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She shook her head and smiled at him. "No, I'm fine."

She really wasn't. He could see the weariness in her eyes, could sense how troubled she truly was by her latest attack, and he wanted to do whatever it took to chase away her distress.

Closing the refrigerator, he walked over to where she was leaning against the counter. Reaching out, he gently brushed a wisp of hair away from her cheek. "Tell you what. Why don't you go and take a hot shower, put on something comfortable like a pair of sweats, and just relax while I make you something to eat?"

"I'm not hungry," she said, her voice suddenly soft and husky. "Actually, there's only one thing I want right now."

He instantly recognized that look in her eyes. The undisguised wanting. The unabashed yearning. The blatant desire. She wore her need for him so openly and honestly, without any pretenses, and that was one of the things he loved about her.

He swallowed hard, refusing to analyze that last thought too closely. Instead, he decided to let Christine lure him in at her own pace, allow her to set the mood, and let tonight be all about her and what she needed the most.

"What is it that you want?" he asked, holding her gaze.

"You. I want you, Ben." The intense emotion etched in her features nearly stole his breath. "You're the only stable, reliable thing in my life right now. The one person who understands what I'm going through, and accepts me for who I am-without demands or expectations, or anything else." She stepped in front of him and placed a hand on his chest, right over his rapidly beating heart. "You make me feel sexy, and desirable, and that's what I need right now. I don't want to think about what happened today, or anything else but the two of us and how good you make me feel. Can you do that for me?"

Normally, she was so sultry and seductive, flirtatious even, when it came to wanting him. Now, she was just a woman who needed that physical connection, and that raw, mindless, no-frills pleasure that came with good, hot sex. It was a fascinating side to her that he'd never seen before, and it totally turned him on.

"Yeah, I can do that for you." He'd give her whatever she wanted. Whatever she needed.

"Good," she whispered. Moving closer to him, she slid her hand around to the nape of his neck and brought his mouth down to hers. Her lashes fluttered and her eyes closed; she sighed when his lips touched hers.

He let her control the kiss, which was at first warm and sweet, then gradually grew bolder and more daring, as did her actions. She pushed him up against the wall near the table at the same time she parted her lips and drew him into a deep, tongue-tangling French kiss he returned with an equal amount of heat and aggression.

He didn't bother asking her if she wanted to go into the bedroom to finish this tryst, knowing she'd refuse. Since their first time together, she'd embraced the adventurous side to sex, and he wasn't about to tame anything about the uninhibited, sexually confident woman she was becoming with him. Instead, he followed her lead and enjoyed everything about her enthusiasm and impulsive, sensual energy.

As her mouth continued to plunder his, she impatiently pulled the hem of his chambray shirt from his jeans, quickly unfastened the buttons, then shoved the material over his shoulders and down his arms. The shirt fell to the floor, and she skimmed her hands down his bared chest, until her fingers reached the snap of his jeans.

He caught her wrists to stop her, and a sound of protest rumbled up from her throat. He lifted his head and gave her a slow, sinful smile. "Give me a sec, sweetheart. I've got a loaded weapon on me and we wouldn't want it to accidentally discharge, now would we?" he teased.

She laughed breathlessly, giving him the moment he needed to remove the holster and the gun he kept concealed in the waistband of his pants, and place them safely out of their way. Then, before she had the chance to go back to stripping him out of his jeans, he reached for the hem of her black sweater and pulled it up and over her head.

"You're a little overdressed compared to me," he said, and tossed the garment aside. She was wearing a sexy, lacy, push-up bra that plumped her breasts oh-so-enticingly. He could see her hard, tight nipples through the sheer material, and he wanted to touch and taste and suck them deep into his mouth.

Slipping his fingers beneath the straps of her bra, he dragged them down her arms, his goal to uncover those luscious mounds of flesh so he could feast on them, but she pushed his hands away before he could accomplish his mission.

"Keep your hands to yourself." she said, as she playfully bit his bottom lip and plucked at his rigid nipples with her fingers before heading south. "You're distracting me, and I'm not done with you yet."

"Sorry," he murmured. He leaned back against the wall and relinquished control back to her.

No hardship there, he thought, not when those soft hands of hers caressed their way down his abdomen, released the snap and buttons on the fly of his jeans, then brazenly slid inside his boxer briefs to stroke the hard length of his erection in her palm.

Feeling his cock swell and thicken in her grasp, he groaned deep in his throat.

Emboldened by his response, she leaned into him, pressing her covered breasts against his chest and nuzzling her warm, damp lips along his neck as her hand delved deeper between his thighs, until she was gently squeezing and fondling his balls.

Jesus. His gut clenched, and unable to help himself, he splayed his palms on the backs of her bare thighs and slid them up beneath the pleated skirt she was still wearing. Reaching the frustrating barrier of her panties, he slipped his fingers beneath the elastic band around her leg so he could cup her smooth, bare ass in his hands.

She released a hot gust of breath in his ear at the same time she grazed the head of his shaft with her thumb. Lust and need ripped through him, and it took every ounce of restraint he possessed not to spread her out on the table behind her and take her hard and fast and deep.

She nibbled on the lobe of his ear, then touched her wet tongue to the sensitive shell. "I want to go down on you," she whispered, repeating those similar words he'd said to her the first night they'd made love. "I want to lick you, and taste you, and take you deep inside my mouth."

Hearing those arousing words spill from her lips was almost enough to make him come right then and there, in the palm of her hand. "Yes," he rasped, barely recognizing that scratchy voice as his own.

She kissed him again, a seductive preliminary of what else she was about to do with that lush, willing mouth of hers… and she took her slow, sweet time getting there. She stopped on the way to lave his nipples with her tongue, then kissed and nibbled her way down his taut abdomen, until she was kneeling in front of him. She gripped the waistband of his jeans and briefs and pulled them both down his thighs, completely freeing his throbbing shaft.

She stared at his erection in awe and fascination, her fingers caressing his length with a light brush, a tantalizing tease that had him gritting his teeth. She licked her lips, wetting them, reminding him that she'd never done this before, that he was her first when it came to this particular intimacy, and his cock swelled even more at the thought, growing hard to the point of pain.

Leaning forward, she slowly swept her tongue from the base of his shaft all the way up to the sensitive tip, tasting him in what felt like a long, endless, velvet stroke. She lapped the moisture that had seeped from the head, made a soft, eager sound for more, then took him, all of him, into the silken heat of that incredibly sweet mouth of hers.

White-hot sensations jolted through him at the erotic sight of her pleasuring him with such unbridled enthusiasm, with such shameless abandon. She pulled him in deep, then withdrew with a delicate swirl of her tongue and just enough suction to make him break out in a cold sweat. She repeated the process, once, twice, wrenching a guttural moan from him as every muscle in his body tensed.