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  “These clothes? They always seem to get in the way, don’t they?”

  He leaned in for a soft kiss as I kept my grasp on his forearm. He quickly followed that up with a long, lingering kiss, his right arm circling my shoulders. His left hand was on my cheek, trailing down from my temple to my neck, increasing sensually with every millimeter. I rested a hand on his hard thigh, and he moved closer to me until we were one shadow on the wall.

  His hand brushed over my breast and then pulled away. I felt my body heat build and build. His fingers feathered over my stomach, and his strong palm glided down my hips to my leg. The building pressure was unbearably sweet.

  My hands were exploring the hard muscles of his arms and chest, when suddenly his strong hands closed around my waist, and I was up, spinning around until he set me down and pushed me against the counter. I wasn’t going to protest.

  His hand slid up, his thumbs hooking the bottom of my blouse and pulling it over my head. The tile counter chilled a line on my back, but the rest of my body was on fire as Adam’s fingers searched under my skirt, pulling it up, pulling the wisp lace under it down, down and onto the floor.

  I couldn’t control myself any longer, and I yanked his shirt over his head. His ponytail came loose and his long black hair fell over his shoulders. The look in his midnight eyes was smoldering, daring me to go further. I found his zipper, and once between my nimble fingers it was down, the slacks sliding from his sculpted hips and down over the muscular tizi I’d admired from the first time I’d seen him. Adam plucked off my bra in an instant and stepped back to take in the view. Then, in one swift movement, the silky black boxers were off, thrown on top of the panties and bra on the floor.

  Adam stood at attention for half a moment before lunging at me with an animal grunt, pushing me again against the counter. His hands traced my hip and thigh, pulling my right leg up, opening me to his greedy embrace.

  With one hand tangled in his hair, I pulled his head down, forced my mouth on his, bit his lip hungrily, unconcerned about any pain. This was pleasure. All pleasure.

  I heard a throaty growl escape Adam’s lips.

  “God, Eliza, God!”

  One arm circled my waist, one hand circled my thigh, pulling it up until my knee was against his bicep. He leaned onto me, and I could feel the tip of him brushing the outer petals of my most sensitive core, with the tentative control of something about to break free.

  I threw my head back, breasts lifting up and connecting with his eager lips. “Yes, Adam. Take what you want!”

  That was all the encouragement he needed. He leaned, entered with a force that pulled me off the floor. The heat of him inside of me, combined with the icy tile on my back, sent thrilled shocks over my body. I felt him deep, and needed him deeper.

  Adam needed it, too, and unfolded my leg from the crook of his arm and threw it over his shoulder. And there he was, deeper inside me than I knew existed in my body, hitting a point of pleasure over and over with each new, distinct thrust.

  And finally, unable to hold off the growing intensity in my body, I released into ecstasy. My high-pitched cry triggered his own low groan. No articulate words, not his name from my tongue, nor mine from his lips. Only raw ecstasy.

  * * *

  When Adam finally drew away, it wasn’t in an embarrassed hurry to gather our clothes. Instead, he went nude to a drawer where he pulled out a dove gray washcloth, and then to the sink where he ran it under the faucet until it was dark with cool, clear water.

  Without bothering to wring it out, he brought the washcloth to me, dripping on the floor without a care. When he reached the place where I stood, naked and the slightest bit self-conscious, he laid the cold cloth on my forehead, traced it down my cheek and under my chin. “Somehow, Ms. Tahan, you’ve worked yourself into quite a frenzy.”

  “I couldn’t have done it alone,” I chimed in with a coy smile.

  Adam moved the cool, welcome cloth down my neck and over each breast. “I couldn’t help myself.”

  I grabbed the washcloth out of his hand and ran it under the water again. And since he didn’t care if the floor got a little wet, I held the cloth over his head and rung it out.

  This created just the image I was hoping for. Adam’s long hair damped in strands, droplets of water beading at the ends and falling onto the tanned chest, running down the curves of the muscles in his arms.

