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Bruce with a spooky kind of
accuracy. Bruce was definitely proving more difficult to keep at arm’s length,
but tonight was the first time he’d truly frightened her by showing up where
she hadn’t been expecting to see him.
    Without speaking, Leo slid toward her on the seat until they
were pressed together shoulder to knee in the narrow backseat of the car. His
hand slid off his lap and brushed lightly over her knee before coming to rest a
few inches up the inside of her thigh. His touch was warm, electric and
reassuring at the same time.
    She looked at him, but his gaze stayed fixed out the window
on the icy lake that had just come into view. It was hard to tell if he was
comforting or coming on to her. She hoped for the latter. From the moment she’d
stepped through the door at his shop to the kiss they’d shared in the dark
hallway at the back of the gallery, one thing was clear—she wanted him with
every single molecule in her body.
    Joy parted her legs slightly, giving him room to explore if
he wanted. He didn’t look at her, but the smallest of smiles touched his
beautiful mouth. His fingers traced small, delicate circles over the rarely touched,
ultrasensitive skin on the inside of her leg just above her knee—skin made all
the more sensitive by the silk of her stockings.
    He paid the cabbie and helped her out of the car, even
shielded her from the icy wind coming off the water with his body as they
hurried to the door being held open by the night doorman.
    “Do you have a girlfriend?” she asked once they were alone
in the elevator, both of them facing forward, watching the ascending numbers
above the door as though they were strangers.
    He was quiet for a moment. “No.”
    “Involved with anyone who thinks they’re your girlfriend?”
She stepped out of her shoes and resisted the urge to sigh for her relieved
feet.
    In her peripheral vision she could see him look at her.
“No.”
    She lifted the hem of her dress, hooked her fingers over the
top of one thigh-high stocking and slipped it down her leg. God, she was so
keyed up the feel of her own fingers on her thigh caused a rush of wet heat in
her pussy.
    “Planning to head back to Ohio tonight after that little
scene at the gallery?”
    “There was a scene?” he asked mildly.
    He opened his hand and watched her drape the sheer silk
across his palm, nostrils flared and pupils gone dark. After a moment he
swallowed hard and looked at her with an openly hungry gleam in his deep-sea
eyes.
    “So you’re not put off by a little posturing?”
    He breathed a quick, soft laugh through his nose. “Not
hardly.”
    She draped the second stocking across his hand as the
elevator door slid open.
    “Good,” she said and headed down the hall barefoot.
    For a moment she thought she’d lost him. She’d already
removed her dress and had the gas fireplace started before she heard the soft
clatter of her shoes being laid on the tile floor of the foyer and the click of
the front door closing. She turned at the quiet rustle of fabric and watched
him peel off his long coat and drape it over the back of the couch standing
between them. His movements were slow and measured as he took in the sight of
her, dressed only in her bra and panties, from head to toe.
    “I was thinking we could have a clothing optional nightcap.
You game?”
    He shrugged out of his jacket and laid it over his coat, and
she was caught off guard by him once more. When she thought body piercer she
thought of the guy who’d pierced Sunny’s bellybutton years ago—worn, punk-band
t-shirt and greasy-looking jeans with a dozen face piercings and a neck tattoo.
She even thought of the shaved-head, grizzled-goatee-wearing Leonardo she’d met
a year ago, who’d reeked of alcohol and arrogance.
    The man in her living room didn’t fit the image she had in
her head. Even with his long hair and elaborate ear piercings, this finely
dressed, quietly confident Leonardo was refined, even elegant.
    “Joy, I