FIVE
Just as Paul’s hand moved the soft cotton fabric of her shirt higher, his mouth poised over hers, his dark eyes burning with desire, sirens became audible, moving closer to them.
He felt as if he were coming out of a trance. He looked down at what he’d done and flinched. What the hell had he been about to do? His face contorted as he pushed Isabel up from the seat and turned away while she frantically worked at putting her bra back on.
A police car pulled up beside them and a tall policeman got out, noting the shattered glass of the back window and the small limb that had done the damage.
“Are you folks okay?” he asked with concern.
“Yeah, thanks,” Paul said, breathing in deeply. “I thought we’d bought the farm,” he added on a chuckle while he tried to divert the officer’s attention so that his hunger for Isabel wouldn’t be visible. He turned to her. “You okay, Miss Grayling?” he asked formally.
“I’m…fine,” she said. “A little shaken, that’s all.” She smiled for the policeman and looked around at the shattered back glass. “We were lucky,” she added when she noticed the devastation all around them.
“Very lucky. NOAA’s calling it a downburst,” the policeman said. “Did a lot of damage on this city block and just swept right over everything else.” He shook his head. “Go figure.”
Paul got out of the car, his hunger finally tamed by doing math problems in his head. He grimaced when he saw the back windshield.
“I guess I’d better get her home and call the insurance company,” Paul said. “She’d just signed up for law school, too.”
The policeman smiled at her. “I’ve got a son who just graduated from it,” he confessed. “He’s going into corporate law.”
“I’m going to get a job with the Jacobsville district attorney’s office when I graduate,” Isabel said shyly. “I’ve been plaguing them for years.”
He laughed. “Not a job many people want. But good luck to you.” He shook his head as he surveyed the damage. “Need to go to the emergency room? We can take you over, if you want,” he added, indicating his partner, who was standing by the patrol car.
“I’m fine. Not a scratch,” Isabel said. She couldn’t look at Paul. “My nerves are pretty raw, that’s all.”
“Mine, too,” Paul said with a grin. “The car should be fine, once I remove the tree from it,” he added with pursed lips.
“Let us help you with that.”
The men got the limb out of the back window and one of the officers wrote up some notes on the damage for the insurance company. Paul said he’d get back with them about a copy of the report in a few days. Then he got Isabel back into the car, cranked it, waved to the police officers and started back toward Jacobsville.
Isabel was too shocked and uncertain to speak, and Paul was too angry at himself.
He turned on the radio to listen to the news, which was just reporting the damage in the small area where the downburst had happened. He kept it on and remained doggedly silent all the way back to Comanche Wells while Isabel stared out the window and ground her teeth at a moment that would live in her mind and her heart as long as she drew breath.
He only wanted to forget it had happened. She knew that. He knew the difficulties and he wasn’t rushing to involve himself with a woman worth millions whose father would have him roasted on a spit if he knew he’d even touched her.
But she was suddenly awake and aware in a way she never had been before. Her body knew passion, knew pleasure, knew the siren song of desire. Paul had touched her. He’d wanted her. She knew nothing of men, but her friends at college were open about their relationships. She knew what happened when a man felt desire. Paul’s body, at her back, had been raging with it. His hands on her had been hungry, out of control.
But that was only desire. He was fond of her, but that was as far as it went. Today had been a spur-of-the-moment thing, a result, surely, of the burst of wind and the shattering of the windshield. It had been a moment of shared fear that had just gotten out of hand.
For him. But for her, it had been a revelation. She’d loved Paul forever, it seemed. But he’d never touched her, not even when she’d tempted him by showing up on his bed in that slinky pale pink nightgown with her robe unfastened. She’d given up hope that he was ever going to give her anything except grudging affection.
Then he’d pushed her down in the car to shelter her. His voice, deep and soft as velvet, had been as caressing as those big, warm, rough hands on her untried body. In her whole life, no man had ever touched her like that, so intimately, so hungrily, without the slightest hint of restraint.
She wondered how long it had been since he’d really been with a woman physically, because it had felt very much as if he’d been starving to death. She knew he dated; he’d made no secret of it. But if he didn’t have a steady girl, he was going without. Had that prompted his loss of control? Or had it been something else, something more…
“Don’t sit over there and make love’s eternal dream out of what happened when the wind hit us,” Paul said curtly as he turned into the long driveway that led to Graylings. He glanced at her with cold dark eyes. “I haven’t had a woman in a while. I just lost my head. It was purely physical, Isabel. Nothing more.”
