She clamped her lips shut to hold back the words. That worked for an entire twenty seconds before the truth came spilling out. “I liked it.”

He stared blankly. “Liked what?”

“Making love to you.”

His lips twitched and then he grinned. “That’s good. I liked making love to you, too.”

“No, you don’t understand.” She attempted to tear free of his hold, but he wouldn’t let her. Why in the world had she elected to have this conversation with his stark nakedness hanging out all over the place? It made rational thought beyond impossible. “I liked making love to you. A lot.”

“I’m still right there with you.”

She groaned in frustration. “Do I really have to spell it out for you?”

“Apparently you do.”

“I liked making love with you. I loved making love with you. I want to do it again, as often as possible.”

He reared back. “Well, hell, woman. No wonder you want to end our engagement. Who would want to make love as often as possible?”

“Stop it, Rafe.” To her horror, she could feel the rush of tears. “You’re supposed to be the logical one. You’re supposed to have life all figured out. Hasn’t it occurred to you that if we keep doing—” she shot a look of intense longing over her shoulder toward the bed “—what we’ve been doing, it might be sort of tough to stop?”

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“Who said anything about stopping?”

Didn’t he get it? “Don’t you get it? That’s generally what happens when engagements end. The two unengaged people stop making love.” She pouted, something she hadn’t done since she was all of three. “And I don’t want to stop. So what happens when it’s time to stop and we don’t want to?”

“What usually happens is that those feelings ease up or wear off.” He said it so gently that it made the pain all the worse. “It’s just because you’ve never gotten to that stage of a relationship before. But trust me, I have it on good authority that excellent sex and mounds of bling aren’t enough to make a woman want to stick around once she walks out the bedroom door.”

That didn’t make a bit of sense. “Now I don’t understand.” She waved her hand in a dismissive gesture when he started to explain again. “I get that you think the physical end of things will gradually grow ho-hum.”

“I didn’t say ho-hum,” he retorted, stung.

“But what I don’t get is what that has to do with the rest of it. What’s bling got to do with sex, and what changes between us once we leave the bedroom? Is there a manual somewhere that explains these things? Because I have to tell you, I’m clueless.”

He gave a short, hard laugh. “Are you serious? You don’t know what bling has to do with sex?”

She shot him a knife-sharp look. “No. And if you do, then you’ve been hanging with the wrong sort of women.”

He ran a hand along the nape of his neck. “I have to admit you’ve got me there.”

“Look, I don’t give a damn about bling. If the sex gets ho-hum, bling sure as hell isn’t going to fix the problem, now, is it?” She planted her hands on her hips, only to make a frantic grab for the sheet when it started a southward migration. “What I need you to explain is what’s going to happen after we leave the bedroom that will make our relationship turn sour?”

“I believe it has something to do with my being a loner,” he explained a shade too calmly. “Too independent. Not domesticated. Emotionally distant. Intimidating.”

The rapid-fire litany worried her. It sounded as if he was quoting someone, and she could take a wild stab as to the identity of that someone. “Is that what Leigh told you?” Larkin asked, outraged.

“She wasn’t the only one.” He scrubbed at his face, the rasp of his beard as abrasive as the conversation. “How the hell did we get on this subject anyway?”

“Let me get this straight…. You think that once I’ve gotten bored with having sex with you, I’ll actually want to leave you?”

“Yes.” Humor turned his eyes a brilliant shade of jade. “Though I’ll do my best not to bore you while we’re in bed.”




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