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  Even knowing that, she couldn’t quite let him go. She should and she would. But not yet. And no wonder. He could drive her to insane heights of pleasure. He was sexy, sharp, steadily employed, kind—everything she wanted. Good with her girls, fun to hang out with.

  He claimed to love her, despite being three weeks out of a relationship with Misty and her silicone pom-poms. Was that possible? Lauren frowned. She had no idea. He had cooked up Mr. Mysterious just to get near her. Because he thought he loved her? Maybe. More likely, he’d done it because she’d been a challenge. Noah did love to take on difficult tasks and beat the odds. Maybe he saw her as his ultimate quest if he thought he’d wanted her for ten years.

  She sighed, trying to process it all. Not happening—at least not in the next five minutes. What came next?

  The question itself scared the hell out of her. The answer terrified her even more because she wanted to stay and give them a chance. But in the back of her mind, that voice… How long before Noah’s something shiny and new—probably wearing a D cup and possessing great legs barely covered by a little black skirt—snagged his attention and permanently diverted him elsewhere? Noah had such a long string of women, she could probably wrap them around Texas Motor Speedway—twice.

  Wait. He’d already talked about another woman, the divorcée. Noah claimed to love that woman, too. If so, Lauren wondered why he was in bed now with her, professing his devotion. Damn, the bastard was emotionally two-timing her before the tingle in her orgasm had worn off. And he’d seemed so sincere when he spoke about loving her. Unless…

  Oh, holy hell! She was the divorcée. He wasn’t in love with two different women or cheating when he’d sneaked in, stripped her down, and buried himself so deeply inside her it was as if he tried to reach her soul. In fact, he’d been talking to her—about her. Not just talking, lying to her about another woman. And using her own advice to orchestrate her surrender.

  A hot wash of anger burned away the last of her pleasant satiation.

  She’d said she wanted excitement and a spicy sex life. So he’d dressed up as Mr. Mysterious and given her pleasure way beyond her expectations. She’d told Noah she wanted someone steady. He fit that bill, too. Lauren wanted someone good with her girls. He’d invited them to swim, grilled them some of their favorites, then made solemn little Emma smile. In short, he’d listened to every word she’d said and tailored a courtship just for her.

  Put like that, Lauren wasn’t sure whether to be stunned or flattered or pissed as hell.

  She sifted through her memories of their conversations, and her heart stopped beating. Everything he’d told her he wanted with his fictional divorcée—marriage and babies and love… He’d said he loved her, but what did he know about love? What did he know about staying with a lover beyond the orgasm? Nothing.

  She sucked in a ragged breath. A lasting relationship between she and Noah? No. He’d get bored and leave her. That was inevitable. If a professional cheerleader couldn’t hold his attention, how was a woman with ten additional years and pregnancy stretch marks supposed to manage?

  Still, she couldn’t help but wonder… He’d planned this whole seduction for how long? Weeks? Months?

  “Lauren?” He rolled to face her, the sheets whispering intimately, like a lover beckoning. “Talk to me, sugar.”

  Talk to him, as in bare her soul? No. Trusting anything he said would be unwise, but very tempting…

  She looked away and swallowed against the hope and questions shining in his eyes.

  Edging to the other side of the bed, Lauren put space between them and grabbed the sheet, covering every inch of her nudity she could. The scrap of linen didn’t help much, considering he was laying on the rest. And didn’t appear to be in a hurry to give her more.

  “You planned this.” Her voice shook. “The way you plan a conquer-and-overcome strategy at the office. You laid out and followed through on the steps of this—this deception.”

  He frowned. “I planned this, but not to deceive you. I did it to show you how I felt about you, in a way you wouldn’t feel threatened by. You said yourself that you would have run like hell if I simply told you I loved you and wanted to be with you.”

  “Totally beside the point. Ask me out on a date, like a normal guy. Don't manipulate—”

  He grabbed her arm. “If I merely asked you out and caught you at a weak enough moment to get a yes, you would have found a hundred ways to keep me at a safe distance so you wouldn’t have to risk your heart.”

