CHAPTER 13

Chris’s question took Dianna by surprise. What mattered? She stared at him, feeling that old melting giddiness chugging right along in her tummy. That feeling always assailed her when she just thought about Mr. Christopher Adams, darn him. He was staring at her, waiting. She swallowed and was surprised to realize that doing so hurt, as if maybe there were a lump there. Time for a stall tactic. “Hold on just a minute, okay?”

“You all right?”

No, Chris, damn you, I’m not okay! I haven’t been okay since the day you walked through my front door. But what she said was, “Sure. I’m fine. Just a frog in my throat. And you know what? Where did we get that saying? A frog in your throat? That’s stupid. You’d choke to death. Or freak out so bad you’d have a heart attack and die.” Shut up. You’re babbling.

Chris frowned. “You sure you’re okay, Dianna?”

Coughing, clearing her throat, she nodded and waved and finally said, “That’s what the policeman said. But, yeah, I’m fine. Just great.”

Feeling too hot all over, she picked up her rum and Coke, drained that puppy—oh, how it burned all the way down—and eyed Chris right back. How could she answer him? What does matter? he’d asked. What could she say and still be true to herself? How to answer without being totally self-serving, too? “So, bartender,” she began, still hedging, “how about another one of these?”

Giving her a disapproving-parent look, Chris shook his head no. “I don’t think so. Not if you’re going to drive.”

She plunked her crystal tumbler down onto the granite surface of the bar. “Oh, really? Then maybe I won’t drive. Maybe I’ll take a cab. Or have you take me home. Or maybe I’ll just stay here.”

His dark eyes glowed like hot coals. “You can if you want.”

“I was teasing.” Actually, she hadn’t been. And yes, she knew all the reasons why saying suggestive things like that were taboo here, but, damn, sometimes, if you wanted life to be worth living, you just had to throw caution to the wind. Or let it hit the fan.

“Well, don’t. Just tell me what’s really going on here.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you could’ve called me with all this. You didn’t have to come over here.”

“Yes I did. I was that mad. But not anymore. I mean, look at us: Here we are, two friends having a drink together.”

“Bullshit. What’s really wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said, fearing her heart was in her eyes. If it was, she knew what it would communicate: I have all these feelings for you. And you keep giving me hints that you have them for me, as well. What am I supposed to do with all that? You have Veronica and your sense of honor with regard to her, which I really admire about you. And I have my business and professional and personal integrity—and quite possibly my heart—on the line here. So, dammit, where does all that leave us?

“Oh, the famous female ‘nothing,’” Chris was saying. “Sorry. Not falling for that.”

Puckering her mouth over her conflicted feelings, Dianna pushed her glass toward him. “Here. Make me another of these.” She saw he meant to protest, but cut him off. “No. Those are my terms. A drink for a confession.”

Chris eyed her like she was the enemy. “A confession, huh?” He picked up her glass. “All right. But you’re not driving after this one. And those are my terms. Nobody leaves my bar and drives.”

She shrugged. “Whatever you say. Awfully nice of you to be so concerned.”

“I am concerned. This isn’t like you, Dianna.”

“What isn’t?”

“The way you’re acting. It’s like you’re depressed.”

“I think I have every reason to be, don’t you?” She gestured for him not to speak. “No, don’t answer that. Anyway, how would you know what is and isn’t like me?”

His chocolate-brown eyes gleamed. “That’s easy. I know you.”

“Do not.”

While he talked, he prepared her new drink and his. “Do. And what I don’t know, I can guess.”

“You can?” Dianna’s arch tone of voice matched her raised eyebrow. “Am I that transparent?”

Chris handed her a refreshed rum and Coke and then sipped at his own, eyeing her over the rim of his glass. “No. I just spend a lot of my time thinking about you and the way you act and the things you say.”

Oh, now this was fraught with possibilities. How well her happy little beating heart knew that. “You do? Why do you do that?”

Chris didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. He merely held her gaze, allowing his seriously sexy and intent expression to speak volumes for him.

Her breathing suddenly stunted, but with every intention of meeting his seductive challenge by being cool and sophisticated right back at him, Dianna took a sip of her beverage … and frowned. She peered suspiciously into the smoky depths of her glass and then up at her bartender. “Hey, this is watered down.”

