Adrian groaned into her mouth.

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“No?” Rooke murmured, stilling her motion.

Adrian covered Rooke’s hand and pressed Rooke’s fingers closed around her breast. She would come if Rooke kept stimulating her nipples. She’d never done that, never even been close, but she was seconds from it now. “You can’t know what you’re doing to me.”

“Does it feel good?” Rooke kissed the underside of Adrian’s jaw, then down her neck. She buried her face in the hollow of Adrian’s throat and licked her soft skin, tasting salt and the sweet mist of arousal.

“Wonderful.” Adrian moaned when Rooke returned to her mouth, her kisses hot and bruising. Rooke didn’t seem curious now. She was possessive and demanding, and Adrian thrilled to the power of Rooke’s desire. She raked her nails over Rooke’s shoulders, and Rooke pushed her back until she was lying with Rooke’s hard thigh locked between her legs. Rooke tugged at her lip with teeth and squeezed her nipple again and again.

“Rooke,” Adrian gasped, her sex clenching.

“Taste so good,” Rooke muttered, rocking her pelvis into Adrian’s with short, hard thrusts.

Every thrust forced Adrian’s swollen clitoris against the hard bone beneath. She was close. Too close now. Twisting her head away from Rooke’s, she grabbed Rooke’s hips and pushed her back.

“Baby, stop, you’re going to make me come.”

“I’m sorry.” Rooke shuddered, her mouth pressed to Adrian’s ear.

“I couldn’t help myself.”

“I know, baby, God, I know.” Adrian shook beneath Rooke’s hot, heavy weight, squeezing her eyes tightly shut and battling back the first faint ripples of release. “Not your fault. I just can’t…it’s me, not you. I just need to go slower.”

Rooke shoved herself up on shaking arms, her thighs still intertwined with Adrian’s. Adrian was so beautiful, her face and neck painted a dusky rose with desire. She wanted to keep kissing her, tasting her, touching her, but she’d wait. She’d waited so many times, empty and aching. Now she could wait, even with the hard fist of need pounding in her belly. The ache was all the sweeter because Adrian was everywhere inside her.

“I only meant to kiss you,” Rooke whispered.

Adrian nodded weakly and stroked Rooke’s face. Rooke’s skin was damp with sweat, her intense dark eyes heavy-lidded and savagely

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seductive. Some primal, primitive place deep inside her longed to surrender to that fierce demand, and the part of her that wasn’t terrified at the thought thrilled to the passion pounding through her blood. “Well, you did a mighty fine job of it.”

Rooke grinned crookedly. “Beginner’s luck.”

“Beginner’s…” Adrian stared as Rooke averted her gaze, almost as if she were embarrassed. That couldn’t be. “You can’t mean…” Shocked, Adrian raised herself up on her elbows and Rooke automatically shifted back, her knees on either side of Adrian’s hips, their bodies no longer in intimate contact. “Are you telling me that’s the first time you’ve kissed a woman?”

“Anyone.” Rooke grimaced. “You don’t think I’ve been kissing Dominic, do you?”

“I thought you had a girlfriend?” Adrian blushed, embarrassed now herself. She hadn’t given a single thought to the woman Rooke was involved with. What had she been thinking? That was the problem, she hadn’t been thinking like herself for days. She felt as if someone else had taken over her mind as well as her body, and her good judgment and restraint had gone right out the window.

“It’s not like that with her,” Rooke said. Not like it is with you.

Adrian wriggled out from under Rooke and sat up in the corner of the couch again, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them. She had to keep some space between herself and Rooke while she was still so flammable. She was absolutely certain that the slightest touch from Rooke anywhere on her body would send her into orbit again. And Rooke deserved a lot more from her than a twitch reflex she couldn’t control—an orgasm that would be about as intimate as a nervous tic. Especially if what she was coming to understand was true—that Rooke was completely inexperienced. As it was, Rooke looked worried and a little confused. Who could blame her? Two minutes ago she’d been letting Rooke crawl all over her, and God knew her body had been sending “take me” signals loud and clear. Hell, she’d practically been telegraphing fuck me all afternoon, and she needed Rooke to know her pulling away wasn’t Rooke’s fault.

“Okay,” Adrian said as she let out a long slow breath, forcing her heartbeat to slow down. “For the record, you’re a phenomenal kisser.”

She shook her head, injecting as much levity as she could manage into

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her voice while a good part of her nervous system was still screaming at her to let Rooke finish what she’d started. She still wanted to come so badly she was nauseous. “And if this is your first time, I can only imagine what you’ll be like with a little more practice. You’ll need a warning sign.”

“I got pretty excited,” Rooke admitted. “I can go slower.”

“Oh God, baby,” Adrian groaned. “I’m the one who needs to slow down. I just…” She suddenly thought of Melinda and the mindless lust Melinda inspired in her, completely against her will. She thought of the women she’d slept with to assuage her loneliness and despair. She tried to remember the last time she’d truly given herself to a woman physically, and she couldn’t. She couldn’t remember a single time when she’d ever wanted a woman to take her, to possess her, with the fevered craving that still ate at her core. She didn’t want to be that vulnerable, that needy, especially not when her body didn’t seem to be her own. “I just need to take things a little bit slower.”

“I understand.” Rooke eased back until their bodies were no longer touching at all.

“I’m sorry.”

Rooke shook her head. “I wish you wouldn’t say that. Why would you be sorry about something you need?”

Tears flooded Adrian’s eyes and she had to bite her lip to hold them back. “I…” Her voice shook and tears spilled over. She brushed at them impatiently, her hand shaking. “I feel like I’m disappointing you.

