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hem of her dress in her haste to get free from James.
    “Julianna stop!” James called to her as she jumped out of the car. His hands held her steady when she tripped, but she regained her footing and moved forward quickly. He tried to grab her hands but she was too fast for him and she wiggled out of his reach. She dropped one of her shoes and lurched to pick it up as she walked along the path to her front door.
    “Put your shoes on!” James called to her, following her up the stone steps that were surrounded by ivy on both sides, but well lit from the outside lights on the brick walls. Her fingers were shaking so badly she couldn’t get the key in the lock so James took the keys out of her hand and did it for her. When she tried to slam the door closed, he shook his head with a laugh and plowed in behind her, slamming the door with his foot as he grabbed her arm, swinging her back into his arms to stop her from running up the stairs to the left of her foyer. He didn’t stop to appreciate the delicate beauty of her dimly lit foyer, too intent on keeping this incredible woman from running away from him and hiding. She hadn’t done anything wrong and he wasn’t going to let her beat herself up for becoming a woman in his arms.
    “Julianna stop. We need to talk,” he commanded as he let his hands rest on her waist. As far as embraces go, this one was pretty benign and he kept his hands still, refusing to let them move over her body, concerned that it would send her over the edge. He knew that he was at that precipice himself, but he suspected that Julianna’s wasn’t quite the same quality. She was too scared and shy right now.
    “I really don’t want to talk, James. I need to…” she was about to say ‘go to bed’ but stopped herself. She glanced up at his eyes, saw the amusement and the feelings shifted from embarrassment to anger. How dare he find this funny! “I need to be alone,” she gritted out finally.
    “How often do you go without underwear?” he demanded.
    Julianna was already shaking her head, holding her arms in front of her as if she could ward him off. “I don’t ever…”
    “Then why tonight?” he asked, holding her steady and not letting her retreat. “Do you have any idea what a turn-on that is?”
    She gasped for breath, sure that he was completely misinterpreting her lack of underwear. “It wasn’t for you!”
    James chuckled at her outrage, his grin growing wider as the color in her cheeks increased. “I know you didn’t do it for Edward.”
    She shivered and shook her head. “Edward never…” she started to say he never even explored her body but that would contradict what she’d told him earlier in the evening about how serious their relationship was. She desperately needed Edward as a buffer against this man. She lifted her chin defiantly and looked up at him, her hands plastered against his massive chest and she forced them to be still, to not explore as they desperately wanted to do. “Edward would never be so unchivalrous as to touch me so inappropriately,” she stated emphatically.
    James watched her face, knew that she’d been about to say something and wondered for a split second why she stopped. But he already knew what she was going to say. “Edward doesn’t care what you wear underneath all these prim and proper dresses, does he?” James demanded, pushing her backwards so that she was against the wall. He should be furious that Julianna was trying to make him jealous or, more likely, using Edward once again to push him away. But he’d felt her in his arms, he’d heard the way she moaned when he touched her and her lies weren’t going to sway him. In fact, they only made him more determined because it showed that she was scared, and he wasn’t going to let her run simply because she was scared of what they had between each other. No, this was one of those incredible twists of fate that happened to two people only rarely.
    She reached up to push him