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hallway leading to the rear of the apartment.
    We were not done with this conversation. I glanced at the clock. I had a little while before I had to head home. What should I do? Follow her? Wait out here?
    She hadn’t closed the door to her bedroom. I wandered down the hall, not wanting to make things worse, not sure how to make them better. “Are you running away again?” I halted in her doorway, scanning the small space until I located her in the shadows of the closet. She whirled around. The red T-shirt lay in a puddle by her feet and the overalls were bunched around her hips. From the waist up, she wore nothing but a camisole—tight, white, and nearly sheer.
    I froze, unable to tear my gaze away. Our physical relationship had made progress in recent weeks, but with Susanna, that still meant slow. We’d graduated to the point where, as long as we were both fully dressed, I could touch her freely. She hadn’t been as bold with me.
    So, to see her now in just a cami? Damn. Her curves were gorgeous; her breasts, amazing.
    Since the day I met Susanna, I hadn’t felt the slightest bit of interest in any other girl. It had just been my luck to fall for someone who’d been raised to believe that any kind of contact before marriage was sinful. I’d spent nine long months waiting for her to catch up, and I would continue to wait as long as it took. But there she was—with her pleading eyes, trembling lips, and a smoking body that made me shake…
    I rushed across the room, trapping her between me and the wall. Taking her soft sigh as encouragement, I dropped one hand to the warmth of her waist and slipped the other to her breast, cupping her through silky fabric that might as well have been a second skin. I looked into her face—seeking a sign that this was too much. That I’d gone too far.
    There was no fear in the beautiful depths of her eyes. She slipped her hands beneath the sleeves of my shirt. Her cautious exploration unleashed something feverish inside me. I pressed kisses to her jaw while my hands roamed. When she inclined her head, giving me more access to her neck, I took the invitation, my mouth open and hot, moving lower.
    “God, Mark, you are a horny mess.” My sister’s voice came from the doorway behind me, splashing over me like cold water.
    I went still. Susanna gasped and laid her forehead against my chest, her hands fisting between us.
    Without turning around, I muttered, “Did you learn anything from over there, Marissa?”
    “Nah, don’t think so. I have a few years’ head start on you.” A floorboard creaked under her feet. “Are you okay, Susanna?”
    “We are fine,” she replied, shifting against me in ways that made me even more uncomfortable than I’d already been.
    “Okay, if you’re sure. I’ll be taking a shower.” Footsteps crossed the hall to the master bedroom. Its door banged shut.
    I didn’t move, waiting for some indication from Susanna about what would happen next and, in the interim, perfectly willing to watch the rise and fall of her chest in that cami.
    When she pressed a kiss to the skin exposed at the collar of my shirt, I closed my eyes briefly and swallowed a groan.
    “I am trying,” she whispered. “Truly, I am.”
    “I know you are.” I kissed her and then stepped back.
    Susanna knelt, grabbed the red T-shirt, and dragged it on. When her head reappeared, she was staring at my chin.
    “Look at me, please, babe.”
    Her gaze slowly rose to mine.
    “Did you mean what you said to my sister? Are we fine?”
    She nodded jerkily. “I love you, Mark. Always. And I was picking a fight.”
    I guessed it was my turn at the whole confession thing. “I don’t like your job, for a lot of reasons.”
    A calm mask descended over her face, except her eyes. They blazed with intensity. “Perhaps it would be best if you did not remind me again that my job is beneath you.”

C HAPTER S EVEN
    S EDUCTIVE T HOROUGHNESS
    Mark left before his sister completed her shower. He