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  At the first touch of his lips, the first gentle lap of his tongue, Treena’s head thunked back against the door. Her supporting knee threatened to give out on her and, reaching down, she grasped Jax’s hair in both hands, forcing his head back. “I’m caught up,” she breathed as he licked his lips. “Oh, my God, I am so caught up.”

  “And yet I’m not quite done,” he murmured. “I love the way you’re so smooth. And the way you taste, so salty and sweet. I could just eat you all day long.”

  “Ohmigawd.” Her fists tightened in his hair as he proceeded to follow through on his statement. Within moments, her hips began a subtle rocking motion, and mere seconds after that, it seemed, she started to babble. Oh, please, oh God and Jax appeared to be her entire vocabulary.

  Seconds after that, she exploded.

  She shuddered through a series of lesser orgasms once the first big one had died away. Finally, limp with pleasure, she started to slide down the door.

  But Jax scooped her up in his arms and headed toward the bedroom swearing beneath his breath. “There goes my against-the-door fantasy,” he mumbled as he dropped her onto the bed. He snatched his discarded jeans up off the floor and started rummaging through the pockets. “Where’s that condom? I’d sure as hell make a lousy Boy Scout, because this ain’t exactly prepared. There it is. Come here, you little devil.” Tossing the jeans aside, he turned back, ripping the foil packet open with his teeth. He stopped midrip, however, when he saw her rolling from the far side of the bed. “Where you going, Treen?”

  “The front door’s not the only one in the joint,” she informed him. “We’ve got another right here.” And heart pounding at her own daring, she closed the aforementioned portal, leaned back against it and slowly, very slowly, raised her right leg until her toes pointed straight overhead, hoping to heaven she didn’t look like some crazed calendar girl wannabe.

  That fear disappeared when he breathed, “Ah, man,” and crossed the room to her in a few ground-eating strides. Slapping his hands against the door on either side of her head, he leaned into her until they were body to body, just the way they’d been out in the entryway. He looked deep into her eyes. “You are, without a doubt, the sexiest woman I’ve ever known.”

  “You make me feel sexy. That’s something I’ve rarely felt with other men.”

  He stilled. Then he gazed into her eyes as if trying to read the fine print in their depths. “Are you serious?”

  Swallowing hard, she nodded.

  Something indefinable flickered in his eyes. “Not even with your husband?” Grimacing as if a bitter taste had invaded his mouth, he shook his head. “I’m sorry, it’s none of my business. What’s past is past. The important thing, right here, right now, is you and me.” And lowering his head, he kissed her. So very, very tenderly. Pulling back, he hooked a drying curl out of her eye and lightly pushed it back into what she feared was a growing mass of frizz. The fleeting thought of looking like a redheaded version of the Bride of Frankenstein didn’t have its usual galvanizing effect, however, because the look in his eyes held her enthralled.

  He handed her the condom, and she rolled it down his length. Then he squatted slightly to align everything and eased into her.

  “God.” The word was not a blasphemy but a prayer. Slowly, gently, he rocked his hips. “I feel like you’re my Christmas present and an early birthday present all rolled into one.”

  She sucked in a breath as he stretched up inside of her. “You have a birthday coming up?”

  He nodded, bent his knees to withdraw a little farther, carefully thrust a little deeper.

  Her eyes drifted shut as he hit her sweet spot, but she pried them open a second later. Her breath was choppy, however, when she forced out, “When?”

  “Huh?”

  “When’s your birthday?”

  “Soon.” He made a sound deep in his throat, and his hands wrapped around her head, his fingers tunneling beneath her hair to caress her nape, his thumbs bracketing her cheeks. He kissed her as if she were the most fragile thing on earth and continued to rock slowly in and out of her. Within moments, however, the mood changed from languid and easy to quick and impatient.

  Rapidly followed by hot-as-sin desperate.

  He hit high inside of her with every thrust and within moments she felt the pressure begin to build. And build.

  Until finally it detonated.

