LITMIR.BIZ

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strong hands, Edward lowered his mouth to mine, slowly, deliberately. I could have pulled back from his embrace at any time. But I didn’t move. I held my breath in anticipation as time suspended.

      Then his lips finally touched mine, and I exhaled with a sigh. My breath comingled and joined with his. His lips were tantalizingly soft at first, sweet and warm. He lured me in, made me lean forward against his chest, reaching up to wrap my arms around his shoulders. Then he shifted me in his grip. As he held me more tightly, the world started to whirl around us.

      He’d seen me at my worst, but he still wanted me....

      His kiss deepened, became hungrier, more demanding. I clutched his hard, powerful body to my own, like a woman seeking shelter in a storm. Edward was solid, like a fortress in my arms. And if somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice shouted at me to stop, telling me this would destroy me, I pushed it away. I clutched Edward to me, kissing him with every cell in my body, my skin hot with need.

      I was tired of being safe.

      With a low growl, Edward lifted me up into his arms. Leaving the great hall, he carried me up the sweeping stairs.

      Held against his chest, I looked up at him, dazed, lost in desire. I watched the play of shadows against his hard, handsome face as he carried me up the stairs. He carried my weight like a feather.

      Edward St. Cyr was taking me to his bed. In just moments, my virginity would irrevocably be taken by this cold playboy, this breaker of hearts.

      But he was so much more than that.

      Lifting my hand to his cheek in wonder, I felt the roughness of his skin, the dark bristles along the hard edge of his jaw. He was so powerful. So masculine. So different from me in every way.

      And yet somehow, tonight, I felt we were not so different. Out of anyone on earth, Edward understood me. He’d seen the scared girl I’d been, and the bold woman I wanted to be. He knew me....

      Using his shoulder, Edward pushed open his bedroom door. I’d never been inside it before. The room was dark with shadows. Dark, Spartan furniture lined the edges of the walls.

      A large white bed was at the center of the black-lacquered floor, illuminated by a pool of moonlight from the window like a spotlight.

      Kicking the door closed behind us, Edward gently set me down on the moonswept, king-size bed. He hadn’t said a word since we’d left the great hall. I looked up at him, shivering in my headband and simple skirt and blouse. I was twenty-eight years old, but felt as innocent as a schoolgirl.

      Never taking his eyes off me, Edward slowly pulled off his tie. He dropped it to the lacquered floor. He moved toward the bed.

      And I started to shake.

      Moonlight glazed the bed around me as his strong hands tangled in my hair. “This is the first thing to go,” he murmured, and he pulled my headband aside. Bracing his arms on the mattress around me, he leaned forward. Gently, he kissed me. His mouth seared mine, pushing my lips apart as he pushed me back against the bed.

      My head fell back against the soft pillows, and he gave my cheeks little feather-soft kisses before returning to my mouth. His tongue flicked possessively between my lips before he trailed kisses down my throat. My head tilted back as I gave a soft gasp. Feeling lost. Feeling new.

      “I don’t love you,” I breathed—speaking to him? Or myself?

      “No.” His dark blue eyes gleamed. “You want me. Say it.”

      My voice was almost too quiet to hear. “I want you.”

      “Louder.”

      I lifted my gaze. “I want you.”

      My voice had turned strong. Dangerous. Reckless.

      He looked at me with such intensity I forgot to breathe.

      “And I want you.”

      Lowering his mouth hard against my own, Edward pushed me deeper into the soft white pillows. His hands stroked slowly down my body, light as a whisper, hot as a desert wind. His kiss deepened. Reaching down, he cupped my breasts that were aching beneath my prim white shirt.

      I barely felt his fingertips move against my blouse. The buttons were just suddenly undone, and the unwilling thought crossed my mind that he’d had a lot of experience. He pulled my body up, and my blouse vanished into thin air, revealing my flimsy bra of blue silk.

      What had made me wear my only truly pretty bra today, underneath my blouse? A coincidence? Or had I known, even before I came downstairs for dinner, that I intended to end my night this way?

      “So beautiful,” he whispered, his hands touching everywhere, sliding over my bare skin. “You’ve been driving me mad....”

      “Me too...” I breathed. We’d been both alone, I realized, both wounded deep inside, in injuries we’d caused ourselves. But in this moment, it felt like loneliness no longer existed. My heart and my arms were both overflowing. We were together. We were the same....

      I pulled him down hard against my body, wanting to feel his weight over mine. I heard the appreciative murmur from the back of his throat as I kissed him, hard, and tried to unbutton his shirt. My hands were trembling and clumsy.

      “Stop,” he said huskily, putting his hands over mine. For a moment, I was afraid he’d changed his mind. Then I realized he was unbuttoning his shirt for me, his expert fingers doing it three times as fast. Rising from the bed, he unbuttoned his cuffs and dropped his expensive tailored shirt to the dark floor. I gasped when I saw the muscles and planes of his naked chest, lit by the slanted moonlight. I’d seen his body before, during massage and occasionally when I’d taken him to swim at the local center. But never like this. Never with the full knowledge that I could run my hands over his skin, that I’d soon feel his naked body roughly take my own.

      Edward’s eyes never left mine as he deliberately undid his trousers and pulled them with his silk boxers down his thickly chiseled thighs. A choked noise came from the back of my throat as he stood naked in front of me. He’d been naked in the gym that morning, but I’d been afraid to look. I was still a little afraid now. Blushing, I started to look away.

      His gaze locked with mine, challenging me. With a deep breath, I lifted my chin, and looked, really looked, at his naked body.

      He was not ashamed, standing there with quiet pride and giving me time to look, to accept. His shoulders were broad, and a dusting of dark hair trailed like a V from his nipples and hard-muscled chest down to a taut, flat waist. His legs were powerful as a warrior’s, and as he shifted his weight in front of me, he moved with an athlete’s grace. His thighs were hard and huge. Which could also describe what I saw if I dared to look between his thighs... But there my nerve failed me.

      He was powerful. He’d been healed. But the injuries had left scars that couldn’t be denied. The raised scars across his torso, where his ribs had been broken, left white lines across perfect olive-toned skin. Similar lines slashed brutally across his right shoulder and arm, and his left leg, like cobwebs of his body’s memory, forgiven but not forgotten.

      Men prey on the tender weakness of the feminine heart, Mrs. Warreldy-Gribbley had warned. He will lure you into bed by using your own heart against you.

      Turning away, I squeezed my eyes shut. The mattress moved beneath me. I felt Edward come closer, felt the warmth of his body as he said in a low voice, “What is it?”

      “This is wrong,” I whispered. “You are my patient.”

      “It’s wrong,” he agreed.

      My eyes flew open.

      He was looking down at me with a glint in his eye. “You’re sacked, Miss Maywood. Effective immediately.”

      I gave an indignant squeak. “You’re firing me?”

      “You said it yourself.” He quirked a dark eyebrow. “I don’t need a physio anymore. What I need...” Reaching out, he slowly

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