LITMIR.BIZ

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her last lover, Robert, fairly frequently. He was a lower circuit court judge. And they’d become friends of a sort.

      But Mitch wasn’t a friend. Even if things had ended well between them she knew they’d never be friends because just looking at him made everything womanly in her stand at attention.

      The waitress brought her drink. She’d better control this attraction before it destroyed her. If only there were a way to get Mitch out of her system once and for all. The way they’d parted hadn’t been satisfying for either of them, and she wondered if this time they both could achieve at least some kind of closure.

      “Hey, babe,” Mitch said, as he approached her table.

      She should have ordered soda water. She needed all of her faculties about her when dealing with Mitch. It wasn’t just that he was the embodiment of everything she found sexy in a man. It was that he knew it. His smile said as much and she shivered in reaction.

      He still wore the Armani suit he’d had on in court. His tie was neatly tied and he looked as if he’d stepped from the pages of GQ. It would have been nice if time had been cruel to him, maybe thinned his hair, given him a beer belly, but if anything he was leaner and harder now than he had been in college.

      In comparison she felt unkempt. The air-conditioning in her Mazda was on the fritz and she’d sweated buckets the entire way over. She’d touched up her makeup and hair but she’d been in her suit all day and she wished she was at home wearing a sundress and drinking iced tea on her patio instead of sitting in the crowded lobby of the Westin hotel.

      “Mitch,” she said, standing to greet him.

      He waved her back into her seat and sat down next to her on the padded bench seat instead of in the wing back chair she’d hoped he would take. The cocktail table was close and the lounge made the most of their space, so Mitch was right next to her.

      Barely five inches of space separated them. She was painfully aware of her personal space and how close he was to invading it.

      He signaled the waitress. “What are you drinking?”

      “White wine.”

      He raised one eyebrow and ordered a Dos Equis. He settled back against the seat and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He looked tired and not at all threatening right now. He didn’t seem inclined to talk so she got to the matter at hand.

      No matter how vulnerable Mitch Hollaran might seem, his opening move told her he was here for blood. Yet he did look as though he needed a friend. She wasn’t going to ask him what was wrong. She took a sip of her wine.

      His beer arrived and he drained half the bottle in one long pull. He stretched his arm along the back of the couch behind her head. His hand rested on her shoulder. He toyed with a strand of her hair.

      “Please don’t.”

      “Why not? You used to like it.”

      She knew she’d been right not to let her guard down around him. “We’re not lovers any more.”

      “That’s right. We aren’t.”

      She was surrounded by him. The spicy scent of his cologne, the heat of his body, the weight of his arm. She closed her eyes, but that only intensified her other senses. She opened them and looked straight at the man who was back in her life, and not just because of work.

      “What do you want from me, Mitch?” she asked. The sooner she figured it out, the sooner she could escape to her home and rebuild the defenses he’d so easily ripped through.

      He tilted her face toward his and the intensity in his eyes set every nerve in her body on fire. Perhaps she should just take him upstairs and have sex with him. Let him be in control of her body, and assuage the ache that was growing as she sat here.

      “Everything you have to give,” he said.

      She clenched her thighs together. She wanted him. Wanted those big hot hands on her naked body. She wanted to take the Coronas and limes up to his room, put on Stevie Ray and make love to him all night long.

      “Why?” she asked.

      “Why not?”

      “Are we playing a schoolyard game?”

      “We’re both a little too old for that.”

      “Then why the word fencing?”

      “Honestly, Sophia, you make me feel fourteen again.”

      “I don’t mean to.”

      “You can’t control it. And neither can I. That’s why I sent you the basket.”

      “I don’t understand.”

      “I’m here for more than my client, babe.”

      He leaned back, drained the rest of his beer. Drawing the tip of one finger down the side of her face, he said, “I’m here to exorcise you from my dreams.”

      3

      MITCH SIGNALED the waitress to bring another beer. Leaning back against the padded seat he observed Sophia. It had taken a lot to fluster her and even now he wasn’t quite sure he’d actually done it. Only her tight grip on the stem of her wineglass and the flush on her cheeks gave her true emotions away.

      “Wow, I didn’t see that coming,” she said.

      “What did you expect?” he asked.

      “I don’t know, maybe that you wanted to express some anger.”

      “Express some anger? If I get pissed off I’m not going to invite you for a drink to ‘express myself.’”

      “This is the first time we’ve been alone since college,” she said.

      “Did that basket lead you to believe I was angry?”

      “Not exactly.”

      He wanted to crack her shell of confidence and lay waste to her dreams the same way she’d shattered his illusions ten years ago. He reached into his pocket and touched the black velvet ribbon he’d kept since they’d parted. The one she’d used to wear at her neck with a little heart pendant he’d given her.

      Around them people milled, some going in to dinner, some leaving, and he wished he’d chosen a less public place for this meeting. A place where he could pull her into his arms and see her reaction. Every instinct he possessed insisted he reinstate the physical bond between them, and bind her to him with the pleasures of the flesh.

      More than the plans he’d made in the dark were driving him now. The fevered dreams that had haunted him had a chance of becoming reality. He’d been searching for the white-hot passion he’d found in her arms since he’d left her.

      Revenge, he reminded himself. But that was no longer his only motivation. The tyrant in his pants was awake now and didn’t care that Sophia had betrayed him in the past.

      “What did you mean exorcise? In bed?” she asked, tipping her head to the side. One long strand of her thick hair brushed against his hand. Her perfume, a light floral scent, beckoned him closer. He wanted to bury his face in her hair. And then feel it against his naked chest.

      Her composure was still shaken but he realized she was slowly pulling it back around her like a cloak. She made him feel too big in the small space. She seemed so ladylike and gentle that for a moment, he couldn’t remember why they were in the bar instead of in his room.

      Her nails were pretty and manicured. She tapped one of them on the table. He realized then that simply shocking her wasn’t going to be enough to knock her off her guard.

      “I don’t remember us ever confining ourselves to a bed.”

      Her lips parted and her eyes widened. He wondered how she’d changed over the years. Her breasts looked a little smaller; he wanted to cup them and find out how much smaller they were. Would her nipples still tighten and nuzzle into his palm,

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