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A lamp beside the bed shed soft light in the room and she could see the desire in his eyes. Her first instinct was to resist, to push him away. He had stepped in and taken control of a situation she’d intended to direct and she felt the tiniest bit apprehensive. But her body wouldn’t listen to her head. She didn’t know if it was the drinks making her fuzzy or the two hours of verbal foreplay blurring her good sense, but she trembled all over. She caught the hint of a subtle and clean-scented aftershave mixed with some familiar brand of soap, neither of which covered his own unique masculine scent.
She hadn’t expected this. She was the one who was supposed to be seducing him. She had to do something to win back the control.
“All I’ve been able to think about tonight was touching you,” he rasped, caressing her face. The move was gentle and firm at the same time. Then he kissed her—deep, intense and disarming—and she went limp with desire. He was a man on a mission. He knew what he wanted and wasn’t shy about taking it.
How could something so wrong feel so good? When it came to sex she was always the aggressor; she called the shots. This all seemed to be moving too fast, yet she didn’t make a move to stop him.
She didn’t want to stop him.
He kissed her mouth, her throat, tasting and nipping her skin, as if he wanted to devour every inch of her. He bit her earlobe hard enough to make her gasp with surprise and her body shudder in ecstasy.
He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it aside, but when she tried to unbutton his shirt he manacled her wrists and held them behind her, backing her against the door. A move like that would earn any other man a swift knee jerk to the crotch, but no other man had ever made her feel so willing to let go.
He trapped both of her wrists in one large hand and used the other to unfasten the buttons on her blouse. She probably could have broken loose, but at this point she didn’t want to be free.
He pushed her blouse off her shoulders. It slipped down her arms and caught on her wrists. She wasn’t exactly large-busted, but her breasts sat firm and high and were nicely shaped. With the exception of her ex-husband, who found fault with everything, she’d never heard a single complaint.
Considering the way Zack was looking at her, he wouldn’t be complaining, either. His assessing eyes burned her skin like hot coals. She’d worked damned hard for this body. She knew she looked good and he appeared to agree.
He lowered his head, biting her though the lacy fabric of her bra, blowing hot breath on her skin. She moaned and arched her back.
“I don’t do this,” he said, looking at her with an intensity that gave her chills. “I don’t have affairs with women I just met and hardly even know.”
“I don’t, either,” she admitted.
“I’ve never wanted a woman the way I want you right now.”
Zack’s words filled her with a thrilling kind of satisfaction. But for all the wrong reasons. Reasons that had nothing to do with revenge. This was all about wanting Zack. Wanting him to ravage her. She would go so far as to say she needed him, but she didn’t need anyone.
He cupped the back of her thigh, dragging her skirt up, growling with pleasure when he realized she was wearing a garter belt. Since her divorce from a man who didn’t think sexy underwear was “appropriate,” she’d spent hundreds of dollars on all the racy things he had never let her wear. It was nice to meet someone who appreciated her taste.
Zack let go of her wrists and her blouse fell to the floor. He unzipped her skirt and smoothed it down her hips, leaving her in only a scandalously brief and sheer bra and thong set, a lace garter belt, black silk stockings and spike heels. She’d never felt so sexy in all her life.
He dropped to his knees in front of her and nuzzled his face against her bare stomach, his beard stubble abrading her skin, making her shiver. Every part of her felt alive with sexual awareness and heavy with lust. He nibbled her stomach, ran his tongue over the tiny gold hoop in her navel, gripping her hips in his big hands.
He tugged roughly on her thong and she heard it rip apart in his hands, but she was too excited to care that he’d ruined her favorite one. He could rip it all if that was what he wanted, if that would excite him even half as much as he’d excited her.
Her body felt shaky and weak, and she tunneled her fingers though his hair to hold herself steady. Her breath was coming faster, her anticipation mounting, and when he finally buried his face between her thighs she cried out. Her body arched, fingers tangled in his hair. Her knees gave out, but he caught her before she could fall and hooked her leg over his shoulder. She was on the verge of a cataclysmic explosion, the sparks sizzling ever closer to the end of her fuse.
