LITMIR.BIZ

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just stripped from her to the floor, he caught her wrists, trapping them lightly.

      “Uh-uh, Tam. Don’t cover anything up.” His voice cracked on the husky plea. “They’re so damn pretty, honey.” She felt herself flushing at his words. His gaze flicked back up to her face, and he gave her a slow smile. “Pink and cream. Like ornaments on a Christmas tree—perfect little globes.”

      “Stop it, McQueen.” Her laugh was breathily uneven. She tried to take her gaze from his, and found she couldn’t. “You—you’re embarrassing me.”

      “The tough girl, embarrassed? I don’t believe it.” He ran a finger along her collarbone to the base of her throat, and let it trail lightly downward. When he got to the hollow between her breasts, he stopped. “Call me by my first name, Tam. I want to hear you say it,” he added softly.

      “But I think of you as McQueen.” She blinked at him.

      “I know you do, honey.” He brushed his palm against her nipple and instant weakness spread through her. “That’s why I want to hear you say it. Just for now, I want you to think of me as Stone.” His smile was onesided. “Let’s face it, as far as you’re concerned McQueen’s a total jerk, right?”

      A gurgle of shocked laughter escaped her. “Not a total jerk,” she protested, arching her back and letting her lashes drift over her eyes as his other hand skimmed down her shoulder to her breast. “Not—not all the time, Stone,” she murmured, finally giving in to the sensations that were swirling around inside her.

      “Oh, stop,” he muttered against the corner of her mouth. “Now you’re embarrassing me, honey.”

      The blunt ends of his hair fell forward onto her skin as he bent his head to her breasts. As he took one nipple into his mouth, his tongue circling the aureole around it and his lashes brushing against the sensitive swell just above, her teeth sank into her bottom lip, but not fast enough to stifle the small moan that escaped. Through her own half-closed lashes she could see the dark tan of his hands against her creamier flesh, could see his palms cradling her breasts so that it seemed as though they were being pushed up and together by the most wanton of tightly laced bustiers. His mouth moved with excruciating deliberation to the shadowed tunnel he’d created between her cradled breasts and she felt his tongue stroke first one uplifted curve and then the other.

      The silk of his hair, the tiny flickering movements of his closed lashes, that steady, circling wetness…did the man have any idea what he was doing to her?

      It was like being on some sensuously adult version of a carousel. She let her head tip back on her neck, feeling suddenly as if it was too heavy to support, and behind her closed lids a spangle of colors danced crazily around and around. Liquid heat fused through her—as if, she thought ridiculously, the painted horse she was riding in her fantasy had been transformed into molten gold even as she straddled it.

      This had to be what he’d meant when he had said he could make her burn, and make her like it. But he’d also said he’d been burning for years. If Stone McQueen walked around every day feeling just a little of what she was feeling right now, she told herself tremulously, no wonder the man gave the impression of being a loaded gun.

      Except that doesn’t explain why the safety slipped so easily off your own inhibitions a few minutes ago. You’re one wet kiss away from falling into bed with a complete stranger—a stranger you don’t even like, for God’s sake.

      The voice inside her head was as cold and jolting as water from a hose. It was nothing compared to the shock that ran through her a split second later.

      “Hell.”

      At the muttered imprecation, Tamara’s eyes flew open. His eyes dark and his jaw tight with tension, McQueen met her startled gaze. He shook his head.

      “We both know it’s not going to work, you and me.” His tone was ground glass. “What are we friggin’ thinking?”

      The mouth that only moments ago had been driving her out of her mind was a hard line. The hands that had been touching her so intimately were now clenched at his sides. The last tattered remnants of desire fled from her and she narrowed her eyes, her shock giving way to anger.

      Not everything about him had withdrawn, she thought icily. Whatever he was playing at, it seemed his libido hadn’t totally gotten the message.

      Of course, she was still standing there giving him a free show, she told herself in swift chagrin.

      She snatched up her sweatshirt, dragging it over her head as she straightened. Out of the corner of her eye she saw something white protruding from the neckline, and disgustedly she pulled her bra out, tossing it onto the nearest chair.

      “Tell Rover down boy.” Her glance flicked south of his beltline and to his face again. “Or take him for a walk or a cold shower or something. I don’t know what we were freakin’ thinking a couple of minutes ago, McQueen.” Sometime in the last half hour her hair had escaped from its elastic. With a frustrated gesture, she scooped it back with both hands. “I know what I’m freakin’ thinking now, though.”

      “Good for you.” He gave her a tight smile. “If you do, you’re one up on me.” He exhaled tensely.

      “Look, Tam, this isn’t me being a jerk again. This is me trying my hardest not to be one. As you so sensitively point out, it’s pretty damn obvious I’d rather be throwing you over my shoulder and hauling you into the bedroom right now.”

      “You’ve been reading the romance poets again, McQueen,” Tamara said flatly. “You must know what those flowery phrases do to a girl. But I’ll bite—just how do you see yourself not being a jerk here?” Her voice rose on the question.

      Sighing, he scrubbed his palm irresolutely across his mouth, as if he was trying to come to some decision on a problem that was proving thornier than he’d expected. His lashes dropped over his eyes, and when they flickered back up again his gaze was shadowed.

      “Marry me, Tam.” Under the huskiness was an undefinable note. His smile was wry. “You know, the white dress, the church—hell, the whole nine yards. Petra can be your flower girl. What do you say?”

      She realized she was gaping at him, and she closed her mouth with a snap. “Are you crazy, McQueen? Because it’s either that or you managed to pick up a bottle at the mall today, and I was close enough to you a couple of minutes ago to have known if you’d been drinking.” She shook her head in disbelief. “What are you trying to prove, asking me that?”

      “That you would have hated me two minutes after we did the deed, Tam.” His tone held an edge of the anger she’d displayed. “You don’t like me that much in the first place, and we sure wouldn’t have lain in bed holding hands and whispering sweet nothings to each other afterward.”

      He lifted his shoulders tensely. “I know you want me, though I’m damned if I know why. Maybe you just go for big and basic. Except that’s all she wrote, honey, and I’m not enough of a jerk to screw and run. Not in this situation, anyway. We’ve got the kid to think about.”

      Meeting his grim gaze with a wary one of her own, Tamara suddenly felt the ballooning anger in her deflate.

      He was right. He was right about everything. Even in the insanity of that fire today she’d taken one look at him and fallen, not in love, but in lust. She’d known instinctively how dangerous he could be to her, and she hadn’t cared.

      And as hard as it was for her to admit it, he was right about Petra, too. The child was emotionally fragile and she’d formed a bond with the stranger who’d rescued her—a closer bond than the frayed connection she had with the woman who’d once been her mother’s best friend.

      He was still watching her. Walking stiffly past him to the cupboard, she took down a couple of plates. With the spatula he’d used to cook with she hacked the omelet into two jagged pieces, slapped one on a plate and held it out to him.

      “Omelet McQueen,” she said curtly. “One of your specialities, I

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