with his. Was she awake?
“You think I’m sexy?” he asked, curious as to whether she’d respond and, if so, what she’d say.
“You are so hot you melt my insides just looking at you—but don’t think I’ll ever tell you that,” she answered, her body still relaxed against his. “I won’t, because I don’t like you.”
Asleep. She was talking to him in her sleep. No way would she have just said that and not gone all tense if she were awake.
Despite his current uncomfortable predicament, Sloan grinned. It no longer mattered that Cara didn’t like him, because apparently she was as physically aware of him as he was her. Somehow, at the moment, that seemed a lot more important in the grand scheme of life than merely being liked.
“Good night, Cara,” he whispered against her hair, brushing his lips against the silkiness in a soft kiss. “We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow but we’ll get through it. Then we’re going to have this conversation when you’re awake and not mentally and emotionally exhausted, because looking at you melts my insides, too, and I do like you. I like you way too much.”
Cara gradually became aware of her surroundings, drifting somewhere between sleep and an awareness of the world around her. The quietness was the first thing that struck her. No New York City noises in the background of her inner world, as she’d expected.
But her sleepy inner world definitely had noises.
Male noises.
Soft male breath sounds.
And warmth. She felt so absolutely warm that she hated to move and risk letting any coldness seep into her snuggly world.
John didn’t usually hold her like this. He wasn’t a snuggler and said he couldn’t breathe if she was in his personal space, that she made him sweat. Cara slept on her side of the bed and John slept on his. They met in the middle from time to time, but lately that had been less and less frequently.
Actually, Cara couldn’t recall the last time she and John had had sex or held each other. Way before her father’s last visit.
She couldn’t recall the last time he’d smelled so wonderfully manly, either. A light spicy musk that made her want to remember sex, to remember intimacy, that made her want to wiggle her body against his, and to have him want her, not just want her, but have to have her.
Which she must have done, because his arm tightened around her and his lower half woke up. Way up.
Good. Since her father’s visit she’d gone from thinking John was going to propose to wondering if he even wanted her anymore. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to admit it to herself or to anyone else, but something had definitely changed in their relationship. These days he certainly didn’t seem to care one way or the other if they maintained a physical relationship.
Sex wasn’t the most important aspect of a relationship to Cara, but the closeness of being intimate with one’s mate was important. Very important, and she missed that intimacy.
She missed being held and touched and loved.
Which was silly. Of course John loved her. He told her every morning and every night just like clockwork. Just as she told him.
She was being held and touched and loved right now in an mmmm, good kind of way and she craved the feelings rushing through her more than she’d realized or been willing to admit.
His lips brushed against her hair in a caress that could only be described as worshipful. She rolled over, wanting to feel them against her mouth, to have him kiss her, to make love to her with this newfound passion.
He must have been waiting for her, because he immediately covered her mouth with his. His lips toyed masterfully with hers, teasing, tasting, tantalizing.
Mmmm, she thought. So good. She didn’t recall John kissing so well, or with so much passion, but she wasn’t complaining. All her insides were coming alive at how he was kissing her so enthusiastically, at how his body moved against hers, making her all too aware of the clothes separating their bodies. She arched into him, ran her hands into his hair, held him close, kissed him back with an enthusiasm that matched his own, awed at the butterflies dancing in her belly. Lower. It had been so long since she’d felt this way, since she’d wanted, felt wanted, desirable, needed. Had she ever?
“Cara,” he moaned. “You feel so good.”
Only “he” hadn’t been the he she was expecting. He wasn’t John and all the feelings hastening through her came to a quick halt.
No longer sleepy, Cara’s eyes sprang open and her body jerked away from the man in her bed.
In horror, everything came rushing back.
The awful phone call she’d gotten, telling her that her father had died.
Making arrangements at work to be off for her father’s funeral.
John refusing to go with her.
Flying to Pensacola, renting a car, then driving across the Florida-Alabama state line to Bloomberg.
The bittersweetness of walking into her childhood home and it being empty of the man she associated with everything about the place.
Sitting at the funeral home, longing to be anywhere else but in Gloomberg.
Her fatigue, fear and utter loss.
Her begging a man she didn’t like to spend the night in her bed because she hadn’t wanted to be alone.
Oh, yeah, everything came rushing back in vivid color. No doubt her cheeks glowed in vivid color, as well.
“Good morning,” Sloan greeted her sheepishly, raking his fingers through his dark hair and smiling at her as if waking up in each other’s arms was no big deal. As if the kisses they’d just shared had been no big deal.
She didn’t do that. John was her one and only and they’d been together years. She was going to marry him, for goodness’ sake!
“What are you doing?” She ignored his greeting and how absolutely gorgeous he looked first thing in the morning with his tousled black hair and thickly fringed coppery-brown eyes. She went on the attack. Much better to be on the offensive than to have to defend her weakness, to have to explain those kisses. How could she explain what she didn’t understand? “I asked you to hold me, not molest me.”
The light in his molten eyes morphed into dark confusion. “Molest you?”
Not giving heed to the guilt that hit her, she pushed against his chest, needing him out of her bed, out of her room, her house, her life. She couldn’t breathe. She needed him gone. He epitomized everything wrong in her life. “It’s time for you to leave.”
“Stay. Leave. You’re a bossy woman, Cara Conner. Then again, I’d heard that about you more than once. That you’re a leader, not a follower.” He was trying to make light of their situation, to defuse what had just happened between them. Under different circumstances, Cara might have appreciated his teasing, but she felt too raw to let go of the panic inside her. She’d been kissing him, a virtual stranger. She’d enjoyed kissing him! That had to be because
