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He felt his hea

rt swell. He kissed her, kissed her again and then, maybe because there was more to say and he wasn’t ready to say it, he scooped her into his arms and flashed a wicked grin.

“Bath time,” he said.

Mia’s eyes widened. “No. Matthew, it’ll be cold!”

“Ready or not,” he said, and ran straight into the water. Laughing, he carried her deeper while she kicked and shrieked and laughed enough to make him wish he could freeze this moment and keep it, forever.

“Mia,” he said, “Mia…”

Her laughter faded. So did his.

“Matthew,” she whispered, and kissed him.

His mouth was a hot contrast to the chill of the pool, his body was hard and strong against hers…

And she finally knew there was no sense lying to herself.

Somewhere between yesterday and today, she’d fallen in love with Matthew Knight.

CHAPTER NINE

DAYS AND NIGHTS flowed one into another.

There were no clocks to watch, no outside world to observe them, no rules to obey.

The lovers laughed and talked; they feasted on the meals Evalina prepared and left for them, drank the wines stored in the cellar. They swam in the Olympicsize pool behind the house and luxuriated in the heated spa on the deck.

They took long walks through the cool woods and drove the narrow roads that wound through the mountains. They played Monopoly and Scrabble and watched really bad horror movies late at night, via satellite.

That is, they did those things when they weren’t making love.

“Do you like this?” Matthew would say, bending his head to Mia’s breasts. “This?” he’d whisper, parting her thighs. “And this?” he’d ask huskily, sliding deep inside her.

Her sighs, her moans, the swift clenching of her muscles as she closed around him, told him everything he needed to know.

Everything except the real reason she’d run from Cartagena.

He knew her, now. She was beautiful and feminine; walking toward him, naked, as she rose from the pool in the forest, she might have been painted by Botticelli.

But she was strong in all the ways that mattered.

He couldn’t see her running from Hamilton, no matter how unwanted the man’s attentions. She’d have looked the bastard straight in the eye and told him what she thought of him, but run?

The more Matthew knew Mia, the less likely that seemed.

But he’d given up asking her to tell him the truth. It hurt him that she wouldn’t but he figured she had a damned good reason for it. When she was ready, he told himself, she’d share it with him.

In the meantime, they were on a voyage of sensual discovery.

Mia, uninhibited in her responses to his lovemaking, was, at first, reserved in her exploration of his body.

“Tell me what pleases you,” she’d whisper, and he’d say she was what pleased him.

It was true. Just watching her comb her hair or step into the bath was enough to make him hard.

“Tell me,” she’d insist.