“No it isn’t. You’re just getting used to the liquor. Come on, you got your drink. Talk to me. That’s the deal.”

“Oh, all right.” She set her drink down and leaned forward, crossing her arms atop the bar. On his side of the bar, Chris did the same thing. Now only about three inches of air and space separated their noses. For some reason, with that pleasant buzz in her ears and the liquor humming through her veins, their sudden closeness was funny to Dianna. “I feel like I ought to say something like ‘Hi, sailor, you come here often?’”

Chris chuckled. “And if you did, I’d have to say ‘Every day. I own the place.’ So, tell me, lovely lady of the golden eyes”—he reached out to oh-so-tenderly tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear—“what’s really on your mind?”

A delicious shiver slipped over Dianna, setting the fine hairs on her arms on edge. Could he be more wonderful and sexy—and unavailable? “All right. Here goes. But you have to accept right up front that this is the liquor talking. I wouldn’t be saying any of this if I were stone-cold sober.”

He nodded. “You’ve only had one drink, but accepted.”

“Good.” She schooled her features into thoughtful seriousness. “Okay, Chris, well, you know how relationships just sometimes reach that point where you either have to act or it just doesn’t happen?”

Chuckling, nodding, he said: “Vividly, trust me.”

“Well, you and I are there.”

She’d obviously surprised him with that. He stood up, pulling away from her, looking wary. “I thought you meant me and Veronica. You meant you and me? We have a relationship?”

Uh-oh. Instant embarrassment brought its attendant heat and thudding pulse with it. Dianna covered by sitting up and talking rapidly, no breaths taken. “Okay, maybe not a relationship, but something, right? I’m talking about all these undercurrents and the flirting and the looks that pass between us. You can’t tell me I’m imagining those things, or even that I’m alone in this. Seriously. Because if you are, my male-signal sensors are way off, and I am right now the most mortified woman on the face of planet Earth, Chris.”

Grinning, he raked his appreciative gaze over her face and body, which only served to make Dianna warmer. “Don’t be all that because I’m most definitely not saying you’re wrong.”

“Then, those things are there?” She dared to hope, despite knowing that down that road lay heartache.

“Most definitely there,” Chris told her, nodding. “But we both know it’s not that simple.”

“And now you’re talking about Veronica, right?”

Again he nodded. “Yes, but not just her. I mean your business and my being a client. That whole Dr. Yakahama and Melanie thing, too. I don’t want that to be us—a big problem that we can’t get past.”

Why did he have to choose now to be so darned good and noble and moral? What was that all about? And yet, could she like him more for being those things? Dianna wanted to groan. “Listen to you. You are such a gentleman, Chris. And that is so rare. You just take care of everybody. I totally admire you.”

She’d embarrassed him. He lowered his gaze and shook his head in denial. “Damn, you make me sound so … Victorian. Or boring.”

“Neither one, really. You’re…” Perfect for me, darn it. I want you, and I’d fight for you if you’d just give me one sign. “Well, you’re what we in the business call a nice guy.”

Chris’s expression blended bemusement and shy disbelief. “Thanks. But I hardly think I’m a nice guy. And you wouldn’t, either, if you could read my mind right now.” He held up a cautioning hand. “Never mind. Don’t go there. The real issue here is what, for us, is the right thing to do … if anything.”

Dianna’s big balloon of hope burst. What did “if anything” mean? He wasn’t sure? Well, how could he be? she argued right back. We’ve never actually done anything together or been anything except planner/client to one another. Again, how could they? Hello, big stumbling blocks between them. “So,” she said, resignation peppering her words, “you have thought about this, like you said.”

“I have. But I still don’t have the answers.”

Room to hope. Dianna began mentally blowing up another, even bigger balloon. Smiling, she stared at him while, on the inside, she assessed the warmth and the depth of her feelings for him—and made her decision. “Chris, I think you do know the answers. I know them, too. I think, like me, you just don’t want to, well, make the right decision, the hard one, and then act on it.”