  She cried out as sensation whipped and sparked and lashed like an out-of-control fire hose inside her. The high-pitched sound that purled out of her throat was absorbed by Jax’s mouth locked over hers.

  Then a groan rumbled deep in his chest. He surged upright one last time, lifting her clear off the floor, and she grabbed at his shoulders, wrapping her unsupported leg around his waist.

  He ripped his mouth free, and knotting one hand in her hair, he cupped her throat with the other. “Oh, Christ,” he panted, his mouth a bare inch from hers. “You’re the one, you’re the one, you’re the one.”

  Then his eyes glazed and he growled long and low as if he felt the flames of hell licking at his feet. Treena felt him pulsing inside her, however, and knew pain was the last thing he was feeling. She dropped her head to his shoulder and inhaled the scent of him, of her, of the two of them together. And when he collapsed against her a moment later, pinning her to the door, she wrapped him in her arms.

  You’re the one.

  Okay, it was probably just sex talk, but she hugged his words to her breast all the same. Because she’d never been “the one” for anyone before. Even Big Jim, who had treated her nicer than anyone else in the world, had admired her more for the status she brought him with his friends than as his one true soul mate. She was pretty sure, for him, that designation had gone to his first wife. But Jax Gallagher said she was the one.

  And even if he didn’t truly mean it, she couldn’t recall one other moment in her entire life when she’d felt as good as she did right then.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I’M FUCKED. Sitting against the studio wall watching Treena put herself through her paces a short while later, Jax hungrily followed her every move while his normally facile mind scrambled for a way out of the corner he’d painted himself into with her. But nothing came to him; not one damn thing that might salvage their relationship once the truth came out. And it would come out; he didn’t doubt that for a moment. I am so fucked.

  As his gaze tracked her routine from high kicks to crossovers to what she’d informed him were step ball changes that provided the transition to some slow, sexy move she’d refused to identify because she said she had to concentrate and couldn’t answer all his questions, the irony of the mess he’d gotten himself into didn’t escape him. He’d never even had a relationship with a woman before—not one, at any rate, that had lasted for more than a night or two. So didn’t it just figure that the first woman he’d forged a connection with, the one person to click with his own personality so effortlessly that getting close to her had actually been easy, would turn out to be the only person he’d lied to from the moment they’d met? She’d talked about her family as if she valued honesty and integrity above all else, and he was Mr. Lying Through My Teeth.

  What a mess.

  He’d give his left nut to still believe she was the gold-digging tramp he’d been so certain she was before he’d gotten to know her. Maybe then he wouldn’t feel like such a low-down rat. Because as much as he liked her, as much as he could see her seamlessly integrated into his future, he still intended to relieve her of the baseball.

  Only now he knew how she felt in his arms. He had burned into his brain the wonder with which she’d greeted his lovemaking—as if no one had ever taken the time to make it really good for her before. He’d experienced her inner heat, all slick and tight around him. He knew the sounds she made when he satisfied her.

  He also knew that with the sale of the damn collectible she’d have a healthy cushion for her studio should she somehow flunk the upcoming audition. Watching the flu
id expertise with which she practiced, he couldn’t quite visualize that happening, but he understood that her confidence about the outcome wasn’t as assured as his own.

  The music stopped and a moment later Treena strolled over to where he was sitting. Blotting perspiration from her throat and chest with a small hand towel, she dropped to a spread-kneed squat in front of him and nearly blinded him with the brilliance of her smile. His heart slammed up against the wall of his chest.

  “That was the best, most relaxed practice I’ve had in months.” With a throaty laugh, she walked her fingers up his thigh. “Too bad I didn’t know about this sex therapy business sooner. I’d be so much further along.”

  “Nah. It probably wouldn’t have done you any good,” he assured her easily, “since it only works with me.” He felt anything but relaxed, however, when he privately acknowledged that he didn’t like the idea of her doing the—what had she called it, again—the hootchie-kootch?—with anyone but him. Didn’t like it one damn bit. Pressing his spine against the wall, he sat a little taller. “Treena, have you saved any money at all for that studio you want to open?”

