"And-what do you think your job is?" she asked with wary amus.e.m.e.nt.

"I told you," Michael said, trying not to sound as solemn as he felt, "my job is to watch over you. And part of that job right now is to help you get over Logan.

It's time to get even with him for cheating on you and betraying your trust.

You're not going to be able to feel like yourself until you get some of your pride back."

"And how would I get even?"

He looked at her with a slow, roguish grin. "An eye for an eye-" he said.

"He cheated on you, so you have to cheat on him now-on his memory."

Her eyes were swimming with mirth and she bit her lip to stop from laughing, but there was unmistakable affection in her voice. "Have you ever considered an insanity plea, when the police ha.s.sle you?" she asked, "because I really think we could get you off with-"

" 'We'?" he repeated, interrupting her. "Notice how naturally you team up with me. You wouldn't fight for yourself, but when that newspaper said something evil about me, you came out swinging at everybody involved." He chuckled and shook his head. "We'd have made a h.e.l.l of a team fourteen years ago."

With an effort, he put that poignant thought aside and braced himself for a brief skirmish. "But that was then, and this is now, and here I am-ready to do my job and help you get even with Logan tonight. Volunteering, in fact. Come to bed with me."

It hit Leigh for the first time that despite his teasing att.i.tude, he was serious.

Very, very serious. "No! Absolutely not! That's insane. It would change everything. We wouldn't be the same. I love the way we are. And besides that, it wouldn't be right, it wouldn't be fair."

"To whom?"

"To you! How could you think I would ever... use... you like that? I wouldn't dream of it! "

He chuckled. "I want to be used."

He was laughing, but he wasn't merely serious, he was resolute! She could hear it in his voice. The mere thought of going to bed with him, of exposing herself emotionally as well as physically, made her cringe with panic. She would lose him, along with what little self-respect she had left. "Please," she said achingly, "please don't do this to me. Let things stay the way they are. I don't want to... to do that. Not with anyone."

She pulled back enough to put her gla.s.s down, but his hands tightened and he stood up when she tried to back out of his reach.

"You're going to have to tell me why..." Rage at Logan Manning poured through Michael's veins like acid, but he kept his voice neutral. "... or I'm not going to take no for an answer."

Her voice broke. "d.a.m.n you, why are you doing this to me!" She leaned her forehead against his chest, her eyes flooding with tears of humiliation and despair. "Can't you leave me a little pride?"

He stared over her head blindly, his hands tightening protectively on her back while he purposely probed at her wounds. "I want you to tell me why you won't go to bed with me. I want you to tell me the truth."

"Fine!" she cried. "Here's your truth! The whole world knows 'the truth.' My husband didn't want me. I don't know what you think you'd get out of going to bed with me, but it wasn't enough for him, and it won't be enough for you. I loved him," she choked brokenly, "and he didn't even care enough about me to keep his hands off my friends, or my colleagues. Let go of me, I want to go home!" She struggled harder, and when his arms tightened even more, imprisoning her against his chest, she collapsed against him sobbing. "The names of his lovers are in all the newspapers..."

"I know," he whispered. Holding her tighter, he rested his cheek against the top of her head, swallowing against the aching lump of emotion in his throat, his hands drifting over her sides and back while her slim shoulders shook with anguished weeping. He remembered the first time he saw those laughing green eyes looking up at him, framed by a curtain of auburn hair, and he squeezed his own eyes closed.

He waited until her crying finally started to subside; then he firmly shook off his own sorrow and resolved to make her laugh. "I don't blame you for crying. I mean, where will you ever find another man with so much integrity, loyalty, and ego?" With a joking sigh, he added, "You're going to have to tramp through a lot of manure-filled pastures before you can find a pile as big as the one you had."

Her body stiffened as if a jolt of electricity had shot through her, and after a moment of tense stillness, her shoulders began to shake again, only harder than before. Grinning, Michael lifted his head. He knew she was laughing even before she dragged her face away from his shirt and lifted her glorious eyes to his.

Leigh wiped her eyes with her fingertips and nodded. "You're right." She felt so lighthearted that it was almost a giddy experience.

He brushed his knuckles against her soft cheek, wiping a tear she'd missed. "I gave Logan my girl," he said with disgust, "and look what he did to her." He lifted his brows and added meaningfully, "I need to get even with him, too."

With an inner smile of surrender, Leigh realized that he was still adamantly determined to take her into that bedroom, and she also realized she wanted to go there with him. Very much. The suddenness of that yearning surprised her, but not as much as her wayward wish that Michael wouldn't make a joke out of it.

On the other hand, she knew he cared about her, and that was what mattered.

She decided to go along with it.

