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“Where are you staying?” she asked.

“The Meridian,” he said.

She ran one finger from his tie down the front of his shirt, stopping at the waistband of his pants. Then she traced the buckle of his belt. “You know, the moment I saw you, I thought to myself—when was the last time I made love with someone just for the fun of it? And I couldn’t remember.”

She was seducing him in the middle of a crowded party. And he wasn’t doing a thing to stop her. He wasn’t even taking over the task. He didn’t want to. In some dark corner of his brain, Chance recalled that he’d come to this party with a job to do and that he was on a deadline. But none of that seemed to matter anymore.

Her fingers had slipped below his belt and were resting lightly on his erection. “Am I moving too fast for you? I have a tendency to do that.”

“I think I can keep up.”

She smiled at him. “Good. I’m only in town for a few days, and I’d hate to waste my time here.”

“Time management just happens to be my specialty.” Chance took the hand that was toying again with his belt and linked her fingers with his. “Let’s go.”

By the time he’d led her through the gate and down the alley to where he’d parked his car, he’d organized his thoughts a little. At least he thought he had. But when they reached the sleek red convertible, Natalie turned so her body brushed against his, and his brain seemed to switch off.

“You know, we’re about to go off and have a bout of hot, wild sex,” she said. “At least I hope we are. But we haven’t even kissed yet. Maybe we ought to try it to see if we have the right chemistry.”

Oh, they had the right chemistry all right. The luscious red lips were only inches away, and he was sure he could smell his synapses frying again. He had to get some kind of handle on his response to her.

He had not come to Sophie Wainwright’s party to seduce Natalie Gibbs. He’d come to convince her to come to Florida with him. He needed her help, and what he was about to do might blow his chances of ever convincing her to help him catch Carlo Brancotti.

But from the moment she’d looked at him through those baby-blue contact lenses and told him that she wanted to do something a lot more fun than exchange life stories, he’d been unable to think about anything else. He might be about to make the biggest mistake of his life, but he wanted this Natalie just as desperately as he’d wanted the woman who’d haunted his dreams for the past three months.

But that didn’t mean “Rachel” was going to have it all her way. Two could play the little game she’d started. He moved forward, just enough to push her back against the car and bring his body into full contact with hers. The quick hitch of her breath gave him a great deal of satisfaction. “If I kiss you now, really kiss you, I won’t stop,” he murmured, bringing his lips to within a breath of hers, “until I’m inside of you.”

He saw the quick flash of heat in her eyes, felt it in the way her body melted against his.

He rested his mouth against hers, just long enough to sample the yielding softness. Then he drew away. His words had conjured up in his mind a very clear image of what it would be like to take her right there on the hood of his car. He was ready. He’d been ready since he’d first spotted her on the balcony. And he could very easily find out if she was ready.

All he had to do was slip his hand beneath the hem of her dress and up the satiny softness of her thigh. He had no doubt that she would be hot and wet and welcoming. The alley was deserted right now, and the party was in full swing. The sounds of string music and muted laughter carried clearly on the still night air.

When she looped her arms around his neck, and pulled his head just that little bit closer so that his lips were brushing hers again, he nearly gave in to the temptation to taste her.

Later he would thank the blast of music from a car driving past the alley for saving them both. Placing his hands on her shoulders, he drew back. “We could get arrested.”

“Arrested?” The cloudy mix of desire and confusion in her eyes nearly snapped his control.

“Yeah. Mug shots, fingerprints, one phone call. It could really take all the fun out of the evening.”

“Yeah.” She gave her head one quick shake to clear it, then pushed her hair behind her ear.

Though he couldn’t have said why, he found the nervous gesture endearing.

“I’ll take a raincheck on that kiss,” he said.

“Ditto.”

He managed to get her into the car without touching her again. That was the easy part.

The hard part was the drive to his hotel. They’d no sooner pulled out of the parking lot when she scrambled onto her knees and began to loosen his tie.

“Rachel, getting into an accident is another way to take the fun out of an evening.”

Her laugh was quick and breathless in his ear. “I’m just trying to save us time. You did say you were into time management.”

“Yeah.” His tie was off, and her fingers were already slipping beneath the buttons of his shirt, leaving a trail of ice and heat on his skin. “Two rules. You keep your hands above my belt, and I’ll promise to keep both of mine on the wheel.”

Laughing, she closed her teeth around the lobe of his ear. “Deal. But don’t they say rules are meant to be broken?”

NATALIE HADN’T convinced him to break the rules, but it had been a close call. She could tell by the quick way he handed the car keys over to a valet and drew her with him into the hotel. The Meridian was one of D.C.’s more posh accommodations for travellers. Many of the rooms boasted a view of the Washington Monument and the Mall, though she didn’t think that she and Chance were going to spend time looking at either. She could feel heat radiating through her body from where his hand was pressed at the small of her back.

His touches, his kiss, had been tame so far, and she was beginning to crave him. When his body had brushed against hers in the parking lot, it had been hard, solid. In the three months since she’d last seen Chance, she’d spent some time imagining exactly what that body would feel like pressing into hers. Natalie, of course, had pushed those fantasies out of her mind. Rachel, on the other hand, couldn’t wait to make those fantasies and more come true. Had Rachel always been living inside of her? That was something she would consider later. Right now, she was going to focus all her attention on Chance.

She said nothing until they were in the elevator and the doors were sliding shut. Then she turned to him. “Are you ever really going to kiss me?”

“Soon.” He settled his hands at her waist, but instead of pulling her close, he turned her instead, so that she could see them both reflected in the mirrored walls of the elevator.

Then meeting her eyes in the mirror, he moved one hand to her breast, the other to the hem of her dress. The sight of those long, lean fingers moving on her skin only doubled the sharp stab of pleasure moving through her. She was on fire where he touched her, and she was sure that her knees had turned to jelly.