When it reached her core, the explosions rocked through her. It was so good, so perfect, she wanted to cry. In her life no one had ever made her feel this way. It scared her half to death and thrilled her beyond belief.
She was too limp to even think twice as he lifted her off her feet and deposited her on the bed. Too sated to do anything but watch as he undressed. His body was just as amazing as she’d thought it would be.
He knelt on the bed beside her and pulled her shoes off one at a time, tossing them to the floor. When she reached up to undo her bra, he stopped her.
“Keep it on.” His eyes raking over her as he knelt between her thighs. He hooked his hands around the backs of her knees and tugged her closer, the coarse hair on his legs tickling her skin. His actions were demanding and almost overpowering, yet somehow managed to be tender.
Then he closed his eyes and cursed, a four-letter word she didn’t think men like him used.
“What’s wrong?”
“I just realized, I don’t have protection.”
No protection? What man in this day and age didn’t carry condoms?
The kind who didn’t have sex until he was in a committed relationship, which she was guessing typically took more than two hours and three Scotch on the rocks.
Lucky for him a modern woman was always prepared. She had been anticipating this.
“In my purse.”
He reached over and grabbed it for her, and after she dug a condom out, he tried to take it from her.
“Oh, no,” she said, ripping it open. “This is my favorite part.”
She watched him watching her, the heat in his eyes as she rolled it on. Then she reached up and threaded her fingers behind his neck, pulling him to her, his warm weight sinking her into the mattress without squashing her. Every part of him felt warm and strong and solid.
He kissed her, the deep soul-searching kind, while he tortured her with small thrusts of his hips. She clung to him, sinking her nails into his shoulders, his backside, her body arching with impatience. She’d never felt so out of control, so swept away with lust. It was as if Zack wanted to see her beg for it, wanted her to know she was completely under his control, and she was. She would do anything he wanted right now. Anything he asked.
It frightened her almost as much as it turned her on.
After that, everything became a mystifying blur of intense sensation. Sights and sounds and feelings all jumbled together into something so overpowering she couldn’t even name it. And when they reached the peak together, she knew her idea of what sex was supposed to be had been inexplicably changed.
This was what it felt like to really connect with another person. To be separate, but one.
And she could never see Zachary Jameson again.
* * *
Zack sat in his home office at the computer, where he did most of his work these days, attempting to write the syndicated monthly column that was due on the editor’s desk by the end of the week. Unfortunately, all he’d been able to think about in the past two months since his trip to New York was Miranda Reed.
He wasn’t typically attracted to strong, independent women, and he’d never slept with a woman on the first date. Not since college, anyway. But there was something about her he’d found impossible to resist, something that prompted him to reject his own morals and put his reputation on the line.
A million little things, which all wrapped up together, had him craving her company, her touch.
But they had agreed, despite their attraction, that to pursue any kind of relationship would be a waste of time. Not only did they live a thousand miles from each other, they had conflicting beliefs and values. She wasn’t interested in a commitment and he had no desire for a short-term relationship based solely on sex.
What they had was an extreme case of opposites attract. Two people who had nothing in common but good sex.
No, not good sex. Great sex. Mind-blowing sex.
And absolutely no future together.
He’d done a fairly decent job of convincing himself they were both better off. But there was still a little voice in the back of his mind asking, what if he’d made a mistake letting her go? Unfortunately, he’d found listening to that little voice to be irrational and ill-advised.
His desk phone rang. Line two, his doorman. He only called up if Zack had a guest, and he wasn’t expecting anyone. Nor was he in the mood for company.
He picked up the phone anyway. “Yes, Danny.”
“Someone here to see you, Mr. Jameson. A Ms. Reed.”
For a second he was sure he misunderstood. “Ms. who?”
“Miranda Reed, sir. Shall I send her up?”
What the hell was Miranda doing in Chicago? And why was she here, at his building? How did she even know where he lived?
“Sir?”
He shook off the sudden confusion. “Yeah, sure. Go ahead and send her up.”
He hung up the phone and sat there for a second feeling dazed and bewildered. They had agreed not to see each other again, then she shows up out of the blue on his doorstep? What was she up to?
