“You seemed to be hanging pretty damn tight for hardly anything,” he angrily countered.
Suddenly he realized she’d worn her hair loose tonight. Like Daniel had once told her he liked. And
she looked as soft and inviting as she had in her bedroom. In his arms. God, help me.
“Did you know all these years, Daniel? That he’d been with my mother?” she asked, her face
upturned to his as she searched his eyes.
“No.” God, this was torture. His fists trembled at his sides to keep from reaching out to her. The
music, the gala patrons, everything had faded in the background. Everything but her. “If I’d known,
I’d have told you sooner. It never occurred to me to check him out before.”
“But you wanted to find something wrong with him, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” he said gruffly. And he’d search every bastard she so much as looked at, until she realized
there would be no one, ever, to know her like Daniel.
Then he noticed her eyes glistened with … hope? Tears? Whatever it was, it was clawing into him
like talons. Deeply. Profoundly.
And suddenly he couldn’t take it anymore.
“You’re no longer with Gustafson, good for you. But what does your new situation mean for me?”
Holding his gaze as though startled, Monica bit her lip and then glanced at the hands he kept
motionless at his sides.
“Does this mean anything for me?” he demanded.
When she only held her breath, still looking at his hands as though she wanted them on her, Daniel
took a step forward, his heart screaming at the risk he was taking. If she kept saying no … if she kept
shooting him down …
“Am I going to live my entire life wanting you and not having you?” he asked in quiet fury. “Would
you have stayed with a man you don’t love if it weren’t for the out I found for you?”
She shook her head. “There were a lot of things wrong with Roland, actually.” She met his gaze
squarely. “Starting with the fact that he’s not you.”
He stiffened in unexpected surprise when she leaned forward, altering his body chemistry with the
touch of her frame fitting like a missing puzzle piece into his larger one. He instantly responded. He
grew hot and hard under his tuxedo, too big to fit inside his skin.
He was throbbing to be inside her as she started sliding both her hands up the length of his chest.
His pulse skidded when she grabbed his bow tie and boosted herself up, and her soft, parted lips came
locking perfectly with his.
A frisson of heat bolted straight from her kiss to his heart, his toes, his cock, her lips immediately
parting at the contact of their mouths.
It was the softest, most shyly hesitant kiss anyone had ever given him, and the significance of her
sweet, open public display of affection wasn’t lost on Daniel.
He could shatter her right here. He could turn her away. Hurt her like he hurt. But the fact that
Monica was exposing herself, vulnerable and open and at his mercy, hell, the trust her actions implied,
as if she knew even when he was aching down to the marrow of his bones, he would protect her with
his life, undid him.
Monica Davenport was claiming him. Claiming him and accepting him.
The realization fired him up like an explosive.
Groaning fully, Daniel pulled her to him, not minding that the people around them seemed to have
fallen still, not minding the press, the entire crowd, anything but opening Monica’s sweet soft mouth
and tasting her and taking what she gave him. Tears, love, he could taste it. He shuddered with it, felt
the tremor that went through her slender body, and he brought her closer, close and tight, but not close
enough.
She heatedly whispered, “I adore you,” into his mouth, making small fists in his hair, locking
herself against him as a string of words rushed out of her lips, warm and fast. “I’m sorry. Please tell
me I haven’t lost you. Tell me you love me. I’m yours, Daniel, you’ve always had me. You had me
when I was ten years old. I’ve been so afraid.”
Daniel was so dazed, he just framed her face and nuzzled her nose for a minute, panting. “It’s just
me, Monica, it’s me, princess. Your friend, your protector, your lover.”
She shuddered and kissed him softly again, pulling back to capture his gaze. “I’m so afraid what I
feel will eat me up, but it’s out of the box, Danny. I want to feel everything you make me.… I want to
keep you forever, I want you to keep me, never have anyone other than me.”
“Jesus, come here.” He crushed her tighter to him and reclaimed her lips, and there was no
resistance in her, only a shudder that seemed to start in her body and end up in his. Waves of ecstasy