Like I’m always disappointing people.” She scrubbed her face with her palms, disgusted with the whine she heard in her voice. “God, just ignore me. My hormones or something are completely haywire.”

“You don’t disappoint me,” Rooke said incredulously. “I didn’t want anything when I started kissing you except to be close to you.

Then it was so good, and I kind of got lost in you.”

“I love the way you kiss me,” Adrian whispered.

“That’s good then, right?”

“That’s good.” Adrian held out her hand and Rooke took it. At the touch of Rooke’s warm, strong fingers, some of Adrian’s turmoil receded, and she felt unexpectedly peaceful. “Thank you.”

“Do you still want me to stay with you in New York?”

“Of course,” Adrian said quickly, and then realized with a sinking

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sensation that Rooke might not be all that anxious to spend time with her after what had just happened. After all, she was sending the worst kind of mixed signals. “Would you rather not?”

“I was just thinking that maybe you’d be more comfortable if I stayed in a hotel or with Melinda.”

“No, I wouldn’t be.” Adrian tried not to shout that if Rooke stayed with Melinda she would very likely lose her mind. “I have two bedrooms. I think we’ll be safe.”

“Okay.”

“You know,” Adrian said, “you were supposed to be resting this evening, not getting a physical workout on top of dealing with my issues. How do you feel?”

Rooke laughed. “You think I’d rather be taking a nap than what we just did?”

“So maybe that was a dumb question.” Adrian smiled, her heart feeling lighter just seeing the way Rooke’s gaze played over her face, her eyes glinting as if she were seeing something that pleased her. “You really should be in bed, though.”

“I guess there’s no question about you sharing it with me.”

“Oh, no question at all. I’ll be right out here on the sofa.”

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ChapTER TwEnTy-ThREE

Once in the bedroom, Rooke stripped down to her T-shirt and briefs and stretched out on top of her bed. She closed her eyes, but sleep was nowhere on the horizon. She hadn’t wanted to leave Adrian, fearing Adrian would be gone when she woke up. She’d missed Adrian all week, and then when she was finally so close, she couldn’t help but kiss her. And keep kissing her. She kept hearing Adrian’s broken whisper, Baby, stop, you’re going to make me come. She had never heard anything as amazing as those words. She got hard and wet and weak just remembering. Adrian had been excited too, but she’d said she needed to slow down. Rooke would, just as soon as she found the brakes. She sure hadn’t had any a few minutes ago. All she’d had was a craving so deep it felt bottomless and a mind-boggling sense of wonder at how magnificent Adrian tasted, how she smelled, how she moved, how her hands traveled urgently over Rooke’s body. She was pretty sure if she stayed in the living room with Adrian right now, she’d touch her again. And it wasn’t the right time—not for Adrian and maybe not for her. Adrian wasn’t Emma, and she already wanted more than she’d ever let herself want before. She’d learned not to want intimate connections—first when her mother left, before she could even remember her, then her father, then all the friends she might have had—had she been different. She kept apart, while secretly believing one day love would find her. So she turned on her side and soothed her rampaging senses by memorizing every scent, every indrawn breath, every whimper of pleasure and tremble of desire. Just in case this time was the only time.

Rooke opened her eyes to silence. She found a pair of sweatpants

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draped over a chair by her bed and pulled them on. Holding her breath, she crossed quickly and quietly to the bedroom doorway. The lamp by the sofa was on and Adrian sat propped up in one corner, the notepad open on her knees, frowning as she wrote something. She looked rumpled and tired and absolutely gorgeous. A golden tendril of hair teased around the corner of her mouth and Rooke thought about skating her tongue over Adrian’s, of dipping into the furnace of her mouth and coming away stripped to the bone. Her hands tingled at the remembered touch of smooth skin and taut nipples, and her stomach tensed with the memory of Adrian’s thighs clasping hers. Adrian’s body was steel beneath satin and her strength called to Rooke.

Rooke smelled pizza and was glad for the diversion. Her imaginings were stirring her up fast and hard. “I hope you didn’t wait for me to eat.”

Adrian’s heart gave a little jump at the sound of Rooke’s voice, and when she swiveled on the couch and got a look at her, her stomach took a nosedive. Rooke leaned leisurely in the doorway, one arm stretched out along the frame. Her gray sweatpants hung low on her hips, exposing the curving arches of her hipbones and a palm’s breadth of tight skin and etched abdominal muscles beneath the lower edge of her T-shirt. Adrian had a second to imagine the similar sharply carved muscles in her chest before she remembered the demanding thrust of those lean hips between her thighs. And then the three hours she’d had to settle her body and regain some semblance of control over her runaway libido might just as well have never passed. She was immediately, excruciatingly aroused. Her response not only annoyed and embarrassed her, it frightened her more than a little.

All her life she’d shielded herself from the unwanted sensations and emotions that assaulted her at the slightest touch. Sometimes those feelings were just errant glimpses of other people’s lives, brushed off on her in passing, accidental intimacies neither sought nor embraced.

Sometimes the emotions she blocked out were her own—the pain of being the disappointing daughter, the horror of human tragedies she’d witnessed, the loneliness of guarding the only thing she could call her own. Her independence. Now and then people slipped through those barriers—Jude had, with her easy friendship and uncanny perceptiveness. Adrian loved Jude the way she had never been able to love her own sister, but she’d never once felt a spark of attraction.

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She’d convinced herself that casual relationships with women were all she needed or had time for, and hadn’t bothered to ask herself why even her fleeting encounters had become more and more unusual in the last few years. Now, in the space of a few weeks, two women had stepped inside her most defended circle and unleashed chaos in her mind and body.