LITMIR.BIZ

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from the journey and hanging out with you instead.’

      ‘Fly on here? Fly. On. Here.’ She repeated the three words slowly, while her brain attempted to translate them into something meaningful. ‘You’re telling me that Crystal…’and when did he get so familiar with Crystal Blaize that he was calling her Cryssie? ‘…is on her way here? Right now?’ Then, with dawning horror, ‘You knew that and you just let me lie there and sleep!’

      ‘No–’

      Josie almost collapsed with relief.

      ‘—she arrived just after lunch. She came looking for you, but when she saw how exhausted you were she wouldn’t let me wake you.’

      ‘What?’ Then, leaping to her feet, ‘Ohmigod! Where is she?’

      Gideon was too busy making a wild grab for her as the blood rushed from her head to offer a suggestion. Or maybe too short of breath.

      It had rushed from her in a little ‘Oooph’ as his hands circled her ribs.

      Rushed from him in a deeper ‘Umph’ as she made a grab for his shoulders, sank against him.

      For a moment she was too winded to move. And even when she managed to suck in some air she couldn’t quite manage to lift her cheek from the warm skin of Gideon’s neck, her breasts from where they were cosied against his ribs. Disentangle her legs. And the two of them remained that way for a moment, locked together in immovability.

      ‘Are you okay?’

      His voice wasn’t just sound, it was vibration that rumbled through her, became part of her.

      ‘No.’ In the stillness, as they caught at their breath, everything became pure sensation and she was a lot more than all right.

      His pulse was pounding in her ear, she could almost taste the scent of his sun-baked skin and, beneath her hands, his strength seemed to pour into her through the hard-packed muscle of his shoulders.

      ‘You?’

      ‘No.’

      She lifted her head, afraid that she might have done some irreparable damage to his back, but the visual impact of his stubbled chin, parted lips up so close was like falling a second time.

      His ‘no’ had been the same as hers and the heat that came off him had nothing to do with the temperature but from some fire raging within him, a fire that sparked an answering inferno deep within her. A raw, painful need that burned deep within her belly, sparking at the tips of her breasts, burning her skin.

      They had been verbally fencing with one another since he’d teased a cup of coffee out of her. Holding one another off with words while their eyes, their bodies, had been communicating in another language. One that did not need words.

      Now there was nothing between them, only the ragged snatch of her breath.

      Not a creature moved. Even the cicadas seemed to pause their endless stridulating so that the air was thick with the silence, as if the world was holding its breath. Waiting.

      She was so close to him now that all she could see were a scatter of tiny scars high on his forehead, glints of molten silver glowing in the depths of his slate-grey eyes.

      His breath was hers, her lips were his but which of them had closed the infinitesimal gap between them was unknowable.

      In the still, quiet world that existed only for them, his kiss was slow, thorough, tormenting her with the promise of his power to quench the fire.

      His hands softened as he drew her down to him, intensified his kiss and her body moulded naturally to his. But even that was not enough. She wanted to be closer, wanted to be naked, wanted him in the way that a woman yearned for a man, drawn by the atavistic need to surrender to the illusion of safety within his arms.

      Wanted to be held, touched…

      As if he could read her mind, his hands abandoned her shoulders and began to move tantalisingly, tormentingly slowly down her body, lingering agonisingly at her waist before descending to her thighs while his tongue plundered her mouth so that in her head she was screaming for more.

      He responded to her urgent moan, sliding his hand beneath her short skirt and pulling her into him so that she could feel the sudden hard urgency of his need, counterpoint to the melting softness of her desire.

      She wanted to be touched, possessed, loved…

      Even as she sank deeper into his embrace and his arms enfolded her, that ‘loved’ word, that dreadful word, the tool of mendacious men, betrayer of gullible women, splintered through her mind like a shaft of ice and she broke free, slithering from his grasp to the floor before he could stop her.

      ‘Josie—’ He followed, crashing onto the deck beside her, his hands reaching for her.

      ‘Don’t…’

      She flinched, digging her heels into the deck, scooting away from him. Putting herself out of reach. Dragging the back of her hand over her mouth in an attempt to wipe away all trace of the touch, the taste of his seductive lips, the delicious temptation…

      ‘What have I done?’ he asked, but this time making no effort to follow her, hold her. And why would he? She wasn’t blaming Gideon. Nothing had happened that she hadn’t participated in eagerly, willingly and for a moment, one blissful moment in the warmth of his arms, she had managed to forget, shut out reality. Not this brilliant, sun-filled world, but the darkness within her.

      ‘Nothing…It’s not you. It’s me. Just…’ She shook her head, incapable of explaining. Finding the words to apologise for behaving so badly.

      ‘Don’t?’ he offered, a great deal more gently than she deserved.

      She nodded once. Then, forcing herself to behave normally, like an adult. ‘Are you hurt?’ He’d come down off the lounger with a hell of a crash.

      ‘Only my pride. I don’t normally get that reaction when I kiss a woman.’

      That she could believe. It had been the most perfect kiss. So bewitchingly sensuous that for a moment she had been utterly seduced. Nothing less would have stolen away her wits, her determined self-control, even for a moment.

      ‘There was nothing wrong with the kiss, Gideon.’ She could still feel the heat of it singing in her blood, telling her that she was strong, could do anything. Tempting her to reach out to him, test her power. ‘I just…’

      She lifted her hands in a helpless gesture. She’d turned her life around. Was in control. She would never allow anything, anyone to take that from her again.

      His eyes narrowed.

      ‘Can’t?’ he offered helpfully, completing her unfinished sentence for the second time.

      She knew that look, recognised the speculation as he wondered what had happened to her. Who had hurt her. Whatever he was thinking, he was wrong. Nothing he was imagining could be as bad as the truth.

      CHAPTER SIX

      The dress. Individual, unique, it is a statement of everything the bride feels about herself. A matter for secrecy, intrigue and speculation…

      —The Perfect Wedding by Serafina

      March

      JOSIE steeled herself for the usual prurient inquisition—was it rape or abuse? No man had ever asked her if he’d done something to turn her off. Not that Gideon had. For a moment she had so utterly forgotten herself that she was still shaking with a surge of need unlike anything she’d ever experienced.

      But the question never came.

      ‘Don’t worry about it, Josie,’ he said, so casually that if she hadn’t been so relieved she might have felt insulted. ‘It was nothing.’

      Nothing?

      ‘You

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