Her knuckles were white where she clenched her purse to stop herself with crying out from the pain of what he was saying. She forced a smile and even looked at him with a calm face. “I know that, Paul. I won’t read anything more into it. Honest. We were lucky,” she added, glancing behind them at the broken glass all over the backseat where the limb had blown through it. “Just a foot or so more and it would have gotten us as well as the back glass.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” he replied with a clipped smile. “I’ll get the insurance company on it first thing. They’ll send someone out to the house to fix it.”
“Classes start next week,” she said, her eyes straight ahead. “I’ll have plenty to do.”
He didn’t answer her. He pulled up at the front door and stopped. He started to get out and open the door for her, but she was quicker.
“Thanks for driving me up to the school,” she said and smiled as she ran quickly to the front door.
He could see through her. She was hurting, upset, shocked by what had happened, and he’d treated it more like a joke than like the trauma it probably was to her. She had no experience with men. He should have explained it better than that. But he couldn’t take the chance that she’d see it as a beginning. He’d had one relationship, before his life was shattered. He wanted no more of them. Ever.
He parked the car at the back door and walked into the house. Darwin Grayling was waiting there. He saw the car and exploded.
“What the hell happened? Is Isabel all right?” he burst out.
“We got caught in a downburst. At least that’s what the weather guys called it. A limb came right through the back windshield. It stopped short of us, but Miss Grayling is pretty upset.” He never used her name or her nickname with her father.
“Thank God.” Darwin let out a breath. “You’ll handle all that…?” He waved a hand at the car.
“Yes, sir. I’ll get the insurance company right on it.”
“Let that wait. I need to speak to you. Come into my study, please.”
Paul followed him, his teeth grinding together. Surely the man didn’t have cameras in the car, or upstairs, that Paul didn’t know about. If he did, this was going to be a very short trip. He’d be grilled and fired on the spot if Grayling had any inkling of what had really gone on inside that car after the downburst hit. Or if there was a hidden camera in Paul’s bedroom. He could picture Grayling’s reaction if he knew that Isabel often spent time in Paul’s bedroom—on Paul’s bed—to talk to him late at night in just a gown and a robe…
Darwin closed the door with a snap and turned to Paul. He wasn’t smiling. “How much do you know about that police officer who’s been flirting with Isabel in Barbara’s Cafe?” he asked at once.
Paul’s mind was in limbo. The question came out of left field and he was unprepared for it. “There’s nothing going on there, sir. He has lunch at the café and Isabel’s talked to him a time or two when she had lunch in town with one of Blake Kemp’s employees. That’s all it is. I don’t think she’s been around him more than once or twice.”
“You don’t think,” Darwin said angrily. “You make sure he keeps his distance,” he added curtly. “My daughter is off-limits to any man, but especially one who’s an undercover federal officer!”
“A Fed?” Paul feigned surprise.
“Yes, a Fed,” came the short reply. “I had him checked out.” His eyes narrowed. “Something you should have thought to do the minute you heard Isabel was letting him flirt with her!”
He caught his breath. “Sir, if I’d thought he was a threat…”
“He is a threat, Fiore!” he returned, his face reddening. “Any man I don’t choose for my daughters is a threat! I’m not losing one penny of what I own to some grubby little lawman who looks at my daughter and sees himself set for life! They’re mine! I’ve spent a small fortune keeping them safe from fortune hunters while I find the right husbands for them! Merrie’s too young, but Isabel will be married when she’s twenty-five. I have a prince picked out for her. He’s wealthy and his brothers have all produced sons, so he’s a good match. I must have heirs, so that Graylings doesn’t go into the ground with me.”
Paul was shocked. He didn’t know how to react. He just stared at the older man while he searched for a reply that wouldn’t get him fired.
Darwin looked at his watch and grimaced. “I have to be in Finland for trade talks. I’ll be away for at least two weeks. Don’t delegate your responsibility to any other security person. You take Isabel anywhere she wants to go, but you watch her! And if that Fed shows any more interest in her, you get her out of that café if you have to carry her out, is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Paul said curtly.
“I’ll hold you responsible if she gets involved with anyone, too,” Darwin added.
“I’ll remember, sir,” Paul said.
“See that you do. Have Morris drive me to the airport. You keep an eye on Isabel,” he added curtly.
“I’ll do that.”
