Texas Proud and Circle of Gold (Long, Tall Texans #52) - Diana Palmer Page 0,50

end up an invalid in a very few years.

Besides that, he had a past, and bad men were after him because of a man he worked with, who was hiding from assassins. This was a terrible time to start an affair. In fact, she had to admit she wasn’t the sort of woman who could even have an affair. It just wasn’t like her, despite her aching hunger for Mikey and the violent attachment that she felt to him.

He was breathing easier now. He stretched and laughed softly when he felt her breasts against his bare rib cage.

“Well, that was a damned near thing,” he whispered as he turned over, rolled her onto her back, and looked at her pretty firm pink breasts with their hard, dusky crowns. He touched them very gently. “I didn’t want to stop.”

“We’re on a sofa,” she began, flushing.

“Honey, all I had to do was push your pants down and go into you,” he whispered blatantly, smiling at her expression. “It wouldn’t have taken three minutes, as hot as I was. That’s how easy it would have been. You didn’t realize, did you?”

She caught her breath. “Not really,” she confessed. “I haven’t ever...”

“I noticed.” He bent and brushed his mouth over her bare breasts. “God, woman, you’re so beautiful,” he whispered. “I’ll dream of you every night of my life after this!”

“You will?” She thought how comfortable she was with him, how easily they’d slipped into intimacy. It felt so right. She wasn’t even embarrassed.

He chuckled. “Yes, I will.” He lifted his head and drew in a breath. “When all this is over, you and I are going to sit down and have a very serious talk.” He brushed back her damp, disheveled hair. “Very serious.”

She smiled slowly, her heart lifting. “Okay.”

He laughed. “Everything’s so easy with you, Bernie,” he said, touching her cheek gently. “You never make waves, do you?”

“Not much, no.”

“I love that about you,” he said. “I feel at ease with you. Safe.”

“I feel that way with you, too.”

His big hand brushed tenderly over her breasts. “I guess we should put our clothes back on and watch the movie,” he said with a sigh.

She nodded.

He pulled her up beside him, but before she could pull her sweater and bra back down, he turned her into his lap and pulled her inside his shirt, shivering as he felt her bare skin rub gently over his. His arms contracted hungrily and he held her, rocking her, in a blistering silence of passion.

“You’d do it with me, wouldn’t you?” he whispered at her ear.

“Yes,” she replied in a husky, shaky little voice.

“I don’t even have anything to use,” he confessed gruffly. He held her even closer. “You know what? I don’t think I’d mind.”

“You wouldn’t?”

His hand went to the base of her spine, and he rubbed her against the hardness of him, holding her there firmly. “I like babies,” he whispered.

She shivered. “Oh, Mikey,” she sobbed, and her arms tightened.

He shivered, too. “Oh, God, I’ve got to get up and lock the door,” he groaned. “On the sofa, on the damned carpet, against a wall—I have to have you, right now!”

“Yes,” she whimpered, pushing closer. “Yes!”

He eased her away from him, his eyes blazing as he looked at her breasts. “I’ll lock the door...” he said.

Just then, footsteps sounded down the wood floor of the hall and there was a sudden knock at the door.

“How’s the movie going?” Sari called.

Mikey and Bernie looked at each other in a moment of shocked embarrassment while they waited for that doorknob to turn...

Chapter Nine

“Just a sec!” Mikey called in a strained, deep voice.

There was a muffled laugh from the door. “Mandy’s got more coffee. Come on out when your movie finishes.”

“We will. Thanks!” he called back.

The footsteps withdrew.

He let out the breath he’d been holding. Bernie sat beside him as if in a daze, her top still up around her neck, her breasts pressed hard into the thick hair on Mikey’s broad chest. He looked down at her with wonder.

“I guess the jig would have been up if Sari had opened that door,” he laughed.

She smiled dreamily up at him. “I guess.”

He drew in a hard breath. “I suppose we’d better stop while we’re ahead.” He drew back and looked down at her bare breasts with fascination. “Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of women undressed,” he murmured. “But none of them were half as beautiful as you are, honey.” He stroked her soft, firm breast and