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    “You’ve finished.” She beamed at him as if her naughty patient had finally done as told. When she reached to take the plate away, he caught her around the nape. Held her face near his.
    Smelling her light floral scent mingled with coffee she must have drank just a bit ago. Her dark eyes sparkled with something he didn’t understand and couldn’t battle.
    He drew her down, down. When his lips brushed across hers, a light shiver ran through her. Moaning, he pulled her closer. Claiming her mouth fully, he probed the hairs on the base of her skull. Electricity zapped through him, leaving him feeling as if he’d just had 240 volts from a defibrillator.
    A soft noise left her, and he swallowed it, probing the seam of her lips with his tongue, demanding entrance. She parted for him, and he slipped his tongue into the hot depths of her mouth.
    She moaned again and brought her hands up to cradle his jaw. Angling her head, she gave him total access to her mouth. He took advantage. Sweeping the interior with his tongue, his mind spinning with something that, for once, wasn’t fatigue.
    He pressed his hand to her lower back, guiding her down to sit on the edge of the sofa while he kissed her breathless. She slid her tongue over his in a mating dance that made his cock as hard as steel. Need rocked him, and he wanted nothing more than to ease her over his erection and fuck her until all the neighbors knew his name.
    But he was far from being able to carry through his plan, so he released her.
    She sat back a little, staring at him with shining eyes, her lips swollen from his kisses and his beard burn reddening her cheeks.
    Good.
    He rested against the pillows and let his eyelids slam with the exhaustion he’d been fighting for two hours.
    ∙•∙
    Sarita glided her fingertip over her lower lip. It felt impossibly swollen after that long, thorough kiss. And for a man in a weakened state, Corey sure could kiss. She’d like to see him in all his full glory.
    He’d fallen into a deep, healing sleep. He was still pale and his face angular, but it wouldn’t take long for him to feel like his old self. She trembled, thinking of the true man inside Corey. Strong, virile.
    Needy. Hungry. He’d kissed her like a man starved for oxygen. Gulping kisses that still shook her body. Her panties were a soggy scrap and her breasts ached. She watched his chest rise and fall, letting her gaze slide over the bandage to his chiseled abs and finally the bulge in his pajama pants that was just starting to go down.
    A shudder struck her. She twined her fingers together to keep from shaking him awake and demanding he finish what he’d started.
    Studying him while asleep only fueled her fires more. Everything about him excited her. The salt and pepper threads in his hair and beard called to her to touch him. The small lines around each eye added a mystery that intrigued her.
    She knew him as a hero who’d taken a hit but who was he normally? She wanted to find out.
    Pushing out a sigh, she stood carefully so as not to jostle him. Then she found a throw blanket and spread it over his sleeping form. Shooting him one more glance, it took some effort to walk away. She was too smitten for her own good, but damn if she could stop herself.
    She hadn’t been lying to him when she’d said she’d been thinking a lot about her mother’s words. Driven by gut instinct, Sarita had gone to the firehouse to see if she could learn more about Corey. When Jagger had voiced his concerns for his friend, she’d seen it as a sign that she was called to help. She had just enough Dominican roots still to believe in souls crossing paths and a certain magic some Americans might believe was silly.
    Maybe she was just a naïve foreign woman but she didn’t feel this was the case.
    She released a shivery sigh and walked away from him. His apartment was a wreck. Obviously he’d been struggling to do minor things like shower and feed himself. His bed was unmade with