Darwin waved a hand, indicating that his security chief was dismissed. Paul left the room, hiding his expression. He wanted to tear the man apart with his bare hands. Marry Isabel to some foreign prince as breeding stock for the next generation? The man was insane!
He walked outside to get some fresh air and lifted his face to the breeze. Grubby little Fed, he’d called the lawman in town. Grubby. That was how Darwin Grayling pictured anyone without money. That included Paul. No commoner was good enough for his daughters. No, they must marry money. It didn’t matter what the man who had the money looked like, either. He could be old and fat and bald and it wouldn’t matter. Isabel must marry within her class.
Why did it bother him so much to know that? He was aware of the differences. He wasn’t lining up to court Isabel, to win her, to marry her. Marry. He closed his eyes and shivered. He couldn’t bear to think about marriage again.
So why was he picturing Isabel in white? Because she’d be walking down the aisle in it, looking like a fairy princess. Isabel had a white dress that she often wore to church—one of the few venues that the girls were allowed to attend. The dress had a tight bodice and a full skirt, and it drifted around Isabel’s long legs when she walked, giving teasing glimpses of the long, beautiful legs underneath. He loved her in white. It emphasized the amazing color of those long, curly red-gold locks and her blue, blue eyes.
He wanted to deck Darwin Grayling.
* * *
He was still wearing that cold, angry expression when Mandy started putting supper on the table, several hours later.
“And what’s the matter with you?” Mandy chided. “A man who’s escaped certain death should look happier.”
“It’s listening to that man talk about auctioning Isabel off to some foreign prince as breeding stock,” he muttered. “Merrie, too, of course,” he added, so that he didn’t give her the idea that it was only Isabel for whose welfare he was concerned.
“Money marries money,” she said simply. “That’s the way the world is, Mr. Paul.”
He drew in a long breath and picked up a piece of celery from the appetizers she’d just put on the table. He shoved it into his mouth.
“Don’t spoil your appetite,” she chided.
He chuckled. “You sound like my grandmother,” he replied. “I was forever stealing little bits of food from the table when she set it. Of course, at our house it was bread and olive oil rather than raw veggies.”
“You miss your grandmother a lot, don’t you?” she asked kindly.
He drew in a long breath and crunched the celery before he answered. “Mandy, in my whole life, she’s the only human being who ever really loved me,” he confessed. He smiled wistfully. “None of the ones who came after did, except…” He stopped there. He couldn’t bear the memory. Blood. So much blood! His eyes closed, trying to shut out the memory.
He felt a soft hand on his arm. “I made a nice supper,” she said, drawing him back. “You have to stop looking back, Mr. Paul. The world is bright and beautiful. The path ahead is sweet.”
He made a face. “Sweet. Sure. Sweet like vinegar.”
She hit him. “Cut that out. You’ll curdle the milk in my nice pudding.”
He laughed. “Mandy, you’re a tonic.”
“Glad you think so.” She went back into the kitchen and returned with a pan of rolls and a small plate with butter.
“Rolls!” he exclaimed. “You sweetheart!”
“After your close call, I thought you and Miss Isabel might like something special. I made macaroni and cheese, too.” She indicated the big square dish on the table.
“I have truly died and gone to heaven,” he assured her. “Uh, could you wait a bit to call the others?” he added, tugging the casserole toward him.
Mandy laughed out loud. “Oh, Mr. Paul, shame on you!”
She went to call the girls down to the supper table, still laughing.
* * *
“Not nice,” Isabel chided him when she sat down. “Trying to hog all the macaroni and cheese.”
“Villain,” Merrie agreed with twinkling gray eyes. “We love it, too! Nobody makes it like Mandy does.”
Mandy made them a nice curtsy before she brought the coffeepot to the table and put it down in the center, next to the cream and sugar on the silver tray.
They ate in a pleasant silence until Mandy brought in the pound cake, sliced and served it with coffee.
“What did the insurance company say about the car?” Sari asked.
“I’ve got a guy coming out tomorrow to replace the back window, and a cleaning crew to get out all the glass and other debris from the car,” he said without looking at her.
“Glass?” Merrie asked, puzzled. “What glass?”
“Didn’t your sister tell you?” Paul asked. “We got caught in a downburst in San Antonio and a tree came through the back windshield. Part of one at least,” he added, forking into his slice of cake. His face was carefully schooled to show no emotion whatsoever as he spoke.
