday sucked just as much—another night had gone and the ones remaining felt too few. Stupid. Because he’d achieved his aim—she was wholly his and he had the rest of the week to indulge and that should totally be enough.

      And now he’d just found the needle in the haystack. He carefully pulled it out to inspect it—drawing with it the thread that could unravel the whole company. Once he’d followed the poison all the way to the source, and gathered the documentation, his job was done.

      Success all round.

      He could go back to his own business, in another city, and get on with it. So he didn’t need to feel this rubbish.

      Wednesday he was even more grumpy, the evidence was almost complete, but Penny was out and he wanted her to hurry up and get back so they could go to lunch. He went up to her office to see if she was back. There was someone there, but it wasn’t Penny. It was her brother.

      ‘Hi, Matt.’ Carter held out his hand. ‘Penny’s not here. She’s taken some stuff to Mason. She shouldn’t be more than another half-hour.’

      ‘Oh.’ The younger man shifted on his feet. ‘I can’t wait. I have to get to the airport.’

      ‘She’ll be sorry she missed you.’ Man, her family was awful at communication. This past fortnight he’d been away, Carter and his dad had Skyped a couple of times, and he’d been sent the latest picture of Nick looking cute. There were no excuses in the technology age. But Matt looked so disappointed, Carter felt bad for him. ‘I’ll walk out with you.’ He led him back to the lift. ‘Conference was good?’

      ‘Yeah.’ Matt smiled but looked distracted.

      ‘You want a taxi called?’ Carter blinked as they got out in the broad sunshine.

      Matt didn’t answer, still looked both disappointed and distracted. ‘You’ll take care of her, won’t you?’ he suddenly said. ‘She needs lots of support. She’s been cut off for so long.’

      Yeah, that was pretty obvious. Carter waited. Because Matt looked as if he had something on his mind he wanted to share. And it didn’t look like happy thoughts.

      ‘She hasn’t been back home since she went away. Not once. That’s seven years.’ Matt stared across the street. ‘Mum and Dad are desperate for her to. Maybe she’d come with you.’

      ‘I’ll talk to her about it.’ That and a few other things. Carter wanted to know so much more. Like everything.

      ‘I know I shouldn’t have mentioned Isabelle. But I wanted to see what would happen.’

      Carter knew he was in murky waters without any floatation device, so he just nodded and waited. For tunately Matt soon filled the gap.

      ‘I saw you taking care of that.’

      Carter faked a small smile. He supposed kissing her was one way of taking care. Pretty basic but it had been effective at the time.

      ‘I didn’t think she was ever going to get over Dan and get that close to another guy,’ Matt continued. ‘When she started mentioning you in emails I couldn’t believe it. For a while I thought she might have been making you up. But you’re real. And I can see how it is between you.’

      Carter’s brain processed even faster than its usual warp-factor speed. Dan? Who the hell was Dan? Hadn’t they been talking about someone called Isabelle?

      ‘She looks better. She looks fitter than she did when I saw her in Tokyo last year,’ Matt added. ‘You’re obviously good for her.’

      Anger flared in Carter’s chest. What did it matter if she looked fit? Maybe this was why she didn’t want to see her family—were they too obsessed with a perfect image? Who cared if she put on a few extra pounds or didn’t swim her lengths so religiously? He sure as hell didn’t. He just liked her laughing. So he answered roughly. ‘She likes my cooking.’

      ‘After he died she never used to eat with us.’ Matt shook his head. ‘Those last months it was like she wasn’t there. She didn’t want to be. She got so skinny you could see every vertebra in her spine. Every rib. Every bloody bone.’

      The bottom fell out of Carter’s world completely. He couldn’t speak at all now. He stared at Matt, replaying the words, reading the tension etched on the younger guy’s face.

      ‘But she seems really happy now.’ Matt cleared his throat and kept staring hard at some building over the road. ‘I want her to stay that way.’

      Was that why Matt had looked so pleased to see her eating that chocolate mousse? Because Penny had once been so sad she’d starved herself sick? Tension tightened every muscle. Carter folded his arms across his chest to hide his fists.

      ‘She’s not going

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