LITMIR.BIZ

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the detective. But while she’d been looking at the damage to Sebastian’s car, he had seen the mortally wounded vampire and had known someone needed him more than she had.

      “Your patient is stable now?” she asked with her usual concern and compassion.

      He flinched and shut his eyes on the image of Owen lying there with his chest open, the stake protruding from his savaged heart. “I wouldn’t say that….”

      “Then you should go back to the hospital,” she urged him, “and take care of your patient.”

      “There’s nothing more I can do for him,” he said with a sigh. The society of undead buried their own dead. “I wanted to get back to you…to make sure that you’re all right.”

      “I’m fine.”

      “I wish I believed you,” he said, “but you don’t look fine, Paige.”

      She lifted a hand to her face. “I got caught in the rain.”

      He glanced around her to the bedroom window; rain ran in rivulets down the glass, but the sky had lightened as there were only a few gray clouds. As always, he breathed a small sigh of relief during the day. The undead didn’t need him then—unless they’d been out in the sunlight. But the undead were not his only patients; he had other ones—human patients at the hospital, to which he’d often been called away from Paige.

      “You should get out of your wet clothes,” he suggested, intent on taking advantage of the time he had with her.

      Her lips lifted in a faint smile. “Are you trying to get me naked?”

      Even with clothes on, she was naked to him, her face vulnerable as it revealed all her feelings. All her pain and fear.

      His heart contracted with regret for what his secrets had cost them both. “I came here to make sure you’re all right.”

      She turned away from him, toward the window that the rain sluiced down as it had his skin earlier in the shower. “And I told you I’m fine. I reported the vandalism. I have a detective working on the case now. I’ve done everything I was supposed to do.”

      Now he suspected she was talking about something else—something they had never talked about.

      “I know,” he assured her.

      She shook her head. “No. No, you don’t. You don’t know me, and I don’t know you.”

      “We’re playing that game again?” he asked. “Strangers?”

      “We’re not playing,” she said with a slight edge, but then she sighed and shook her head. “You’re a burglar, and I’m the homeowner who found you in my shower.”

      He hated the games, hated more that they actually weren’t playing at being strangers. But if playing the game was the only way he could stick close to her, he’d play….

      He would do anything to protect her—even let her go, if he had to…

       Chapter 8

      Warm lips brushed the nape of Paige’s neck, beneath the swing of her high ponytail. “You should have joined me in the shower.”

      She shivered at his touch, or maybe she was just cold because the rain had left her sweatshirt damp, her skin chilled. “I don’t shower with strange men,” she told him.

      The lips lingered, nibbling at the skin above her leaping pulse before curving into a smile. “So I’m not just a stranger, I’m strange, too?”

      “Yes.” Even more so than when they’d been married. “I have no idea where you go—when you just suddenly leave me. Sebastian said the hospital, and I’ve always assumed that’s where. But you’ve never really told me.”

      He tensed. “When we were married, did you think I was cheating on you?”

      “I’m a lawyer.” Was a lawyer. “At a firm with divorce lawyers…” But it wasn’t just because of her career that she was cynical. She’d lived through all her mother’s heartaches over picking the wrong men, men who’d used and left her over and over again. God, she had become her mother.

      His arms tightened around her waist, his fingers biting into her flesh. “I never—never—cheated on you, Paige, and I never would.”

      “We’re not married,” she reminded him. She couldn’t expect him to be faithful to her. If only he could be open with her.

      “Just remember, Paige, that I always come back to—”

      She turned in his arms and swallowed his words with her mouth. She didn’t want declarations or promises he’d never be able to keep. She just wanted him. Linking their fingers, she pulled Ben along with her, her lips clinging to his as they stumbled a few short steps to the bed. The back of her knees hit the edge of the mattress and she tumbled down, alone, onto the rumpled blankets.

      Ben stood above her, clad only in that towel tucked around his thin waist. She wriggled out of her jeans, kicking them down her legs. Then she pulled the damp sweatshirt over her head, baring her breasts. Ben’s dark eyes flared with passion as he stared down at her.

      She ran her fingertips from her throat over the curve of one breast to the elastic holding her polka-dot satin panties up.

      Something rose beneath his towel, tenting the terry cloth. He groaned, “Paige…”

      Leaving the hand at the edge of her panties, she lifted her other one to her mouth, licking her fingers. Ben’s nostrils flared as his breathing grew harsh. His voice rough, he admonished her, “You’re bad…”

      With one last lick, she took her fingers from her mouth and slid them down her body again. This time she didn’t skim over her breast, she cupped it, then ran her wet fingertip across her nipple, which peaked beneath her touch.

      Her breathing caught as pleasure streaked through her. “Oh…”

      “You’re very bad…” His towel dropped, pulled free of his waist by his jutting erection.

      Her other hand edged farther beneath the satin, her fingers stroking over the curls visible beneath the thin polka-dot fabric. Then she parted herself, sliding first one finger, then two, into her damp heat.

      “Ooh…” she moaned again, rising slightly off the edge of her mattress. She gazed up at him, beseeching him to help her, “Ben…”

      He shook his head. “You don’t need me.” Sadness and regret darkened his eyes. “You don’t…”

      She started to withdraw her hand, but he shouted at her, “Don’t!” Then he lowered his voice, and his body, onto the mattress beside her, “Don’t stop…”

      His hand covered the one at her breast, moving her fingers so that she plucked at her distended nipple. Then his mouth settled onto her other breast, pressing kisses to the swollen flesh before his lips closed over the nipple.

      “Don’t stop,” he murmured, licking her areole, then teasing her nipple with just the tip of his tongue.

      She shuddered and slid the fingers back in. He reached down with his free hand, above the satin, closing over hers beneath, driving her fingers deeper inside her, grinding her palm against her clit until she came. Tears streaked from the corners of her eyes, falling onto the rumpled sheets.

      “Ben…”

      He lifted his mouth from her breast, then pulled her hand from her panties. He drew each wet finger into his mouth, lapping and licking. Then he reached down again and jerked at the satin until the panties tore free of her hips.

      Before she could reach for him, he rolled off the bed and knelt at the side of the mattress. Then he pulled her to the edge, so that her legs dangled off the high bed, just

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