“I’ve wanted to touch you like this ever since I first saw you on that balcony.”

His fingers slipped beneath the bodice of the dress as his other hand began to push up the hem of her skirt. He moved so slowly. She wanted him to hurry. She wanted the sensations to go on forever. When her dress was up to her hips, he ran his finger along the lacy edge of her panties, from the top of her thigh to the narrow vee that disappeared between her legs. “When we were standing in the parking lot, I was tempted to do this.”

Natalie watched his finger slip beneath the band of her panties.

“And this.”

He pinched her nipple at the same time that he slipped a finger inside of her.

The orgasm that moved through her in one long, crashing wave had her sagging against him. Later, she couldn’t recall exactly how they’d gotten out of the elevator and down the hall to the room. But by the time Chance had opened the door, she’d gotten some of her strength back. And she was thinking more clearly.

A sudden feeling of déjà vu struck her as he drew her into the narrow foyer. It grew sharper when he used his body to trap her against the wall. She recalled that he’d used the same move when they’d entered the tiny foyer of her apartment three months ago. He’d kissed her and then taken her, or they’d taken each other, on the floor.

Natalie had surrendered without a second thought, just as she’d surrendered in the elevator a few seconds ago.

“Now, I’ll kiss you,” Chance said as he pressed his body more fully against hers.

But she didn’t have to be Natalie. Tonight, she could be Rachel. Despite that her body was heating, melting against his, she avoided his mouth at the last moment. Her voice was breathless when she said, “Not yet. Turnabout’s fair play. Now it’s my turn to touch you.”

6

BEMUSED, CHANCE STEPPED
back and then followed Natalie into the sitting room of the suite.

“Ahhh. Mirrors. Just what I need.” There was a wicked gleam in her eyes when she turned to face him.

Chance studied her for a moment. The woman in the elevator had been the Natalie who’d haunted his dreams for three months. He would have bet his life on it. But the woman who’d driven him crazy in the car and the woman facing him now was “Rachel.” And he wanted her just as much.

He moved toward her, cupped a hand at the back of her neck. “I want you now.”

She placed a hand on his chest with just enough pressure to preserve the distance between them. “You can have me. But what’s the rush?”

His eyebrows rose. “You were in a hurry in the car.”

She smiled up at him. “What happened in the elevator sort of took the edge off for me.”

He increased the pressure on the back of her neck, and she moved closer so that her body was in contact with his.

“It only built the pressure for me.”

“Yes, I can feel that. But I do have a solution.”

He felt his heart quicken against her palm, saw her eyes darken when she felt its rapid beat, too. She slipped a finger beneath the top button of his shirt and freed it. “You’re going to enjoy what I’m going to do to you. I promise.”

Chance felt his mind begin to cloud as she continued to unbutton his shirt. Each time her fingers brushed against his skin, ribbons of heat fanned out across his skin. She pushed the shirt off of his shoulders and it slid to the floor.

“I wanted to do this right in front of everyone at Sophie Wainwright’s party.”

And she very nearly had, Chance recalled. Her hands were spread out along his waist now, and with her thumbs touching, she drew them upward over his ribs until they were resting just at the bottom of his rib cage.

“Watch what I’m doing in the mirror.”

He could do that. His arms were beginning to feel heavy, but he could still move his eyes.

She rubbed her palms over his nipples and he sucked in a breath.

“You like that,” she murmured as she did it again.

He felt his nipples harden. Her skin was so fair against the darker color of his. And the sensation—

“Let’s try this.” Leaning forward, she moistened one nipple and then the other with her tongue. “I love your taste,” she murmured then repeated the process.

His breath was backed up in his lungs or he would have told her to stop this torture now…or never.

She wrapped her arms around him, slipped her hands beneath the waistband of his trousers and dug her nails into his hips as she began to suckle, first on one nipple and then the other.

When he felt the scrape of her teeth, Chance groaned. What was she doing to him? He’d desired her before. And the strength of that desire had made him reckless and rough. But what she was doing to him now made him weak. No other woman had made him feel this way. Fear mixed with a need so deep that he felt paralyzed.

“You still have too many clothes on,” she murmured.

In the wall of mirrors, he watched her move around him. Her tongue stroked lightly on the skin at the back of his neck, then trailed a damp path down his spine. His skin felt icy and hot at the same time. He couldn’t think, could barely breathe as he watched her strip him of his belt and send his trousers to the floor. Next she removed his briefs. Then she moved around so that she was facing him again.

More than anything he wanted to grab her, pull her to the floor and bury himself in her.

But his arms still felt heavy, and he wasn’t sure that he could raise them.

“Watch,” she said. “I’m going to touch you now.”

He was helpless to do anything else as she closed both of her hands around him. Her fingers were hot, and she was doing something magical, twisting gently with one hand at the base of his penis as she pulled with the other.

“I’m going to make you come,” she said.

He wanted to crush her to him. He wanted to feel her beneath him on the floor. But he couldn’t take his eyes off what she was doing to him in the mirror. The steady movement of her hands and the incredible waves of pleasure she was bringing him.

She moved closer to him then until her lips were brushing his. “You can kiss me now.

Why don’t you kiss me while you’re coming?”

Whether it was her words or the fact that she kissed him, Chance felt strength and power return to his arms. He gripped the front of her dress and ripped it down the center. Then she was beneath him on the floor.

They rolled as one, mouth to mouth, body to body. Triumphant, Natalie gave herself over to Chance and to the needs that consumed her. This was what she’d wanted from him—

this consuming hunger. She could feel the power of it as his hands raced over her, molding, pressing, bruising. She rolled on top of him and devoured. His skin tasted darker and more dangerous now. But she only got a sample before she was crushed beneath him again.