Out of Hours...Boardroom Seductions: One-Night Mistress...Convenient Wife / Innocent in the Italian's Possession / Hot Boss, Wicked Nights

Natalie was home in Laura’s apartment all evening. She read a book. She washed her hair. She watched TV. She didn’t know if Christo was home or not.

She tried to pretend she didn’t care.

She didn’t see him. Not that she’d expected to. Not after this morning’s flat dispassionate, it would probably be a good time for us to end things, too.

A part of her had spent the day hoping he’d realize that there was more than nights in bed between them, more than sex, more than whatever physical desire might roar through their veins.

But as she sat in the living room in silence, she knew it wasn’t going to happen.

His lights were on across the garden. He was home. No doubt about that. Just as there was no doubt he was going to stay there by himself.

At first Natalie tried consoling herself with the knowledge that at least she hadn’t humiliated herself this time. But the longer she sat there, the more she knew that wasn’t enough.

They had played this game his way, by his rules. As far as he knew she’d obeyed them all. And, heaven help her, she would live by the consequences of her actions, however painful those consequences were.

But if she was going to have to live on this for the rest of her life she wanted more.

“More,” she told Herbie firmly aloud, as much to hear herself say it as to convince the cat.

He was sprawled on the rocking chair sound asleep, anyway. He didn’t move. Or care. Not even when she got up, brushed her teeth, combed her hair, put on a bit of lip gloss, went out and locked the door behind her.

She didn’t let herself stop to think. She knew what would happen if she did.

Instead she walked briskly down the stairs and rapped sharply on Christo’s back door. It took a minute, maybe longer, for the door to open and Christo to stand there, looking at her.

Something unreadable flickered in his gaze. Mostly he looked surprised and maybe a little confused. He straightened at the sight of her and raised his brows. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Natalie said. “I just got to thinking, if we’re ending it, let’s do it right. Let’s know it’s over.”

“What?”

She held out a hand to him and gave him her brightest bravura smile and said recklessly, “I think we should have one for the road.”

Was he supposed to say no?

Maybe he should have.

He’d spent far too much time thinking about Natalie over the past couple of weeks. She was always on his mind in ways no other woman ever had been. She got under his skin and he couldn’t compartmentalize her the way he had with the others.

He wanted to be with her, talk to her, laugh with her, walk on the beach with her. He wanted to build sand castles with her, watch videos with her, do a hundred other things besides just make love to her.

It was getting to be an obsession, he told himself.

Last weekend, when he’d first felt a prickling fear of his lack of control of the situation, he’d decided that his trip to Sacramento would provide a natural breathing space. Even then, for a split second, he’d entertained the idea of asking her to come with him.

Only a split second, though.

Then sanity had prevailed.

But if she wanted a last time, by God he’d give it to her, he thought as he took her hand and drew her into his house, then shut the door behind her.

What difference did one more time make?

And she was right. It would be better if they both knew this was their last time. Closure. No surprises. No regrets.

He didn’t speak as he led her down the hall. He only paused to drop the heavy legal book he’d been staring mindlessly at all evening in hopes that it would inspire him to great insights—or help him sleep once he went to bed.

Now he had something better. Natalie.

Suddenly he had to have her. He tugged her shirt over her head, ran suddenly unsteady hands down her sides, peeled off her shorts. She settled into the duvet on his bed and opened her arms to him.

And, heaven help him, Christo couldn’t get out of his clothes fast enough. This time she didn’t help him, but just lay there watching him, waiting for him to fumble out of his dress shirt, to rip off his tie. He hadn’t changed when he’d come home. He’d just slumped in the chair with his book, determined to wait until it was time to go to bed.

“Bit slow tonight, aren’t you?” she murmured, sending his temperature up another couple of degrees.

He nearly ripped the buttons off his shirt, then dropped his trousers and kicked off his shoes. He came down on the bed beside her then, reaching for her.

She shook her head and caught his hands. “No.”

“No?” He couldn’t believe his ears.

She laughed and reached down for his feet. “I’m not having my last memories of you naked in bed with your socks on.”

Christo laughed, too, as she bent down and peeled them off, then ran her fingers over his feet and up his legs. But it was a strained laugh, and once his socks were disposed of, he bore her back on the bed, needing the feel of her body against his, hungry for the embrace of her arms.

His body wanted fulfillment now, this very minute. His will power, better disciplined, made him slow down. It made him take his time with her—savor every caress, every touch—get his fill.

At the same time he memorized the look on her face as his hands roved over her body, absorbed every detail—the curve of her ear, the tiny mole on her shoulder, the impossibly long lashes that fluttered as he kissed her eyelids. He drew in the lime-and-coconut scent of her shampoo as he nuzzled her hair and the faintly salty tang of her skin wherever his lips and tongue touched her. He stroked her and made her back arch, made her toes curl, made her reach for him.

But he resisted. “Wait,” he told her. “Wait.”

And when at least neither of them could stand waiting a second longer, he came over her and slid into her, relishing the slick tight warmth that enveloped him as her arms came around him and her fingers raked his back.

The moment was so perfect that Christo simply froze, desperate to capture it, to make it last.

Then Natalie moved. And the sensation of her body against his shattered the last remnants of his control.

He surged against her, meeting her as their bodies moved in perfect counterpoint, until he felt her body spasm around him.

One last time he lost himself in her. Then he no longer knew where he ended and she began.

Closure, Natalie thought for days afterward, was highly overrated.

Certainly she had her memories, and some of them made that last night in Christo’s arms were absolutely amazing.

But they didn’t change anything.

She had still left his bed before dawn, though he’d been awake this time. She’d moved to get out of bed and he’d caught her hand and said, “Stay.”