The instant Michael saw her eyes sparkle, he knew he'd won, and his entire body tensed with the urge to sweep her up into his arms, but he was afraid to make a single move until he knew where she was going to lead him. "You know," she pointed out to him very gently, as if trying to spare his feelings. "I was actually never your girl. I was Logan's girl."

He grinned because she was flirting with him, and he folded his arms across his chest. "I could have taken you away from him like that-" He snapped his fingers.

"You sound awfully sure of yourself."

He lifted his brows and arrogantly declared, "I am."

"And how would you have done that?"

His deep voice abruptly became husky, and Leigh felt it like a sensual caress.

"I would have made love to you, exactly like I'm going to do tonight, and then you could have compared the two of us."

Unprepared for any mention of a comparison, Leigh felt her bravado crack for a split second, and reality nudged through the opening. Logan had been a wonderful lover-when he'd bothered to be her lover.

To her horror, Michael not only guessed what she'd been thinking, he decided to discuss it. Grinning, he studied her expression. "He was that good?"

She tried to make him drop the subject by giving him a quelling look and turning her head.

That didn't work. He leaned far to the side, studying the pink, embarra.s.sed tint climbing up her cheeks. " Really?" he teased. "He was actually as good as that?"

"I cannot believe this conversation," she warned darkly.

Neither could Michael, but it had gotten her where he wanted her, so he stood up and put his arm around her, heading her firmly toward the bedroom. "Let the comparisons begin," he told her.

CHAPTER 50.

In the bedroom, she moved away from him as soon as he dropped his arm from her waist, and she walked around to the far side of his bed. Turning her back to him, she unclipped an earring and put it on the nightstand.

Despite her smiling audacity a few minutes ago, she was evidently self-conscious about what they were doing, Michael realized, so he permitted her the illusion of privacy. However, since she hadn't asked him not to watch, he stationed himself at the foot of the bed-where he could stop her if she lost her nerve and tried to bolt-and then he indulged himself with the exquisite pleasure of watching the woman he loved getting ready to go to bed with him.

She took off her other earring, placing it on the nightstand; then she reached for her necklace as he unb.u.t.toned his shirt.

She unfastened her bracelet and put it on the nightstand; he unfastened the b.u.t.tons on his shirt cuffs.

She reached for her zipper; he reached for his belt.

She hesitated, her hands behind her back, near her zipper, he braced for a problem, but kept his tone friendly, offhand. "Need any help over there?"

"No."

She slid the zipper down; he unbuckled his belt.

Her dress went up over her head; his pulse rate climbed with it.

She reached for her bra; he slid down his zipper.

Black lace straps skimmed down her arms; his gaze skimmed down her back, boldly touching. Caressing. She sensed it and shivered. Michael saw it and smiled.

Sheer black panty hose were the last barrier between them, her last safe refuge. He finished undressing, holding his breath when she hesitated with her hands in the band at her waist-unable to breathe when she began to roll them down.

She sat down on the bed to finish, and one long, shapely leg emerged, glowing and bare. He was almost there. One more leg, and she was his. No more need to pretend to her that lovemaking was merely his idea of a casual, but enjoyable, diversion for them.

Bemused, Leigh slowly finished removing her panty hose and stood up to put them on a chair near the bed with her dress. She couldn't believe she was going to let this happen-couldn't believe the tug and pull Michael Valente had always exerted on her. He had treated this like a joke, and she'd actually gone along with it, but it didn't seem very funny anymore. It seemed lonely... impersonal.

She dropped her panty hose on the chair, then gasped as his hands grasped her arms and spun her around, pulling her almost roughly against his chest. Her mouth opened in shock; his mouth seized hers in a possessive, wildly erotic kiss that was stunningly... personal.

She landed forcefully on her back on the bed, and he followed her down. He stretched her arms high overhead, laced his fingers tightly through hers, and held them there while he lowered his head, his mouth plundering hers, his tongue tormenting her. He made her melt; she made him hot.

He lifted his head and gazed into her eyes. His were heavy-lidded with desire; hers were wide with wonder. He bent his head again, and Leigh braced for another turbulent kiss like the last ones, but his mouth brushed hers softly.

Unable to touch him, with her hands imprisoned in his, she followed his lead, rubbing her lips over his, and then asking for more. He gave, she took. She offered, he sampled. And then his mouth opened over hers, fiercely insistent and hungry again, his tongue caressing hers, his lips rough and tender. He made her soft and pliant; she made him... definitely not.

He lifted his mouth from hers and brushed it over her cheek, and trailed down farther, and touched it to one breast, then the other. He nuzzled, she gasped. He made them ache, and ache much more, until she whimpered. He made her desperate; she made him yearn.