“Okay, this is getting a little oblique. Tell me what you mean. Straight up.”

“I mean there are two answers here: the easy one and the hard one.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, looking dubious. “Still not with you.”

“Okay. The easy answer is where we just go for it, where we act on what we feel, saying to hell with anyone else’s feelings or the consequences and the morals—”

“You call that easy? It’s not. It’s shitty.”

“Exactly. And, hence, our dilemma. If we act on what we feel, then we hurt a lot of people.”

“Gotcha. Or we walk away and hurt ourselves, right?”

“Bingo.”

“Damn, that sucks.”

“Royally.”

Chris steepled his fingers, rested them against his lips, and stared at her. Then he lowered his hands to grip the edge of the bar. “All right, here’s the thing. Everything you just said? Accepted. No argument. But the bigger problem is”—now he hesitated, looking shy and uncertain—“and I know it’s wrong, but I don’t want to let go of this … thing that’s between us.” His eyes darkened with knowledge of himself. “Not so noble now, huh? Not the gentleman at all.”

“Oh, Chris.” Looking into his eyes, Dianna wanted to cry. Some instinctual thing inside her heart told her that if they acted on what they felt for each other before everything else standing in their path was cleared away, then they would not end up together … because they wouldn’t respect each other.

“I have to tell you,” Chris continued, much as if he hadn’t heard her speak his name, “that the funny thing is I keep hearing in my head that Lovin’ Spoonful song about this guy who thinks he’s got his mind made up and then gets distracted by another woman and ends up not knowing what to do. All he knows is he needs to make up his mind.”

Though that struck her wrong, and she didn’t really know why, Dianna nodded. “I’ve heard that song before on the oldies station. It’s cute.”

“Until you find yourself living it.”

Okay, now she got it. He was coming off sounding fickle, like his head was turned too easily. But hadn’t his mother and girlfriend alluded to that already? Then shouldn’t she be wary, too? “So that’s where your head is now? You’re just distracted?”

He held her gaze. “More than distracted, Dianna. Conflicted.”

Her heart thumped with longing, yet her head warned her to proceed with caution … not that she was listening. “So who’s this other woman who has you conflicted?”

“Come on, Dianna. You know.”

All flirty now, she feigned surprise and coupled it with a knowing grin. “Do you mean me? Well, I’d say I’m sorry to be a problem to you, Chris, but I’m not. So if I said I was, I’d be lying.”

Shaking his head, like the joke was on him, Chris said, “I am in over my head here. But as long as you’re being honest, tell me if I’m a problem for you. Tell me if I’m someone you can’t walk away from.”

Thoroughly warmed, Dianna felt a blush claim her features. “All right, I admit it. You are.”

Chris exhaled, shifting his weight as he ran a hand through his hair. “So, what in the hell do we do about it, Dianna? This thing between us that we haven’t even named or acted on? What the hell do we do?”

She was suddenly sober and felt way too close to the raw truth to be comfortable. “I don’t know.”

But sitting there and watching him unhappily mess with the trappings of the bar, moving a bottle here, wiping the counter there, she had to admit to herself that she did know. Chris needed to kiss off Veronica. He needed to end it with her, but for the right reason. Not because he was fickle or flighty—how could she trust or respect that?—but because he didn’t feel what he should for the woman he was with. Only then could he walk away with a clean conscience, something Dianna knew would be of importance to a man like Chris Adams. It was important to her, too. So, it was that simple and that hard. Yet smart guy that he was, why hadn’t he realized any of this? Or had he? Time to find out. “Chris?” He looked up, meeting her gaze. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure. That’s what we’re here for, evidently.” His grin softened his words.

“Evidently. Why did you agree to give Veronica a week to think about it?”

“And that’s the hell of it. I didn’t. She tossed that out as she went out the door. I never got to reply. But I know where you’re going with this. I could call her and tell her to forget it. Just end it. But she won’t take my calls or see me. I’ve tried. And she’s got the ring. So, in one way, the ball’s in her court. I don’t want to do this over the phone and I’m not about to show up at court or her law office for this. That isn’t kosher.”