  “Because I’m not ready for this.”

  “You are,” he disagreed. “I've waited and watched. I know you’re scared but there’s no reason. We’re going to be great. We already are.”

  “No, and I don’t think you’re ready for this, either. You take the decision out of my hands and think everything is great? You make choices for me, decide who I have sex with, when and how? That’s not great. That’s not love.

  “Next, you talked to me about pursuing a gun-shy divorcée. Oh, wait. That would be me. Duh! How silly of me to assume you were honestly asking me for advice with a genuine problem.”

  “So I didn’t go about this the best way, but you being stubborn and stand-offish and needlessly afraid is a hell of a problem. Yes, I asked you for advice. Who better to go to than the source for accurate information?”

  He still didn’t see anything wrong with his strategy. Unbelievable. The fact he’d gone to all the trouble to ask her advice, to invent Mr. Mysterious, would be flattering if it really meant anything. But Noah didn’t love her. Maybe he thought he did. The truth was, he loved a challenge more. And with her disavowals of love and their past, he’d likely seen her as his personal Mount Everest.

  She ripped her arm from his grasp. “I should have guessed. You plan everything, apparently including my seduction. Why didn’t I realize before now that you were using the very advice I gave you against me to conquer me? How damn stupid am I?”

  “Conquer? Damn it, Lauren. I’m not some frat boy who’s looking for a locker-room boast and I’m not trying to ruin your life. I’m trying to love you, like I’ve been wanting to for ten fucking years.”

  Ten years? “That’s not possible. I would have been married to Tim and—”

  “Exactly.” He moved in, erasing her personal space, his chest against hers, their foreheads nearly touching. Then he anchored his hand around her nape. “It was hell watching him slowly hurt you, day by day, little by little, withholding the attention and love I was dying to give you. All I could do was sit by while he shattered your heart and illusions. Knowing you cried at night, betting your body craved what I was aching to give you, damn near ate me alive. I waited for you to recover, and these last two years destroyed my patience and restraint.”

  Lauren had no idea what to say. His growl and the blast of heat from his blue eyes told her he believed every word he said. Stunned didn’t begin to cover her reaction.

  “In all those years…you never said a word.”

  “I couldn’t. You were a good friend’s wife. If I crossed that line—and don’t think I wasn’t damn tempted—you would have ended up hating us both for it. Remember the night Tim was out of town for your birthday a few years ago?”

  One of the lowest points of her marriage. Tim had been gone for weeks. He’d flown home for two days, spent three minutes inside her body, an hour or two playing with the girls, then when she’d finished his laundry, he’d packed up and left again. And she’d cried for the lack of love in his touch, in his eyes. He’d been on autopilot, doing his duty, relieving his physical need. Moving on. She’d suspected then that divorce was imminent, but hadn’t mustered the courage to file. It would mean so much change…

  The night of her birthday, Noah had come by and found her crying. He’d persuaded her to dress up, asked his mom to watch the girls, then taken her out. The place had been loud and crowded and so much fun. Exactly what she needed. A bottle of wine later, she’d realized she hadn’t smiled like that in at le
ast five years. She’d known then that she had to change her life.

  Of course, she’d awakened with a colossal hangover the next day, but the resolution had remained. She followed through a few days later.

  “I remember.”

  “That night, in the restaurant,” he took a deep breath, and a muscle ticced in his jaw, “you looked so damn gorgeous. You smiled when everyone sang to you. You let me hold you close when we danced. I felt your heart race when I pressed you to my chest. I felt your hard nipples, too. That night, I could have brought you home and taken you to bed.”

  Lauren gasped and opened her mouth to protest. She swallowed it.

  Though she wished otherwise, he was right. He could have had sex with her that night. When he’d smiled at her, the stirrings of attraction she’d felt over the years had blossomed. For the first time, she’d yearned to be a woman with him, rather than a friend.