  My fingers traced up the path the droplets had taken from his forearm back up to his collarbone and to his cheek. They circled the mauve ribbon of his soft lips, back and forth, until he opened his mouth to kiss my fingertips.

  I licked my lips as his arms reached around me and held my naked body close to his.

  “You must think I’m a beast,” he announced.

  His words glided over my mouth between his kisses. “And why would I think that?”

  “Because, remember when you told me to take what I wanted?”

  Heat rose in my neck and cheeks. Had I said that? Not that I would ever take it back. “I suppose I did say that, didn’t I? How does that make you a beast?”

  Adam moved to the futon and lowered me onto it. “Because I want to take a little more.”

  * * *

  By the time we made it to our pizza dinner, we’d worked up an appetite and enjoyed the picnic of cold pizza as we lay tangled up in the sheets on his futon. As it got later, Adam tried to draw out the time that I would be there, asking questions and starting stories that led nowhere. He enjoyed my company, on an intellectual level as well as the obvious physical level, and this made me enjoy him even more.

  I snuggled closer to him on the futon. “Adam, it’s after midnight and we’ve both gotta be at work tomorrow.”

  “How’s work going?”

  “We talked about it this morning. You know how it’s going. You’re just trying to keep me here longer.”

  “Maybe.”

  I laughed, but I didn’t complain. I didn’t really want to end the night and go home. I was only trying to be responsible.

  “Is the new job getting any easier?”

  “Some aspects of it. But I’ve decided that I don’t want the job permanently. I even called our HR manager today to try to tell her.”

  “Wow. I didn’t realize that you were that unhappy with the position. Did the HR person agree to withdraw your application?”

  “Yeah. I wanted to get out, like, yesterday. I asked if she could have a different editor fill the position immediately and let me go back to my old job.”

  “What happened?”

  “She didn’t listen to me. I don’t know if she was ignoring me or if she just didn’t want to deal with it. For the time being, what happened was nothing.”

  “No, I mean what happened to give you such negative feelings that you wanted out so badly.”

  “Oh. A lot of things. To be quite honest, I don’t think I’m doing a very good job. And I’m still kinda paranoid about the whole thing with Rain’s murder and Liam’s attempted murder.”

  “Stay the night, Eliza. No reason for you to go back and sleep alone. I want to be able to protect you.”

  His words brought tears to my eyes. He wants to protect me. I’ve finally found my hero.

  “I only have this one bed, but that hasn’t seemed to be a problem yet.” Adam flashed me his killer smile.

  “I think I need some real sleep, Adam.”

  “After the last few hours, so do I.”

  “All my clothes are at home, and I have to go to work early. This is not a rejection, Adam. I just have to go home.” When I stood up, Adam grabbed my hand. His eyes didn’t leave mine.

  “Eliza, I don’t want this relationship to be a flash in the pan.”

  My heart stopped. “Neither do I.”

  Only then did his eyes drop to my breasts and hips. “You are so beautiful,” he muttered.

  “Do you mind driving me to the train station? I know you have to get up early tomorrow, too, but if you could—”

 
“Train station?” he countered. “If you insist on going home, then I’m going drive you home.”

  * * *

  When we arrived at my condo, Adam walked me inside despite my protest that he needed to get home and get some sleep. He took a look around the condo and made sure everything was safe. It certainly made me feel very safe.

  “I don’t mind staying here, you know.”

  Adam ran one warm hand up my arm, and I seriously considered his offer. The prospect of falling asleep in his arms was tempting. But sleep? Who were we kidding? Making love until the sun came up was more than appealing, but as unromantic as it was, I really just needed a shower and some rest before work.

  “I feel much safer now that you’ve checked things out. I appreciate it, Adam. I’ll let you get home and get some real sleep.”

  “Okay, but call if you need anything, and I’ll come back. I’ll call you tomorrow,” he whispered, kissing me gently. His kiss was every innocent thing that the rest of the night had not been.