When the doorbell chimed, he rose from his desk and walked to the front door, the whole situation feeling a bit surreal. Then he realized he was nervous.
Nervous and excited to see her, even though he knew any relationship between them would lead to a dead end. Unless she’d had a drastic change of heart and, as she’d so aptly phrased it, succumbed to the allure of the dark side, there was no reason for her to come here.
He pulled open the door and there she stood, dressed casually in low-slung flared jeans, a denim jacket and a jewel-encrusted T-shirt that rode up just high enough to show off her navel ring. She looked young and sassy and hip, a completely different spin on the no-nonsense alluring woman he’d taken up to her room.
The way she looked him up and down, taking in his faded jeans, T-shirt and bare feet, she was probably thinking the same thing.
The attraction, the soul-deep connection that he’d tried to write off as a fluke, was apparently no fluke after all. His first instinct was to tug her into his arms and kiss her senseless.
It struck him as odd that they’d been so intimate, and they barely knew one another. Yet he felt as though they were connected somehow. He knew her, even though he didn’t know her.
“Hi,” she finally said.
“Hi.”
She shifted nervously. “So, I’ll bet you’re surprised to see me.”
That was an understatement. Did she think she could bounce in and out of his life like a ping-pong ball?
She fidgeted with the bottom edge of her jacket. “I hope it’s not a problem. My stopping by unannounced, I mean.”
He folded his arms over his chest. “I guess that depends on what you want.”
“What I want?” She looked confused, then the meaning of his words seemed to sink in. “Oh, I’m only here to talk.”
He couldn’t imagine what they had left to talk about. But at the very least, he should listen to what she had to say.
He backed up and gestured her inside.
She stepped past him, taking in the foyer and the living room with curiosity. “The penthouse, huh? Very nice.”
“Thanks.” They stood there for a moment in awkward silence, so he asked, “Can I take your jacket?”
“No, thanks.” She rubbed her arms absently, as if fighting off a chill. “I’m not used to this cool weather. It’s a lot hotter in May in Texas.”
“Would you care for something warm to drink? Tea? Coffee?”
“Water?”
“Kitchen is this way,” he said, and she followed him. “Did you just get into town?”
“I came right from the airport. I apologize for dropping in out of the blue. I would have called first, but the truth is, until I walked into the building, I wasn’t sure if I could really do this.”
“But here you are.”
“Yeah. Here I am.”
He filled a glass with filtered water and handed it to her. She barely took a sip before setting it down on the counter.
She glanced nervously around the room, everywhere but at him. “This is awkward, huh?”
“Yeah. I seem to recall that we agreed not to see each other again.”
“I know,” she said. “And I’m sorry, but the situation has changed.”
He folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against the refrigerator. “Which situation is that?”
She took a deep breath and blew it out, then looked him in the eye and said, “The situation that arose when I found out I was pregnant.”
Chapter Three
It took a full thirty seconds for the meaning of her words to sink in, and another minute to regain the use of his vocal chords. “Say again?”
“I was surprised, too.” She walked across the room to the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the shore of Lake Michigan. “Before you ask, I’m sure it’s yours. There hasn’t been anyone else in a while.”
“I wasn’t going to ask.” The thought had never even occurred to him. She didn’t strike him as the type of woman who would try to pin someone else’s mistake on him. Though, it wasn’t as if he knew her all that well. Geographically he’d memorized her down to the last detail. The way her breasts felt cupped in his hands, the soft swell of her hips. How their bodies had locked together to make a perfect fit.
Personally and intellectually, they were barely more than strangers.
“Well,” she asked, finally turning to him. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“The truth is, I’m a little speechless right now.”
“You must have questions.”
There were so many questions bouncing around in his head he could barely make sense of them. “You’ve been to see a doctor? You’re sure?”
“Do you think I would fly all the way here from Texas if I wasn’t sure?”
Which led to his next question. “How? We used protection.”
“I can’t explain it, either. But if you’re interested in placing blame, go ahead and pin it on me.”
If he recalled correctly, they had both been in that room, he just as willingly as she’d been. “Why would I do that? It isn’t anyone’s fault.”
