LITMIR.BIZ

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she was grasping his hips and pulling him down to her, her need as naked as her body as she opened to him.

      Naked bodies meant nothing more than pleasure. Naked emotions were something else again. But he couldn’t look away. She mesmerized him, made him ache with the need of her.

      He couldn’t turn back now. Couldn’t resist the pull to join his body to hers.

      He slid in, took her. Gave himself over to the need that surged within him, and tried to give Natalie the satisfaction that she was giving him.

      She was so hot, so tight. So right.

      He wanted the feeling to last forever. Wanted desperately to slow it down, hang onto it, to let it build and ease and build again, to make it grow as well inside her.

      But Natalie thwarted his best intentions with intentions of her own. She moved against him, rocked her hips, drew him deeper, arched her back and clenched around him.

      “Now,” she whispered, her fingers digging into his buttocks, her heels hard against the backs of his thighs. They moved together, eager and desperate until together they tipped over the edge into oblivion.

      Spent, shattered, Christo could barely lift his head. His heart thundered. He pressed a kiss to her cheek, to her lips, then pulled back enough to look down at her, to feel sanity returning, but what else he wasn’t sure.

      Natalie stared up at him, speechless, her gaze unreadable.

      And Christo felt a stab of anxiety. Of doubt. He stroked her cheek with still-trembling fingers. “Are you all right?”

      Because she didn’t look all right. She looked stunned.

      And then, like morning light, a smile dawned. Slowly at first, touching her lips, then suffusing her whole face. She loosed her hands that were locked around his back and brought them up to frame his face.

      “I don’t think all right really covers it,” she said. And then she raised up to press her lips to his.

      They loved again that night.

      Slow and easy the second time, as they let their touches linger, she and Christo learned each other’s bodies, each other’s needs, each other’s desires. But slow and easy was no less shattering than fast and desperate.

      Nor was lying in the narrow bed and watching Christo sleep afterwards.

      “I’ll go,” he’d said only moments after they’d spent themselves the last time. He was lying on his side, his body curved around hers, his arm slung possessively across her waist, holding her against him. And she had felt the whisper of his words against her ear.

      She hadn’t moved then. She’d simply held onto the moment, reliving the night from its unpromising beginning to this, marveling at the change.

      Who’d have thought?

      After a while she realized that he hadn’t moved. His hold on her hand had loosened, his breathing had slowed. He was sleeping.

      With exquisite care and deliberation, Natalie shifted her body. There wasn’t much room. She hugged the edge of the bed as she rolled onto her back, still in his embrace, then turned just enough to face him, wanting to see him, to study his features in the dim light that spilled in through the window from the street.

      She had never seen Christo unguarded before. Never seen him without armor. She didn’t mean clothes, though of course his lack of them allowed her to learn that part of him as well. It could have made him vulnerable.

      But it didn’t. Christo had a strong body, lean but well-muscled, with hard ropy arms, a flat abdomen, strong thighs. He didn’t look like a man who went to meetings and wrote arguments all day. It reminded her that that was only a part of who he was.

      He was also the man who slept next to her, his features softened slightly by sleep. His jaw was relaxed now, his lips slightly parted. The hard, often wary green eyes were hidden beneath long-lashed lids. He looked gentler. A bit more like the man she’d dreamed of finding beneath the hard tough shell the world saw.

      She’d found that man tonight. Against all odds, he’d finally listened to what she’d said.

      It was her problem she loved him. Her foolishness, perhaps. She knew the gentleness and vulnerability wouldn’t last. She knew the armor, gone now, would come back in the strong light of day.

      He would be Christo Savas again, the tough lawyer the world knew.

      But she would know this Christo. She would have these memories. She had broken through the armor to the man inside.

      And she dared hope—dared believe—that he would find joy in letting her in, in sharing the intimacies they’d shared again. And again.

      She lifted a hand and touched his hair. It was both crisp and soft under her fingers. She trailed them down to trace the line of his ear and jaw. She pressed a finger lightly to his lips, felt his breath against it almost like a kiss.

      He didn’t wake. He only sighed. And smiled the barest of smiles.

      Natalie smiled, too, and knew that whatever happened, she would never regret this night. She slid her arm around him and rested her head against his chest. In her ear she could feel the solid strong beat of his heart.

      She loved listening to it. Loved being this close to him. Had loved being even closer.

      Three years she had waited. But he had been worth waiting for.

      “I love you,” she whispered and pressed a kiss to his chest. Then she closed her eyes, too, and slept.

      In the morning, when she awoke, he was gone.

       CHAPTER FOUR

      “YOU look bright,” Sophy studied Natalie with unabashed interest when she walked into the office the next morning.

      “Glad to be back,” Natalie said airily. It was partly the truth, but not the part that was making it a struggle to keep the grin off her face. Even though Christo had been gone when she got up, she hadn’t been able to stop smiling.

      The memories of the night before had a lot to do with it. But even more was the note on the dining-room table that said in Christo’s spiky neat writing, “I’ll see you tonight.”

      “Things worked out okay with Christo, then?”

      Natalie did a momentary double-take, then realized Sophy had no way of knowing anything about last night, that it wasn’t what had happened between her and Christo that her cousin was talking about.

      “Um, at work, you mean? Yes. Yes, they did.” Natalie busied herself unpacking her laptop, setting it up, plugging in the power cord.

      Sophy regarded her speculatively. “And what about not at work?” she ventured after a long moment.

      Natalie felt the heat rise in her cheeks. “Fine,” she said shortly. “He’s fine.” But she didn’t meet Sophy’s gaze, though she could certainly feel her cousin’s curious eyes on her.

      Then there was a sharp intake of breath. “You’re not telling me something,” Sophy said.

      “Nothing to tell. I finished work for him yesterday. His old temp is back today.”

      Sophy didn’t say anything.

      Natalie looked over at her. Sophy’s gaze was narrow, assessing her every move. And clearly detecting the hint of a smile that Natalie couldn’t quite hide.

      “You did it,” Sophy breathed. “Didn’t you?” she pressed when Natalie didn’t immediately reply.

      In fact, Natalie had no intention of replying. She didn’t kiss and tell. Or do anything else and tell about it, either.

      “I just said he was fine. That’s all I said.” She fixed a glare on Sophy.

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