He stopped, and tenderly laid his cheek against her thundering heart, while he slowly released their hands, and opened them. With his palms flattened and fingers splayed, he brushed his thumbs against her palms in an exploring touch she found strangely stirring; then he slid his fingers slowly down her wrists and forearms and back up again, then down lower in a shifting caress. Mesmerized, Leigh learned how it felt to be wanted in total.

She lifted her arms and kneaded his thick shoulders while his head moved lower. He brushed his lips on her waist, then her navel. It tickled, she giggled.

Without warning, he moved even lower. She moaned in shock. And then pleasure.

She dug her nails into his back and shoved her fingers into his hair.

Desperate, she pulled his mouth back up to hers and twisted him onto his back and kissed him until she was breathless.

She forgot all Logan had taught her and traded techniques for blazing desire.

She crushed her mouth to Michael's lips and flattened her hands on his, following the corded muscles of his arms as he had done with hers. His arms were hard steel and rope, she learned with trembling delight, his mouth was hot velvet. She kissed his eyes, and made him smile. She nuzzled his chest and went lower. She made him gasp. He made her stop.

He rolled her onto her back, holding her mouth locked fiercely to his, and parted her thighs with his legs. With his hips pinning hers, and his rigid body poised to enter her... he stopped.

Leigh waited, breathing fast, her body feverish. She opened her eyes and looked into his. They were blazing. She lifted her hands and with a sense of awe, she touched his face, her fingertips skimming the hard planes of his jaw and cheeks. He entered her an inch. She yearned and lifted her hips. He bent his head and kissed her lips-and drove into her with a sudden force that made her body arch like a bow.

Her body was his violin; he played her steadily until her moans became his song. He changed her melody, the timing of her rhythm. She twisted and clung tightly, then she played her wild crescendo. And timed it perfectly with his.

Shattered, Leigh lay in his arms and buried her face against his chest. Her mind made no comparisons, but her heart already knew the answer: Logan could make her moan. But Michael made her weep.

He spoke, his deep voice like velvet, blanketing her naked body. Quietly and solemnly, he said, "I'm in love with you."

Painfully poignant words. Too soon to hear them from another man; too soon to say them again herself. He wanted her to believe him, she knew, and then he wanted her to say them back. She felt the words, she couldn't say them. She gave him half of what he wanted instead. "I know," she whispered. And in the awful waiting silence that followed her woefully inadequate answer, she leaned up and looked at him with her heart in her eyes.

Michael saw the wonder and tenderness in them. He loved those eyes; he understood. They were telling him everything he wanted her to say-asking him to wait. Just a little while. And then those eyes lowered to his mouth and her lips touched his-brushing softly, slowly, back and forth. She was his.

His hands slid up her back to hold her lips to his. He was hers.

STANDING at the windows in the circle of Michael's arms, Leigh watched dawn lighten the sky over Central Park. Less than twelve hours ago, he had taken her hand and held it for the first time. Since then he had taken her to bed, made love to her twice, and stolen her heart. She leaned back against his solid length, and his hand slid over her breast in a possessive caress. It seemed wrong, foolish, to deny him the truth. "I love you," she said softly.

His arms tightened fiercely around her in response; then his left arm angled downward across her right hip, drawing her closer, as if he wanted to forge their bodies into one being. "I know you do," he whispered against her ear.

Leigh sighed contentedly; everything was resolved at last, serene. He allowed her a full minute to luxuriate in that thought before he said tenderly, and implacably, "Marry me."

Leigh could not possibly agree to that. In one half of one day, she simply would not go from holding hands to making a permanent commitment. He couldn't possibly expect such a thing, and not even Michael Valente could get her to do it. On the other hand, she didn't want to live without him, so she offered a compromise. "I think living together might be a good idea."

"Before or after we're married?"

"Before."

"After," he insisted.

Leigh looked over her shoulder at him in disbelief. "Are you saying we can't be together if we aren't married?"

He looked down at her, grinning. "Do you want to be together?"

She nodded emphatically.

"Do you want to be together very, very much?"

"Yes," she said unhesitatingly, "I do."

"Then those last two words are the ones you'll have to say."

Leigh dropped her head forward and hung it in laughing defeat.

"A nod isn't good enough," he said. "Was that supposed to be a yes?"

Leigh laughed harder and obstinately nodded.

"I can accept two nods," he said agreeably. "In business, two nods are equal to a handshake, and a handshake is contractually binding. Do you want to pick a date, or shall I?"

"I will," Leigh promised.

"That's fine," he said, smiling against her cheek. "What date have you picked?"