LITMIR.BIZ

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except for the part about the blue-collar boyfriend being so damn special. He asked wryly, “This is a problem?”

      “Oh, very funny—and just tell me this. Tell me now. Have you got someone else, someone who loves you and thinks it’s just you and her?”

      “Absolutely not.”

      She blinked. “Well. That’s something, I guess.”

      “Cleo, there’s no one.”

      Her sweet lower lip quivered. She bit it to make it stop. “You know, even your sisters-in-law aren’t so sure about you—well, except for Celia. She told me to go for it. To take action. And look at me now. I guess that’s just what I am doing.”

      “Action is good. Action is exactly right.”

      “Oh, well. Yeah. You would say that.”

      “You’ve been talking to Celia—and Jillian and Jane?”

      “Yes, I have. We did lunch. Just now, as a matter of fact, up at Celia’s place. There was a very nice Chenin Blanc and I bawled my silly eyes out and told them everything. What do you think about that?”

      He thought he wanted to touch her—everywhere. Now. But they were standing in a public hallway. A couple of plump tourists—a man and a woman in matching blue plaid shirts and khaki pants—had paused near the wall to take in the show. And a maid had stopped to watch, too. Fletcher only had to flick a glance at the maid and she scuttled off down the hall. The tourists, however, stayed right where they were. And there were others, strangers and one or two of his employees, striding past, not pausing but giving them way-too-interested glances as they went.

      Cleo noticed their audience, too. “People are staring, you know that? We’re making a spectacle, you and me.”

      Enough of this. He grabbed her hand. “Come on.”

      Wouldn’t you know it? She dug in her heels. “To where?”

      “My apartment.”

      “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. And don’t you have some meeting you just have to go to?”

      “Nothing that can’t be rescheduled.”

      “Well, this is pretty sudden, and I’m not sure if we should just—”

      He moved in a little closer. A hot burst of something that might have been triumph blasted through him when she didn’t cringe away. He pitched his voice low. “Cleo, it’s not the least sudden. We’ve been moving toward this for a month, since that first meeting in my office, and I have counted every damn endless day. It’s too late to back out now. You’ve made your move. Now it’s my move. Will you please let me make it?”

      She shut her eyes, shook her head. And then her eyelids popped open and she glared straight at him. “Tell me this isn’t really happening.”

      “I can’t tell you that. Because—at last—it is.”

      He led her along one hallway and then another, holding tight to her hand, pulling her onward, giving her no chance to stop and think it over, no chance to change her mind.

      Cleo didn’t object. What was the use? In spite of all her doubts, she wanted this, she burned for it. Her blood sang through her veins and her belly felt hot and hollowed-out, hungry for the pleasure she knew he would bring her. She followed along, letting him lead her, until they reached the bank of elevators that included the one to his penthouse. He ushered her in ahead of him.

      She went, in a sort of walking swoon of surrender. Once the car was swooping upward, he took out his cell phone and auto-dialed a number. “Marla,” he said. “Reschedule with Thacker. Cancel my five o’clock. I’ll reschedule that myself later … Yes … No.” He disconnected the call and instantly made another. “Celia?” Oh, God. “Yes. That’s right. It’s Fletcher. I’m with Cleo … Exactly. Will you pick up Ashlyn from preschool and keep her with you for a while?” And what was going to happen for a while? As if she didn’t know …”Thanks … Yes. I’ll pick her up by six.” He flipped the phone shut and slid it back into the inside pocket of his suit coat.

      By then, they had reached the penthouse floor. The doors whooshed open. Fletcher took her arm again. The contact—the absolute command in his touch—made her knees go to jelly. They stepped out into the hallway side by side. She tried not to cling to him, not to sway against him on her wobbly legs. She tried to show a little pride in this … total sexual capitulation, for crying out loud. Light from the skylight above made the gorgeous inlaid floor beneath their feet seem to glow.

      He punched a code into the box by the wide doors to his suite and then he led her into the foyer, where a pleasant-faced middle-aged woman greeted them.

      “You won’t have to pick up Ashlyn, Mrs. Dolby,” Fletcher told her. “Celia will take her for a few hours.”

      “Good enough, Mr. Bravo.” With a sweet smile, she turned and left them.

      Fletcher still had her arm. “This way.” He guided her to the right, past the kitchen and the dining room and the family room where she had first met his daughter.

      It seemed years ago somehow, that other day he’d brought her up here, the day she’d said yes to his plans for KinderWay. Forever ago. When she had still been able to tell herself that what was happening right now wouldn’t happen, when she still believed that she would stay with Danny, that he was the right man for her.

      She had no such illusions now. Now she understood that this attraction between her and Fletcher was too powerful to deny. It was exactly what she hadn’t been looking for, but it was also something she could no longer escape.

      He released her arm—but caught her hand instead. They went through a door, which he paused to close and lock behind them: his bedroom, the master suite. He went on, tugging her behind him, past the sitting area where the fat chairs and the sofa were of wonderfully soft-looking caramel-colored leather scattered about with pillows of tan and sage-green.

      The bed was wide, with a sage-green spread and piles of gray and ivory pillows against a wide curving headboard of some grainless light-colored wood. He stopped right beside it and pulled her around so that she faced him.

      “I want you. Now. Here.”

      Her body thrummed with excitement, with heat and desire. Already she could feel wetness between her legs.

      “I’ve waited,” he said. “I won’t wait anymore.” She only stared at him, at his lean face and his burning pale eyes. “Cleo,” he said. It was a command.

      And somehow from her clutching throat she got the necessary words out. “Yes. All right. Now.”

       Chapter Eight

      Cleo lay on oyster-gray silk sheets.

      She turned her head toward the bedside chair in the corner. Her clothes were laid out on it: her conservative knee-length silk dress of vivid royal blue, her bra, her panty hose, her white leather bag. In front of the chair, standing neatly side by side, were her camel suede pumps.

      It was true. It was real. Her clothes were over there. And she was here.

      In Fletcher’s bed. Naked.

      He rose up above her, naked as she was, all lean muscle and hard, hot flesh—and glowing wolf eyes. He braced himself on his fists. “Cleo,” he said. “At last …”

      And then, oh-so-slowly, he lowered himself down to her.

      She couldn’t stop herself; she moaned as his lips touched hers.

      Unbelievable. Their first kiss—with both of them naked, their bodies pressed close. She wrapped her arms around those wide shoulders, her fingers slipping upward into his thick, silky hair. She breathed in and she breathed him—the expensive aftershave, the

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