Page 45 of Take the Bait

Which was shocking, come to think of it.

He couldn’t remember the last time he hadn’t been impatient to get his latest sexual partner out of his bed and out of his house. He’d always preferred to sleep alone. But tonight, he couldn’t bear the thought of letting her go. He wanted to keep her right here in his arms and never let her go.

Thank God she seemed to feel the same way. He got the rather awful feeling that if she woke up and walked away from him tonight, after what they’d shared, he would lose a piece of his heart that he would never get back from her.

He frowned. He never gave anything but his body to his sexual partners. He did his best to give them pleasure, too, he supposed. But he didn’t share his private thoughts, let alone his feelings, and certainly not his heart, with anyone.

But somehow, Dani had gotten inside his head and inside his heart. He’d genuinely enjoyed their conversation and spirited debates over dinner. He’d been fascinated by how her brain worked. She approached legal problems unconventionally and suggested original, creative strategies he’d never heard of before.

He'd meant every word of it when he’d pronounced her an uncommonly gifted lawyer with a bright future ahead of her as a litigator.

* * *

And later, when they’d been making love, she’d drawn words from him he’d never spoken to any woman. He’d told more to her tonight about how she made him feel than he’d ever shared with any of his previous partners. A lot more.

He ought to be panicked. He should figure out how she’d slipped past his emotional defenses so he could shore up his fortress of emotional solitude.

But as he lay in the dark feeling her soft, sleek curves against his body and counted the gentle rise of her breathing in time with his, he couldn’t summon anything even remotely resembling panic. Instead, he was overcome with a profound sense of rightness. Of acceptance that things were different now that he’d found her. Or rather, that they’d found each other.

He enjoyed the peaceful, deep quiet inside as it continued to rain steadily outside. His body sated into boneless relaxation, he let his thoughts drift where they willed.

It was funny, in a dark sort of way, that he’d spent all those years chasing the most beautiful women he could find in his search for the perfect one. How ironic that, all along, he ought to have been chasing the ones who were smart and feisty and who made him laugh.

Although, Dani minus the boring, conservative wool suits, was so sexy he could hardly wrap his mind around it. Society had taught him he should admire tall, thin, angular women. He’d had no idea until Dani came along that his type was one-hundred-percent petite, curvy, and stacked.

The universe definitely didn’t owe him any karmic favors and he wasn’t sure how or why she’d come into his life, but he had no intention of questioning the miracle of finding her.

Gradually, his thoughts turned to the world beyond this room, this moment, this woman.

Either he or she would have to hand off the Koronov case to another attorney. He was loathe to lose the excuse to see Dani at work and continuing sparring with her, though. Talking with her, even arguing with her, was the highlight of his day, and he eagerly anticipated each of their encounters.

It would be easier for her to hand off her client to some other defense lawyer at WMP. The case could continue to move forward from where it was right now.

But if she wasn’t inclined to hand off her prickly client, he would ask his boss to reassign the prosecution to another ADA. It would suck for Dani to have to start over from scratch with the case, and it would mean weeks or months more in jail for Alex while he awaited a whole new investigation by the D.A.’s office.

Maybe the Koronov kid would get tired of screwing around with the legal system and take a plea deal, though…

Cam dozed off while mentally drafting the in-brief document he would have to write for the next attorney who took over Alex’s prosecution.

He woke sometime later as Dani carefully pushed off his chest and tried to roll off his chest to his side. He tightened his arm immediately, holding her right where she was as he came fully awake.

“Are you uncomfortable?” he murmured.

“Not at all. You make a great pillow. But I thought maybe you’d be more comfortable with me not sprawled all over you.”

He smiled in the darkness. “Don’t go. I like being your pillow.”

She subsided on his chest, relaxing on him once more. She felt like warm chocolate melting over his body, and he relished the sensation. He could get used to sleeping like this every night.

He could feel from her breathing that she was still awake, and he murmured, “Stay the night?”

Another first for him. He’d never invited a woman to stay over, and he always politely turned down offers to spend the night in women’s beds.

Huh. He actually wanted Dani to stick around. He wanted to fall asleep with their legs tangled together and her bright red hair spread across his chest. He wanted to wake up the exact same way in the morning. He didn’t just want to smell her on his pillows in the morning. He wanted to smell her.

She sighed contentedly against his chest. He would take as a yes.

“Can you move?” Personally, he had no bones left. She’d burned his skeleton to ash somewhere in the volcanic eruption of their lovemaking.

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