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She mumbled something unintelligible, and he kissed her damp forehead, brushing her hair back as she said more clearly, “I’m not usually like that, so wild. I don’t—”
He hushed her with a finger to her lips. “I loved every moment with you. Exactly the way you were. Carried away. Out of yourself. Wild. That’s how I felt too.” He gazed at her, wanting so much more. “Come to bed with me and we can be wild all over again.” He waited for her to balk, his gut tensed.
“I’ll only come to your bed,” she said in a husky voice, “if you promise to do that to me again.”
He gathered her close, loving how she made him laugh, how she made him shout with pleasure. “How could I not?” Then he flexed inside her, the way she’d loved, to prove his point.
He adored the moan that rose in her. He wanted to hear it over and over. Not just all night long.
Forever.
Chapter Twenty
Daniel woke Tasha again and again in the night, for sweet, drugging kisses, to touch her and make her sigh and moan and gasp with pleasure, to fill her gloriously with his body, banishing her loneliness.
But now the one night she’d given herself to break free was over. With the sun shining brightly in her eyes, Tasha was struck by stark terror, her stomach literally lifting and dropping.
Even before she’d exiled herself to the mountains, any pleasure she’d previously experienced was nothing compared to what she now felt with Daniel. He didn’t believe she needed to atone for any sins—but she was stricken anew with the sense that the happiness she’d found in his arms was yet again a betrayal of the people her family had hurt.
And there was Daniel himself. He was a billionaire, for God’s sake. Despite his easygoing nature, never shoving his wealth in anyone’s face, he still belonged to a world she’d only read about in magazines and books.
It was so tempting to run again. The way she’d been running for months.
But running was no longer the answer. Not even from this wellspring of emotion that was bigger than anything she’d ever known.
She scrunched her eyes shut, wishing it were night again, wishing she could stay burrowed in Daniel’s warm, strong body forever. But no matter how desperately she wanted that, she couldn’t ignore the fact that he’d be gone soon.
The thought of Daniel returning to the Bay Area and his home-improvement empire made her heart ache, even though she understood why he couldn’t stay in the mountains. There were too many employees, friends, and family counting on him.
She would cherish the memory of their blissful night forever, but the demons she battled were still too big for her to believe that she and Daniel could become anything more than mountain lovers. And friends—she wouldn’t cheapen what they’d shared by denying that they were friends too.
When he was gone, she would have to push past the ache inside her to focus on finding not only any outstanding victims of her family’s scams who needed financial reparations, but also on locating her brother and father. She had to be sure they never played their dirty tricks again. She hadn’t saved their past victims, but she would make certain there were none in the future.
As though they could feel her pain, the puppies started to whine, their cries wending along the hallway.
She pried the covers off, but Daniel was quicker. “You stay here. I’ll let them out.”
“I’ll come with you.”
But he was kissing her cheek, her ear, her hair, her shoul
der. “I have plans for you and this bed. Lots more.” He grinned that gorgeous, wicked smile of his as he slid away from her and left the bedroom.
It was obvious when he reached Spanky, Froggy, and Darla, because their excited yipping sounded like that of ten puppies instead of three.
She glanced at her watch, the only thing she’d worn in his bed. How the heck could it be nine a.m. already? She owed him hours and hours of work on his house to pay him back for all he and his friends had done for her.
Her clothes hung over the footboard—he must have brought them in last night after putting the puppies to bed—and she pulled on everything, intending to get fresh things at her place before returning here to work. Without a toothbrush or a comb, the best she could do was to put some toothpaste on the end of her finger to rub onto her teeth, and run her fingers through her hair to get out the worst of the tangles.
Only to stop as she remembered exactly how those tangles got there. His hands in her hair, his mouth on hers, the delirious abandon as she threw her head back against the pillows while he kissed and caressed her.
Her lips felt swollen from his endless kisses. Her whole body felt relaxed, sated. She closed her eyes and stretched, rolling her shoulders, letting her head fall back, reliving with every movement all their luscious lovemaking.
She didn’t realize he’d entered the bedroom until his arms wrapped around her from behind. “You look just like you did last night, every time you came for me.” He dropped kisses in her hair, the sensitive spot in the crook of her neck, making her tremble for him all over again. “Now that the puppies are settled, let’s get back into bed.”
“But it’s already nine o’clock. I promised to work on your house with you.”
“I’ll show you exactly what we can work on,” he whispered seductively, “right there, in that bed.”
