Hidden Riches

yourself together, Conroy.”
    “Please.” She scrambled to the edge of the bed. “I mean it. I don’t expect favors because of a personal relationship. But if there are things you don’t want.” She looked back at the headboard, rolled her eyes. “God, I can’t stand it. Come here.”
    “Uh-oh.” A grin tugged at his mouth. “You’re going to try to seduce me so I’ll lower my price.”
    “Seduce, hell.” Her breath had already quickened when she unbuttoned her jacket, peeled it off to reveal a flimsy camisole in the same deep green. “I’m going to give you the ride of your life, buddy.”
    “Ah . . .” He wasn’t sure which emotion was uppermost. Shock or arousal. “That’s quite an offer, Conroy.”
    “It’s not an offer, pal, it’s a fact.” She rose to her knees to unzip her skirt, wiggled out of it. When she’d finished, she knelt on the bed wearing the camisole, a matching garter belt, sheer black hose and spiked heels. “If I don’t have you on this bed, right now, I’ll die.”
    “I don’t want to be responsible for that.” God, his knees were weak. “Conroy, I’m covered with sweat.”
    She smiled. “I know.” She made a grab, caught him by the waistband of his shorts. He didn’t put up much of a fight. “You’re about to get a lot sweatier.”
    She tugged. Jed let himself be taken down. When she rolled over on top of him, he caught at her hands. “Be gentle with me.”
    She laughed. “Not a chance.”
    She crushed her mouth to his, nipping his lips apart and plunging in a kiss that erased every rational thought from his mind. Even as he released her hands to hold her, she was pressing down on him, mercilessly rubbing heat to heat.
    He pulled in air that did nothing more than clog thickly in his chest. “Dora, let me—”
    “Not this time.” Fisting her hands in his hair, she ravished his mouth.
    She was rough, relentless, reckless, tormenting him to within an inch of sanity until he didn’t know whether tocurse her, or to beg. Sensation after staggering sensation whipped through him leaving his system churning and edgy and desperate for more. His hands streaked under her camisole and he tortured himself with the firm, ripe swell of her breasts.
    She arched back at his touch. A low, feline sound of approval purred in her throat as she stripped the material over her head. With her head thrown back, she covered his hands with hers, riding them down over her torso, over her flat belly. Her fingers tightened on his when he drove her over the first, shuddering peak. But when he tried to roll her over, she locked her legs tight around him, laughing huskily at his oath.
    She slid down, dug her teeth into his shoulder. He tasted of salt and sweat and hot-blooded male. The combination whirled in her head like a heady wind. He was strong. The muscles under her urgent hands were like rippled iron. But she could draw a breathless, vulnerable moan from him with the dance of her fingers. She could feel his heart thundering under her lips.
    He clutched at the smooth flesh over the top of her stockings, too frantic now to think of bruises. Now, at last now, she let him lift her. His vision grayed when she lowered herself onto him, taking steel deep, deep into velvet. Dazed, he watched her body bow back, her eyes closed, her hands sliding up her own sweat-slicked body in an uninhibited caress as she tightened urgently around him.
    Then she began to move, slowly at first, steeped in her own pleasure, absorbing shock after delirious shock. Then faster, still faster, the muscles in her thighs taut as wire, her hips rocking like pistons. Each time her body stiffened, the force of it ripped through him like a flame-tipped arrow.
    He reared up, his mouth seeking her breast, her shoulder, her lips. Crazed, he dragged her head back by the hair, ravaging her throat while he made hoarse promises neither of them understood. All he understood was at that momenthe would have died for her. He certainly would have killed for her.
    The climax pummeled him, a violent and welcome fist that stole his breath and left him staggered. Jed banded his arms around her, pressed his face between her breasts and let it shatter him.
    “Dora.” He turned her head so that his lips could cruise gently over her skin. And again. “Dora.” He held her close until her body had ceased to shudder. When he leaned back, his eyes narrowed. Lifting a finger to her cheek, he caught a tear on the tip. “What’s