LITMIR.BIZ

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That darkness served to highlight the deep bronze glow of his skin. The silver hoop in his ear matched the one piercing his nipple, and both looked as if they were simply an extension of his skin.

      It was his tattoo that caused her to shudder. Not the intricate tribal art ringing his biceps. That one she’d discovered beneath more than a few white dress shirts on other men. Never in her life, however, had she seen anything like Patrick’s snake.

      The design was inked in multicolors: black, blue, red and green, with sharp highlights in yellow. The snake wound its way around his right thigh—she counted four coils—before arcing over his hipbone to end above the swell of his buttocks. With Patrick lying on his back, she had to visualize the fangs and the wicked, wicked eyes.

      But even the remembered image was more than enough to cause her to shiver. She reached for the comforter, which had ended up on the floor earlier, and wrapped it around her shoulders. When she glanced again at Patrick, his eyes were open, even though he remained perfectly still.

      “I hate the way you do that.” His uncanny ability to come awake on full alert made her crazy. She hated the idea of him watching her while she slept, when she was vulnerable….

      “Watch out or you’ll give me a complex.”

      “Give you a complex? What about the dozens you already have?”

      She’d lost count of the number of times over the past seven weeks she’d tackled one or another, hoping she could offer him more than memories of great sex to take away from their time together. She hated how he seemed to ignore his amazing potential. Especially his ability to adapt and survive.

      A slow, sleepy grin spread over his sinful mouth, though it never reached his eyes. Using no more than his abs, he lifted his upper body off the mattress while stacking pillows behind him. It was only when he finally leaned back that she remembered to breathe. God, but he was beautiful.

      “Dozens, huh? Guess I’ve never counted.”

      He was cocky and cute and too much of both. She’d determined that their time would be limited. She had even set the date for their end. None of that meant she couldn’t continue to dig into his psyche while she had him here—though, knowing Patrick, she easily imagined him walking out stark naked.

      She considered him critically. “Why do you never stay and eat what you’ve cooked?”

      The expression in his eyes gave nothing away, even as his smile seemed to freeze. “I always eat what I’ve cooked.”

      “But you don’t eat with the people you’ve cooked for. This past year I’ve had dinner at Sydney and Ray’s at least once a month. As soon as the meal is served, you walk out of the room.”

      “I’ve forgotten my table manners.”

      He didn’t even flinch when he said it. He didn’t break eye contact, and he kept a totally straight face. Either he was a hell of a liar or he truly believed that he was the savage beast he claimed to be. A part of her heart broke for him.

      Another part wanted to slap him and tell him to get over himself already, that she was immune to his act. Except that would make her an even bigger liar than he.

      Another few silent moments passed, moments she spent wondering what his three years of captivity had been like, if he’d had friends, if he’d had lovers, how many he’d had. If they’d appreciated his intensity in bed the way she did. If one of them had taught him the skills he so expertly plied.

      Funny, the jealousy sparked by that thought. Not so funny that she recognized the full grip of the unhealthy emotion.

      “And it seems you’ve forgotten that it’s impolite to stare,” he finally said, interrupting her fruitless musings.

      When she realized she was doing exactly that, she forced herself to pull away. “Your facial bone structure fascinates me.”

      “If that’s a come-on, it’s the lousiest one I’ve ever heard.”

      “It’s not a come-on,” she said, even as her pulse quickened. “I was simply visualizing your skull’s interocular and bizygomatic breadth.”

      He knew as well as she did that craniofacial anthropometry was the last thing on her mind. Yet she couldn’t find the strength to turn away when he whispered, “Show me.”

      Letting the comforter fall, she moved toward him, enjoying the flare of his nostrils as he took in her nudity and her complete comfort in baring her body. She crawled up to straddle him, dislodging the sheet so that she sat atop his thighs, settling over the softness of his scrotum, his penis tucked close to her sex.

      She placed her hands on the smooth skin of his torso, sliding her palms upward until making contact with his jaw. Her fingers explored the structure of his face, moving from one point to another.

      “This is the bizygomatic breadth,” she said, measuring from the most lateral point on one cheekbone’s zygomatic arch to the matching point on the other. “And this is the biocular width,” she added, moving her left hand to span the space between the far corners of his eyelids. “A forensic sculptor would use these measurements as well as others in reconstructing your face.”

      She pressed her fingertips to each spot until Patrick closed his eyes and moaned from the pleasure of her touch. She wanted to moan, as well, because his cock had stirred against her belly, his shaft thickening and rubbing over her sex.

      “I can see why you liked studying this stuff. Who knew the human skull could be such an erogenous zone?”

      “Our study subjects didn’t feel a thing,” she countered. “They were dead, and quite unconcerned with eros.”

      Patrick lay still for several moments more, allowing her to explore the fit of the skin on his face, the structure of his skull, until the room seemed to echo with their dueling heartbeats and their husky breathing.

      She stopped the exploration of his jawline, her thumbs pressed to his cheekbones, as his erection began to firmly make its presence known there where her belly tingled. When he opened his eyes to catch her staring, she moved her hands to her thighs.

      Strange, this nervousness making her uneasy. Yes, he constantly surprised her, but she wasn’t used to being caught off guard. “It’s like you’re someone I don’t know. You look so different without all that hair.”

      “A good different?”

      “An effective different.”

      “So consider me the variety spicing up your life.” He said it with a wiggle of both brows, which stood out against his perpetually bronzed skin.

      That, he certainly had done, she admitted, moving her palms from her thighs to his abdomen, pressing lightly the taut muscles there. When he groaned, she felt the hum from her fingertips to her elbows.

      Yet oddly enough, she wasn’t wanting sex as much as she wanted to explore his body. Considering that he was quite the randy young man, she wouldn’t be having her way completely, she mused without complaint. She had never known such intense satisfaction, and in reality would hate seeing him go.

      But she had long since learned the importance of cutting free dead weight.

      And behind those uncanny beautiful eyes and wickedly sparkling wit, she feared that was exactly what she would find instead of the artist’s soul her foolish heart insisted he hid. Better to die not knowing, than to know…and die a little more inside.

      The older, wiser Annabel approached relationships anticipating their inevitable end. An end that was all too near for her and Patrick, giving her the freedom to enjoy his body without the guilt of self-betrayal.

      Or so she worked to convince herself as she leaned forward to grab a condom from the bedside table. Patrick opened his mouth over her breast, but she pulled back before he could do more than wet her skin with his tongue.

      Tearing open the condom packet, she moved from straddling Patrick’s thighs to kneeling between

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