  * * *

  After a quick, hot shower, my skin remained warm with thoughts of Adam, and I instantly felt sexy all over again. I could hardly wait to hear from him tomorrow. To be tempting again, as he’d described me. Tempting.

  Looking through my drawer for something to sleep in, I decided this night deserved more than the usual frumpy T-shirt and boxers. I outfitted myself in a short, sexy royal purple nightgown and settled between the cool sheets. My tongue explored my mouth for a lingering taste of the recent kiss. Adam hadn’t just made love to me, he’d infiltrated every fiber of my body. I wondered if he was close to home yet, if he was experiencing me again, lingering in his car, in his mouth, on his skin.

  A half hour later I was still awake, unable to get the events of the evening out of my mind, so I got up, threw on a light robe, and pulled open the curtains. Pale moonlight flooded the room, to which I added a narrow streak of yellow light from the nightstand lamp. I found my notebook from Greece and I removed a blank sheet of paper. I was feeling inspired again, ready to tackle my life-changing resolutions. Filled with determination, I wrote:

  Liam:

  We need to get to the business of selling the condo.

  Liz

  I taped the note to his bedroom door where he’d see it in the morning. When I returned to my room, I’d barely switched off the lamp and crawled between the sheets before I fell fast asleep.

  CHAPTER 15

  On Thursday morning, the first thing I did was rework my comments on Sue’s manuscript. We were coming up on the weekend and I needed to get this done before Sue was out of here.

  I used the same technique as I did with any promising manuscript, picking out all the good points and really highlighting them. I then mentioned what made it “not quite right” for J Press and ended the review with something a little more hopeful for the future. I tried to be as in-depth as possible, mentioning a couple of obvious things that could use some work.

  When I finished, I buried it under a stack of the other manuscripts she had given me (all with comments and rejections), and called the intern office. Murphy, another intern who I rarely saw because he rarely showed up, answered the phone, surprising me. “Oh, hello, Murphy,” I said.

  “You know my name?”

  “Yeah, of course,” I replied. Though you never show up. “Can I speak with Sue?”

  “Sure,” he said and I heard some shuffling. It sounded like Sue asked who it was and Murphy said he didn’t know. Sue asked if it were a man or woman, and Murphy confirmed it was a woman.

  “All right,” I heard her say. She picked up the phone and asked softly, “Yes?”

  “Sue, it’s Eliza.”

  Sue sighed. Was it in relief? Did she think Donnie was calling her?

  “Oh, hey, Eliza. I actually wanted to meet with you. May I come over to your office?”

  “Yeah, absolutely. That’s why I called. Come on over.”

  She assured me she would and a minute later she was in my office with several spreadsheets. She shut the door with her elbow and set the spreadsheets on my desk.

  “These list all the manuscripts that have been submitted and rejected in the past year,” she explained, pushing the spreadsheets closer to me and topping the stack off with a CD-R. “The author’s name, title, notes, stuff like that. I printed it out and also saved it electronically since I wasn’t sure which you preferred.”

  I was thoroughly impressed with the sheer number of spreadsheets here. “Wow, Sue, this must have taken forever.”

  “It felt like it sometimes.”

  “The other interns helped, didn’t they?”

  “Well…”

  “You did it without any help?”

  “It’s just that I’m the only person here on a regular basis. So it kinda fell on me. But I didn’t mind.”

  “I’m sorry about that, Sue. I assumed it would be a project you’d all work on. Not something to get piled onto one person.”

  “That’s how group work goes, isn’t it?”

  “If I’m remembering correctly from school, yes. I should have thought about that. Please know that we won’t be giving full internship credit to all the interns. Some of the more, um, unreliable people won’t get it. You’ll get the credit, though.” I flipped casually through the pages, anxious to look through them.

  “Yeah, I know, which is why I’m sorry to tell you this. I should have given you more notice, but I wanted as few people as possible to know. Today is going to be my last day.”

  I tried to look surprised. “I’m sorry to hear that, Sue. Did you get a new job?” I surveyed the yellowing bruises on her face, almost hidden now with the help of time and makeup.

