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‘I’m not talking about physically and you know it.’ His mouth was still on hers. Gentle and yet demanding at the same time. ‘I’m talking about everything else.’
‘What else is there?’
‘You know.’
Yes, she knew and this time she managed to close her eyes, moaning a low denial. ‘You are asking too much.’
‘I’m asking a lot. But not too much.’
‘You don’t know.’
‘If there are things I don’t know then it’s because you’ve never trusted me enough to tell me. I won’t hurt you.’
And she knew he wasn’t talking about the physical side of their relationship. He wasn’t talking about sex or anything that they were doing right now in this bed. That wouldn’t have scared her. What scared her was the fact that he would hurt her. Maybe not now, or even tomorrow but at some point in their relationship, perhaps even when she’d started to rely on having him in her life.
He’d hurt her before …
Panic washed over her. ‘Mal—’
‘I want it all, Avery. Everything you’ve never given before. I want that from you.’ His free hand locked in her hair. ‘I won’t be satisfied with less than everything.’
She moaned because he was deep inside her and thinking clearly no longer seemed easy and natural. In fact thinking felt impossible as he took her in a slow, sensuous rhythm that drove her wild.
‘I want to know about the dream.’
‘The dream?’
‘Those dreams you have. Tell me—’ he breathed the words against her mouth as he broke one erotic kiss and started another ‘—tell me what it is that makes you moan in your sleep and wake with dark circles under those beautiful eyes.’
She was dizzy from his kisses, melting and desperate from each carefully timed thrust. ‘I dream about work—’ she moaned as his tongue slid into contact with hers and her senses exploded ‘—work.’
‘Work?’ His hand moved down, lower, sliding under her bottom, holding her firm as he deepened his possession. ‘It’s work that makes you cry out?’
‘Yes.’ She was on the point of begging because he’d held her at this point for so long and she didn’t think she could stand it any longer. She ached with need. She craved him in a way that was indecent.
‘You’re lying. Tell me what you dream about.’ The husky tone of his voice was unbearably sexy and she wondered how he could still string a sentence together when she herself was barely able to give voice to a moan.
‘Avery—’ Purring her name, he sank deep into her quivering flesh and Avery lost her grip on control, every sense in her body teased to its limits under his skilled touch. As she lost control of herself she realised that her mother had got it wrong. Yes, she could be responsible for her own orgasm, but it was so much better when someone else was. And she could be responsible for her own heart too, but sharing it was the greatest gift she could give and she wanted to share it with this man.
‘You,’ she gasped as he brought ecstasy crashing down on them. ‘I dream about you.’
Mal lay in the dark, wrapped in the scent of her and the softness of her, holding her in the curve of his arm as the rising sun sent arrows of golden light shooting across the desert. Apart from the night of the scorpion sting, this was the first time she’d allowed herself to fall asleep in his arms, as if it were somehow a weakness to do that.
And there was no doubt in his mind that she saw it that way. As if admitting to having feelings for a man somehow threatened who she was.
It was ironic, he thought, because in many ways she was the strongest person he knew and yet he understood that her independence was driven by fear as much as anything. Fear of being let down. Fear of hurt. She’d told him little about her past but what little she’d told him had been sufficient for him to form a picture of a life lived devoid of paternal influence.
He’d read about her mother. About the impressive divorce lawyer who had sacrificed everything on her way to the top. Clearly she’d also sacrificed her relationship with Avery’s father because there was no mention of him anywhere, and no doubt that negative experience was responsible for her damaged view of marriage. He told himself that he shouldn’t judge, especially given that he knew countless men who had done the same thing. Men who had put their own ambitions before the needs of their loved ones. Marriages died. It was a fact of life.
But they’d made progress.
It wasn’t much of a leap to go from ‘I dream about you’ to ‘I love you’.
And he was confident she was ready to make that leap.
She woke to warmth and a safe feeling. Struggling up through clouds of sleep, Avery opened her eyes and the first thing she saw was bronzed skin and male muscle.
/> Mal.
