Her Man Friday (31 page)

He smiled back. "Oh, all right. As long as we can take up where we left off."

She nodded, not sure she trusted her voice.

When he lifted his arms above his head, she jerked the sweater up and over, and then it, too, joined the pile of clothes on the floor. Seeing their garments mingled that way made Lily feel warm inside, and she easily moved her hands to the zipper of his trousers.

"Take your shoes off," she said.

But she didn't release his zipper as he toed off each of his loafers and kicked them aside. That done, however, she pushed the zipper down, down, down, until a flash of bright red silk greeted her. She chuckled at the realization that all this time, beneath all his frumpy tweed and corduroy, there lurked skimpy little red silk briefs.

"Why, Mr. Freiberger," she said, "I didn't know you had it in you."

His salacious grin faltered a bit at her teasing comment, but he regrouped easily. "Yes, well, Miss Rigby, I'd rather have it in—"

She halted him with a chuckle and a kiss, pushing herself up on tiptoe, claiming his mouth in the most intimate way she knew how, tasting him as deeply as she could. He responded in kind, wrestling her for possession, pushing her body against his. To defend herself, she dipped her hand inside his trousers, beneath the waistband of his briefs, and cupped him lovingly in her hand.

He uttered a feral sound in response, then moved one of his hands to join hers, covering the back of her hand entirely with his palm. Slowly, he urged her hand lower, to the base of his stiff shaft, then moved both upward to the head again. Lily felt the first traces of his desire dampen her palm, and their next trip down his length was slick and warm. And this time, instead of encouraging her to move her hand back up, he pushed her fingers lower still, until she filled her hand with the rest of him and curled her fingers lightly closed.

"Oh," he said, pulling his mouth away from hers. "Oh, Lily."

He let her have her way with him for another moment, and she enjoyed another leisurely, thorough, damp exploration of him. Then with a sudden, quick gesture, he moved himself away. With one swift action, he shed his trousers and socks, then hauled her up and into his arms and carried her toward his bed. With one hand, he jerked down the spread and blanket and sheets, then he lay her on her back in the middle and followed her down. Before she could say a word—not that she necessarily wanted to say anything at all—he covered her mouth with his in a heart-stopping kiss. She circled her arms around his neck and to pull him closer, and he nestled his big body alongside hers.

He nestled one of his legs between both of hers as he kissed her, pressing his chest against her breasts. His soft hair tickled her sensitive breasts, and the heat of his entire body seemed to surround her. Instinctively, Lily arched her body against him, an action that pushed her against his leg. She gasped at the contact, then repeated it, again and again, until his leg was damp with her desire.

With one final kiss, he turned her onto her side, facing away from him, and spooned himself against her. She started to object, but he began kissing her along her shoulder and covered her breast with one big hand. Then she felt the hard length of him nestling into the cleft in her fanny, and she couldn't quite form the words to say anything at all. He caught her nipple in the V between his index and middle fingers, rolling the taut little pebble as he squeezed her tender flesh hard. His other hand had flattened against her belly, but now crept lower, down to the dewy curls between her legs.

She caught her breath as he furrowed her, dragging his fingers through her damp, heated folds, penetrating her with one long finger over and over again. Lily moved a leg backward, hooking it over his calf, and a second finger joined the first, plowing deeper and more insistently than before. She reached behind herself, cupping her hand over his head again, and for a moment could only lie there as burst after burst of heat shot through her. Then, without warning, a white-hot explosion of sensation rocked her.

Before her orgasm could even begin to ebb, Leo turned her so that she lay on her back beneath him, then he knelt between her legs. In the next moment, he was sheathed in a condom and thrusting deep inside her, and the explosion that she had thought was ending doubled in its intensity.

Again and again he pumped inside her, and again and again she crested that wave only to ride it once more. Finally, when she thought she would die from the wanting, the craving, the needing, he lunged one last time against her, propelling himself deep,
deep
, inside her. As one, they cried out when he arched his back and emptied himself inside her. For one long moment, it was as if the two of them were suspended in space, unburdened by gravity or obligation or time. Then, slowly, Leo relaxed against her, withdrawing from her and rolling onto his back beside her.

All Lily could do was lie there motionless, with her eyes closed, wondering what had happened and why she suddenly felt as if she had no body, no mind, no soul. Then she remembered that she had just given all of them to Leo. Instead of alarming her, however, the knowledge of that comforted and gladdened her. Because she knew he had given freely of those things himself, to her, as well.

He turned his head and brushed a chaste kiss along her temple. "I'll be right back," he said before rising and making his way to a bathroom that adjoined his bedroom.