  She blinked at the abrupt change of topic; then her eyes went serious and she plopped down on her butt in front of him. “Yeah, I did. If you count the interest, I had almost sixty thousand in CDs.”

  Relief washed through him to think that at least his betrayal wasn’t going to leave her destitute. Then the past tense she’d used sank in. “Had?”

  She hitched one shoulder. “I cashed them in to pay for that nurse for Big Jim I told you about.”

  Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit! He felt his corner shrinking smaller and tighter around him. “You had her help ’round the clock?”

  “His help. And no, we couldn’t afford that. But David filled in the graveyard shift while I slept.”

  Double hell. Okay, there had to be a solution. He’d pay her for the baseball. Sure, why not? He should have planned that from the beginning anyway, and it would be the best thing for both of them. She’d get cash for her studio and he’d get to keep all his bones in their original, unbroken state.

  But if she’d been unhappy about accepting an engraved diamond necklace from him just how likely was she to accept a huge chunk of cash? He looked into her trusting, smiling golden brown eyes. Oh, man.

  He was so screwed.

  ELLEN HALTED AT THE top of the swimming pool ladder when she saw Mack sitting on the lounge chair where she’d tossed her towel. “Déjà vu,” she murmured calmly, but her heart rapped out a beat that was anything but placid. It took all her willpower not to look down to assure herself the movement wasn’t visible through her suit. Drawing in a calming breath, she stepped up onto the pool’s apron.

  Mack climbed to his feet, sweeping up her towel as he vacated the chaise. He strode over, clad in his usual khakis and a chocolate-brown polo shirt, to offer the terry to her. Discomfort at once again finding herself half-naked while Mack was fully dressed began itching along her nerve endings, particularly when his intent gaze made one swift, comprehensive pass over her figure as she hurriedly swung the towel behind her and wrapped it around her waist to disguise her tummy and less-than-perfect thighs.

  The barefaced approval in his dark eyes, however, went a long way toward vanquishing her budding self-consciousness. “That sure is a pretty suit,” he said.

  She smiled in pleasure, glancing down at the crimson-and-black tank. “Isn’t it great? I just fell in love with it and was thrilled to pieces when it actually passed my checklist.”

  He cocked his head. “You have a checklist? What’s on it?”

  “That it not ride up in back, pull down in front or have straps that slip off my shoulders. Any suit will do for lounging around in a chaise, but swimming demands more stringent criteria.” That this one had covered all of hers and was pretty to boot struck her as the next best thing to a miracle.

  Mack studied her. “The way it makes your cheeks pinker than a girl’s doesn’t hurt, either.”

  Delight sent yet more color throbbing in the apples of those cheeks. “Why, you honey-tongued devil. I didn’t know you had such compliments in you.”

  “I haven’t exactly shown you my best side,” he agreed. “But trust me, I look at you and there’s a whole slew of ’em where that one came from.” The grin he flashed almost stopped her heart. “So, are you still mad at me?”

  “I should be.” But once she’d cooled down she’d had a difficult time thinking beyond the stunning knowledge that if what Treena had said was true—and Mack’s own behavior the last time she’d seen him seemed to indicate that it was—he wanted her.

  The thought wasn’t exactly conducive to lowering her silly heart’s thunderous beat to a more manageable level.

  “I’m sorry I listened to a conversation you had every right to assume was private,” he said with gruff-voiced sincerity. “But I swear to God eavesdropping wasn’t my intention.”

  She nodded. “I believe you.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. You’re too straightforward to be skulking around trying to catch wind of my deep dark secrets.”

  He flashed that smile again. “Do you have many more of those I should know about?”

  She gave him a repressive look. “As if I’d just blurt them out if I did.”

  “How about if I ply you with liquor? Any chance of hearing them then?”

  “You’re such a funny fellow.” Her tone indicated he wasn’t, of course. But it was all she could do not to grin at his wagging eyebrows.

