Until You

"If you touch me again," she breathed, her green eyes wild, "I'll kill you."

Edouard's handsome face twisted. The suave features became an ugly parody of the face she knew.

She backed away as he came towards her and raised the poker over her head. He laughed, wrenched it from her hand and threw it to the floor with contempt. Then he grabbed Miranda's wrist, swung her into his arms and carried her, sobbing and beating her fists against his shoulders, up the wide, creaking staircase to his rooms.

Chapter 1

New York City, 2011

Conor O'Neil lounged back on the sofa, took a swallow of cold ale and stretched his long legs towards the fireplace while he pondered one of life's more difficult questions.

When a woman said she was going to change into something more comfortable after she'd spent the evening wearing a sexy dress that clung to her breasts and ended at her thighs, what did she mean?

Conor smiled to himself. It was almost as tough as deciding which was better—the warmth of the fire, the crispness of the ale, or the knot of anticipatory tension curling low in his belly as he waited for Mary Alice Whittaker to emerge from her bedroom.

"Conor?"

As soon as he heard that soft voice, he knew the answer. Slowly, he put down the bottle of India Pale and got to his feet.

She was standing in the arched doorway, silhouetted by the light that spilled from the hall behind her, wearing something long and black that sent his pulse rate way into the red. She'd let down her hair so that it fell like liquid gold around her face.

Something more comfortable, he thought, and smiled.

She stepped forward, just enough so the light seemed to pour into her body and turn her to flame.

"What do you think?" she said, putting her arms out and pirouetting slowly in place. "Isn't this closer to the real me?"

Conor took another look at whatever you called the thing she was wearing. A robe? A negligee? Not that he gave a damn. Whatever you called it, it was doing its job. How could something cover so much yet reveal everything that mattered?

"Oh, yeah." His smile was slow and sexy. "I'd say it's definitely closer to the real you, Mary Alice."

She laughed, a throaty chuckle that went straight to his groin, and started towards him, her high-heeled, black satin mules tapping lightly against the Italian tile floor.

"I figured you were pleased," she said. "I could tell by your smile."

Conor laughed. She'd be able to tell by more than that as soon as she got close enough. O'Neil, he thought, what a clever so-and-so you are! What had started as a weekend he'd figured to enjoy was shaping up as one he suspected he'd not soon forget.

"It's a terrific smile, you know." Mary Alice paused just long enough to recover the glass of white wine she'd left on a table, then floated towards him again. "Sort of a little-boy-with-his-hand-caught-in-the-cookie-jar grin, if you know what I mean."

He knew exactly what she meant. It was the smile his ex-wife had described as unbearably smug. But, he thought, taking Mary Alice's hand, this was definitely not a time to think about his ex-wife. It was not a time to think about being smug, either.

The only thing worth thinking about right now was that he didn't have to be in D.C. until nine o'clock Monday morning.

Or ten.

Or eleven.

For all he cared, they could come and drag back his desiccated body.

"I'm really glad you called me," Mary Alice said as he drew her down on the sofa. The tip of her tongue, pink and delicate as a kitten's, swept between her lips and touched the rim of her wineglass. "Really, really glad."

He bent towards her, inhaled her perfume, then caught her earlobe between his teeth and bit down gently.

"Yes," he said. "Me, too."

"Mmm. That's nice."

Her voice was low and sexy with just a touch of little-girl innocence, a mind-blowing combination of Penthouse Centerfold and Innocent Schoolgirl. It had no resemblance to her do-gooder voice, the one she'd used on him months ago when they'd ended up unlikely dinner partners at some silly Embassy reception.