  She turned to make sure that the door was closed, then leaned over my desk secretively. “I’m moving out of the state. To a shelter for victims of domestic violence.”

  “Because of Donnie?”

  Sue nodded, folded her hands on the desk and whispered, “I wish I could have told you before. It would have been so nice if you had known. You could have, like, helped me or something. I was confused. He…he loves me and he is so supportive and positive most of the time. He just has a temper, as much of a cliché as that sounds. Anyway, I’m not taking it anymore. I knew he’d find me if I went to a friend’s house. Or if I went to a shelter in San Diego, he’d find me back at school or work. I want to get really far away from him.”

  “And so you chose a place out of state?”

  “Jane chose it, actually.”

  “Jane?” I tired to conceal the shock in my voice, but even I knew my attempt was feeble.

  “Yeah. She’s wonderful, isn’t she?”

  I didn’t answer, but looked at the closed office door and pictured Jane sitting right outside it. Wonderful Jane? The same wonderful Jane who threatened me with scissors?

  Of course, she had thought I was the murderer. And hadn’t I, moments before, glanced at those same scissors as a possible weapon against her? She just got to them first.

  “It was Jane that finally confronted me about Donnie. You probably noticed that I had a fat lip at Sea World. Donnie had hit me when I got home from class because I had cancelled our date the next day to come in to work on those rejection letters. I finally agreed to stick with our plan, and then he felt bad about hitting me, so he took me to Sea World for dinner at that barbeque place. Not like it was much of a stretch for him, seeing as we have annual passes. But it got me to forgive what he’d done.”

  She shook her head and muttered, “So stupid” under her breath. Then she looked up and continued.

  “Well, after he hit me, I called work. Jane was still here, I guess it was around four-thirty. I told her I didn’t feel well and wouldn’t be able to make it into work tomorrow. Jane said I didn’t sound sick, and said it was suspicious that I was calling in sick so far in advance. I thought she was being a bitch and giving me a hard time, but she was really just trying to get me to tell the truth. She asked if Donnie was there with me, and when
I told her he was in the shower, she said she knew what he’d done. I acted like I didn’t know what she was talking about, and then she gave all these examples of stuff she’d noticed. Bruises, this sprained wrist I had, whatever. I started crying and I think that gave it away. I said it would be okay, that we were going out to dinner and that we were still going to go on our date tomorrow, and now he was happy. But just to mark me as ‘sick,’ if possible. I hope that doesn’t reflect badly on me. Or Jane. Other than that, I’ve never faked sick before. And she was only trying to keep me safe. I promise.”

  “No, no. Don’t worry about it.” I pictured her cut lip, how she had smiled crookedly at Sea World, as if to keep her mouth from bleeding again. My stomach hurt, knowing I hadn’t said anything. Why hadn’t I called the police right then and there, asked them to go to Sue’s apartment and arrest Donnie as soon as they got home? My conscience pained me. I hadn’t done anything to help. Instead, I had called myself a damn cab.

  “After Sea World,” Sue continued as if reading my mind, “we got home and the police were there. Jane told me later that she’d called them as soon as she got home that night. Donnie was livid, and I was afraid. I almost told them that Donnie had hit me a few hours before, but then I kept thinking that they might put him in jail and as soon as he posted bail he would come back and kill me. I kept thinking about that. So I said nothing was wrong. When they left, Donnie accused me of ratting him out and demanded to know whom I’d told. I didn’t tell him about Jane knowing, even though at the time I didn’t know that she was the one to have called the police. He beat me up really bad, yelling at me that I was a liar, and a traitor, and unfaithful, and pretty much every awful thing he could think of. I was almost unconscious and he was still raving. He said he’d kill me if I tried to leave. He’d never threatened me like that before, and at that moment I knew I needed to get away.”

  Sue was crying now, and I took her hand.

  That’s all you can do? I accused myself. Hold her hand? And you’ve been complaining for weeks about Jane, when she’s the one who actually called the police and tried to save Sue?