The teacher thought you cheated.
I didn’t.
I know. You were so upset.
She tried to pull away from the aftermath, when she’d closed herself in her room, weeping with impotent indignation, but she couldn’t shut off the memory until the scene had run its course.
She was open and vulnerable in a way she had never been before.
And while she was so unguarded, she wanted him to know something.
I didn’t have anything to do with Evelyn’s death.
I know. I think I was using that as an excuse to put distance between us.
Thank you for admitting that.
She had never been so certain of another person’s truthfulness, and she knew it was the same for him, too.
The physical contact, the arousal opened the gate between his mind and hers in a way she had never imagined. Not with anyone.
She had been afraid. The fear receded because she knew that he wanted her to trust him. More than he wanted to make love with her. That knowledge made her heart squeeze. He was a tough guy on the outside. But inside . . . she knew him better than anyone else in the world, because it wasimpossible to hide the tender core of his soul that he was afraid to reveal.
She wanted him to know how much that meant to her, but she didn’t have to tell him. The knowledge was there for his taking. His alone.
When he wrapped his arms around her and leaned back on the sofa, she came with him, sprawling on top of him the way she had in his office. Last time she’d been fighting what she felt. Now she was free to admit she loved the way the length of her body fit against his, starting with the way her breasts molded against his broad chest and moving downward to the erection wedged against her middle.
She let herself feel it and at the same time reached out to know what it was like. For him.
She felt the pleasure radiating from that part of his body as it filled with blood and became hard, the pressure building toward an explosion.
“That’s how it is for a man,” she murmured, knowing he was doing the same thing, tapping into the sensations of her woman’s body. Secret sensations that she didn’t know how to describe.
Tingly, he supplied.Needy. Ripe.
Ripe! That’s a guy word.
She smiled as she said it, with her lips and inside her mind.
He stroked one hand down her body, pressing her closer as he cupped his other hand around the back of her head and brought her mouth to his, lightly at first and then with more urgency.
Urgency they shared.
Never before. Never like this.
I know.
She made a small sound as he deepened the contact, and she drank in the masculine taste of him.
Her mind and body were flooded with sensuality. And something else. Pressure that bordered on pain in her head.
“It’s not all good,” she whispered.
“It will be.”
A man’s response. He shifted them to their sides, then cupped his hand around her breast, rubbing his thumb back and forth across the hardened nipple.
Not like this. I want to make love with you for the first time in a bed.
