LITMIR.BIZ

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door still a little bit open.

      Shock, far too delayed, trickled icily through. Good grief, where was her brain? Her sense of self-respect, if anything, and yet…

      She felt better than she had since she’d first crept out of his hotel suite. Maybe she really had needed this again. Maybe she needed a fling to rid herself of all the hang-ups of her past. Not the usual method advised by therapists and counselors, but the self-help stuff she’d tried hadn’t worked. She still had trouble trusting men. Trusting herself. And too often she woke up in a cold sweat from a nightmare of Jack’s sneering face…

      With that thought, reality started creeping in like a cold dawn mist, edging out the heat and satisfaction she’d felt only moments before. She eased back, wiped the hair from her face as she looked into his sleepy eyes. “I didn’t think you did repeats.”

      Jaiven gave her a catlike smile. “Once in a while I make an exception.”

      “And you made an exception because…?”

      “Because I wanted to. I told you, I had this fantasy…”

      “Well, you’ve enacted your fantasy then. Sex with a college professor on a pile of essays, no less.” She scrambled out from underneath him, tidying herself as he disposed of the condom and buttoned up his trousers.

      Why did the aftermath feel so sordid, she wondered, when the sex felt so incredible? She pushed a few pins randomly back in the mess that was her hair and turned to him with what she hoped was a smile. “So, no more fantasies.”

      Jaiven regarded her thoughtfully. “Actually, I have a few. And I’m betting you do too, even if you like to act as if you don’t.”

      Fantasies? She hadn’t had the emotional space to fantasize. “Seriously, Jaiven…”

      “I am serious.”

      She shook her head. “Look, I thought I told you before. I’m not really into casual sex.”

      “Could have fooled me.”

      She closed her eyes briefly. “I know. I’m attracted to you. Obviously. But we’ve had our…thing and we should probably just move on. Right?”

      “Definitely, when we’re ready to.” He took a step closer to her, and with a little smile on his face he started rebuttoning her blouse. She glanced down, saw she’d done it up completely crooked. And as he tucked her shirt back into her trousers she felt weirdly, stupidly touched.

      She could not let this man affect her emotionally. That would be beyond stupid. It would be bordering on insane.

      “I’m ready to move on,” she forced out, and Jaiven arched an eyebrow.

      “You sure about that?”

      No, she absolutely was not. But she wanted to be. She needed to be, because anything else was akin to juggling bombs. Exciting, yes, but eventually one would explode in her face.

      She wasn’t about to explain that to him right now, though. “What do you want from me? Really?”

      He met her gaze with an even one of his own. “Just a little more of what we’ve been having. Look, Louise, I’m not into commitment. Or relationships of any kind, emotion, that whole thing. I think you know that.”

      “Yes…”

      “And you seemed like you weren’t interested in it either, at least with a man like me.”

      “I suppose…” Her brain snagged on that phrase, a man like me, and wondered what he meant by it. But before she could work up the courage to ask, he was onto the next thing.

      “So why not enjoy what’s between us? I’ve got a fantasy about buttoned-up academics. You’ve got a fantasy about bad boys with tattoos. Let’s go with it.”

      “How do you know I have a fantasy about bad boys with tattoos?” she asked, folding her arms. How could she have a fantasy about bad boys with tattoos when she’d been married to one, and he’d been an utter bastard?

       Maybe this is how you can redeem the past. Make sense of your marriage. Feel strong again.

      Or was she just seriously screwed up?

      He shrugged. “Maybe it was how you kept sneaking glances at my tattoo at that party. Or possibly how you licked it a few nights ago.”

      “I think one rule of any possible fling should be you don’t say things like that.”

      “Why are you embarrassed?” He lifted a hand, pressed it to her cheek. “Your face is on fire.”

      She closed her eyes and willed the heat to fade from her face. From her body. Humiliation came so easily to her, still. “Thanks very much.”

      “All I’m saying is,” Jaiven told her, his hand still on her cheek, “this doesn’t have to be awkward or something to regret. We could both enjoy it. We’re not looking for commitment, we’re not hurting anyone, and frankly, I’d love to know a few more of your fantasies, especially if they involve that underwear you wore the other night.”

      She opened her eyes, felt a bubble of laughter rise inside her. “Do you have some weird fetish for figure-controlling undergarments?”

      “Possibly.” His teeth flashed in an answering, wolfish grin. “I might have all sorts of fetishes and fantasies I didn’t know about before. You’re opening me up to a whole new world of possibility, Louise.”

      That bubble of laughter escaped and she shook her head. “That would be novel. I’ve got probably a thousandth of the sexual experience you do.”

      “So?”

      So? How was she supposed to answer that? The truth was she was tempted. Tempted to say yes to a fling, yes to fantasy sex with the hottest man she’d come across in a long, long while.

      She’d lived her life like a nun for the past five years. Ten years, really, if you discounted that one unfortunate relationship that had lasted all of three weeks. She’d thought closing herself off meant keeping herself emotionally safe, but maybe it just kept her bored, frustrated and lonely.

      She was tired of all three. Tired of living like a ghost because the past haunted her so much.

      Why shouldn’t she choose this, for a little while at least? Jaiven wasn’t asking for a relationship. If they kept their encounters purely physical, there was no real way she could start to care about him. No real way he could hurt her.

      And there was something fitting that Jaiven reminded her of Jack except about a thousand times better in every way. He had the tattoo, that bad boy charm, but he didn’t lose his temper and he hadn’t hurt her.

      Yet.

      Even now her self-doubt rose up in a howl of fear. You don’t really know this man. And you have a proven track record of picking losers.

      But this wasn’t a relationship, she reminded herself. This was just sex. Sexual liberation.

      Maybe, through Jaiven, she’d finally free herself from the past.

      Or maybe she’d just get her heart broken.

      “I’ll think about it,” she said, and Jaiven gave her one of his slow, toe-curling smiles that she’d come to know—and respond to.

      “You do that,” he said, and he leaned forward and kissed her. A soft kiss, not one that was a prelude to sex but one that was just because. And it affected her more than anything else he’d done to her so far.

      He stepped back and she blinked, suddenly, bizarrely near tears. This was so not a good idea.

      Those bombs she was juggling? One had just started to tick. She needed to be smart, and smart meant never seeing him again, ever. Never cracking open the window to her soul even a little. Sex was personal and intimate and

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