LITMIR.BIZ

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      Thank God for his sister Tanna’s quick thinking or she wouldn’t be here, home from the hospital and exhausted after a night of being well loved.

      Very well loved indeed.

      Carrick used his knuckle to tip up her chin and look at the sterile gauze low down on her neck. “Is it painful?”

      Sadie shook her head. “The cut is tiny and it’ll heal fast.” Sadie pulled a face. “Though I am considering becoming a vegetarian.”

      Carrick smiled at her dejected tone. “It could’ve happened as easily with a piece of carrot as it did a piece of steak.”

      “Point taken, but it might still be a while before I feel brave enough to swallow down another piece of rare Kobe beef. Or any meat at all.”

      “Completely understandable.” Carrick looked at his watch and winced at the time. “I need to get going. I have a nine o’clock meeting and I still have to get home and shower.”

      “You could take a shower here,” Sadie quietly offered. “If that saves you some time.”

      She waited while he thought about it, knowing that if he made the slightest suggestion that she join him, she’d find it incredibly hard to hold herself to her have-touched-him-for-the-last-time decision. And if he stayed longer, she might just pull him into the shower herself and do several things to him she hadn’t thought of last night.

      Hot, carnal, X-rated things...

      “Thanks, but I’m good. I’m going to head straight for the office and hit the showers in the company gym. I keep a change of clothing and toiletries in the executive bathroom I share with my brothers, so fresh clothes won’t be a problem.”

      Sadie followed him as he walked toward the hallway, taking a moment to admire the tight butt that now knew the shape and feel of her fingertips.

      “I take it you’re not coming in today. You probably need time to recover.”

      “I spent the night making love to you, Carrick, so I can hardly pull the ‘I’m sick’ card,” Sadie replied with a touch of tart. “But I am going to work from home today, trawling the net for anything I can find on Homer’s time in Virginia. And then I’m heading to an art gallery on Charles Street since Isabel Mounton-Matthews did a lot of business with the previous owner. I’m hoping to find something about the painting in the sale catalogs or records.”

      Carrick asked her the name of the gallery and she told him, comfortable now that they were talking art.

      “I’m aware of the gallery. The grapevine has it that both the past and the present owners haven’t always been on the up and up. Apparently, they have the reputation for fudging provenances or filling in the missing information with a little creative wording.”

      “Thanks. I’ll keep it in mind.”

      “I wouldn’t call them shady, but they aren’t honest, either. I don’t think you have a hope in hell of seeing their records, if they keep decent records at all.”

      It was a fair point, but she needed to check. Just in case. Besides, she thought they could both do with some distance, time apart to get their heads on straight before they laid eyes on each other again.

      With a little space they—she—would stop thinking about a repeat bedroom performance.

      “So I’ll see you again when I have a solid update. That might be days or even weeks from now,” Sadie told him.

      Carrick picked up her now-bedraggled and sad-looking bunch of flowers and laid them on the hall table. “I won’t feel offended if you toss these.”

      It was obvious Carrick seemed to want the same distance she did and she should be glad. There was absolutely no reason to feel disappointed or frustrated. She had to cut this crap out.

      Carrick’s expression was implacable as he bent down to brush his lips across her cheekbone. She took the gesture for what it was, a polite thing to do, a small thanks-for-a-great-evening. It didn’t mean anything more...couldn’t mean a damn thing.

      “I’ll see you when I see you,” he told her.

      His cashmere coat was an expensive heap on the floor and he picked it up and pulled it on. He jammed his hand into the inside pocket and pulled out his phone. Then he winced.

      “I’ve missed a dozen calls already. See you around, Sadie.”

      Sure. But not for a day or two. Or seven.

      Sadie had five minutes to make her meeting in the conference room, a sleek, edgy room at the end of the hallway of the iconic, international and world-renowned auction house of Murphy International. It would only take thirty seconds to walk down the hallway, so she could hide out here in the bathroom for a little longer.

      She’d do anything to avoid being alone with Carrick Murphy.

      Sadie looked at her reflection in the mirror above the basin and rubbed a tiny speck of lipstick off her teeth. She’d spent the past week avoiding Carrick and, because they hadn’t spent any time alone since the evening he’d stayed over, she knew he was avoiding her, too.

      And that suited her just fine.

      When she opened her door to Carrick hours after her near-death experience, she should’ve stripped the roses of their thorns instead of stripping the Murphy boss man of his clothes.

      She wanted to blame her uncharacteristic behavior on seeing a white light or hearing angels sing except that she hadn’t seen God or heard celestial choirs so that was a weak excuse.

      Fact: Carrick Murphy was a great-looking man with a rocking body and she’d felt reckless and impulsive, desperate to celebrate being alive.

      And, yep, doing Carrick Murphy, and having him do her, was exceedingly life-affirming. So were the multiple orgasms...

      She couldn’t be blamed for spending a few hours each night reliving that amazing evening, wishing he was with her again, touching her with those broad, long-fingered hands, kissing her with his sinful mouth.

      But...

      Like sailing to Antarctica on a tall ship, or catching the Orient Express, sex with Carrick was an indulgence, a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

      Stunningly wonderful but never to be repeated.

      Pity.

      But she’d done this before and, as a result, knew that she had to slam her foot on the brakes. She’d fallen into the arms of a sexy man and, within a few weeks, fallen in love. She’d wanted to believe that Dennis was a good man, a man worth marrying.

      Five years later, a marriage and ugly divorce later, she was stronger and wiser and fully understood that the same man who made you quiver and sigh could also make you cry. A pretty face could easily hide a cold heart, and malice could live under a charming facade.

      Dennis had a lovely face and buckets of charm but under it all, he had the personality of a psychopathic honey badger. And from what she’d heard from Carrick’s ex-wife and Beth, one of Sadie’s oldest friends and her virtual assistant, so did Carrick.

      Sadie hadn’t been believed when she tried to tell her friends and family that Dennis was verbally abusing her and subjecting her to emotional torture that was both cruel and cunning. So when women she respected talked about their men, she listened.

      But damn, why was she a magnet for bad boys?

      And she wasn’t talking about those cute, trouble-finds-me-but-I’m-a-good-guy-at-heart men. One of those she could handle. No, Sadie was attracted to bad bad boys. The ones who played games, lied, used...

      Abused.

      As had happened with her ex, nobody would suspect Carrick Murphy—a business phenomenon

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