LITMIR.BIZ

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representatives from the Asterland government. I don’t give a good damn that they were sent to investigate the plane crash.”

      He’d looked around the private meeting room at the Cattleman’s Club at Justin Webb, Aaron Black, Sheikh Ben Rassad and Dakota Lewis. “I don’t trust them. And I don’t like their methods. I like even less the interrogation tactics they used on Pamela.”

      He’d seen from the dark scowl on Aaron’s face that he was in agreement. Pamela had been on the plane with Helena and Jamie Morris. Pamela was also Matt’s good friend. He’d given her away the day she’d married Aaron. Now that she was his wife, Aaron had more than a vested interest in Pamela’s welfare.

      And that’s what brought Matt to point E and the reason he was here, outside Helena’s hospital room. It was at that meeting that they’d decided Jamie and Helena needed protection. Ben had been assigned to guard Jamie. Matt had volunteered to watch over Helena—an assignment the five of them had agreed was necessary until they unraveled the mystery and were sure the women were safe.

      At least it had started out as an assignment. Maybe it was fatigue—maybe not—but he was finally ready to admit that somewhere along the line, it had ended up feeling like more.

      Well, he couldn’t afford to let it be more. Couldn’t let her be more. Not to him. And still, it was the more that compelled him to rise and walk back to her room. Shoving his hands in his back pockets, he leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb and studied the beautiful, tortured profile that had haunted him for as many nights as he’d known her.

      In the diluted light, he looked at her solemn profile. He looked at her damaged hand, at her leg in an immobilizing cast that ran from toe to mid-calf. His mouth set in a grim line, he tried to shake one niggling question. If this was just an assignment, why did he find himself wanting to heal those hurts that her eyes betrayed but that she would never admit to?

      Two

      Helena knew she was dreaming. She knew it because in the dream she was perfect and she was whole. Still…it felt so immediate, so real and oh, so preferable to the nightmare that always concluded with searing flames and brutal pain.

      Oh, yes. She liked this dream so much better.

      In it, she was in the middle of a grand ballroom. A gentle mist drifted at her feet as if conjured by a medieval mage from a swirl of stardust and moonbeams. She floated with the fantasy of it, seeing herself as she’d once been. Her left hand was smooth and pale, a perfect, graceful backdrop for the pearl-and-ruby ring that had been her mother’s and her grandmother’s before her.

      Her dress was the same blue as her eyes. It was also strapless and shamelessly seductive. The parchment-thin, watery silk clung to the full curve of her breasts, nipped in at her waist then hugged her hips to end at mid-thigh and reveal the long, unblemished length of her legs, showcase her slender ankles in three-inch heels.

      That there were no scars to hide, no broken bones as yet unhealed, wasn’t even the best part. The best part was the tall, gallant Texan who held her in his arms, his green eyes glittering, his captivating smile an irresistible mix of affable charm and unapologetic interest.

      She laughed at something he said, for he was enchanting, this man whose eyes gleamed with a desire he did not attempt to hide. His arm tightened around her waist as he danced her effortlessly through open French doors and out into a warm, starry night. Even the moon, it seemed, was in league with his not-so-subtle seduction as he waltzed her to an intimate corner of a flagstone terrace made secluded by a vine-draped arbor, fragrantly blooming cactus and whispering crape myrtle.

      When she smiled and backed away from him toward the low stone wall that encompassed the terrace, he let her go with a lingering caress, a brush of fingertip to fingertip, and a meaningful look in his eyes.

      He wanted her.

      Despite the warmth of the Texas night, she shivered in anticipation of the passion those green eyes promised.

      “Is it wise, do you think? For us to be out here? Alone?” she asked, turning away from him and leaning into the low wall. The cool, hard stone pressing against the front of her thighs felt solid and real. Her awareness of the man and the moment sent her pulse rate soaring.

      “Offhand…” his voice was meltingly low, seductively Texan, as he moved up close behind her, “I’d say it’s one of the smarter moves I’ve made lately.”

      He was so close she could feel the hush of his breath, warm and intimate against her bare shoulder, so near she could sense the callused roughness of his hands even before he settled them at her waist and drew her back against him. A ripple of excitement eddied through her blood as he gently squeezed, then in a slow, smooth caress, glided his broad palms, fingers spread wide, possessively down the curve of her hip.

      Her heart jumped to her throat, her breath quickened. “Mr. Walker—”

      “Matt,” he murmured as he lowered his mouth to her nape and his hands, in an unmistakable claim, to her outer thighs. “I think current circumstances absolutely dictate that you call me Matt.”

      On a sigh, she let her head fall back against his shoulder, covered his hands with hers. The heat and the hardness of him pressed against her set her on fire.

      “Are all Texans this bold and sure of themselves?” she managed breathlessly.

      “There’s only one thing I’m sure of,” he murmured and with her hands still riding his, covered her abdomen and tugged her snugly against him. His arousal pressed, provocative and brazen, against her hips. “I want you.”

      He turned her in his arms. His eyes smoldered with longing and lust, yet, he smiled slow and heart-meltingly sweet. Clasping her hands in his, he lifted them to his mouth, touched his lips to the fingertips of her right hand and then her left.

      “You’re perfect, Helena.” He met her eyes in the shifting, midnight shadows. “I think I could easily fall in love with you.”

      He kissed her then. There beneath the West Texas moon, with the scent of the desert wafting in the air, the silk of his softly curling hair drifting through her fingers, she kissed him back. As she’d kissed no other man. Wanting him as she’d wanted no other man.

      It was everything a kiss should be. Stirring yet sweet. Hot yet unhurried. And she wanted it to go on forever. Just the two of them. Just this rich savoring of each other’s mouths in the moonlight.

      “Dance with me,” he said against her lips and they began to move as one to the slow rhythm of the night and the hearts that beat in tandem.

      The mist swirled around them, shimmering and cool, enveloping them in yet another realm, a singular world of delicious sensations and softly murmured praise. The magic continued as he waltzed her through the night to a bedroom richly appointed with sensuous satins and gossamer lace. He praised her body as he slowly undressed her. She complied willingly as he laid her naked on a down-draped bed. She invited him into her body without reservation as he whispered her name, covered her, entered her.

      Like silk, he moved inside her. Like life, he gave of himself.

      “You’re perfect,” he murmured against her brow then nuzzled heated kisses across her cheek, beneath her jaw, against the crown of her breast until she was trembling and helpless to anything but him.

      “Perfect…”

      A perfect pain engulfed her. So perfect and so pure she knew in an instant she was no longer dreaming. What she was feeling was real. Excruciatingly real.

      She opened her eyes, jolted cruelly from the dream to predawn light, to sterile white walls, the scent of antiseptic and the awful awareness that she had been thrashing in her sleep and had slammed her left hand against the gunmetal-gray headboard of her hospital bed.

      Biting back tears, she cradled her hand against her ribs and waited for the pain to subside. When, at long last, it did, she waited for sleep to reclaim her. For the magic of the dream to take her.

      But

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