“That’s true. Who needs that scene? But, still, what would you say to her if you could see her right now?” Dianna hoped like hell that Chris understood exactly how important his answer was to this question—and to them, or the possibility of there being a them.

“It’s hard to say. We’ve been together for four years, so I don’t know, Dianna. I’d want to do it right. I mean, what I feel, what I’m going through now, isn’t her fault. She shouldn’t have to pay for it.”

“Good answer.” So freakin’… noble, dammit. On any other guy this would look wimpy, but not on Chris. The man was a chivalrous knight in shining armor. Well, whoever said she wanted one of those? Couldn’t he instead be the good-looking, swashbuckling, and marauding yet basically good-hearted and monogamous pirate bent on ravishing only her for the rest of time? Talk about delicious and shivery. And who said women didn’t know what they want? “If it were me, I guess I’d want you to be that considerate.”

Thoroughly demoralized now, Dianna admitted she was getting nowhere fast—and maybe that was how it needed to be. She should just get up and go home. Because here she sat … Jezebel, the possible other woman, the temptress—

Chris’s chuckle captured her attention. “Hey, before you put me up there on the Perfect Guy pedestal, you need to ask me one more question.”

Dianna’s emotions quickened. “I do? What is it?”

“Ask me how I feel about Veronica’s answer, no matter which way she jumps.”

“What do you mean?” Quivery excitement filled her. “Are you saying your mind’s made up about her without even knowing what her answer will be?”

“Pretty much.” Now he was thinking and grinning like that pirate as he dried a bar glass.

“Whoa. And what is your decision?”

He just grinned and stared at her and dried that glass.

Dianna wanted to bop him with a pillow. “You stinker. You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

He shook his head. “I think I owe Veronica the courtesy of her being the first to know, don’t you?”

Great. The knight again. “No. Oh, okay, yes. But this is so unfair, Chris. Seriously. This is only Monday, and her week started Saturday.”

“Can’t stand suspense?”

“No, I never could. Just tell me this: Will I like your decision or not?”

Again, the pirate grin. “You talking business-wise or personally? Can’t have it both ways.”

He was right. Yes or no, it didn’t matter. She’d lose in one arena … and win in the other. Dianna clapped her hands to her face and spoke through her fingers. “I hate this. I really, really hate this.”

“Look at me, Dianna.”

Reluctantly, she lowered her hands to her lap and stared plaintively at him. She knew she was giving away too much of herself but couldn’t help it. “What?”

Chris looked embarrassed. “Okay, first, I’m very flattered that you, well, care so much. And, second, I don’t think she’ll take a whole week.”

Dianna’s heart flopped hopefully, or maybe it was hopelessly, around in her chest. “You don’t?”

“No. She won’t need a whole week to throw the ring back in my face.”

“Are you serious? That is not going to happen. She’d have to be nuts. Does she not know how fabulous you are? How lucky she is?” Dianna was giddy with emotion. “Has she never seen you? I mean, look at you, for crying out loud. What’s to think about? You’re gorgeous. Any woman in her right mind, and I include myself, would bleed to have you ask me to marry you—I mean her to marry me— No, you—”

Dianna cut herself off and sat there, her heart thumping like a tom-tom. She clapped a hand over her mouth and felt the hot sting of embarrassed tears at the backs of her eyes.

Chris’s dark eyes, if it was possible, were even darker, black now at their centers. “Is that the liquor talking?”

Dianna saw the desire in his eyes, saw the want and the holding back he was doing. She believed she could actually reach out and touch his need for her. Her breathing slowed. He did care … and so did she. Maybe, after all, tonight was about boldness. “No,” she said quietly. “It’s not the liquor. I know what I said. And I know what I want to do, what I want to have happen.”

Chris exhaled and scrubbed a hand over his jaw, much as if he were feeling for whiskers. “I know. But this can’t happen, Dianna. Not like this.”

The air seemed to have thickened with the sweet scent of seduction. Dianna breathed it in, willing herself to be a siren for once in her life. “You’re telling me no, Chris?” Was that low, husky voice really hers? “After everything I’ve said, you’re telling me no?”

“Yes. I am. For your own good.”

Dianna raised her chin a proud notch. “What does that mean—for my own good? Who are you to tell me what’s good for me or not?”

