LITMIR.BIZ

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stirred her. Whispered of another go-round.

      She could literally feel herself aching for him.

      “Your best is more than enough for me,” Brandon told her.

      At times it’s almost too much, he added silently. Isabelle could wear him out and then have him begging for more in an incredibly short amount of time, he marveled. What kind of power did this woman have over him? She’d turned a perfectly normal man with ordinary needs into this insatiable creature whose appetite just insisted on growing. This new man had nothing in common with the man he’d thought he was.

      Brandon inhaled the fragrance in her hair.

      Obviously he’d thought wrong. He was so much more. If he was wrong about one thing, he could very possibly be wrong about other things as well, he told himself as his arm tightened around Isabelle.

      For instance, he could be wrong about the way he viewed his future, he speculated. Until Isabelle had entered his life with her sunshine and her laughing eyes, he’d thought he knew exactly the way the rest of his life would unfold. He’d work, attend parties and be there for both his daughter and his mother. The idea of another woman permanently installed in his life was utterly out of the question. Once on the marriage-go-round had definitely been more than enough for him. Besides, he’d reasoned, most likely, he’d make the same mistake over and over again and pick someone like Jean.

      Isabelle was nothing like his first wife.

      Consequently, for the past couple of weeks he’d begun to have second thoughts about his overall view of the rest of his life in general, and about his view of marriage specifically.

      Most of all, he’d rethought the concept of giving up. After all, he hadn’t just thrown his hands up when he’d received his first rejection slip, hadn’t said he’d given it his best shot and stopped trying.

      No, like a glutton for punishment, he kept coming back for more. And more. Until he got what he was after. A publishing company that gave him a one book contract and a chance to prove himself.

      That, of course, had led to other books, other contracts. After that humble beginning, he never looked back.

      Why would he approach marriage any differently? He had picked the wrong person the first time, that was all. Looking back, that had been over thirteen years ago. He’d been an untried kid of twenty at the time. He was far more sophisticated now, more discerning, more versed in analyzing characters and the motivation that went into them.

      Moreover, he knew what he was looking for in a life partner, and he was well aware of the danger of just jumping in with both feet without assessing the situation first.

      He was assessing it now, and he liked what he saw. Liked the thought of facing each day knowing that Isabelle would be somewhere around within that day—and within all the days to come.

      That didn’t automatically mean that the thought of marriage didn’t make him nervous. And it didn’t mean that the prospect of getting married again, of trusting someone else with the care and keeping of his heart, was not scary as hell, because it was.

      SCARY in big, bold capital letters.

      But, risk nothing, gain nothing—wasn’t that what he’d told Victoria more than once? If it was an edict he felt was good enough for his precious daughter, it sure as hell was good enough for him.

      All he had to do, he thought, looking at the woman tucked into the crook of his arm, was get up the courage to ask Isabelle.

      But he had a little time before he had to work on getting up his nerve. Right now, Isabelle was still very much in his life and would continue to be as long as his mother needed her.

      He found himself torn. He certainly wanted his mother to bounce back to her incredible old self, but her reaching that plateau would do away with the need for Isabelle’s presence.

      Brandon smiled to himself. Who would have thought that he’d wind up being a very strong advocate for slow-and-steady winning out in the long run, like the tortoise in the fable?

      An uneasiness began to undulate through Isabelle. Brandon had been quiet for a while now. Longer than usual. As a matter of fact, this was the longest he’d ever been quiet without the excuse of dozing off.

      Asleep, there was a reason for the silence. But he wasn’t asleep. And he wasn’t talking.

      What was he thinking?

      Her uneasiness grew, slipping through her veins, putting out the fire that had just been there a few short seconds ago. She went from hot to freezing cold in one heartbeat.

      Something was wrong. She could feel it.

      Isabelle vacillated between coming right out and asking Brandon what was wrong and ignoring the entire thing.

      But that was no way to move ahead. Ignorance was not bliss and anyone who believed that was an idiot. Not knowing was the basis for constant uneasiness and the onset of paranoia.

      Still, a little voice inside her voted for ignorance. It whispered that ignorance was better than being forced to face a harsh truth that could shatter everything good at this moment.

      So, rather than lie there, speculating, having thoughts bouncing about in her head as if she was the ball being lobbed back and forth in a continuous game of tennis, Isabelle turned into him, bringing her nude body up closer against him and sealing her lips to his. With instant results.

      The way she saw it, she was buying herself a little time, reveling a little longer in the fairy tale world that they had spun for themselves.

      The sudden maneuver caught Brandon completely off guard.

      But not for long.

      As ever, he prided himself on being able to rise to the occasion. This time was no different.

      “You’re going to wear me out, you know that, don’t you?” he asked with affection echoing in his voice.

      She responded with a laugh and drew him even further into their fiery new world.

      He went willingly.

      “You know, when you first came, I had my doubts about you,” Anastasia told Isabelle frankly.

      She had just completed an exercise she had found too grueling and next to impossible a few short weeks ago. This time, much to her satisfaction, it had all gone perfectly. She’d begun at one end of the exercise room and made it all the way over to the other end, not just in record time, but without losing the tension in the band that Isabelle had placed around her lower thighs.

      Of necessity, she’d waddled like a duck, but a very graceful duck, she liked to think. And that, to Anastasia, meant that she had passed the “course” set before her. From here on in, any exercises she faced would be the regular kind, meant to keep her body flexible and limber, something she liked to think kept her youthful as well.

      “Oh?” Isabelle asked, her curiosity aroused. “What kind of doubts?”

      Anastasia shrugged in that vague, dismissive way of hers. “I knew you had to know your stuff. After all, you did get a degree in physical therapy. But I didn’t think you were woman enough to ride herd over me—” She saw the surprised expression on Isabelle’s face and watched it melt into bemusement. “Yes, I know I can be, let’s just say ‘difficult’ by some standards—”

      “You, Anastasia Del Vecchio, are difficult by anyone’s standards,” Isabelle interjected with genuine affection. The woman was an experience like no other, and she would always be grateful for the opportunity to be with her. “But it’s also what makes you uniquely you,” Isabelle concluded with complete conviction.

      Anastasia appeared exceedingly pleased with the assessment.

      “Glad you could see that. Anyway,” she said getting back to original point, “I didn’t think you could make me do these silly little exercises, but you could and you did and I’m obviously the better for it.” That was

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