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I liked the strength in her announcement, even if I wasn’t quite ready to believe the words.

Suddenly, she lunged. I think she meant to hug me, perhaps, except her skirt caught on the corner of my desk and pulled her up short for a moment. A tear rent the air, and then she tumbled into my lap.

She lay there, her head resting on my forearm, her back pressing to my groin, her legs forced into the air by the arm of my chair.

She blinked up at me. “I’m a bit clumsy.”

“I see that.” I smiled. I couldn’t help it. She was so damn adorable.

And sexy. Most definitely sexy.

All the reasons—okay, the singular reason—I should stay away from her flew out the window. With her lying in my lap, blinking bemusedly up at me, there was no way in hell I was going to push her to arm’s length. If anything, I wanted her closer.

I wanted to be inside her.

Wow, that went from zero to sixty real fast.

She surged up, bumped her nose against the bottom of my chin. Her hands came up, cupped my face, and stayed there while we stared at each other.

Her lips were slightly parted, her pupils huge. She’d managed to rearrange herself so that she sat on her knees, which were nestled between the arms of the chair and my hips. The tear in her dress left her leg exposed up to the edge of her panties.

Which were fire-engine red.

And I was burning up, but, for once, not in a regenerative way.

“I really want to kiss you right now,” I whispered boldly.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, which was an odd thing to say. But a moment later, her lips were pressed to mine, and when I say my world was set to rights for the first time in months—possibly years—I was not exaggerating.

In my head, I was in phoenix form, flying gracefully through a cloudless sky, singing my song full of hope, of goodwill, of peace.

Of lust.

Okay, no, my songs did not normally include lust, but this was clearly an exceptional situation. I’d never felt so buoyant during foreplay. I’d never felt so, er…let’s just stick with this was the greatest sexual experience of my long life, and all we’d done so far was kiss.

It was a hell of a kiss.

And she was in my lap, and the longer the kiss went on, the more she nestled herself against my groin, which was very happy to be snuggled against her heat.

She broke the kiss. I groaned.

She kissed me again, lips open, tongue thrusting into my mouth, hands dragging through my hair over and over, hips grinding down on me. I wrapped one arm around her waist while skimming my other hand up her spine until I cupped her nape, holding her in place so I could take control of this kiss.

She suddenly surged away from me, her thighs clutching my hips while her upper body arched away, her wide-eyed gaze fixed on my lap.

Oh, hell.

She’d obviously never gotten hot and heavy with a phoenix before.

Chapter

Nine

Cassandra

“What am I feeling right now?” I demanded. I flexed my hips, which caused my super sensitive lady parts to drag over a…

Well, it felt like a row of ridges. Like a coiled row of ridges.