Family Man

satisfaction to know that she had experienced her first climax in his arms.
    He had not needed Justine's comments on the subject to know that Katy's experience with sex had been extremely limited. He had guessed the truth of that the first time he touched her that night in his cottage. Her startled surprise tonight when she had shuddered in his arms had confirmed it.
    Luke savored the knowledge that he was the man who was going to spend the next six months introducing Katy to her own passions. His body began to harden again at the thought.
    Katy was glaring at him, but the expression did not affect the sexy picture she made. Her hair was in soft, tangled disarray, and the sheet she held so tightly to her breasts was barely covering the most interesting points.
    “Luke, this is utterly outrageous. You can't mean it. People don't do things like that. Not for me, at any rate.”
    “Like what?” Luke reached and twisted his fingers lightly in her hair. He loved the texture of it. It was like silk.
    “They don't take on monumental tasks like saving Gilchrist, Inc. simply to get a chance to have a six-month affair with a woman they barely know,” Katy sputtered.
    Luke smiled. “But that's exactly what I did.”
    “I don't believe it,” she stated again. “I'm not the sort of female who inspires that sort of reaction in a man. Especially a man like you.”
    “You don't know your own power, lady.”
    Her eyes narrowed with speculation. “What if I hadn't let you seduce me so easily? What if I had managed to resist you for the entire six months? What would you have done?”
    “Suffered mightily.” Luke used his grip on her hair to tug her down across his chest. She felt warm and soft against his hardness. The scent of her created a new wave of gathering excitement in him.
    She lay gazing up at him, wide-eyed. “Is this whole thing just a source of amusement for you? A challenge you accepted on a whim?”
    His hand tightened briefly in her hair. He moved, rolling her onto her back. Then he sprawled on top of her. “Believe me, I am not amused by the problems of Gilchrist, Inc. Nor am I amused by Justine and the others. I wouldn't have gotten involved with them after successfully avoiding them for all these years just because I felt I had to respond to a challenge.”
    “Then why?”
    “I told you. I wanted you.” He kissed her slowly and deeply. When he lifted his head he was fully aroused. “And I still do.”
    She touched her tongue to her lower lip. “For the next six months?”
    “Yes.”
    “That's not very long,” she whispered.
    “It is for me.” He did not know how to explain to her that after three years of an eternal present, six months sounded like forever. It was as far into the future as he could see.
    But he knew how to tell her of his desire for her.
    Luke stroked Katy from breast to thigh, reveling in her firm curves and smooth, satiny skin. He edged between her legs and moved his hand down over her soft stomach to find the tightly curled hair that concealed her humid secrets.
    “Luke?”
    “Hush, love,” he muttered against her breast. “I don't want to talk about the future. I want to concentrate on the present.”

    A long time later Katy stirred and turned on her side. She was not accustomed to sharing a bed with another human being. She noticed that Luke took up a great deal of it.
    She resettled herself and felt his arm close warmly around her again. It was quite pleasant to sleep with Luke. Rather comforting, in fact.
    She did not really believe he had taken over Gilchrist, Inc. on account of her, but she would worry about that later. Tonight she was too pleasantly exhausted to lie awake fretting about it. She yawned and started to drift back down into sleep.
    “Katy?”
    “Hmm?”
    “What did Darren want from you?”
    She was too sleepy to pay much attention to the question. She answered automatically, without stopping to think. “A loan.”
    “How much?”
    Katy blinked, roused back to partial wakefulness by the sharpness of the question. Sensing trouble, she tried to stall. Unfortunately, her brain was still clogged with sleep. “Well, uh, a certain amount.”
    “ How much ?”
    “A hundred and fifty thousand,” she heard herself say.
    “A hundred and fifty thousand dollars?” Luke sat up abruptly. “He wanted you to loan him a hundred and fifty grand? Christ, I'll kill that son of a bitch.”
    Katy belatedly realized she had unleashed a whirl-wind when she was