“If we’re talking about me, then I am.”

He certainly had her there. But then again, he had her already in every way, if he only knew it. “Well, too bad, I reject your rejection. So there.”

“You can’t reject my rejection. That’s not how it works.”

“Is too.” Dianna belted back a big swig of her drink, put the glass down, and then slid sensuously off the stool she’d been sitting on. “Watch this.”

She kicked off her shoes and proceeded to undress, starting with unbuttoning her suit jacket.

“What the hell?” Chris reached across the bar, trying to grab for her.

She took a neat step back that put her out of his range … and unbuttoned another button.

Though Chris looked beside himself, Dianna realized he also couldn’t, or simply chose not to, look away from what her hands were doing. “Come on, Dianna,” he called out, sounding desperately close to losing his own control, “think about this. This can’t happen.”

“Not if you won’t cooperate, it can’t.” She undid the third button and shimmied out of her jacket, lightly tossing it to the carpet. Now clad in her lacy bra and her short skirt, she struck a pose worthy of a Victoria’s Secret model and blew him a kiss.

His face suffused with red, Chris pointed at her. “Stop that, Dianna. Stop it right now.”

She grinned, the vamp. “Why don’t you come out from behind that bar, big boy, and make me?”

*   *   *

Finally, at long last, Chris’s hands were on her body. Dianna felt certain she would faint from joy and desire. Oh, he’d come out from behind the bar, all right. But it hadn’t been to make her put her jacket back on. Instead, he’d stalked over to her, wrapped her in his embrace, and seared her very soul with his kiss. She’d opened up to him like a Georgia O’Keeffe flower. A thrill had leaped through Diana, leaving her with the certain knowledge that this kiss, from this man, was the one she’d waited for all her life.

She’d wanted to tell him that, but he’d given her no opportunity. Apparently as on fire for her as she was for him, Chris had, without saying a word to her, swept her up into his arms and carried her to his bedroom.

And that was where they were now, rolling around naked on his big, king-sized bed. Their clothes lay everywhere, much as if the people who’d been wearing them had somehow vacated them when they were beamed up to the mother ship. And the wonderfully thick and rich earth-tone bedcovers were tossed back to the bed’s foot. The pillows were flung here and there. The draperies were askew. The closet doors hung off their hinges. A couple windows were broken. Flower vases were smashed. Water was everywhere. And time had stopped on a big wall clock …

Or at least it seemed that it should be that way.

With Chris stretched out full-length atop her, with his wonderful, heated weight holding her captive, with his muscled hardness contrasting with her firm feminine softness, she had her hands fisted in his hair and was kissing him in such a way that mimicked the act of love. Her tongue jousted with his, plunging and plundering his mouth, just as his did hers. She matched him with every gasp and whisper and sound he made. He pushed his hips against hers; she raised her hips to meet him, communicating her need to him.

She would hold nothing back with this man. This was love. And this was war. She had only this one chance to make him hers. She didn’t know how she knew it, but somehow, on some primal level, she knew the rightness of what they were doing and she knew the inevitable nature of this loving act between them. It had been fated from the moment they’d met. And everyone knew there was no sense in fighting Fate.

Chris finally broke their kiss, leaving Dianna gasping. “My God, Chris. I just knew it would be like this. I could pass out.”

“Try not to. But I’ll take it as a compliment if you do.” He buried his face in her neck, planting biting kisses up and down its column. Dianna arched her back, raising her head to better expose her soft flesh to Chris’s questing mouth. Then, suddenly, he held still, his mouth against her skin. She felt his tongue touching her, and then he pulled back slightly, whispering, “I can feel your pulse, Dianna, against my lips. Your every heartbeat.”

Could he say more sensual things? Could he?

“Oh, Chris.” Her skin afire, her eyes closed, and her breathing ragged, Dianna rode the tide of want and need and desire for this man that racked her body. With her arms tucked up under his, with him holding his weight off her by bracing his elbows against the mattress under them, Dianna roved her hands over Chris’s broad back and down his slim waist and around his firm buttocks. He was heaven. He was a Greek god. He was the prototype for Man. He was—

—sliding down her body, kissing his way as he went. He bit and nipped at her collarbone, leaving her whimpering, and then lowered himself down her, nuzzling and seeking, until he found what he evidently wanted … the underside of her breast. “God, I love it here. So warm. You are so beautiful, Dianna. Just made for love.”

