LITMIR.BIZ

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was attracted, too. More than I knew how to handle. That’s why I slept with you. Not out of revenge. Not to humiliate you.”

      She swallowed, wavering toward believing him, but it strained credulity. “It wasn’t love at first sight, Roman. I saw the way you looked at me the day I arrived. You weren’t interested.”

      “I didn’t let my interest show. There’s a difference.”

      She had to turn her nose to the window then, hope rising too quickly. Did she have no sense of self-preservation? Believing in him had only gotten her a giant helping of heartache the last time.

      But he was very contained, not giving away much, very good at keeping his thoughts and feelings well hidden. Maybe he had been attracted.

      Even if he had been, so what?

      With a troubled sigh, she realized she was crushing the pearls in her clenched hands. Her fingers were warm enough to work now. She reached to close the strand around her throat.

      Wool slid against leather and Roman was in her space, fingers brushing hers.

      With an alarm that came more from a jolt of excitement than fear, she released the pearls and let him take over, angling herself so he could finish quickly. Her skin tightened all over her body as his knuckles brushed the tiny, upswept hairs at the back of her head. Beneath her layers of clothing her nipples tightened into sharp peaks and her blood grew hot, radiating heat outward to dispel any lingering chill for the rest of time.

      The moment he was done she shifted away from his disturbing touch, adjusting the weight of the necklace so it felt right, and flashed a nervous glance his way.

      He was watching her intently. “I felt it, too. There’s something in our chemistry.”

      “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she dismissed with an unsettled shake of her head. If the traffic hadn’t been so busy, she would have pushed out her side of the car. “I need to get to my job interview. Let me out.”

      “Don’t start lying to me now, Melodie. Not when we’re clearing the air.” He didn’t move.

      Her heart began to pound with a trapped bird sort of panic. “Look,” she said, tugging the hem of her skirt down her knee. Electricity seemed to crackle between them like fingers of lightning. “I know I gave you the impression I’m easy. I’m not. So don’t start with your moves.”

      “Moves,” he repeated on a dry chuckle. “Like how I seduced you that day? You kissed me.”

      “Don’t remind me!” she cried.

      “I will remind you,” he said, leaning into her. “And I’ll even be honest enough to admit I lied to you that day. I said it’s always like that for me, but who has an encounter like that ever in their lifetime?”

      Melodie shot her gaze to his. He was so close and disturbing. His brow was pulled into a perturbed line, his skin taut with challenge and something else. Discomfort, maybe, with how much he was admitting.

      Between one breath and the next the shared memory of their wild coming together filled the tiny space behind these tinted windows.

      She couldn’t look away from his rain-forest eyes. He pinned her in place with nothing but a tiny shift of his attention to her mouth.

      Her heart began to race and her blood felt as though it zigzagged in her veins. Her breasts flooded with heat, growing heavy and achy, the tips tight with reaction.

      Desire clouded his irises.

      A fog of longing smothered her consciousness, making sensible thought slippery and vague. She found herself looking at his mouth. In her dreams those lips plundered hers. She always woke with one question uppermost in her mind: Had it really been that good?

      His lips parted as he came closer.

      She opened with instinctive welcome.

      They made contact and intense relief washed through her as a great thirst was finally slaked. His hand came to the side of her face, open and tender. She tilted into his touch, feeling moved and cherished as he cradled her head and gently but thoroughly devoured her.

      She drew on him with greedy abandon, forgetting everything except that he filled a vast need in her. There were no words, just a craving that both ceased and grew as they locked mouths and touched tongues. His body closed in, pressed. He overwhelmed her as he wrapped his arms fully around her.

      She moaned, pleasure blooming in her like a supernova. She instantly ached for more intimate contact with him.

      His arms tightened, gathering her to draw her with him as he sat back, pulling her into his lap.

      The shift was enough of a jolt to make her pull back and realize where they were, how her knees had fallen on either side of his thighs, skirt riding up. She was losing all contact with reality. Again.

       Then what?

      “This can’t happen,” she gasped.

      She pushed off him, throwing herself awkwardly onto the seat opposite and glaring back at him. She felt like a mouse that might have freed herself from the cat’s mouth, but only until he wanted to clamp down on her again.

      “Not here, no. Come to my hotel with me,” he said, voice sandpapery and exquisitely inviting.

      “For what?” she cried.

      “Don’t be dense,” he growled. “We’re an incredible combination. You can feel the power of it as well as I can.”

      “You’ve really perfected this technique of yours, haven’t you?” she choked. “Listen, you might sleep with people you loathe, but I don’t. I won’t sleep with a man I hate.”

      He snapped his head back.

      Her conscience prickled. She didn’t hate him. There was too much empathy and understanding in her for such a heartless emotion.

      “Well, that’s that. Isn’t it?” He thrust himself from the car, holding the door open for her.

      Icy wind flew in to accost her, scraping her legs and stabbing through her clothes as she rose from the cozy interior to the ferocity of winter, entire body shaking, heart fragile.

      “Goodbye, Roman,” she said, feeling as if she was losing something as precious as her mother’s pearls.

      “Melodie.”

      Not goodbye, she noted, but his tone still sounded final and made her unutterably sad. Clutching the edges of her jacket closed, she walked to the bus stop on heavy feet.

       CHAPTER SIX

      ROMAN WENT BACK to his house in France where he could live in his own personal exile and ruminate, but despite only being here once, Melodie infused the place.

      He never should have gone after her. If it hadn’t been for the possibility of a baby, he wouldn’t have, but there was no way he could have let a child of his grow up the way he had—not just poor and alone, but with a million questions and a million facets of rejection glittering into the furthest corners of its psyche. The one time he’d asked his mother about his father, she’d said, “He was a rich man who said he loved me, but I guess he didn’t because he didn’t come back.”

      He was a rich man, one who was very careful not to use those words and provoke false hope. He’d always hated his father for being a liar while secretly fearing he was just like the man: incapable of real love. He wasn’t particularly likable. He knew that. Foster care had taught him to hold back, be cautious, not expect that he was anything but a burden to be tolerated. He came in too late with any sign of caring, long after he’d been written off as stunted. This was why he didn’t pursue serious relationships with women or even have close friendships.

      But he didn’t usually provoke

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