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He wanted her, and it had nothing to do with anger.
It was the feel of her. The taste. The scent of her skin. He remembered all of it, everything making love to her had done to them both, and his kiss gentled, his touch turned from demand to caress, and a little sigh whispered from her lips to his.
She was trembling, but not with fear.
It was with desire. For this. For him.
Something began to unlock inside him. Something so primitive he couldn’t put a name to it. He only knew that the woman in his arms still belonged to him.
He swept his hands into her hair. All that lush, cinnamon-hued silk tumbled over his fingers.
“Tell me you want me,” he said, his voice rough and thick.
She shook her head in denial. “No,” she whispered.
But her eyes were pools of darkness as she looked up at him, as her hands spread over his chest.
“I don’t,” she said, “I don’t…”
He took her mouth again and suddenly she gave the wild little cry he had heard her make a thousand times in th
e past. It excited him as much now as it had then, and when she rose on her toes and wound her arms around his neck, whispered “Dante,” as if he were the only man in the world who could ever make her feel this way, he went crazy with desire.
It had been so long. Oh, so long since he’d possessed her. He was on fire…and so was she.
Saying her name, blind to everything but passion, Dante fumbled with the buttons of her coat. When they didn’t come undone quickly enough, he cursed and tore the coat open.
He had to cup her breasts or he would die. Had to thrust his knee between her thighs and hear her cry out again as she moved against him. Had to shove up her skirt, slip his hand between her thighs and, yes oh yes, feel her heat, yes, feel the wetness of her desire, yes, yes…
Her head fell back like a flower on a wind-bent stalk. She whispered his name over and over, knotted her fingers in his hair as she lifted herself to him.
Blindly, he lifted her off her feet. Spread her thighs. Reached for his zipper. Now. Right now. He would be inside her. Lost in her silken folds…
“Mr. Dennison? I didn’t finish cleanin’ but considerin’ the storm’s turnin’ into a blizzard, an’…Whoa!”
The thin, shocked voice had all the power of an explosion.
Dante whirled around, automatically shielding Taylor with his body. A grizzled old man in overalls and work boots stood next to the tellers’ cages, his eyes wide and his jaw somewhere down around his ankles.
“Who,” Dante said coldly, “are you?”
Tally pulled the lapels of her coat together and peered past Dante’s shoulder, heart thumping in her ears.
“It’s Esau Staunton. The janitor,” she whispered in a shaky voice.
The old man was also Shelby’s biggest gossip. By tomorrow, the whole town would know what had happened here this afternoon. She gave a soft moan of despair, and Dante put his arm around her and drew her forward so that she was pressed against his side. She stiffened and would have moved away but he spread his hand over her hip, the pressure of it insistent.
Was he trying to brand her? Or was he telling her this wasn’t finished? Either way, she had to let him do it. Her legs had turned to jelly.
“Is that your name?” Dante said pleasantly. “Staunton?”
The old man swallowed audibly. “That’s me.” His eyes danced to Taylor, then back to Dante. “Where’s Mr. Dennison?”
“Mr. Dennison no longer owns this bank. I do. And you’re right, Mr. Staunton. You should leave now, before the storm gets worse.”
“You sure?” Again, the rheumy gaze fell on Taylor. “My boy’s just pulled up at the curb in that red pickup, but, ah, if you or the lady wants—”
“Go home, Mr. Staunton,” Dante said, his tone still pleasant but now backed with steel.