“You didn’t tell me!” Merrie exclaimed. “Were either of you hurt?”
“Not a scratch,” Isabel assured her. She ate cake mechanically, while her heart raced madly and her breath caught in her throat. “We were lucky.”
“My gosh! I’d have been terrified!” Merrie said, shaking her head. She glanced at her sister. “I wondered why you looked so shaken when I passed you in the hall. And you never said a word!”
It was an indication of just how badly Isabel had been shaken, Paul thought sadly. He couldn’t do anything about it. He had to let her think he was unconcerned. It was something that never should have happened. He had to make sure it never happened again.
“The cake is great, Mandy,” he enthused when he was having a second cup of coffee.
The girls echoed the praise.
Mandy grinned at them. “Aw, shucks, t’waren’t nothin’,” she drawled in her best Texas backcountry accent.
“It’s a miracle I don’t weigh three hundred pounds, with food like this,” Paul sighed. His dark eyes twinkled at her.
“It’s a miracle we don’t all weigh that much,” Merrie teased.
“Where was Daddy going?” Sari asked without looking at Paul.
“Finland,” he said. “To some economic conference. He does know his way around the world of high finance.”
“Yes, he does,” she agreed.
“How long is he going to be gone?” Merrie asked.
“Two weeks, he said.” Paul remembered all that Darwin had said to him and his dark eyes glittered as he finished his coffee. “I’d better do a quick recon outside,” he said, “and check in with the rest of my staff, to make sure they’re on the ball.”
“Is Daddy getting jumpy again?” Merrie asked. “The last time he got jumpy, one of the racehorses was stolen. We got him back, but Daddy was furious. He talked to some people about the man who stole the horse…”
“And the police got him on other charges,” Sari interrupted with a sharp glance at her sister. It was dangerous for Paul to know what they knew. “Daddy didn’t even have to testify.”
“When was this?” Paul asked.
“Just before you came to work for us,” Sari replied. “It was a long time ago.”
“But Daddy has lots of people watching the horses now,” Merrie added.
And watching Darwin Grayling’s daughters, too, he thought irritably. He wasn’t going to mention that, but it irked him that the man didn’t think Paul could protect them. If he had, he wouldn’t have whole sets of bodyguards following them every time they left the house.
“I’ll make another pot of coffee if you like, before I go to my church meeting,” Mandy offered, glancing at the clock on the wall.
“You go ahead. I can make myself coffee if I want it,” Paul said with a warm smile. “Get Morris to drive you. We’ve got three other men watching the house and the horses. It will be all right.”
“That’s nice of you, Mr. Paul,” she said. “Thanks.”
“Have to take care of you,” he mused. “We’d starve if you got carried off by martians or anything.”
She laughed. “So you might!”
“I’m going to watch that new fantasy movie,” Merrie said. “Want to watch it with me, Sari?”
“No,” she replied. “Thanks, but I’ve got some textbooks to find for my classes. I’m going to get them online.”
“Going to do digital ones again?” Merrie asked.
Her sister nodded. “Except for one that’s only available in paperback.”
“Dry old law books,” Merrie teased. “You’ll gather dust like they will.”
“Virtual dust,” Sari said, waving her hands. “Witchy things!”
“Careful, somebody might throw water on you,” the younger woman mused, tongue in cheek.
Sari’s mind went to the Wizard of Oz scene where the green-faced witch melted after being doused with water, and she laughed. “Wicked,” she said.
Merrie just smiled.
Paul smiled, too, but not with any enthusiasm at the byplay. He went out the back door, grateful for the cool night air that might help him forget Isabel’s hungry eyes begging for his mouth as they lay together in the car.
* * *
He paced in his bedroom, his mind going back again and again to the downburst, to the car, to Isabel in his arms, hungry, responsive, wanting him.
His mind told him that he was crazy to think he could ever have her. If he showed the least personal interest in her, Darwin Grayling would have him skinned alive and grilled, just before he fired him. Of course there were plenty of other security people who could replace him, but none with the history he had with Isabel and Merrie. They were family to him. He went above and beyond to keep them safe, because he genuinely cared about them. Another man might be careless, might not bother with the tiny details that never escaped Paul. Well, there was Morris, his second-in-command. The man had been working for Grayling for several years. He seemed to be fond of the girls, but he did anything that Grayling told him to. He never questioned an order.
