She skimmed her fingertips to his chest, where there was a fine dusting of dark blond hair. “I love how you look like a man, not a boy. How you take care of things like a man.”
His chest was rising and falling with fast breaths, and he slipped his hands under her dress, hooked his thumbs into the sides of her panties, starting to lower them.
“As pleasant as this is,” he said, grit in his tone, “I’m not going to last much longer.”
“Just so you know how much I love every bit of you,” she said. “Forever and always.”
The last words had a tinge of foreboding to them, even though she hadn’t meant it to be that way.
Hoping to erase it, she slid off of him, scooting back to her pillows so she was still sitting up as he worked her undies from her body, tossing them to the floor.
Even as passion-steeped as she was, she remembered their baby, how to be safe, even while making love.
He rested his thumbs on her belly under her dress, his fingers splayed over her hips.
She wrapped her legs around him just as he entered her.
Mina made a primal sound of ultimate pleasure as he brought her to him, then away from him, their skin slick with sweat.
As they moved together, she saw circles in her mind—rings of fire that danced with flame, waving, touching her skin, charring it, kissing below the surface until she was branded deep down.
And the flames got bigger, higher, licking her faster and faster until she felt torched….
Higher, faster…pushed to her limits, fire in her, on her—
She flamed out in a series of tiny explosions that culminated in one big burst of heat, making her say his name.
But she didn’t cool off yet. He wasn’t done, and she stayed with him until he climaxed, too.
Then she held him close, refusing to let him go, hoping that he’d seen and felt a thousand truths in her love before she did what she had to do next….
They were still in bed, but even afterward, Chet sensed that Mina was more anxious than ever.
Did she think he was going to say, Well, now that I got what I needed, I’ve changed my mind?
Who could blame her if she did though? He’d put her through too much.
She came to rest on her side, facing him, that dress still on her, gathered at her waist, just above the sheets she’d pulled up, too. She had one hand under her pillow, the other under her chin, making her seem so vulnerable.
He touched the tip of her nose, her cheek, but didn’t say anything.
Her eyes were wide when she started to talk. “Do you know when I first fell in love with you?”
He thought for a second, but he wasn’t sure he knew the answer. Mina had always been Mina, never changing.
“Tell me,” he said softly.
She smiled, but it was a tiny bit sad. He wasn’t sure why. Wasn’t sure what was going on with her at all.
“When you first walked through your office door,” she said.
His heart jammed upward. “It was love at first sight?”
“You say it like you don’t believe in it.”
“I’m not sure I do. There’s lust at first sight.” And he’d never felt that for his assistant until the night he’d first gone to her for comfort, seeing something else in her entirely that had only grown to what it was now. Love.
“I know,” she said. “It seems that love is too complex for it to happen in the first instant. That’s what they say, anyway. But I’m not so sure about that. I think love’s very simple.” She wound her hand into his, wrapping her fingers, twining. “There you were, in a new business suit and your cowboy hat. It was your smile that got me, though. It flipped my heart right around, and I thought, ‘This is the man. This is the one I’ve been waiting for.’ I knew it without a doubt.”
Chet wasn’t certain if it was possible that a heart could crack, but his seemed to be doing it. In a nice way, too.
She went on, but there was still something in her voice that he couldn’t identify.
“From just a look, I could tell so many things about you…. That you were pure-hearted. That you were a straight shooter.” Her voice lowered. “That you expected people to be the same way with you.”
“That’s what I thought about you the first day, too.”
“It was hard,” she said, “working with you day in and day out, trying to hide my feelings.”
“Is that why you never went out with anyone, because of me?”
“Pretty much. When you feel about someone the way I feel about you, it seems tawdry to be with another person, no matter how low the chances are of success with your true love.”
What she was telling him was so sweet that he wanted to take hold of it. She was so unlike everything else in his life.