Love Loyal and True (Must Love Diamonds 2)

Your true love will be loyal and true.

Maybe her true love literally was Loyal…maybe he wasn’t. But whichever it was, she’d never know if she didn’t take the risk to find out, would she?

Chapter 22

He wasn’t budging from her chair, so Roxanna stepped in close and hitched up her skirt far enough to place one knee on the little section of fabric visible between his spread legs. His eyes widened, and he audibly gulped when she rested her hands on his shoulders and leaned forward.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Changing my mind.”

“Okay.”

She smiled and lifted one hand to run her fingers through his hair. “Is it really okay?”

“You won’t hear any argument from me.” Then his eyebrows dipped. “Although, what about your books?”

“You can play with all the numbers tomorrow.”

“You’re sure?”

“You’re not?”

He smiled, but it didn’t last. “Another thing—”

“It sounds like you’re arguing.”

“I just wanted to say, when it comes to the whole relationship thing—”

Roxanna pressed her finger to his lips with a shake of her head. “We don’t need to go over that again. I know the score, Loyal. I know what you’re willing to offer—or not willing to. I’m okay with it.”

His gaze met hers, and he looked sad for a moment. She felt a pulse of that sadness pass from his lips to her finger and wanted to make it go away. Needed it to go away.

She dragged her finger across his full bottom lip, then reveled in the scrape of his stubble against the palm she placed along his jaw. “When I say that I feel things, it means I can intuit things without trying.”

“How do you do that?” he asked, his voice low and rough.

“Information comes to me when I touch people.” Her lips quirked as she gazed down at him. “Most people, anyway. What they’re feeling, what they believe. I build on that by reading their aura, which is like an energy field around their body, and then I offer guidance and suggestions for positive improvement in their lives.”

“Sounds like you’re counseling them.”

She was impressed he was still listening with her knee pressed up against his crotch. She reached down to undo the three buttons on his vest. “Guiding only. I’m not licensed, so there’s a big difference. People come to me with questions, sometimes vague, sometimes specific, and I try to guide them toward what will make their spirit joyful.”

His hands rose to her hips, and he slipped the tips of his fingers beneath the hem of her sweater. “Can you intuit what would make my spirit joyful right now?”

She gave a soft laugh and started working on the buttons of his light blue shirt. “I don’t have to be psychic to figure that out.”

“No, probably not,” he muttered as he pushed his hands up, lifting the cashmere to expose her stomach, then her lacy, black bra.

Roxanna stopped what she was doing long enough for him to drag her sweater over her he

ad, then finished with the buttons and parted the material over his chest. He smoothed her static-charged hair back from her face, his gaze shifting down to focus on her breasts. She ran her hands over the hard planes of muscle she’d uncovered, then up over his shoulders to push the shirt back, and down his arms.

Loyal sat forward, but when he became distracted placing kisses along the edge of her bra, his sleeves got caught up at his wrists, down around his waist. A useless tug had him letting loose a frustrated growl.

Inspiration struck, and Roxanna grinned as she pushed him back in the chair to effectively bind his arms at his sides.

“Hey—”