“Oh, Chris.” She didn’t seem capable of saying more. He left her breathless. She writhed and twisted under him, alternately urging him on and yet not wanting it ever to end.

Chris slowly made his sensual way across her breast until he’d captured in his mouth her tender, sensitive nipple with its already tight and peaked little bud. And then he gave it his full attention and drove her wild flicking his tongue against it, circling it, suckling it—

Awash with desire, Dianna cupped his jaw in her hands and pulled him away. “Chris, if you keep that up, I will die.”

He grinned. “We’re all going to die someday, Dianna.”

“No. I mean right now, in your bed. I will die.”

He was unmoved—and grinning like a satyr. “And yet you still have one more to go. I can’t let it think I play favorites, can I?”

“Oh, God. No, I don’t guess you can.” A jet of desire, like a heat-seeking missile, rocketed through Dianna, centering itself between her legs. If he hadn’t been atop her, pressing her into the mattress, she would have writhed and squirmed. She was so ready for this guy; everything else was just frosting on the cake … topped with chocolate whipped cream. And a cherry. Well, too late for that whole cherry thing. But still—

Dianna gasped. Chris had captured and was now sweetly torturing her other breast. This was the one that was hot-wired directly to her Pleasure Dome. And, to prove it, Dianna heard a sound come out of her that she’d never made before. Somewhere between a growl and a shout with a tiny bit of bark thrown in for good measure.

Chris’s head popped up. A lock of his black, black hair had fallen endearingly over his forehead. Wide-eyed herself, Dianna met his gaze. “That sound. Was that you?” he wanted to know.

As mortified as she was mystified, Dianna toughed it out with a sprinkling of bravado. “Well, who else? But, yeah, pretty scary, huh?”

“Pretty damned.” But a lopsided Elvis Presley grin claimed his kiss-swollen lips. “Sick bastard that I am, I think I like it.”

Dianna chuckled at him. “Good. Because there’s plenty more where that came from, buddy. Especially if you keep doing what it was you were doing.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Really? I wonder what sound you’ll make if I do this.” With no warning, he slid farther down her body. That alone was wonderful enough, yet Dianna held her breath. What could he be up to now—

“Mmm. An inny.” He swirled his tongue around her navel, dipping into it, teasing it and then kissing it much like he had her mouth.

Okay, now that was just decadent. Especially when he moved left and right to nip at her pelvic bones and trace kisses across her seriously rippling belly muscles. Limp now, giving herself over to Chris’s worshipful ministrations to her body, Dianna closed her eyes and went to a place beyond making sounds. Her limbs lethargic, she felt certain she floated on a sensual ocean of desire not yet fulfilled. How could anything be better than this?

As if he’d heard her thoughts, Chris showed her what could be better than this. He slid down her until he cupped her bottom in his hands … and then he lifted her to his mouth. Gasping, making a rattling sound at the back of her throat, Dianna tensed, went rigid, and clutched at handfuls of the sheet under her. She moaned, she writhed, she pushed herself against his mouth. Chris held her tightly to him and proved he knew exactly what he was doing and that he knew exactly where that loving little nub was.

Almost out of her mind with pleasure, Dianna tossed her head and held on and then felt the tightening, the coiling, the centering of her entire being on where Chris touched her. “Oh, God,” she moaned. “Oh, Chris. Oh, Chris. Oh-oh-oh, here. Here it is. Oh, Chris.”

And she was right, too: There it was. Her orgasmic contractions—intense, fiery, rippling—she felt certain, were registering right now on a Richter scale somewhere out in Utah. Dianna shook and shook with them, and still Chris held her to him. She rode the wave as long as she could, as long as she dared, but then, at a fever-pitch of sensation, she pulled away, whimpering, panting, begging for mercy. Gentleman that he was, Chris released her and kissed her as he lifted himself up and over her again. Dianna tried to hold him to her, but he resisted. “Hold on a minute, honey. I’m not, uh, dressed for the occasion yet, so to speak.”