  Fast-forward two years. Now, he was way more than a friend. This past week, she had been a woman with him, learned him as a lover, experienced the touch of his sure hands, the full thrust of his cock as he penetrated deep.

  Despite her disquiet, she blushed.

  “But if I had slept with you that night, you would have avoided me after the divorce. You would have dismissed me as a part of your past, written me off as a mistake, and made your new life without me.”

  Again, he was right. He understood her, deep down. It made her glow…even as it scared her to death.

  “Walking away from you with just a kiss on your forehead…I don’t think I’ve ever done anything more difficult. For a week, I second-guessed myself. And jacked off every damn night, fantasizing about having you in my bed, all to myself. I couldn’t stop thinking about the sexy cleavage, the flash of leg, the hint of flirtation in your smile. But when you filed for divorce that next week, I knew I’d done the right thing.”

  Lauren bit her lip. She didn’t know what to say.

  “Since then, I’ve been keeping you close, waiting for you to recover and feel ready to date…”

  He’d been keeping her close? Did that mean… She gasped as another betrayal loomed in her mind. “Oh my God. My job. You didn’t hire me for my ability, but to fu—”

  He slapped a hand over her mouth. “Stop there. I didn’t hire you to fuck you. I wanted you on staff for your ability. I know you’re wholly capable of your job, and you’ve proven it time and again. Danson and Martin both have said more than once they wished they’d hired you first.”

  Lauren stewed. Maybe that was true. Likely, even. She was damn good at her job and she knew it. “But the whole setup was awfully convenient for you.”

  “I won’t deny that. I got a fabulous, hard worker and to spend my days with the woman I knew I wanted to spend my nights with, too.”

  It was overwhelming, so much to digest—if she could believe him. “How am I supposed to trust anything you say?”

  He clenched his teeth. “I'm not the enemy.”

  “Are you sure? Most of my pals don’t deceive and manipulate me.”

  “Do any of them want to love you forever?”

  She didn’t answer that, and Noah cursed.

  “This is bullshit.” He vaulted off the bed. “You know I’m not out to hurt you. My only goal was to make you realize something you were too fucking scared to realize for yourself: we belong together. And now you’re going to dismiss everything between us because you don’t like the way I went about it?”

  “Did you think that manipulating and lying would make me believe that you love me and are ready to give up your collection of women for some happily ever after with me?”

  “I thought we’d have a much better shot if you stopped deceiving yourself,” he snarled. “I still think that. I wouldn’t have had to invent a nonexistent woman to ask you advice about or dress up as Mr. Mysterious if you were willing to be honest with yourself.”

  “You’re going to blame me?” Was he for real?

  “Why are you upset? You wanted a lover, and we wanted each other. Oh, you made a great show of pretending you wanted our relationship platonic. I just found a way to let you feel how good we are together for yourself and stop denying the pull between us.”

  What he said made sense…in a twisted way. But that didn’t make it all right. “And you thought deceiving me would do that? That’s insane!”

  That comment pissed him off, if his thunderous expression was anything to go by. “It’s using the resources at your disposal. And it worked. You responded to me every time I sneaked into your house and made love to you.”

  “I didn’t know it was you.”

  “Doesn’t matter. You pretended it was me.”

  Noah had her with that fact. She’d moaned that very confession mere minutes ago.

  Lauren pulled the sheet tighter against her breasts. Noah’s logic was firing on all cylinders. It wouldn’t be long before he started putting two and two together and coming up with something other than five. He was going to figure out that she more than liked him, more than wanted him. He'd take advantage of her tender feelings—until he got bored and left. He might think he was ready for happily ever after, but he had no practice in staying beyond the orgasm.

  “That’s a small point in the larger scheme of all your lying. I admit, I pretended it was you once or twice, for a moment or two. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Now you’re lying, too. You responded to ‘a stranger’ because you were thinking of me. I know how that game is played. And why it’s played. It means something, sugar. Own up to it.”

  “It means I hadn’t had sex in two years.”