Lily wondered where he found the strength to move. She was overcome by a languid sense of peace and lethargy, and she never wanted to leave this place again. Never before had she made love to a man and felt so utterly full, so completely sated, so wonderfully right afterward. Yes, there were still things that she and Leo needed to work out, she thought vaguely, things she had to tell him and make him understand. But somehow, she was confident that he
would
understand. No two people could make love the way they just had and not be willing to make allowances for things they might not comprehend.

It was going to be okay, she thought. Whatever Leo was hiding from her, and whatever she was hiding from him, they would talk about it, and they would work through it. Whatever it took to make sense of things, whatever it took to forgive and move on, she was confident they would be able to manage it. They would both be honest with each other, and they would both understand. Of course they would.

Of course they would.

Leo propped himself up on one elbow to watch Lily as she slept beside him in his bed—
in his bed
, he marveled yet again—and couldn't help reaching out to touch her. With the index finger of one hand, he lightly traced her bare shoulder, drawing his fingertip along her collarbone, dipping into the elegant hollow at the base of her throat. She murmured something quiet and incoherent in her sleep, but didn't awaken. Reluctantly, he withdrew his hand, so that she would continue to sleep, so that he could continue to gaze upon her.

He would have thought that by now, he would have had enough of touching her, at least enough to get him through the night. They had made love twice, after all, the second time even more urgent than the first. But he simply could not resist reaching for her again, thumbing with feather-like lightness the fringe of dark bangs that brushed her forehead.

She lay on her side facing him, one hand loosely gripping his pillow, the other folded over her bare breasts. The sheet dipped low on her body, riding on the highest curve of her hip, and her skin shone like ivory in the pale light of the moon that filtered through the window beyond the bed. Her hair was a heavy black curtain of silk that spilled across her pillow and onto his, and, as if they couldn't quite help themselves, his fingers wandered into the dark tresses, sifting carelessly through them, threading lightly among them.

She was, without question, the most extraordinary woman he'd ever known. He still wasn't entirely sure why that was, but no woman had ever reached inside him and seized his heart the way Lily Rigby had. Certainly he'd met women as beautiful as she was—well, almost as beautiful—and he'd known women who were as much fun as she was—well, almost as much fun. He'd dated and made love to women who were intelligent, attractive, articulate and enjoyable. Yet none of them had come close to stirring up inside him the things that Lily Rigby had stirred up.

And she wasn't even honest.

He remembered all the things he'd learned from Eddie Dolan prior to her arrival, all the things that had made him want to turn around and run away from whatever it was that had sprung up between him and Lily. But whatever it was between them had grown much too large to be avoided. And really, in spite of everything, Leo had simply wanted her too much, for too long, to ever turn away from her.

So she'd hidden some aspects of her character from him, he thought now. So what? Nobody was ever entirely honest about themselves when they first met another person, were they? It took time to build a relationship—and for some reason, the eruption of the word
relationship
didn't bother Leo nearly as much as it usually did—and time for people to open up to each other. And, hey, it wasn't like he'd been entirely honest about himself.

But he still had work to do before he could come clean with Lily and tell her about who he really was, and explain why he'd misrepresented himself the way he had. As much as he hated to do it, he still needed to access her computer files without her knowledge, to see if they might offer him some insight into where Kimball—or whoever—had hidden the missing money.

Leo reassured himself that his motives in prying into her personal affairs were based on his suspicions about Kimball or someone else, and not about Lily. Because even though he'd started to feel a little edgy when Eddie had told him the things he'd discovered about Lily's past, even though she had motive and opportunity enough to rise to suspect status, Leo knew now that there was no way she could be capable of filtering millions of dollars from her employer.

Yes, she may be hiding some things from Leo, and yes, there might be some questionable reasons for why she had been doing so. But no woman could make love with the total freedom and lack of inhibition that Lily had shown and be a dishonest person. There was no way he would ever believe that a woman as giving as she had been tonight would be able to hide a theft of the magnitude that had struck Schuyler Kimball. She was, quite simply, not that kind of girl. He had good instincts, he reminded himself. And his instincts told him that although Lily was almost certainly hiding something, it wasn't something illegal or dishonest or immoral.

Regardless of the fact that the two of them definitely had things to talk about, things to straighten out, things to settle, Leo was confident that they would do just that. He'd never been in love before, and truth be told, he wasn't positive that love was what he felt for Lily Rigby right now. But by God, whatever he felt for her must be damned close. Because suddenly, he couldn't imagine ever having a life that didn't include her.

Once again, he reached out to touch her, a little more insistently this time. Gently, he moved her arm and covered her breast with one hand, thumbing the taut nipple to life. She moaned with pleasure as her eyes fluttered open, then she smiled like a woman who wasn't quite satisfied yet, and reached a hand toward him.

Yeah, Leo thought as he lowered his head to cover her mouth with his, they had some baggage to unload before they could be entirely free to enjoy each other. But he was certain that, eventually, they'd both work through all the things they needed to work through. Sure, they would. Sure, they would.