On the other hand, Paul knew he was coming to the end of his time with the Graylings. Merrie was out of high school, Isabel was in law school. Sure, they still needed protecting from possible kidnappers or people with a grudge against their father. But he couldn’t stay here much longer. The genie was out of the bottle as far as Isabel went. They were physically aware of each other. That situation was only going to get worse. The tension would grow as they denied the hunger; it would build to a flash point and then explode.
He didn’t know how he was going to stay alive with no glimpses of curly reddish-gold hair and blue, blue eyes in a gamine little face with freckles just over the nose. He didn’t know how long ago Isabel had wormed her way into his heart, but she had possession of it now. And he couldn’t have her. He could never have her.
He groaned out loud. He stood at the darkened window, looking out toward the stables, where security lights burned near the accommodations for the boss’s Thoroughbreds. He had three men out there full-time, just to make sure nothing happened to the horses. Inside, the girls were safe with him. He didn’t have cameras in the house, but he had the doors and windows wired. Nothing—no one—would get in without his knowing about it.
He perched his hands on his lean hips over the black silk pajama bottoms as he contemplated his next move. When the boss came back, he was going to have to put in his notice. It was for Isabel’s protection as well as his own. Her father had an unpredictable temper. He didn’t know much of what had gone on before he started watching the girls, but he’d heard gossip. He didn’t want Isabel to get in trouble because he’d gone too long without a woman and couldn’t keep his hands off her.
The tap at the door was so soft that he didn’t hear it until it came again. He frowned as he went to open it.
Isabel was wearing pajamas with a thick cotton robe. No way was she going to be accused of tempting him.
“I won’t come in,” she said, eyes downcast. “I just wanted to apologize.”
He drew her inside and closed the door. “Apologize for what, baby?” he asked softly.
The tenderness in his voice ground into her heart like broken glass. “For…what happened. I shouldn’t have… I should have…”
He pulled her into his arms and wrapped her up tight, his face in her warm throat. “You didn’t do anything. It was me. I’ve been too long without… Well, I let things get out of control.”
She drew back and looked up at his handsome face. She searched his dark eyes quietly. “Too long without a woman.” She finished the sentence for him.
His face hardened. “Yeah.”
“How…how long?” she asked daringly.
He drew in a rough breath. His hands slid up under the wide sleeves of her robe onto her bare, soft arms. “Years.”
Her heart jumped. She hadn’t realized that men could go without sex for years. She didn’t dare ask the question, but her eyes did.
“It’s something I can’t talk about,” he told her. “Not even to you.”
Her eyes scanned the hard lines of his face like an artist, drawing a picture, memorizing the subject. “I…I would…” she began.
He put his fingers over her soft mouth. “And what do you think would happen then, Isabel?” he asked solemnly. “You know how your father thinks. He’ll want someone with a title for you, at least someone with a wealthy background like yours.”
Why, he’d considered a future with her, she thought in amazement. “There are these places in the Amazon jungle where people go and are never heard from again,” she began.
He chuckled softly. His eyes lit up, dark and soft. “Sure. We’d be eaten by bugs and used for target practice by the people who live there.”
She grimaced. “It was just a thought.”
His big hands framed her face. He searched her eyes and groaned inwardly. “I can’t have you, baby,” he whispered. His head bent, despite his will, until his hard mouth was poised right over her soft one. “I can’t ever have you, Isabel…”
Her name went into her mouth. His lips parted hers, burrowing softly into them and then hesitating, as a surge of pleasure like a shock of lightning froze him in place for just a few seconds. Then he groaned and wrapped her up in his arms, his mouth hard and slow and insistent.
She didn’t know anything, but she melted into him and let him do what he wanted to her mouth. The sensations he aroused in her were shocking, shattering, to a woman who’d never even been kissed before.
Her arms started up around his neck, but he stopped them. He smoothed the robe away from her body, still in the thin silky blue pajamas, and he bent and lifted her, his mouth hungry on hers.
“This is a big mistake,” he said through his teeth, but he didn’t stop kissing her.
“I don’t care,” she sobbed. “Paul…!”
He put her on the bed and followed her down, his legs tangling with hers as he made a meal of her soft, responsive mouth. His hands were busy unbuttoning the pajama jacket. In seconds, it was gone and his mouth was on her white, soft, freckled breasts.
She was unprepared for the shock of his lips on her bare skin and she jumped. He lifted his head, amused at her tiny start of surprise.
“Men do it to women,” he said softly. “It’s okay. Honest.”