  He quit wiggling them to crook one at her inquiringly. “Funny as in none of my business or as in you aren’t going to tell me, blurting or otherwise?”

  “Take your pick.”

  “Okay. It’s none of my business. So if I promise not to try teasing any more information out of you, would you—” he cleared his throat as ruddy color flowed up his jaw “—do me the honor of going out to dinner with me tomorrow night?”

  She hesitated a moment purely for the rare pleasure of seeing him squirm. Then she managed a reasonably serene smile that hid the fact she felt giddy as a young girl. “I’d like that very much.”

  “Yeah?” He laughed as if genuinely relieved she’d accepted his invitation. Then briskly rubbing his hands together, he said, “What kind of food appeals to you?”

  “Oh, gosh, I like just about everything. Except Indian. I’m not a big fan of curry.”

  “I hear that. I’m mostly a meat-and-potatoes man. But I like Italian and Chinese, too,” he hastened to assure her, as if worried she might find his tastes plebeian. “So I’ll figure out somewhere nice and make us a reservation. Seven o’clock okay with you? Or maybe you’d prefer eight?”

  “Actually, if you don’t mind terribly, I’d prefer something a little earlier. I’ve never been a big fan of the fashionable hour. I tend to get grumpy if I haven’t eaten by six-thirty or so.”

  His eyes lit up. “You really are a woman after my own heart. I like to eat at six, myself, but I thought you might go for a more sophisticated hour.”

  “No, that was always a problem for me when Winston and I used to attend charity events. They always ate so late that by the time I got my dinner I was no longer feeling very charitable.” Gratified by his laughter, she rewarded him with her warmest smile.

  He took a step back and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “So, uh, I’d better go and see about getting us a table somewhere. I’ll be by to pick you up tomorrow at five-thirty.”

  She watched him walk away, her gaze lingering on his very nice backside. He really was exceptionally fit for his age, and she loved the fact that he wasn’t super tall. She’d had her share of cricks in her neck from evenings spent staring up at some six-footer.

  She pressed her fist to her chest to contain her racing heart. She had a date. Lord have mercy, she hadn’t dated since 1975—what on earth would they find to talk about? They had nothing in common.

  Well, except for their mutual fondness for the g
irls. But how much conversation could Treena and Carly take up? Oh, God. She’d be spending a couple of hours in Mack’s company, without either of the dancers to act as buffer. It would be just the two of them. The thought terrified her.

  At the same time, she’d hadn’t felt so excited in years.

  TREENA COULDN’T DENY it. She felt like pretty hot stuff when she strolled into the poker tournament that evening beneath the drape of Jax’s arm. She’d never been one to get all excited about the status of the people she hung out with, but she couldn’t help but notice, as they made their way through the Bellagio ballroom that hosted the games, that in this milieu Jax was well known. Perhaps even a star. His name was a murmur in several of the groups they passed, and it fueled her excitement at the prospect of finally getting to see him play. She wouldn’t be able to observe the entire evening’s tournament, but at least she could watch for a short while before she had to head over to the Avventurato to get ready for the show.

  She nudged him in the side with her elbow. “So, you’re a pretty big fish, huh?”

  His mouth crooked in a self-deprecating smile. “In a really small pool.”

  “And modest, too. Be still my heart.”

  “Hey, whatever gets me in your pants,” he said wryly, and she laughed.

  “Hello, Jax,” a sultry voice said, and they both halted. Treena craned around to see a beautiful woman walking up to them and shot Jax a questioning glance.

  He shrugged as if to say, “Beats the hell out of me.”

  The approaching woman was petite, blond and built, clad in a low-cut, hell-red spandex halter dress that was short on material and long on titillation. She walked right up to them, then ignored Treena as if she weren’t there. “My name is Sharon,” she purred. “I’m a huge, huge fan.”

  “Glad to hear it,” he replied easily. “Poker’s a great game.”

  “You’re a great player.” Reaching out, she rubbed her manicured hand down his jacket lapel.