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Maddie raised a brow. “A tease? Noway.”

“Yes, yes way. I’ve taken many cold showers because ofher.”

“Hmm.” She was so near to him now, only a few feet away. She could touch him. But one more question. “With all her negative traits,” she said, her eyes lowered, “Are you sure that you really…loveher?”

He pulled her to him in one swift movement. “Oh yeah,” he said huskily, his mouth inches from hers. “I’m damnsure.”

His lips found hers, and she melted into his taste, his tongue darting playfully around hers. She clutched him desperately, and his body soaked her with heat from the tips of her breasts to the place where his arousal pressed into her belly, to lower where her own desire burned. She wanted him, and he wanted her, and she reveled in this, as he kissed her so thoroughly that her insides turned into complete mush and her legs could barely stand without his support.

When she thought she couldn’t take it anymore, that if he lingered in her mouth a moment longer she’d have to rip off all his clothes and make love to him right there in the ballroom of the Ritz Carlton, only then did he tear his mouth away to whisper in her ear. “Oh, Maddie.” His voice was ragged and low. “I’ve been such a shit. I’m so sorry it took so long for me to come around. I could live the rest of my life without ever seeing another script or movie set again, but I can’t live another second without you. I love you. Please tell me I still have a chance, that we have a chance.”

“Oh God, Micah. All I needed was for you to believe we did.” Maddie blinked back hot tears. “Yes. Yes! I love you somuch.”

He leaned back to search her eyes. “You reallydo?”

“I do. I always have. Probably since I met you on the bench in that backyard on my graduation night.”

His mouth possessed hers again, this time the heat of the kiss turned her arousal from a simmer to a boil. When Micah pulled away to meet her eyes, his were dilated with ravenous desire. “Oh baby, I’d say we need to get a room, but I don’t think I can wait thatlong.”

His sexual promise had her teeming with excitement.

His eyes swept the room and settled on the sofa near them. “Later we’ll take it slow and sweet. But I need to be inside you now, and it’s going to have to be quick.”

Her mouth fell open in surprise as he lifted her and carried her to the sofa. He lay her down and reached under her dress to remove her panties.

Panic swept through her. “Micah! What if someone—?”

“Shh, we don’t care about anyone else, remember? I have to haveyou.”

She relaxed, trusting him, letting herself give in to hisneed.

His hand slid up her thigh to the bud of her want. “God, Maddie you’re soaked.” He swirled her clit with his thumb sending a shiver throughout her body then dipped a finger insideher.

Oh fuck. She needed him too. Now. She squirmed, anxious for him to fill her. “Comeon!”

He unfastened his pants and his cock sprang free, causing a surge of excitement in her blood. “You ready?”

She answered by spreading her legs further and bucking herhips.

He climbed into the v of her legs. “Is this what you want?” He plunged inside her and groaned.

“Yes!” Her memories of him—wonderful, heavenly memories—paled radically to the exquisite reality of his naked cock within her. And he still had further to go. Her body opened to accept him and he slipped deeper inside.

Then he began to move. Not in the creative, circular motions that he usually tortured her with, but with sharp, piercing jabs. Each time, he stroked that spot—the one that made the lights flicker when it was hit just right and oh, was he hitting it right. So right in fact, that despite her concern that she’d never get off with people so close by, she found herself soaring over the edge in record time. Her orgasm was so fierce and so sudden she had to bite into Micah’s shoulder to squelch her cries.

“Yes, baby, yes!” He pounded through her release to his own turbulent climax.

Seconds after they’d finished, before her brain could even process a cool-down, voices—or rather a voice—drifted in from outside the room. Fudge, speaking louder than usual, said, “Yes, Mr. Santini, Micah’s in there. But before you goin—”

Maddie and Micah scrambled to compose themselves as Fudge resumed a normal volume of speech. “It’s so great to meet you. I’m such afan.”

“Where’re my panties?” Maddie hissed as Micah tucked himself in his pants.

He grinned. “Do you really needthem?”

She narrowed her eyes athim.

He joined her search. “I threw them behind me. Oh, they’re on thelamp.”