“Ah. Be my guest.” Dianna grinned up at him, loving him for being so considerate and responsible. To her, his using protection was another way of showing his respect for her.

Winking at her, Chris rolled off her, opened a bedside-table drawer, pulled out a condom, sat up and did that whole necessary thing. Dianna busied herself with running her hand wonderingly over the broad musculature of the man’s back. God, he was beautiful. So warm and firm under her touch. When Chris turned to her again and joined her on the bed, she snaked her arms around his neck and pulled him down to her. “Come here, you.”

She then kissed him with all the strength and desire she had left which, judging by Chris’s muffled gasps and throaty moans, turned out to be a whole lot.

Without breaking their kiss, Chris positioned himself between her legs. And suddenly Dianna knew that nothing and no one who’d come before had ever felt this right. Every fiber in her being shouted: “Girlfriend, this man is the one!” Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world between them, as if they’d been doing this all their adult lives together, Chris entered her in one smooth, slick motion that filled Dianna completely and had her sighing into his mouth. Chris broke their kiss and dragged in a ragged, gasping breath. “Dianna, you’re so—”

He didn’t say anything else but let his thrusts into her speak for him. Totally in a joyous state that had to be somewhere pretty high up there on the Zen scale, Dianna wrapped her legs around Chris’s hips, fully opening herself to him. Each powerful thrust of his hips, over and over, and at its peak, found her Happy Woman’s Secret Place and had Dianna revving up again. Oh, baby.…

It seemed to go on forever, this impassioned wrestling. And then, just when she thought she’d die and melt and be nothing but a grinning puddle of former womanhood, the match ended in a tumultuous tie when Dianna felt Chris’s erection thicken even more and her bud tightened again and the heat started and Chris made a hoarse sound and his strokes came faster and faster and harder and harder and she gasped and clutched at him and he held her tight, held her tight, held her, held her until she made a certain sound at the back of her throat and raked her fingernails over his back and then just wantonly dug them into the man’s skin and they both—

Achieved Nirvana at the same moment. The breath left her body. She became one giant Gumby exposed-nerve of sensation. Who the hell knew that Nirvana meant a screaming nuclear explosion with mushrooming clouds and a crescendo of orchestral music (1812 Overture, possibly) and lots of sweaty clenches and biting a guy’s shoulder like she was some kind of lioness in heat, huh? Who knew that? Not her. Not ever before. But there it was.

And now, done, spent, all out, down for the count, the man collapsed atop her in a slick sweat of tangled limbs and gasping breathing. And Dianna couldn’t have been happier. It was wonderful. He was wonderful. Being with him was like coming home. This was like coming home.

And then she heard a noise, one outside the bedroom that she knew was real because Chris tensed at the same moment she did when she heard it. He raised his head, and still lying atop her, pretty much stuck to her by the cooling sweat of the loving sheen that coated their bodies, locked his wide-eyed, oh-shit gaze with hers.

That sound … a somewhat distant door? A door … like say, the front door to the penthouse … slammed closed and a woman who sounded uncomfortably like Dr. Frankenlawyer called out, “Chris, honey? Surprise! Are you here? Hello, babe. Where are you? I have good news. I’m sorry I was such an ass last Saturday and I love you and my answer is yes, honey. I’m so happy and I couldn’t wait any longer to tell—”

There was a reason for that stab of silence, Dianna knew. And she believed that Chris too had thought of what lay behind it at the same moment she had because the man lowered his head until his forehead touched hers and he whispered, “Oh, no.”

Her arms still around his neck, their bodies still one, Dianna nodded. “Oh, yes. My jacket. In plain sight. On the floor by the bar.”

Chris raised his head, looked down at her, kissed the tip of her nose, and whispered, “We are so screwed here.”

“In more ways than one,” Dianna agreed, smiling fatalistically.

“What the hell?” came the keening feminine cry. “This is a woman’s—Whose jacket is this?” And then, a little angrier and a lot closer: “Chris? Where are you? What the hell is going on here?”