“All…all right.”
He chuckled as he bent back to her body and drew his lips slowly over the soft mound of her breast, teasing around the nipple until it went hard and rosy, then swallowing it with a soft, slow suction that made her arch and shiver.
Her nails dug into his shoulders as she moaned, her mind in limbo, her body shivering with its first taste of sensual pleasure.
The sound went right to Paul’s head. His mouth traveled down her body, to the place where her belly and her leg were joined and then over her soft stomach and back up the other side. She smelled of some soft, floral cologne and she tasted like heaven. He was drunk on her already, and he’d barely started.
She lifted to his mouth, guided his head back to her breasts, her eyes wild and excited as each stab of pleasure was replaced by one even more intense.
“Oh, baby,” he whispered against her soft skin. “You taste like whipped cream!”
“I don’t know…how to do…anything,” she whispered.
He smiled against her soft skin. “What do you want to know how to do?”
“How to make you feel…what I’m feeling.”
“I already do.” He lifted himself above her, so that his eyes looked down into hers. “I’m on fire for you, honey. I ache all over.”
“Me…me, too.” Her eyes dropped to his bare, hair-
roughened chest and she arched expressively.
“Is this what you want?”
He eased down over her, so that his chest rubbed against her taut nipples.
She gasped and clutched at him.
“It is, isn’t it?” he said, almost to himself. His eyes darkened as he moved, levering himself between her long legs so that only two layers of cloth separated them from each other in an intimacy she’d never yet shared with a man.
Her nails bit into him. She was willing, it was in her eyes. But she was also afraid.
“Don’t panic,” he whispered as he moved slowly against her. “We can’t go all the way. But we can go…this…far…!”
He thought, he really thought, he could control what he felt. But he couldn’t. He drove against her helplessly, so hungry that he was dying for her.
She shifted under him, her earlier fears forgotten in the heat and hunger he aroused in her. She moved again, her long legs starting to curl around his hips.
Her father. Pregnancy. The past. Blood. So…much…blood…!
He jackknifed away from her and rolled over onto his stomach, gripping the pillows so hard that he almost tore them as he fought his hunger for her. It had been close. So close. Too close. He shuddered.
Isabel watched him and felt the guilt all the way to her soul. He was in agony. And it was her fault. She’d come in here and tempted him. She’d known on some level how very hungry he was for her. She should never have tempted him. The pain he was feeling was so obvious that she groaned inside.
She got up off the bed, fastened her pajama jacket, and searched for her robe. She took her time putting it back on. By the time she closed it, Paul was breathing easier. He was still lying on his stomach, cursing his own weakness.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I really just came to apologize.”
He heard the guilt and shame in her voice. He rolled over, his body still aroused but the killing heat slowly draining out of him.
He got to his feet and moved toward her, but he stopped an arm’s length away.
“That was a near thing,” he said quietly.
She nodded miserably.
He drew in a shaky breath. “This can’t happen again. I can’t control it. Do you understand?”
She nodded. “The Amazon jungle probably wouldn’t be far enough away, anyhow. Daddy’s got people all over the world.”
“I know.”
She searched his eyes, pain in her own. “If only,” she began huskily.
He managed a taut smile. “If only.” He reached out and barely touched her tousled curly reddish-gold hair. “He has plans for you, honey,” he said after a minute. “Try not to let him force you into something you don’t want. Life is too short to live by other peoples’ rules.”
She smiled back. “It’s a little harder than it seems to talk back to people you’re scared of,” she replied.
He shrugged. “I talked back to my father,” he said. He chuckled. “I was missing a tooth or two the first time I did it, but I didn’t stop. He had ideas about what he wanted me to do with my life, too,” he added. “I wasn’t willing.”
“Life is so hard,” she bit off.
Something flashed in his dark eyes. He drew back his hand and let it drop to his side. “You can make book on that. Now go to bed.”
She nodded. She turned and glanced back at him over her shoulder, loving the slight swell of his lower lip where hers had pressed so hard against it, loving his tousled black wavy hair, his dark eyes, his beautiful chest.
“Go on,” he said, forcing a smile, because he wanted to throw her down on the bed and go into her, so hard…!
“Good night, Paul.”
She went out the door and closed it behind her. He stared at it for a long time before he turned off the light and lay down in bed. He knew what he was going to have to do. It wasn’t going to be pleasant. But he no longer had a choice.