  “But not just that. If you were thinking of me and wanting me, but avoiding me, there’s a reason. It means you care.”

  “I do care. You’re a good friend. But I feared sex would screw everything up. Turns out I was right.”

  “Friend?” he spat. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s what you were feeling every time your pussy gripped my cock like a vise and you came.” His eyes narrowed. “What we have, it’s more than friendship. If it wasn’t, why did you start dressing sexier on days you knew we’d be together in the office? Why did you wear that perfume you know drives me wild? Was that all for Gary in accounting? I used to believe that, but you know what? I think now you did that to get my attention. You wanted me to think of you sexually.”

  Oh, hell, He’d noticed her attempts to dress for him? He’d done a damn fine job of pretending oblivion. “Did I dress sexier? I don’t recall that.”

  “Yeah, so fucking sexy I could hardly look at you without salivating and attacking. And you just told lie number two.”

  He was right. She tried not to squirm under his direct stare. But that wintery gaze told her that if she lied again, she wouldn’t like the consequences. It also told her that he wanted her again.

  Grabbing the sheet, Lauren drew it up to her neck and covered herself completely. Noah, on the other hand, stood beside the bed without a stitch on—and it was distracting the hell out of her. Every time he moved, golden skin and heavy ropes of muscles moved in fluid harmony. Hell, even when he took a breath, those corrugated abs of his undulated. And the longer her eyes stayed on his body, the more his cock engorged and rose until he was nearly at full staff.

  Damn! All this mooning…it had to stop. But she couldn’t deny that she wanted him again, that her body warmed and ached at the thought of inviting Noah deep inside her again.

  No, no, no. Bad girl! Noah was a friend, her boss.

  Yeah, and the man who knows every square inch of your body and can make you scream in unbridled pleasure. Even if you're afraid he'll crush your heart, he's the man you love.

  Not a helpful realization.

  Noah edged closer. “You dressed sexy for me. Admit it.”

  Reluctantly, she nodded. “A mistake on my part. Being attracted to you doesn’t make having a relationship a good idea, however.”

  He merely grunted at that. “Just attracted? Tonight, you made love with me, not some
pretend stranger. Me. You’re not the kind of woman to respond with such abandon to someone you don’t care about.”

  Oh, hell. He was on to her. “Noah—”

  He moved so fast, he was like a blur, suddenly on the bed, in her personal space, pinning her to the headboard in the cage of his arms. “Look at me.”

  Lauren did, right into those blue eyes that always captivated her. There she saw worry and pain and a growing edge of anger. She couldn’t have looked away for anything.

  “Tell me you don’t care about me as more than a boss, more than a friend. Tell me you don’t love me.”

  She opened her mouth but couldn’t say it. She couldn’t look at him and lie. But admitting her love would only throw open the door to her heart and let in pain she could only imagine.

  “Noah…”

  “C’mon, you’re on this honesty kick. I honestly love you. I have for years. I wanted you the first time I saw you. I was honestly willing to do whatever I had to do to make you mine.”

  “The end justifies the means?” she asked tartly.

  “Yeah. Don’t change the subject. Look at me and tell me you don’t love me.”

  Oh, she wanted to. Really wanted to. It would save her heartache and sanity. But she wasn’t sure it was possible.

  With a cry, Lauren pushed against his chest and tried to shove her way out of his embrace so she could escape to the bathroom. He grabbed her shoulders and held firm, pinning her to the headboard.

  “Answer me.” His gaze caressed her mouth in a hungry stare. Blood flowed through her body, engorging her nipples. The slightest look in her direction and she got all hot for him. Bad sign. Very bad. Her only consolation was that his cock swelled as well, rising full staff and ready.

  When he met her stare, he growled, “You get me hard. Just one look. And every time, I’m ready in an instant. You do that to me. Only you. Because I love you.”

  The demand in his voice made her tremble. God, it would be so easy to just give in and admit she loved him, too. But if she did that, she’d only be opening herself up to the kind of pain from which she might never recover.